Crooked Straight | On The Rocks

Wifey Material: Chelsea Handler

2012-01-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

The queen of vodka-drenched partying is a natural for this feature. So much so, in fact, that I'm a little curious as to why it took until now for me to do a post about her. Nevertheless, Chelsea recently took the term "put your back into it" to a whole new dimension.

From The Huffington Post:

Chelsea Handler visited "Live! With Kelly" Friday morning to assure us all that it is, indeed, possible to have too much fun. After bringing up a Page Six story describing Handler's Belvedere-fueled night at New York's Provocateur last Friday, the "Are You There, Chelsea" actress and creator told Ripa that the night of dancing and drinking has since landed her in a back brace...

Well damn. Any woman that will go that far just to rock it out is certifiably wifey-worthy. Keep doing the damn thing, Chelsea.

On the Job with Sajak

2012-01-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

Pat Sajak is even cooler than you thought.

From The Washington Post:

In an interview with ESPN 2’s “Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable,” Sajak said he and White used to imbibe when he “first started and was much younger and could tolerate those things:”

We had a different show then. ... Vanna and I would have two or three or six [drinks during our two-and-a-half hour dinner break] and then come and do the last shows and have trouble recognizing the alphabet. They’re really good tapes to get a hold of.
You know, Pat Sajak, I’m sure someone out there in Internet land is diligently searching for them at this very moment.
Apparently, there’s no alcohol-induced tomfoolery going on at “WHEEL (pause) OF (pause) FORTUNE!” anymore: “If I were to inhale the cork [from] a bottle of wine, I would probably keel over. I’m getting a little older for this. I would be hesitant to have anything to drink now. Although I'm hammered at this moment.”

Sweet Science

2012-01-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

I absolutely abhor Valentines Day. But, if you're lucky enough to have found a wifey who will truly appreciate the magic of beer-infused chocolates, then I suppose it's worth sacrificing your common sense for one day and treating her to this delicious package from Beercandy.

From Thrillist:

Recognizing the harmonious balance between beer & candy, then spending literally no time thinking of a name, Beer Candy.

Created by a CA home-brewer whose first effort turned a bitter lambic into a sticky lolli-hop, Beercandy’s pulled together a package of their sweetest goods, and’ll hand it over for just $35. Here’s what you get:
12 assorted caramels: Gooey fillings homemade with different brews (stout, IPA, raspberry lambic...), then covered with white, milk, or dark chocolate chosen to set off the suds’ specific notes
Bag of taffy + bag of HopDrops: A beery version of the timeless chewy indulgence, and bittersweet hard candies made with real hop oil
6-pack cooler: A branded satchel, so you’ll never have to go anywhere without cold ones, which once Beyonce had to be, and you always have to drink.

Though, if she's really a keeper, she'll want to skip the gifts and candy, buy a bottle of good scotch, and spend an evening together trying to break every bed, couch, table, and counter in her place. Alas, a good woman is just so hard to find.

Coasting

2012-01-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a little decor touch for your mancave or bachelor pad: Custom-made drink coasters featuring labels of various beer and whiskey brands. BaxtersWorkshop is a small side business for a Kentucky couple (Hilary and Stephen Seaman), who make each coaster by hand. For a small additional charge they can add magnetic strips to the coasters, so that they can be easily stored on the side of your refrigerator. They can also make coaster sets out of vintage album covers, your personal photographs, etc. Making your guests use a coaster is a lot easier when the coaster's coolness distracts them from the fact that you're being an anal prick.

...And yes, I'll be placing an order shortly.

Open for Business

2012-01-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

A wise man once said that the greatest two-word phrase in the English language is “open bar”. And not only is he wise, but handsome. And modest.

Obviously, this wondrous phrase is most commonly associated with weddings, corporate-sponsored private parties, and other very formal (and typically expensive) engagements. But, on that rare occasion when the stars align, this gift from the gods of liberal libation can be found at your local bar or nightclub.

If you’re ever given a shot at it, I tell you now to make the most of the opportunity—it may be once-in-a-lifetime. Of course, for me it’s been at least thrice-in-a-lifetime. I can’t say for certain that there have not been more than three times when I’ve been able to saunter up to a bar and nod towards the higher shelves with nothing more than destiny in my hand, like I was Hugh Hefner at a Playboy Mansion party; but I know there are three distinct occasions that I will now ~~brag about~~ detail for your reading pleasure.

The Matrix Grand Opening

In April 2002 I was less than a year out of college, and still a rookie in the world of professional boozing. Most of my Fridays and Saturdays were spent at bars and nightclubs around the city, making good use of dollar drink specials (yes, young Padawan, such a thing once existed within Pittsburgh’s city limits), drunk girls who couldn’t spell “virtue”, and bartender hookups. One of my favorite hookups—though it was more for the fact that she actually became a close friend, and not just for her bartending generosity—was Steph. She had been working at a bowling alley bar in Monroeville […I mentioned I was just out of college, right? I wasn’t going to be picky—cheap booze was cheap booze!], but soon announced a new job she had just landed: slinging overpriced plastic Dixie Cups of rum & Coke at the newest nightclub in the city, Matrix.

She urged us all to come to opening night at this new megaclub, which boasted no fewer than four separate barrooms, each with a different theme and atmosphere. Butters and I, the only two adventurous enough to take her up on the offer, showed up to the Station Square locale to find a growing line at the doors. Keep in mind that this is Pittsburgh, not New York or L.A.; here, a line actually means something special is going on. The lengthy wait at the door may have just been due to the club being brand new…or maybe everyone else already knew what my friend and I were about to learn.

You see, there had been one slight glitch in Matrix’s owners’ business plan (well, actually, there were a lot more than just one…): They had failed to secure a liquor license in time for opening night. Thankfully, this didn’t mean that they couldn’t serve alcohol; no, it just meant that they couldn’t sell alcohol. And so, faced with this impediment, they did the only sensible thing—once you were inside the doors, everything was free.

My thoughts, upon learning this from the bouncer: “Oh. My. Fuck.”

Of course, it’s been almost 10 years since then, so I’m really just guessing as to what my exact neurological reaction was. But that can’t be very far off. What Butters and I walked into was very likely the closest either of us will ever come to Shangri-La. The first room (and, until the day Matrix closed, my favorite of the four) was the ultra lounge. It had an adult, upscale, European feel, with carpeting, leather couches and chairs, and mellow music—it was the only one of the four to not have a dance floor. It also featured two beautiful girls in revealing cocktail dresses dancing on top of the bar. In my 23-year-old mind, that fact in no way diminished the classiness of the room.

We walked into the second bar. This room, much bigger than the first, carried an “ancient Greece”/“vintage Hollywood” vibe: The bartenders and waitresses wore togas; white, sculpted architecture was everywhere; and black and white portraits of famous actresses covered the walls. A large dance floor sat in the middle, and top-40 music pulsated from all angles. We found Steph in here, toga’d up and offering up her big trademark smile as she greeted us with full cups of booze. We said a few words to her, but quickly moved on to allow her to tend to the mounting crowd of customers.

The third barroom, which had dimmer lighting and wooden décor, was more of an all-out dance party, with house music rumbling through the air. The fourth and final room was dark and trippy, with techno music, black lights, and an oxygen bar (…yes, these existed too). We decided it best to stick to the first two rooms, repeatedly hitting up Steph and her fellow besieged bartenders for cups of Belvedere, Grey Goose, Jack Daniels, etc. In those days, almost any drinking I did at a bar or club was nameless: rum & Cokes, bourbon & Cokes, gin & tonics, etc.—well drinks, in other words. Being able to add a brand name to your drink order was for lawyers, CEOs, doctors… You know, people who had jobs. But now, for just a $5 cover charge, I was big-timing it. The meek had inherited the Earth.

The one clear memory that remains from the latter hours of that night is a telling one. Butters and I found ourselves in the ultra lounge, standing at the bar as one of the formally-attired go-go dancers worked it to a Spanish rhythm a few feet away from our Dixie Cups. I suddenly realized that the various TV screens in the wall behind the bar were showing what appeared to be very old softcore porn. In one scene in particular, a nude young nymph frolicked through a meadow in black and white, basking next to a pond from which a moose was drinking. I pointed out this odd ambience to my friend, who then began shouting, “Moooooosssssssse! Mooooooossssssssssse!”

Me: “You do realize that there’s a naked woman on the screen too, right?”
Butters: “I don’t care! Mooooossssssssse!”

The Buckhead Drinkers’ Delight Night

[Note: I use “Drinkers’ Delight” as a placeholder here. As you would expect of any promoted event at a nightclub, there was an official name for this night…I just haven’t the foggiest idea anymore what it was. That’s what they get for giving me “free” booze (I’ll explain those quotation marks in a moment).]

This is where we hit a gray area; the setup of this Saturday night of bacchanalia in the summer of 2007 can be described as either “open bar” or “all-you-can-drink”, the point of contention being that you had to pay one inflated, upfront fee before enjoying the “free” drinks. I would argue that this fits under the former of the two options for one simple reason: A $25 cover charge pales in comparison to the kind of damage I—or any single one of my friends—will inflict upon a bar if freed of financial restraints for the night (…and it allows me to fit the story neatly into my theme, so…two simple reasons).

And so, on that balmy night, I caught up with Russ and others at Buckhead, laughingly handing the doorman the measly $25 that I was about to get returned to me twofold. And that probably would have been fourfold if not for each of the bartenders being outnumbered approximately 3290-to-1. Whereas Matrix had four barrooms, six or seven bars, and several beer tubs at which orders could be placed, Buckhead—which, at half the floor space, was packing in nearly as many people that night as Matrix had on its opening night—had only two bars and two beer tubs. Their bartenders and beer girls were the 300 Spartans fighting for blood and country against us, the invading Persians.

With the bar counter looking like the floor of the NYSE, and the bartender only able to take your order about once every 30 minutes, the seven or eight of us in our group quickly fell upon a strategy for survival and intoxication’s victory. Very early on, someone was able to snag a seat at the main bar in the front of the club. With the rest of us crowded around this location, we set up a rotation—one man would order a round for everyone (and usually multiple drinks per person, as well), pass them out, and then quickly hand off the barstool to the man to his left. The new Seat Keeper would then pull out money (for tips, but really more of a bribe at that point) to wave, in a renewed bid to draw a bartender over. This may have been the most efficient and productive bit of process engineering I have ever been a part of while completely blotto.

I think I started the night drinking either Goose or Belve; but I know for certain that, over the course of the night, my orders covered a wide spectrum. Vodka, beer, gin, whiskey…repeat. At one point in the night I was even double-fisting glasses of Dewars. “Looking good Billy Ray!” “Feeling good, Louis!” As last call drew near, it occurred to me that I would need a ride home. I had driven myself down to Station Square that night, but nothing good could possibly come from me trying to make the return trip behind the wheel.

…Enter “Old Friend”. At the time, she was a bit newer of a friend, though it had still been some time since our last session of Bed Sheet Muay Thai. I bumped into her and her homegirls midway through the night, but didn’t dare stray away from my group’s drink ordering rotation when the girls roamed elsewhere. Now, miraculously, they had reappeared at the end of the night. And, like a guardian angel, Old Friend ~~swooped in like a vulture to take advantage of my weakened mental faculties for the purposes of her own sexual gratification~~ rescued me in my time of need. Thankfully, as twisted as I was, I was still capable of “earning” my lodging for the night.

[*looking around* I put in work, son. *cough*]

The Cain’s New Year’s Eve

When our crew of young thirsty bastards was looking for a place to hang our party hats for New Year’s Eve in 2002, a friend of ours from college kindly offered refuge. The father of one of her close friends (“Sinful”, just because…) owned Cain’s in Dormont at the time. Sinful, as it happened, was hosting a closed-door NYE party at the bar: All-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, all-night-long. It’s almost like they were daring us to get recklessly shitfaced. It cost $25 to attend, since this was a private party; but again that’s nothing, as any one of us was more than capable of drinking down $100 worth of alcohol in a night (and that’s not even factoring in the food we were capable of consuming). And, unlike with the Buckhead event four and a half years later, our blackouts weren’t going to get cockblocked by the bartender-to-booze-fiend ratio getting out of hand.

Genoa and two other friends of ours (Theresa and Gina) were renting a house about a mile away from Cain’s. Once she and Finn said they were down to hit Sinful’s party, the rest of the planning wrote itself: 1. Drive to the party. 2. Crawl home to Genoa’s. 3. Figure out in the morning how to get back to our cars. Boom. Easy. We were a lock to achieve a fourfold return on our investment.

There’s not a lot of in-depth tales that I can still recall at will about that night. Some of that’s true now because it took place almost ten years ago, and some of it was true the very next day. I know one thing for certain: The six of us (BlahBlahBlah, Finn, Genoa, Triple A, our boy “Firewater”, and me) did the damn thing. Cain’s is a low-key, neighborhood bar, and has always been one of our favorite places to drink the booze. That NYE simply solidified its place in our hearts. Sinful made sure plenty of food was on hand (Cain’s kitchen has long been one of the best in the business, as far as greasy bar food goes), and the flow of beer and liquor—from taps and bottles to glasses to patrons to throats—was nonstop.

Here’s the most specific anecdote I can remember from the night: Late in the proceedings, I entered the barroom in the front of the building (the back half was the dining room and the location of the pool tables and dart boards) on my way to the bathroom, only to find BBB and Firewater engaged in conversation with two good-looking women. One of these ladies appeared to be older—which, at the time, meant she was between 27 and 34—and was wearing a tight top (that wasn’t at all shy about displaying her ample cleavage for her) and a novelty cowgirl hat. Basically, she was a “woo girl”. In those days, though, “woo girls” had yet to be identified as a social subgroup; so to me she was a cougar (…well, a cougar like you would find in porn, since they’re almost always played by 27-to-34-year-olds and not true “cougars”). I slowed down as I approached them, only long enough to bring a pause to their conversation when their heads turned towards me. Looking directly at Porn Woo Cougar, I exclaimed, “NICE!” Then, never breaking stride, I turned and headed straight into the men’s room.

How we made the mile long hike back to Genoa’s, I may never know. I vaguely remember stumbling through darkness and suburbia with my five friends, hoping each step was the last one necessary before I could fall asleep. Triple A and I crashed in Theresa’s room (both she and Gina were elsewhere for the night), fighting over covers and each of us almost pushing the other completely off the bed at different points in the night and morning. Firewater slept in Gina’s room, where he vomited all over the floor (ironically, she was the neat freak of the house; Genoa may never have had to clean a room as feverishly as she did the morning of 1/1/03).

As for BBB…well, I’m not sure where he slept. But I’m guessing it was on a couch in the living room; there had been no capture of the Porn Woo Cougar that night. The species remains as elusive as the Sexual Gratification Vulture, the Softcore Oasis Moose, and the open bar. The reward of bagging one, though, will always make the hunt worth it.

Shit Bartenders Say

2012-01-20T10:01:00.001-08:00

Trust me, this is the only "Shit ____ Say" video I'll be posting. Waaayyyy too many of these going around right now.

In This Diary

2012-01-16T21:03:00.000-08:00

Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading “Living Loaded”, and Dan Dunn’s recounting of his “business trip” to New Orleans inspired me. Maybe it’s because Jay Swag appearing in my neck of the woods is such a rare occasion. Or, maybe I was just end-of-a-boring-workweek-excited on a Friday. (...Maybe all three?)

I’m not exactly sure why I decided to try and keep a running diary of my Friday night this past weekend. The Living Loaded theory carries added weight, though. Dunn is, as you can imagine, ~~my living god~~ an idol of mine. And his running diary of the New Orleans trip is pure poetry. I’ve live-tweeted events (like the bar crawl I was on a couple of weeks ago) and did one running diary before, but after reading that Living Loaded chapter I felt the need to do more in-the-moment recording of my own. And while major events like Brewski Fest and the Pirates Home Opener make for the perfect type of subject material, they are still a few months off. But what better practice could I ask for between now and then than Swag’s sudden decision to throw down in The ‘Side? Game on.

6:08 PM – Just rambled on about Dan Dunn, Swag, and a running diary.

6:09 PM – Wondering if I’m being too in-the-moment. Time to start cleaning up before Swagapalooza. …Swag-a-thon. Moves Like Swagger?

6:11 PM – …Swag & Bake? …Yup, too in-the-moment.

6:52 PM – Get out of shower and start getting dressed. Put on a pair of jeans that were lying on furniture in my bedroom.

6:54 PM – I remember that the last time I wore that pair of jeans was New Year’s Eve. Take jeans back off. Administer “sniff test” on said jeans, and they pass. I put the jeans back on.

7:50 PM – Waiting on Tony, who said he’d be here at 7:30. I haven’t even started drinking yet. I remember there being a couple of Four Lokos in my fridge…

7:52 PM – I crack open a bottle of Michelob Lager instead. From somewhere deep within my body I hear a meek and bedraggled, “Thank you.” Was that my liver?

2:30 AM – Back home. What just happened? There was a cop, and…

And that’s where my recording cuts off. To say things didn’t go as I had planned would be an understatement. I did eventually meet up with Tony, as well as Swag, Mitch Canada, TJ, and Lil Mo. And, while I didn’t black out that night, I have no clue where or when a cop came into the mix. When the 2:30 entry was typed at night’s close, Tony was passing out on my couch and I was sipping a beer on my loveseat as we watched reruns of “Entourage”. If someone in my group met with the law that night, then they’re still sitting in a cell somewhere. (If they can sit…)

It may have occurred to you that these entries were all typed here on my home computer. I tried to keep tabs on my Droid while running tabs at the bars, but came upon the harsh realization that a bar night with friends is not the most convenient time to be typing detailed notes into your phone every few minutes. The following is, word-for-word, what I captured (you’ll notice the lack of a timestamp next to each item; I completely forgot to record that minor detail):

Swag

Pound My Muffin

‘If he had turned around, I would’ve donkey punched him.’ – Mo about dropped cell on random dude.

drafts. Mo. quote”
Don’t even ask me to decipher the last line; your guess is likely just as good as mine. The “donkey punch” entry, though, was Mo’s reaction after very carefully retrieving her cellphone from the lower back of a guy by whom we were standing in a crowded Mario’s. Somehow, neither he nor the people he was sitting with noticed (a.) that Mo’s phone had been dropped into his tramp-stamp region, nor (b.) a 5”1’ girl delicately reaching down his back and extracting a phone.

Fucking drunk people, huh? As for my running diary efforts, well…I guess I’ll need more practice. *opens bottle of Ketel One*

That Voodoo that ZU Do

2012-01-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

Think I might have to get myself a bottle of ZU...

Sex, Cigars & Booze with the assist.

History's Teachers

2012-01-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

In this interesting article from The Atlantic, hangover cures from 12 famous figures in the world of literature and entertainment were pulled together. Just about all of them involve drinking more alcohol (my kind of people), and most of them aren't for the faint of heart (or stomach, as it would seem). My favorite—not to mention that of Frank Sinatra—is Robert Mitchum's go-to:

Tough guy and terrifying screen baddie Robert Mitchum could certainly hold his liquor. He made friends with hard-drinking crooner Frank Sinatra, who was indebted to the Night of the Hunter actor for a trusted alcohol antidote, dubbed by Mitchum as Mother’s Milk. The Ramos Gin Fizz is a mix of gin, lemon juice, lime juice, egg white, sugar, cream, orange flower water, and soda water. It seemed to work for Sinatra, who took to calling Mitchum “mother” for years to come and supposedly even mailed him a card every Mother’s Day in thanks.

That being said, Ernest Hemingway's "Death in the Gulf Stream" sounds pretty magnificent itself. Check them all out.

12 Hangover Cures From Famous Drinkers

Holiday Seasoned

2012-01-10T10:36:00.000-08:00

The last week and a half of December is like a drinker’s March Madness. It ends a long and arduous year; you face seven or eight contests, the last of which is the grandest and most-hyped; then, once that’s over, you start preparing for the next year—recruiting, scouting reports, press junkets…

...Or maybe that’s just me.

I feel that some of my recent posts have been of the long-winded variety, so add, “Wrap that shit up, B!” to my list of New Year’s resolutions. I’ll try to focus on getting right into the meat of my tales and drunken rants this year. If you’ve been visiting this page specifically for those superfluous ramblings, I apologize. And you’re clearly drunk. …Which means you’re also now scratching your head at the word “superfluous”. Salud.

Friday, December 23rd

TK came into town for a day, so we joined him in the South Side for Christmas Eve Eve festivities. Tony, Pakistanimal, TJ, LRG, and I were among those who caught up with the Tampa resident at Mario’s. Most of us, of course, had pregamed in the hour(s) leading up to the get-together. I was enjoying a smooth little buzz myself, and looked forward to methodically building a solid drunk. I didn’t want to rush into things and risk ending up like I did last Christmas Eve Eve (throwing up in a bathroom sink just doesn’t make for as festive of a holiday tradition as you may think).

Shortly after arriving, though, Pak opened a tab with our waitress and asked for a round of shots. When she asked what kind he wanted, he replied, “Surprise us!” What a dick. The waitress came back to the table with Redheaded Sluts; I went from cursing Pak to praising this angel for choosing something so tame. For the next round, she came back with Crown Royal. She was accused of treason. For the third round, she brought out Buttery Nipples. Now I couldn’t tell if she was a traitor or a confidante. Or if she was hitting on us. Or if I was talking to the coat stand.

Our crew soon relocated to Finn McCool’s, where we continued our sloppy antics. We bumped into Russ, who was up to his own holiday celebrations, and who was so drunk that he couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear. He looked like a drunk cartoon character. I was rapidly making up ground on him, though; as Pak’s handiwork kicked in, things were becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. Eventually, I was at Jimmy D’s circling the dance floor with Pak, LRG, and Tony, looking for ~~potential baby mamas~~ ~~true love~~ slores. Finding none to our liking (and being that we were each very wobbly), Pak, Tony, and I parted ways with LRG and headed off to our respective comas.

Saturday, December 24th

Hangovers hurt; lying on your couch hungover while watching your fantasy football team lose in the championship game—thanks in part to Tony Romo’s fragile right hand—is excruciating. That pain carried over into the night, as my cousin Jump (along with his family), TD, TJ, and I convened at my mom’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. While everyone else poured glasses of wine, I sipped at a glass of ginger ale, which led to some chastising from TD (who stared at me with a disappointment akin to that of someone watching Santa urinate on their Christmas tree). I would eventually down two cans of Miller Lite after dinner, but that was as close to the battlefield as my wounded body would drag me.

Sunday, December 25th

As per tradition, I drank spiked eggnog while opening gifts with my mother, and then later had a glass or two of wine with dinner. I stopped by Jay Swag’s afterwards to catch the second half of the Bears/Packers game with him and TJ, though his household was a dry one, as per court orders. Back at home later that night, I cracked open the bottle of 12 year old Glenfiddich that my mom gave me. But, on the whole, my drinking on Christmas day was purely light cardio; I barely broke a sweat. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.

My final gift tally for the holiday, by the way: The bottle of Glenfiddich, an airplane bottle of Jameson, and a bottle of extra-strength aspirin from my dear ol’ mum; tumblers and a bottle of Ketel One from TD; a bottle of Crown Royal from Jump; and a huge cocktail recipe book from TJ. As I said to my mother that night, “I’ve got all of the tools and materials for a home bar, except for the bar itself.”

Monday, December 26th

Mofo was in town, and demanded that I join him, Russ, T.C., and others in South Side that night. But after the previous several days of booze, food, holiday commotion, and fantasy football heartbreak, I needed a night of chilling at home. Besides, I knew what would be coming in the next few days, so I took a rain check.

Tuesday, December 27th

Since some of us haven’t really seen each other in some time (at least since Esq’s wedding in September, though much longer in some cases), Chief organized a get-together among some of our W&J family. Finn, Genoa, Tony, Dupa, Smashley, Chief, Kim, T-Bags, Armo, Sloku, our boy Milhous, and others caught up with each other while polishing off liter steins of Hofbrauhaus’ various biers. We would eventually move to The Claddagh to finish the night, and then, well…Then I browned out and came to once again while watching TV in my place. Apparently all of the German and Irish elixirs detonated my central nervous system right about the time I got to my car. I’m not proud of this, mind you. Damn those Europeans. [Note: Just this morning I took a look at the shirt I had been wearing that night; large beer stains ran from top to bottom across the front of it. It seems that, in addition to my memory of my drive home, the European Union owes me a Tommy Hilfiger polo, too.]

Wednesday, December 28th

I met up with Pak and our friend Ruby at Rivers around 8:30 that night. We bs’d over a few beers at the bar and then moved to a craps table. I watched them play for 15 minutes or so, trying in vain to figure out how the hell you play the game. Soon I decided, though, that my time and money would be better served in the poker room. I found Esq at a 1-3 table and joined him, playing for a few hours. For the record, I was fairly card-dead, and never really got anything going. My night ended when some donkey sucked out 6s-up against my wired Qs. Felted and sober, I headed home and poured myself a few Crown & Cokes to ease my pain.

Thursday, December 29th

I originally had dinner plans with Steph and others, but they were cancelled when the woman of honor had to scrap her travel plans and stayed in NYC. Thankfully, Armo reminded me via text that on Tuesday several of us had asked him to hold a bar night at his house. I joined Finn, T-Bags, and Dupa in Armo’s man cave to watch sports—college bowl games and the Pens/Flyers game—while eating pizza and drinking copious amounts of beer. A night of low-key, low-dough, highly-fattening, and highly-inebriated fun with my peoples. Basically, a snapshot of the holiday season.

Friday, December 30th

The day being Entertainer’s 25th birthday, Shannon planned a party for her boo at Picsi’s in Munhall. Pak, Tony, TJ, and I each made an appearance, and got twisted while delighting in the Munhallian exchange rate. My tab, which contained a round of shots and various rounds of drinks, came out to $25 (had we been in the South Side, for example, that same bill would have been nearly twice as much).

Pak, Tony, and I headed back to Shady Grove around midnight. As soon as I walked in, I had a Long Island Iced Tea in my hand; I sensed doom for me and my consciousness. We ran into my favorite Grove waitress, “Lil Mo”, who was off duty and off-her-ass drunk. When Pak made a joke to tease her, she slurred back, “Fuck you, motherfucker! I’ll fuckin…suck your dick! Wait…no…that’s not what I meant.” While the rest of us cracked up, she slowly caught up to what she had just said and began laughing as well. Though it was just a flub, and she obviously had no intention of following through on her “threat”, Pak still took it as an ego boost. Suffices to say, Lil Mo is now his favorite Grove waitress too.

Saturday, December 31st

The Championship Game—also known as New Year’s Eve—was played out at the house that TJ and TD rent. The place was filled with guests, many of who (such as yours truly) jumped on the beer pong table in the garage. The table was draped in a Captain Morgan shower curtain, and the beer being poured into the twelve cups on top of it was from the keg of Sam Adams Winter Ale on the back porch. Beer pong with Sam Adams…ohhhh, us. TD passed out Jell-O shots as well as Fluffed Vodka shots, and no one even considered the possibility that we all wouldn’t blackout. When the ball dropped, I popped the cork on my bottle of Moet and got my New Year’s kiss from Bell—not a bad way to start a year. I passed my bottle around, and tried some of TD’s, which was a special 2002 bottle of Moet. God I hope the rest of 2012 is as ballin’ as the first four hours of it was.

I awoke mummified in a sleeping bag on the living room floor the next morning. As I gathered my belongings, I surveyed my surroundings and typed the following into my Droid:

New Year's Eve is a microcosm of a drinker's year: everything you could ever want will come and leave you, all before your eyes.

And you don't want to look at anyone you were drinking with the night before. At all.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label

That passage, and the fact that I was still drunk until about 3 pm that day, is all I need to say about the quality of the party. And, for that matter, of the close of 2011. Now it’s on to 2012. Chiefapalooza, St. Patty’s Day, the Pirates’ Home Opener, and Brewski Fest loom large in the approaching months.

Time to start going through those scouting reports.

Huge Group of Girls

2012-01-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

A perfect start to On the Rocks' 2012 campaign. Consider this a follow-up or companion piece to Jenna Marbles' video from last month.

Streets is Listing

2011-12-31T13:30:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for yearend lists. I don’t normally do these. But during a moment of day-to-day tedium last week, it occurred to me that there is a ton of stories that accumulate over the course of a year. And while this year, compared to previous years, I’ve been slightly better at getting those stories told via this page (100+ posts in 2011!), the sheer volume of drunken shenanigans practically begs for reflection in the waning days of December.

But the prioritization involved in a “Yearend/Top 25/etc.” list is an especially foolhardy pursuit when you’re dealing with experiences. It’s easy to separate the bad from the good, but how do you deem Good Experience A empirically better than Good Experience B? You may end up with a few really high highs and a few really low lows, but the overwhelming majority of items are going to populate a middle realm where no one event is substantially better or worse than the next. And let’s not forget just how arrogant it is to assign rank to items in a published write. I am one person, and this post will be read by ~~millions~~ ~~hundreds~~ tens of fans; although I may list one event as being better than another, what makes me think that each of those ten readers will agree with the ordering?

This list, therefore, is as random as the life it is fueled by—the items are, however, in chronological order. But no numerical value has been assigned to these moments, so that they may stand as equally brilliant moments of boozy fun I’ve had in 2011. Some of them have already appeared in On the Rocks posts this year, and therefore I didn’t go into too much detail about them here (for the most part). If you want to read more about those specific tales, a link to the corresponding post is provided. For those happenings that are being published for the first time, though, I’ve given a few choice comments.

Here’s to 2012 being a great one.

Top 15 Drunken Moments of 2011

The Buffalo Trip. Russ and I drove up to Buffalo, NY—the homeland of GTB [obviously, he’s no longer a “groom to be”, as his wedding took place 2½ years ago; but I’m too lazy to create a new alias] and his crew of boozing all-stars—to join T.C., who was already in town for a business trip, on the second Friday of February. We pregamed at GTB’s house with a few card games, and then headed off to run the town. We bounced from bar to bar to bar, but the only thing I remember clearly is falling in the snow in GTB’s front yard when we got home. The next morning the Pittsburgh boys, all of us enduring massive hangovers, climbed back into our vehicles and crawled back home.
The Pirates’ Home Opener. How do you make a baseball game tolerable to watch? Spend all day getting really, really drunk (and, also, don’t watch much of the game itself). Although we were without our patron saint of home openers, Chief, we boozed at a level that would have made him proud. Beard passed around a handle of Jim Beam until it was completely gone (tradition is tradition); I made out with a ~~shy~~ buxom lass named Kim in the Hall of Fame Club, where we had just met minutes earlier; Baby Joey got kicked out of the same HOF Club for pissing in a bathroom sink; and Dupa molested a female coworker on the McFaddens dance floor. It’s a grand ol’ game.
Four Loko Night. One Saturday in April, Dupa and I decided to go Loko with the case that TJ had bought me for my birthday. As it happened, our buddy Weiner (yes, that’s his real name) was in town with his girlfriend, and they joined the fun. Before long, my apartment was filled with more than ten people, most of us holding 24 oz cans of happiness. Particularly fun to watch was TD, who was consuming her first ever Loko (we only let her have a half a can, being that she was a virgin—and because the can is the same size as her). We later spilled out into the night and hit up Shady Grove. I even performed a lap dance for one of our friends' girlfriends (hey, it was her birthday, and I owed her—she gave me one on my birthday).
Brewski Fest. Beer. Lots of beer. Add in a surprise attendance by BlahBlahBlah, and Tony deciding to leave at 5 am, only to head out the door to the deck and stand there in confusion, and you have something special. And Dupa and I had an idea for a new contest at the annual event: This year, many breweries had stacks of stickers at their booths as part of the swag offered to the Brewskiers. Dupa and I, then, began collecting stickers, applying them all over our bodies. We looked like drunken stockcars. Dupa eventually won by slapping a Full Pint Brewing sticker on his forehead. Now that’s commitment.
The Jim Jefferies Show. When Jefferies announced that he would be coming to Pittsburgh for a weekend of performances in May, my crew quickly made plans to be there. The Aussie comic is one of our favorites, and each of us can recite “I Swear to God” by heart. Russ and I got boozed up during dinner at Rock Bottom, and then met up with Dupa, Shannon, Stef, and Entertainer at the Improv, where we proceeded to get even boozier during the raucous show. Afterwards we all headed back to Rock Bottom for more drinking, and were eventually joined by others—including Jim Jefferies himself. Best line of the night: Jefferies telling Enzie he wanted to fuck her, kill her, and toss her body in the river.
Redbeard’s Happy Hour Night (post). I've already spoken on how great the random Friday night in June was. Proof that, in life, it’s often the unplanned moments that turn out the best.
Furry Safari (post). Friends, fun, and fur. Plus lots and lots of booze. And an uninvited guest. And then lots and lots more booze.
Armo’s Pool Party (post). Easily the best party of the summer. An entire day and night spent in perfect July weather with beer, lemonade vodka (to TJ’s detriment), bikinis, and craziness.
Xmas in July (post). Hallelujah.
The Admiral’s 75th (post). Say what you will about my family, but we know how to throw one hell of a party. Big Sis tearing down the house at the afterparty, Step Bro hitting on everything in a skirt without a care, the Sunday barbecue carrying on into the wee hours of the night, and a Mason jar of moonshine making the rounds. Yessir.
Esq’s Bachelor Party. In September we gathered for our homie’s last hurrah. Beer pong, scotch, and hookup horror stories at Breitling’s estate, a bus ride to Station Square, and copious amounts of boozing. When walking into Buckhead, I managed to smack my head off a low hung light, causing me to crumple to the ground, and making several cute girls nearby shriek, “Oh my god, are you alright?!”
Dupa’s Dirty Thirty in Vegas (post). Yup. [And yes, the third installment is going to be published…eventually.]
Halloween. Enzie, Chappy, his fiancée, and I helped TJ and Glitter take their son (as well as his friend, who was escorted by his mom—Glitter’s friend Jenn) around Chappy’s neighborhood. And along the way Chappy and I worked on the case of Sam Adams Oktoberfest that was in TJ’s backpack. As the night went on, we had to dig through the candy his son had been collecting to get to the bottles; in other words, we had to find our way through the treats to find the trick.
Whisky Fest. Thanks to TD and her sister Green Pants, I finally got to take part in this coveted November affair. Heinz Field’s exhibition hall was filled with every premium spirit one could ever hope to sample, from Johnnie Walker Blue Label (which was tasted-dry by attendees within two minutes of each bottle being opened) to Courvoisier Rose. Boy Toy and I spent three finely-attired hours working our way around to every table that we could, while growing more and more functionally dysfunctional.
The Ugly Sweater Party (post). The first time I’ve ever enjoyed helping friends move furniture.

Thoughts on Culture and Alcohol

2011-12-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

Jim Jefferies is a god. Which is ironic, since he's atheist. Here's his classic take on drinking, from "I Swear to God".

Social Drinking Excellence: Howard Brundage

2011-12-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

The suspected third member of the burglary
ring.

Stories like this one make me smile, if only because it makes it that much more difficult for TJ to brag about how tough his hometown is.

Mr. Brundage, a 19 year old Chicago "man", was arrested Christmas Day on burglary charges. But this wasn't your typical B&E; this perp had an accomplice: Amber Rose.

From The Huffington Post:

According to a press release sent to The Huffington Post from the Riverside, Ill. Police Department, Howard Brundage allegedly broke into a woman's Riverside home and stole a bicycle. He then allegedly broke into another woman's home where he fell asleep on the couch. Police responded to the residence, where they cuffed Brundage.

"The victim in the second burglary woke up Christmas morning to a strange man sleeping on her couch," Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel said in the release. "The homeowner’s quick call to 911 made this arrest possible."

According to the release, Brundage told police he didn't know why he was in the woman's apartment and that the last thing he remembers was drinking marshmallow flavored vodka.

What the what? Marshmallow vodka? That's what did you in? Okaaaayyyy...

Didn't even try to hide the fact that it was marshmallow vodka, Howie? No moment's hesitation? No "What were you drinking?" "Mar—uhh, vodka. Good ol', regular vodka. Heh..."
If Brundage is openly homosexual, then I suppose none of this is that big of a deal. If he's closeted, though, well...he's not anymore.
No, on second thought, I can't even picture gay men letting that one slide. Marshmallow vodka? Really?
As festive as this guy's Christmas is, can you imagine what he does at Easter? He probably mainlines melted peeps.

Yet another crime. I tell
you, these NS-5's are
getting out of hand!

As for the crime itself, I'm curious: Was it his intention all along to break into the second house, and did he therefore only break into the first one for the bike because he needed a way to get to there?
Was he actually partying with Amber Rose? If so, can we get her arrested on a conspiracy charge? Anything to keep her untalented ass off our TV screens and magazine pages.

Howie, your Rummy is in the mail. It's filled with Jameson. Drink up, and be a man for a change.

Deck the Halls

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

I don’t know when the “Ugly Christmas Sweater” party became the mandatory holiday tradition that now permeates December’s existence within the borders of Christianity’s conquered empire.

*pauses* I’ve been reading some of Christopher Hitchens’ (R.I.P.) work today; if the first sentence feels too highbrow for this page, please bear with me. I’m sure it’ll wear off as this goes along.

But back to the sweater party. The idea was certainly novel when I first learned of it a few years ago. I was at Shadyside Saloon on a random Saturday night when a large group of sloshed people walked in wearing their grandmothers’ finest holiday threads. I asked one of the girls in the group what was going on, and the tipsy lass explained the party and its premise. By the following year, everyone I knew was either going to an ugly sweater party, or was posting pictures on Facebook of the one they had just been to. Maybe I just discovered the phenomenon late; but it seemed to go from being a random, one-of-a-kind occurrence to a holiday cliché in less time than it takes Kim Kardashian to dive in front of a flashing camera.

But, despite this sudden growth in popularity, I had yet to attend an ugly sweater party. It remained just below “Foam Party” and just above “Garden Party” on this drinker’s specialty-party bucket list. That all changed two weeks ago; thanks to Dupa and Smashley, I can now cross it off the list. [Next up: “Key Party”…]

The challenge that immediately faces you once you’ve been invited to an ugly Christmas sweater party is, of course, finding an ugly Christmas sweater. My family loves me too much to have ever given me one, which meant I would have to buy one. But where do you go to find an ugly Christmas sweater? Personally, I always assumed they just came into being, like candy corn and old Chevy Cavaliers. No one buys these things; they just sort of…show up.

I was saved, as usual, by the internet. I happened to see the perfect holiday “sweater” [I use parentheses because, as it was pointed out to me by several people, the item of clothing in question was more sweatshirt than sweater.] while reading a random FHM.com newsletter. Across the chest was a festive winter display that included snowflakes, Christmas trees, and reindeer having sex. I hummed “Jingle Bells” as I placed my order.

Smashley’s townhouse was perfectly appointed for the party, with food, people, and booze everywhere you turned. I arrived roughly two hours after the party had begun, and found our hosts to be sailing blissfully down Shit Creek by that point. Smashley, in particular, was wobbly; her eyes were glossed over, and Dupa noted to me that she had exceeded her seven beer threshold. He was standing a little more firm than she was, but that’s like saying ice is slightly colder than snow on an August afternoon. As he stalked the party wearing a knitted Christmas vest and dangling Christmas elf earrings, everyone at the party knew that his time was limited.

With card games starting and the party buzzing along, Tony and I decided to make a run to the bar down the street for six packs. We grabbed Miller Lite pounders from the hot-but-really-young-looking bartender to fortify the party supply. Tony then added, “I’ve got to get something good for myself, I can’t drink that stuff,” and ordered a sixer of Sam Adams. This is the same guy who I once watched put Coke in a glass of good scotch. I feel like I don’t know him anymore.

The next couple of hours went by in somewhat predictable fashion: TJ took a picture of Dupa suggestively shoving a beer bottle into Smashley’s mouth, rounds of shots were passed out by TD, Smashley performed a standing lap dance on a too-embarrassed-to-dance-back Tony, TJ cut the green-sequined sleeves off of our friend Dave’s sweater, people took turns wearing said green-sequined sleeves, rounds of shots were passed out by Tony, Dupa pulled out his balls in front of unsuspecting party guests…you know, the standard fare. Then, just before 1 a.m., Smashley went upstairs and didn’t come back. After about ten minutes, Dupa went upstairs too, presumably to check on her. Another ten minutes passed without his return, and the twelve of us still hanging out suddenly felt abandoned. I walked upstairs and listened at the bedroom door; I heard utter silence. Nothing. It was still relatively early, but our hosts had both inexplicably turned in for the night, without so much as a “Goodnight” or “Fuck you, I’m out!”

When I rejoined my fellow orphaned partygoers, we began strategizing our next move. TD and TJ had recently rented a house only five minutes away, and they offered to continue the party over there. As everyone began gathering coats and other belongings, a thought was casually voiced by someone in the crowd: “I can’t believe they just passed out on us like that. We should do something to fuck with them.” This stopped several of us in our tracks, as we considered the possibilities. And that pause gave the opportunity for a suggestion to be made. “We should move around all of the furniture.”

Now, dear reader, it may seem that I’m purposely being vague about the authors of these two sentences. But I say with all honesty that I have no idea who was responsible for either. I was one of the more sober people at the party at that point, but I truly do not remember just who said what; what I do remember, however, was that each of us grinned from ear-to-ear once the idea was in our heads. And not a single person raised protest; Affliction, TJ, Tony, Dave, Dave’s wife Melissa, TD, her “friend” “Boy Toy”, Shannon, Entertainer, Prince of Ligonier, Mrs. Prince, and I just chuckled and got down to it.

Our original thought was to go all out—TV in the kitchen, dining room table on the back porch, etc. But logical heads prevailed, and we settled for only shifting around the living room. The entertainment center was moved from the wall, it’s TV, cable box, and DVD player carefully disconnected from the outlets and cable line. In its place went the couch, which had occupied the opposite wall. The chaise lounge and accompanying ottoman were moved to the far corner, and the coffee table was placed in front of the couch. The room was essentially flipped. Giggling like schoolchildren, we gathered up the sixers that Tony and I had bought, and tiptoed off to our cars.

As we piled into TD and TJ’s living room and started cracking open beers, a common sentiment was repeatedly shared by each of us—ironically, the very people to blame for the sudden lack of trust. “I am NEVER leaving any of you assholes alone at my place.”

Christmas, On the Rocks Style

2011-12-20T08:43:00.000-08:00

This might be the most accurate Christmas special I've ever seen. From the folks at Funny or Die.

Drunk History Christmas with Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey and Eva Mendes from Ryan Gosling

Armo with the assist.

Welcome to the Party

2011-12-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

Diddy and his people do Vegas right in Ciroc's latest ad. Though I've got to say, watching this makes me want fame and money more than it makes me want to Ciroc.

This is the full length version of the commercial that's been popping up on your TV here and there over the past couple of weeks.

In the Mix

2011-12-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Still looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy-for boozehound? If he or she is a whisky drinker, then you need look no further:

From uncrate:

Unless you sip on single malts exclusively, odds are you've run into a blended whiskey somewhere along the way. Whisky Blender (£35 and up; roughly $55+) lets you create your own specialized blend from a selection of seven different whiskys, each available for adding in amounts as small as 10ml. Once you're done, you can give the blend its own name, which will be handwritten on the label that adorns the 70cl corked decanter bottle, and save the mixture for future refills should the mixture be to your liking. While the wisdom of ordering booze you've never tasted before is always questionable, there's no doubt that it'll be far more interesting than your average bottle of Old Crow.

While any new blend or brew that finds its way onto liqour store shelves (especially the top ones) is sure to interest a veteran booze enthusiast such as myself, this idea provides a wow factor that you just won't find with a mass-produced bottle. I love Crown Royal, but if you give me an opportunity to create my own signature blend? Well, that's a gift your beloved booze fan won't soon forget.

My boy Chappy with the assist.

What I Learned This Summer (2011)

2011-12-13T15:50:00.000-08:00

[Note: I started writing this collection of tales in September, but was soon distracted by life’s various other comings and goings. These anecdotes—and the collection as a whole—were something I really wanted to get published, and as such I made sure to complete this write as soon as I found some free time. So even though it is now nearly Winter 2011, I am publishing this in full. Hell, I’m just happy I got it up before Summer 2012. Brace yourselves, this is a long one.]

Summer of 2011…I barely knew thee.

Time is cruel—this is well-known and well-documented. But, for my money, its most sinister trick is this: The older you get, the slower your internal clock moves. When I was a kid and my mother told me to wait 20 minutes, I endured what felt like two weeks before those 20 minutes expired. A day was a year. A year equaled a lifetime. But, now that I’m an adult, everything has turned around. A year goes by in a day, and a day is merely a blink of the eye.

Two years ago—though it feels like a week—I wrote a post about the Summer of 2009’s various episodes and shenanigans. It served two purposes for me: It helped me cope with the heartache I was feeling over The Ex, fresh as our breakup was; and it gave me a fairly simple and clean way of dumping all of the various untold drunken stories from the previous three months on you, the reader. A summer’s worth of alcohol-fueled absurdity wrapped up neatly into one narrative. Easy.

The Summer of 2011, thankfully, didn’t feature a tortuous love story. But once again it was full of small tales and anecdotes that have yet to be shared here at On the Rocks. While I saved my heart the anguish of a doomed romance, I wasn’t nearly as kind to my liver. Or to my pride. But life still happens; as such, there is one note in particular from this summer that plays more “Landslide” than “Where the Party At?” And so, in no particular order, I give you the various lessons on life and the pursuit of alcoholic perfection that I gathered through the fleeting days of my favorite season.

If you’re drinking a milkshake that isn’t 75% alcohol, you’re just not doing it right. One humid night in August, TJ introduced me to a crew of beautiful sluts: BRGR’s “spiked shakes”—most notably the Salty Caramel. The combination of the juvenile glee you feel when drinking a milkshake and the juvenile behavior you exhibit when three sheets to the wind is life-affirming. Stated.

Don’t let the fact that it’s not your pool stop you from throwing a great pool party. One Friday in July, Armo and I talked about the weekend ahead. Neither of us had much of anything planned, though our buddy Tea Bags would be in town and hanging out at Armo’s house the next day. Owning nothing but my balls and my word, I suggested to Armo that he turn his Saturday of quiet relaxation into a full-fledged pool party. Surprisingly, no further convincing was needed. Each of us shot texts and phone calls around the Pittsburgh area, and the next day a bevy of guests rocked out in his backyard with food, drinks, sun and fun.

Lemonade-vodka is the debbil. This one is more of TJ’s lesson than my own. On that bright summer day at Armo’s, the vast majority of the party was drinking Landshark and various other beers; since he doesn’t drink beer, TJ brought a bottle of Sweet Carolina Lemonade Vodka. By about 8 pm, he was a lost soul. He fell asleep at the table on the deck. He slurred words as though his tongue was glued to his cheek. And, when Rackt tried to gather him up to go home, he took off running into the house, making ungodly noises from the bathroom as he emptied his stomach of any food he’d eaten since high school.

Stairs are bad for your back. More specifically, sliding down a flight of stairs is bad for your back. Full of beer and cheer, I managed to slip while heading down Armo’s basement stairs on a bathroom break at the same pool party. Each step hit me like a bag of bricks as I fell for what felt like an hour. Gooney goo-goo.

Know how to leave anything in 30 seconds when you feel the heat coming. TK decided to make a better life for himself by moving to Tampa, FL. So on the Friday of Fourth of July Weekend, some of his coworkers held a going-away happy hour for him at Sammy's on Liberty and 9th. After getting confirmation from TK that The Ex wouldn’t be there (ironically), I stopped by to share a few cold ones in celebration. Of the coworkers who were in attendance, one in particular stuck out of the crowd; she was middle-aged (whereas everyone else was no older than their early 30s), overweight, frumpy, and had that look of being slightly “off”. I could almost sense the story approaching. Sure enough, I was soon informed by TK and the others that she was “that” woman in their office, the strange bird who was always saying or doing something to make them mouth the letters “w”, “t”, and “f”. And, as if to help initiate me into this circle of work friends, she soon provided a glaring example of this insanity.

She found a moment to pull TK aside for a one-on-one conversation, and minutes later we saw him abruptly turn and head out the door of the bar. We asked the crazy coworker what had happened, but she was as shocked as the rest of us to see him go. When he hadn’t returned 15 minutes later, she left for the night. TK finally reappeared a good half hour after that, at which point he explained why he had bolted. “She told me, ‘You don’t know how many internal orgasms I’ve had sitting next to you for the last few years.’”

Life is a highway, especially when you’re drunk at 3 a.m. Later that night, I found myself on Mt. Washington with Jay Swag and others. And I was obliterated. Like my father’s fond of saying, I “couldn’t find my ass with two hands and a flashlight.” Pak had been involved in the night; as I’ve explained on numerous occasions, his presence means shots. And, as I’ve also made abundantly clear in the past, hiking is one of my favorite drunken pastimes. Something inside of me decided I needed to get to my car. It was, however, parked in the lot of Esq’s apartment building downtown [parking during nights and weekends is free, and it’s near Sammy’s], which was two miles of steep hillside, bridges, and city streets away. I didn’t give this much serious consideration however, because…well, because I wasn’t giving anything serious consideration (see the word “obliterated” above).

The first thing I remember clearly is finding my path obstructed by a concrete structure. I climbed over it, and proceeded on. I was then in a valley of concrete. It was everywhere. The hills that surrounded the valley, the valley floor…everything was concrete. “What a strange land. Though I feel like I’ve seen it before…”

Interstate 579

The house party didn’t die with Kid ‘n Play’s careers. I had the pleasure of being introduced to a previously-unchartered group of TD’s friends, and these people understand how to party. I attended two of their house parties: the first featured beer pong rules diligently explained in chalk on the driveway—including one involving streaking; the second, a “Xmas in July” party, featured a pope hat made out of a Miller Lite case, and a nativity scene that would make a West Boro Baptist freak’s head explode.

led to a “Wifey Material” post

Sometimes you’ve gotta make your own fun. I awoke on my living room couch the day after the Xmas in July party. TD had dropped me off the night before, and that’s pretty much all I remembered. Due to water damage that my landlord did such a wonderful job of fixing, paint on my bedroom ceiling had been peeling off in large swaths for the previous couple of months. But on this particular morning, when I walked into my bedroom, I found that the paint was no longer hanging from the ceiling; it had now been relocated to the floor. And my bed. And my dresser. And any other horizontal surface in the room. Paint chips littered the landscape of the room for as far as the eye could see.

I fought through my cloudy recollection of the previous 12 hours, searching for an explanation. Finally, I managed to recall the memory I was looking for: In my drunken stupor, I had decided to play a new game called “Swat the Paint”. And when I play, I play to win.

Boobs are better than Visa cards. On the Sunday of Fourth of July Weekend, TJ, Dupa, and I attended a small barbecue at our friend’s house. “Enzie”—as she and her siblings have nicknamed her drunken alter ego—was preparing pitchers of mojitos all day, and they were disappearing just as rapidly as she was making them. As the night set in, though, a day of drinking outside in the heat was beginning to overwhelm her. She wanted to go swimming, but the fact that she doesn’t own a pool was a bit of a setback. When we mentioned that Armo has one, Enzie implored us to ask him if we could all come over to swim. I texted him to see if he was home; he was, but he said that he had been drinking all day, and was going to call it an early night.

If you don’t have boobs, pay with vodka. TD wanted to pregame at my place and then hang out in Shadyside one Friday in August, but I was reluctant to host people since my apartment was in serious need of a thorough cleaning. She then offered to act as my maid that afternoon, and to help prepare my place for guests. All she asked for in return was to drink. The price was right; I picked up two bottles of Clique on my way home from work, and TD soon arrived with a bag of Wendy’s with which to fortify her bloodstream. My little blonde friend then dusted and vacuumed in a black and white dress until my place was sparkling clean, all while tossing back drinks.

Too much success can go to your head…especially when you’re being paid in vodka. TD and I were both annihilated later that night. As she and I sat with Pakistanimal and others at Le Mardi Gras, I found myself desiring a little stroll. I ducked out—under the pretense of taking a phone call—and was soon back at my apartment, in my bathroom with the lights turned off, hurling into my sink. Not long after that, the little blonde Tasmanian devil came looking for me with Pak in tow. They were, of course, locked out of the building; and, since my phone was in the other room, I wasn’t answering it. TD’s keys were on my dining room table though, which launched her into a furious rage. She circled outside of my basement apartment shouting and cursing at me, she kicked at the metal bars on my windows, and she screamed at my neighbors when they stuck their heads out of their windows—all while using hurtful language that’s quite unbecoming of a lady.

When I was finally able to clean myself up a little and get to my phone, I texted Pak to let him know I’d open the door if they were still there. Fuming, TD stormed into my apartment, pushed past me, grabbed her keys, and then marched back out the door. She later told me that, as she drove home, she decided she wanted pizza. She stopped at a place in Oakland—by herself—and bought a whole pie. Halfway between there and home she pulled over to the side of the road to talk on the phone with her friend and have a slice. She woke up the next morning with a headache, a half of a pizza sitting in a box on her coffee table, and a laundry list of questions.

You don’t have to be the VIP to party in VIP. One Saturday found me at Hofbrauhaus with BlahBlahBlah to celebrate his birthday. We drank litre stein after litre stein of beer with his cousins Joel and Jay, retelling for their enjoyment (and ours) some of our more treasured drunken tales (like the Virginia crackhouse story)—though only while safely out of earshot of Mrs. BBB. One of his cousins, Jay’s little brother, couldn’t make it out that night because he had to work at Diesel. He told BBB to bring the party down to the South Side nightclub; he would make sure the birthday boy and all of his guests had a table and complimentary bottle service. But BBB is a parent of two young kids, and is—by definition—lame. So around 11 p.m. he and his wife called it a night, heading straight home from Hofbrauhaus. Joel, Jay and I, however, are not lame; we also are not too bashful to make use of the generous VIP gift that had been offered to BBB. We found our way to Diesel, were escorted to our table by the club’s hottest young hostess, and partied as though it was our birthday.

Tailgating ain’t just for sports and concerts. When Rackt made plans to fly up from Tampa for a visit, TJ came up with a masterful plan. She would be going from work to the airport to Pittsburgh on Friday, July 8th, which also happens to be her birthday. Due to the fact that she wouldn’t be landing until about 11 p.m. and the amount of time that it takes to pick up baggage and drive into town, she wouldn’t be left with any real time to get to the bar for a drink on her special day. For Rackt, who is as big of a boozehound as the rest of us, this was depressing news.

TJ, dedicated boyfriend that he is, then decided to bring the drink—and party—to her. He gathered Chappy, Dupa, TD, Bell, and I, filled up a cooler with beer, and set up shop in the Pittsburgh International Airport’s short-term parking lot. While the rest of us drank beers in the parking lot, he went inside to greet the birthday girl, and signaled us via text to hide when they were heading out. When we jumped out from behind our parked cars yelling “Surprise!”, Rackt dropped her suitcase and ran in terror, TJ fell over laughing, and families loading cars nearby looked on in complete confusion.

If you spent money on a ticket, you probably shouldn’t blackout during the movie. Tony, Dupa, Chappy, and I caught the midnight release of “The Hangover 2” on the Thursday night before Memorial Day Weekend. We had dinner—though it was mostly an excuse to enjoy a few drinks—at Bar Louie Waterfront before heading over to the theater. As charged as we were, a table of ladies near us on the patio was above and beyond that. Well, at least one gal in particular was. She was unequivocally shitfaced, in fact. She frequently burst out in song, wailing horribly off key as her friends tried to muzzle her. She couldn’t stay seated, often getting up and stumbling around their table. And sure enough, as we walked into the Loews, we saw the four girls heading towards a theater showing Hangover 2. I wish I’d looked for her when the lights came up after the movie; I would’ve been shocked if she was still awake by then.

There’s a reason they don’t call it “Bangkunt”. *shivers*

Gravity is not your friend. The next day TJ and some fellow young professionals with whom he works met for happy hour at Kelly’s in Shadyside. He sent out the bat signal, and was soon joined by Pakistanimal and yours truly on the patio with mojitos. Kelly’s is an older bar, and their deck furniture is what you might call “vintage”; it seems that people of the early 1940s weren’t quite of Pak’s proportions. As we all sat around talking, he leaned back with a cigarette. He leaned…WAY back. Hearing a crash, we looked over to see the back of his chair resting on the ground, parallel to the base of the chair. And still seated in it—as though the world had shifted and not his seat—was Pak, who casually lit his cigarette and stared up at the sky.

Sometimes you really do need an excuse to go to a strip club. And Tony and I stumbled onto a pretty good one on a Friday night in August. As we rode in a cab to Villa to get down for Dr. Kelly’s birthday, an unfamiliar song came over the radio. A female emcee began spitting what, to be honest, sounded like very amateur rhymes. The cabbie said that the song was by a local group, and that the emcee’s “day job” was dancing at Cricket, a strip club in Oakland. As you might imagine, this tidbit caught our attention. Later in the night Tony and I decided to leave Villa early, and caught a cab to Cricket in search of a naked lyricist. We had no luck, however; she wasn’t working that night (if she even works there at all). We reluctantly accepted the consolation prize: watching the naked girls who were working while we drank a few beers. It’s a tough life.

There’s “sloppy-drunk”, and then there’s “Enzie-drunk”. Enzie’s birthday party was a one-woman clusterfuck. I met up with her and her crew around 10 pm on a Saturday in July, as they walked from Bar Louie Station Square to Barroom. She was already slurring her words, which were forming sentences that rapidly sped off on random tangents. Once inside Barroom, she kicked it up a notch. She pounded Captain & Cokes like a poisoning victim being given cups of the antidote; she was barefoot before midnight, her red pumps relegated to a bar stool; and she darted back and forth between the dance floor and the bar, under the watchful eye of her friend, Kara. Entertainer, Russ, and I drank and watched with wonder as she careened towards a bad end.

the following week a doctor would diagnose her with a separated shoulder, caused by bracing herself as she fell

A half hour later, as I walked to my car, I got a call from Enzie’s phone. She wanted me to come pick her up from Kara’s, and to take her back to her own house. I agreed to help, and when I pulled up in front of Kara’s place, Enzie was lying on her back on the sidewalk, looking up at the stars.

A pwning is always in the last place you look for it. Early in June we all descended upon Hofbrauhaus, this time to celebrate Pak’s birthday. I arrived with TJ, but when we reached the front doors he was turned back for not having his ID. And while I’ve noted before that this is a fairly rookie mistake, TJ had actually physically lost his license a week earlier. He figured it wouldn’t affect his bar night, though, since he’s well past the years of being confused for 20. The Hofbrau bouncers were not, however, in a generous mood; they flatly denied his entrance, despite our appeals to their common sense. Flustered and angry, TJ caught a cab home, cursing out the German restaurant on Facebook and Twitter.

A week or two later, I received a text from him saying that he’d found his license. When I asked where, he paused and sheepishly replied, “In a different part of my wallet.”

Sometimes life is like a beer commercial. One Friday in June, several of us decided to meet up at Redbeard’s for happy hour to start the night. I arrived shortly after TD and a few of her girlfriends, who were seated at a table on the patio, and was followed thereafter by a steady stream of familiar faces. Our party eventually featured nearly 20 people, including a bevy of crew members like Pak, TJ, Tony, Dupa, Smashley, Jay Swag, Mitch Canada, and TK. Surrounded by my peoples, and with both booze and heavy laughter flowing in the warm night air, the scene was as perfect of one as you can experience in a random and impromptu moment of your youth.

A drunk Dupa = a sadomasochistic Dupa. Unfortunately, our buddy was a little too full of liquid mirth to fully appreciate the abstract beauty of that night. In the short hour or so that he was hanging with us, he managed to: (1.) Smash his toe, leading to a steady river of blood from a broken toenail, which then stained both his sandals and the patio concrete; and (2.) pose for pictures in which he first used his belt to choke himself, and then used it to choke his boy “Tennessee”.

Time not only leaves quickly, but it takes people with it. Despite the cheery picture that my various tales about this past July may have painted, it was a tough month for me. I lost my Aunt Barbara, who had been my godmother and a pillar of my mom’s family; Mrs. T.C. lost her cousin Michael, who I had also known from our time at W&J together; and Tony lost one of his closest friends, Jeff G., who I had been friends with for the last ten years. Aunt Barbara and I were close at times, and at other times butted heads, but the love and respect between us never diminished. Her death was difficult, but I was at least comforted by knowing that she had enjoyed the luxury of living a long and eventful 80 years of life. The same could not be said for Mike (29) and Jeff (37), though, and that made their deaths that much more difficult. Both were outgoing guys who had accumulated many more friends than enemies in this world, and the families of each are both still feeling the sting. Jeff left behind a daughter who will never know firsthand just how much fun her old man was to be around. May they all rest in peace, and have a cold drink waiting for me when it’s my turn to join them. R.I.P.

Appreciate the people around you who appreciate you back. Drink responsibly—as in, get sloppy and take a cab. And always tip your bartenders and waitresses. If I’m around come Summer 2012, I’m meeting it with shades and a caipirinha.

Salud.

Taming the Wild

2011-12-13T11:31:00.000-08:00

The latest ad from Dos Equis features some undeniable wisdom from the world's most interesting man.

Kind of gives new meaning to "Stay thirsty", right?

The Doctor is In

2011-12-12T14:21:00.000-08:00

Here's to Monday. ...And Xmas shopping. ...And Xmas in general. ...And anything else you weighing on your shoulders. Salud.

TJ with the assist.

'Tis the Seasoning

2011-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Here's another one on the ol' Xmas List. Tequila shot glasses made of salt. Yup.

From Salt Therapy at Home's product page:

This beautiful and functional set will be the perfect conversation starter for your party or decorative accent for your home. The set of six tequila shot glasses and tray are an elegant work of art that will grace any sideboard or tabletop. Carved from naturally beautiful Himalayan pink crystal salt, the lovely striated pattern perfectly complements any decor. The naturally anti-bacterial surface requires minimal maintenance, and your long-lasting carved salt glasses will add elegance and fun to many a friendly shot or business deal! You'll be amazed how the rich taste of Himalayan crystal salt enhances the flavor of your favorite tequila like table salt never did!

This is a great idea, but one with a couple of drawbacks. First, these shot glasses have a limited use. If you're not drinking tequila, then I doubt you want salt interfering with the drinking experience. And, second, I would imagine they have an expiration point. They say long-lasting, but that's vague; and, certainly, they won't last as long as their glass and plastic counterparts.

But, in the end, if you're someone who takes pride in his or her personal bar, and who enjoys tequila, this is a must-own. Just don't leave it where your pet moose can get to it.

Wifey Material: Jenna Marbles

2011-12-07T19:54:00.001-08:00

She's hot. She parties. She go-go dances. She can actually make you laugh...like, on purpose. And did I mention she's hot?

Do you need anymore reasons why Jenna Mourey (a.k.a. Jenna Marbles) is of high-quality wifey material? Take it from an oldhead: If you're going to be wifed to a woman, you'd better be sure you can stand to talk to her for more than five minutes. Should she have a great body and pretty face? Well of course. But that stuff eventually fades. If you're under 21, you probably don't realize it, but Madonna used to be the hottest woman in the world. Let that one soak in for a second...Yup. And it happens to everyone. Now that Madonna's looks have left her, and she doesn't have an actual personality to fall back on, well...

Yeah, trust me, you want a girl like Jenna. Because, although she may not be as hot in a bikini as she is now, she'll still be cracking you up when she's 60. And she will probably still be partying and getting hammered like any senior has earned the right to do. She'll probably be the coolest grandmother on the block. Stated.

Drunk and Hot Girls

2011-12-07T19:41:00.001-08:00

Yup...pretty much everything Kanye and Mos were talking about.

If you haven't heard of Jenna Marbles yet, then...well you're probably a guy. She's an internet personality/blogger whose popularity is skyrocketing, however, especially among the fairer sex (honestly, if one more female friend of mine retweets her or posts another of her videos on Facebook...). But, shock of all shock, despite being popular with girls, she's actually pretty funny (sorry ladies...just how it is). Here's one of her latest videos, a look in the mirror for all of the booze-loving gals (like Jenna) out in the world.

...Yeah, I'd party with Jenna. Chick's got a great personality. In fact...

The "Morning After" Tablet

2011-12-06T13:19:00.001-08:00

This qualifies as an "On the Rocks" post, but definitely goes on my Xmas List; therefore, it's getting posted on both Crooked Straight pages.

The latest miracle drug to hit the market is Blowfish, and it's sure to pique the interests of my fellow fans of "the booze". From NYDailyNews.com:

The over-the-counter drug cocktail combines 1,000 milligrams of aspirin, 120 milligrams of caffeine and a stomach-soothing agent into two effervescent tablets taken the morning after a night of heavy drinking.

Once dissolved in water, the remedy claims to knock out multiple hangover symptoms in just 15 to 30 minutes.

“The magic of the effervescent tablet is that it hits your system much faster than getting a cup of coffee, taking an antacid and taking some aspirin separately,” she said.

...Blowfish runs $2.99 for a single dose, or $11.99 for a six-pack. It is currently available in Ricky’s NYC stores or online at ForHangovers.com, which offers free shipping and 24-hour courier service in Manhattan. The tablets will hit Duane Reade shelves in January.

The "she" in the quote above is the product's creator, Brenna Haysom. And it would appear Ms. Haysom is a gal out to steal my heart:

“So many people see hangovers as a shameful or embarrassing thing. I think of them as just a fact of life,” said Brenna

Hmmm, maybe this should've been a "wifey material" post...

Mixology: A Cocktail Castor Could Drink for Days

2011-11-22T16:34:00.001-08:00

Diddy announced a new drink recipe via Twitter that features his vodka line's newest blend, Ciroc Peach. And, never one to miss a marketing opportunity, the name is inspired by his latest viral Ciroc ad.

I haven't tried Ciroc Peach yet; but I find it hard to believe it's good enough to replace my favorite kind of peach. Though, with his smooth demeanor, wouldn't a remake of the "Face/Off" scene—with Diddy playing Castor Troy and Aziz Ansari playing Pollux—be Ciroc's best viral marketing ad yet?

Social Drinking Excellence: Michelle Watson

2011-11-22T12:42:00.001-08:00

Well, well, well... What do we have here? The demure lass pictured to the right couldn't possibly have produced anything Rummy-worthy, could she?

Well...

From Jalopnik:

Witnesses tell police Watson was driving her Honda Civic in the middle of the road, into numerous curbs, and finally onto a sidewalk while trying to park. The first officer on the scene describes her as belligerent and says she used "profane language" in her refusal of a sobriety test.

After some tussling with the original officer, fellow Officer Wing arrived to help subdue the suspect. Here's where Watson does her best Rockette impression:
"Watson was wearing a purse which was draped over her shoulder. Ofc. Wing attempted to remove the purse. When doing so, Watson, using her right knee struck Ofc. Wing in the crotch. Watson was then taken to the ground and placed in handcuffs. Watson refused to get up and had to be carried to Ofc. Wing's patrol vehicle, #1317."
...Once in custody, Watson began to kick the interior of poor Officer Wing's patrol car so they had to further restrain her. When she finally arrived at the jail they registered a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit.

Then, as a cherry on top, Watson showed off true On the Rocks style when posing for her mug shot:

*sigh* Someone start the clock:

First, a little background: The picture at the top of the page was posted to her Facebook account the day after this incident. So, if nothing else, we have proof that Miss Watson cleans up relatively well.
...She was, however, on her way to see "Breaking Dawn". I'm not certain, but that might be the worst display of judgment we've seen from her yet.
Three times the legal limit? You don't know how much effort it's taking me to not fall in love right now...
...Though, what with her arrest-resistant ways, I'm thinking she and Jay Swag might be a match made in drunk tank heaven.
Someday women will learn to only use the crotch kick in times of extreme danger. It's the "presidential red button" of hand-to-hand combat. If a vagrant with a knife is trying to drag you into an alleyway? Give it your best Shane Lechler. If a cop is trying to get you into a squad car during a traffic stop? Maybe dial back your means of dissuasion, just a tad.
Did Officer Wing get workman's comp and short term disability? Do they give short term disability pay if the time span is only as brief as five minutes of being hunched over against the squad car, weezing and spitting? Although...
The casual description of the encounter almost makes it sound as if Watson's kick had little to no effect on the cop. If you look closely in the first picture, her right knee appears to be in the foreground, and there looks like what may be a bruise on it. That, of course, would be the same right knee that went in search of Wingnuts. Did she bruise herself...kneeing this officer in the junk?

Ever

Michelle, your Rummy is on the way. It's wrapped in a "Team Ofc. Wing" Twilight shirt.

The homie TJ with the assist.

Smooth Bulls**t

2011-11-16T12:01:00.001-08:00

Say what you want about Diddy, but one thing you can't deny: As an actor, he's one of the best comedic straight men in the game these days.

Anatomy Studies

2011-11-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

From the Twitter feed of Sex, Cigars and Booze.

Viva Las Vegas: Ocean's Three

2011-11-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

I jolted awake in my bed around 12:30 p.m., though I’ll never really know why. Maybe my subconscious had tricked me into thinking I was going to roll over and see Raw Deal. Thankfully, my bed was a party of one. I did a quick scan of the rest of the room. First I checked the rollaway bed; T.C. was slumbering purposefully. Then I looked over to the other twin bed. It was empty. No light or sound was coming from the bathroom. Dupa, it seemed, was unaccounted for. T.C. stirred and looked over at me, most likely performing the same status check of the room.

Me: “You see [Dupa] this morning?”
T.C.: “Nope. Not since O’Shea’s last night.”
Me: *chuckles* “Awesome…”

I found my phone on the night stand and checked my messages and calls. None were from our missing soldier. Likewise, T.C.’s phone was absent of clues. I decided to text him.

Me: “You ok, buddy?”
Dupa: “Freeeeedom!!!!!!!!!!”
Me: “Where are you?”
Dupa: “Freeeeedom!!!!!!”
Dupa: “Ummm yeah…”
Me: “Should I repeat the question?”
Dupa: “Viva”
Dupa: “LAS VEGAS!!!!!!!”

Satisfied to know he was still alive and had access to his phone (which meant he wasn’t in jail), T.C. and I set our sights on finding some lunch. We dressed and then dragged ourselves to the elevators, as I told T.C. about my difficulties in finding these elusive transportation devices the night before. We hit Earl of Sandwich, conveniently located just off the casino floor.

The two of us sat at our table tearing at sandwiches like starved dogs and recapping some of the previous night’s highlights. We were gradually coming back to life, but it was a slow process. And staring at a Sugar Factory in the mall with a Kim Kardashian ad prominently displayed was oddly therapeutic. T.C. asked if I’d gotten anything new from Dupa. I hadn’t, so I checked in on him again.

Me: “Eating at Earl of Sandwich. Care to join us?”
Dupa: “Viva!!!!!!”
Me: “Kim loves Sugar.”

T.C. and I returned to the room around 3. While I made a quick trip to the bathroom, I heard our room door open, followed by someone lurching through the doorway. The birthday boy had returned. He walked in with his phone clutched in his mouth. T.C. asked if he was still drunk; Dupa mustered a head nod. He had never left O’Shea’s, logging a healthy 14 straight hours at their blackjack tables. And he was a couple of hundred up. Within three minutes of returning to home base, our blathering Polish comrade was slumbering in his bed, naked and barely kept decent by his strewn bed covers. As for me, I felt it was time to make myself a Red Bull vodka. When I cracked open the Red Bull can it was like a starter’s pistol going off.

We snapped pictures of Dupa’s debauched state, sent a few of them to our friends back in Pittsburgh, and then headed out. Our plan was to walk around the town a little, maybe find ourselves some trouble. The sidewalk was clogged with Occupy Vegas protesters, though, and the weather was still only in the mid 60s. We turned around after a block or so, and headed back towards PH. Along the way, we were confronted by a female protester; her anti-banks message was wasted on T.C., though. When she explained that she was protesting because she had lost her house in the mortgage crisis, he countered with a smirk, “The bank didn’t put a gun to your head to make you sign a mortgage that you couldn’t afford.”

We found our way back to The Heart Bar. After positioning ourselves in front of two video blackjack machines again, we repeated our prior day’s agenda of pounding drinks. My Red Bull vodkas were strong—at least, I’m guessing they were, based on the fact that my memory of the rest of the afternoon has some serious holes in it. A receipt and a later text message indicate that T.C. and I ate at Earl of Sandwich again. (Right about that time, I got a text from Dupa: “Who’s Kim? I’m so fucking hungry”.) I do remember walking to PBR Rock Bar with T.C. I also remember drinks and shots. …Well, I at least remember a sense of doom after putting an empty shot glass back on the bar. I don’t remember the following text convo with Dupa (though I do remember him eventually joining us):

Dupa: “Yeah, just showered, gonna eat at Earl’s, where’s Rock Bar?”
Me: “Across the mall from Earl’s.”
Dupa: “Ok you’re in the mall not PH?”
Me: “Across the hall, homie.”
Dupa: “Ohh, ok, I died a little last night”
Me: “Ok”

The brownout took hold of me. The next thing I remember clearly is sitting on my bed in the room, probably two hours later, in different clothes than I’d been wearing earlier. Dupa and T.C. were also changed, and had drinks in their hands. It was dark outside our window, though I remembered there being daylight outside the mall doors when we were at Rock Bar. My primary concern, then, became whether or not I had showered. I certainly couldn’t remember showering. “You came upstairs before we did; when we came back, you were in a towel,” T.C. offered. “I hope that means you took a shower.” But I wasn’t convinced. As we walked out to the Strip and headed towards Ellis Island, I sniffed the skin on my arms a few times, trying to pick up the scent of Axe body wash.

Since he was unencumbered by the same weight of uncertainty that was resting on my shoulders, T.C. was free to take in his surroundings during the walk down Flamingo Road. He soaked in the camaraderie of a Vegas trip with his boys, and the moment was clearly overcoming him. As I took a break from once again trying to remember the feeling of shower water on my skin, I rejoined his and Dupa’s conversation to hear T.C. say, “You know… Not to gay it up, but tomorrow night we should all go to the rooftop bar at the Rio to watch the sunset.”

A good laugh at your buddy’s expense can make you forget all about your own issues.

To be fair, T.C. drank at the Rio while watching the sunset with his wife, sister, and brother-in-law during his previous visit to Las Vegas. Apparently, pregaming with Black Label had clouded his understanding of the inherent differences between proposing such an idea to his loved ones and proposing it to his boys.

We supped at Ellis, drinking 22 oz draughts of the Hefe Weis and Amber beers that they brew onsite. With a solid base of beer and food laid down, we began the night in earnest. We caught a cab to the Bellagio; after that one mile drive, the cab’s meter read about $4. T.C. handed the driver a 5 dollar bill, to which she contested, “No, its $11.” We laughed mockingly as we got out of the cab and walked through the Bellagio doors, her yelling and cursing slowly being drowned out by the sounds of people and slot machines.

During that previous trip to Vegas, T.C. had also enjoyed the famous Bellagio fountain show from the terrace of a small, modest lounge at the luxurious casino. As he led us through the maze of table games, he suggested we do the same this time. There was only one problem: that quiet, unpretentious lounge was now a trendy, velvet-roped nightclub. T.C. was now 0-for-2. Yet another fond memory of his prior Vegas visit had been drinking something called a “Cable Car”. We walked to a bar just off the main gaming floor, and T.C. ordered three of these concoctions, determined to save some face. That determination turned to surrender when the bartender brought back $40 worth of drinks that looked more like appletinis than the drinks from T.C.’s memories. We walked off sipping from our glasses, Dupa and I blowing up our homie yet again.

Me: “I feel just like ‘Carrie’ in ‘Sex and the City’!”
Dupa: “I’m more of a ‘Samantha’ than a ‘Carrie’.”

We toured the casino while drinking daintily from our glasses. We made jokes about Danny Ocean and Terry Benedict. We looked around in the Botanical Gardens, knowing full well that it was the most cultured thing we would be doing that week. And, while we were appreciating the ornate floral art, Dupa spotted a man with a huge face tattoo, becoming momentarily entranced by it. These were easily twenty of the more surreal minutes of my life.

Once we were done with our foofoo drinks, the three of us sought out a bartender’s advice on finding a “locals” place where we could refresh our buzzes without killing our credit scores. He suggested Tommy Rocker's, adding that it’s “behind Caesars Palace.” Given that Caesars is one of the biggest properties (in terms of acreage) in the Western Hemisphere, I replied, “Utah is behind Caesars Palace.”

A cab—this time appropriately-priced—took us to Tommy Rocker's, a sports bar far enough off the Strip that we were probably the only tourists to walk through their doors all day. It was now after midnight, but the place was far from jumping. Ten other people, at the most, were on hand. Some, like the hot chick sitting near us at the bar, were off-duty casino workers. Thankfully, she was seated nearest to T.C., who fell right into our standard three-man act of letting the married, “harmless” guy disarm the girl with his charm, while Dupa and I remain a hidden threat, lurking in the bushes. If you’ve ever seen the velociraptors work their predatory strategy in “Jurassic Park”…

Dupa drank Jack, and T.C. and I worked on draughts of beer. We listened to war stories that the pretty Paris Hotel blackjack dealer and her friends all shared, as they competed to top each other with tales, each stupid tourist even more idiotic than the previous one. Very quickly, though, I realized I was in trouble. For some reason, I was suddenly circling the drain. That familiar lightheadedness knocked me to the canvas, like a stiff left from Manny Paquiao. Apparently the gods of the Cable Car ancestors were striking me down for my derisive jokes and defiant laughter. When the bartender came back by, I ordered a glass of ice water, knowing it was my only road out of this situation. I sucked it straight down via the straw and ordered another. Manliness be damned: This velociraptor was declawed, but—mercifully—still alive.

We had the bartender call us another cab; this time we got dropped off at Caesars, at around a quarter to 2. We walked in through the art gallery wing of the sprawling landmark, and paused to window-shop some of the works on sale. Okay, so they were sports-themed pieces…fight me. Once we found a bar (which only took rounding a couple of bends), I ordered us three beers. Dupa, between sips of his beer, downed the better part of a bottle of Maalox. Apparently the ancestors of whatever he had drank during his O’Shea’s stint were now putting in work on him. We tried to find the birthday boy a table that suited him, but he soon resigned to all of us just going back to the Planet Hollywood. As we found our way to the Strip and strolled back to home base, I believe there was a joke or two about me breaking off to find Raw Deal. And I’m sure the language I used in responding to said jokes was nothing family-friendly.

Fucking assholes.

Back at PH, T.C. and I grabbed beers from Heart Bar while Dupa fed his blackcrack addiction. It was now 5 a.m. All of the sitting around watching other people win money was starting to eat at me, and I finally buckled. I went to an ATM and took out $100, intending to lose it to some fellow night owl poker players at a low stakes table. I shuffled/stumbled back to where T.C. was sitting, intent on bidding him farewell, at the risk of becoming the one sitting at a table gambling for 14 straight hours. When I got to him, though, Dupa was standing there. Having taken a hit at blackjack, he was ready to pocket the rest of his bankroll and call it a night. I read the tea leaves that the gambling gods had provided, and packed it in myself.

Besides, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to have someone else find the elevators for me.

Gettin' Swayze

2011-10-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to figure out what's the best part of this 1979 commercial. Is it the fact that it features Patrick Swayze? Is it the song? Swayze's hair? The fact that it's for Pabst Blue Ribbon, yet features stylish "cool" (relative to the year) people? The dancing? ...It's gotta be the dancing, right? But then again, there's also the fact that it's a full minute long, twice the length of most ads.

Maybe, just maybe, it's the combination of all of those factors.

Viva Las Vegas: Fear & Loathing

2011-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

The first day of the trip (10/5) was, in fact, Dupa’s birthday. Our 6:20 a.m. departure had us groggily trudging through the Pittsburgh International Airport with a muted sense of anticipation. Really, how excited can you get for an orgy when you’re barely able to keep even your eyelids up? “If we look like this now,” I thought, “what the hell are we going to look like when we come back?”

Thankfully it was a direct flight. While T.C. snoozed a few rows back, Dupa and I alternated between states of reading, sleeping, and shrinking patience. By 9 a.m. Pittsburgh time we were nearly at our destination; Dupa looked at me and said “Jack & diet?” Why not? He pushed the flight attendant call button, and shortly thereafter we each had a surprisingly-strong plastic cup of party on the tray table in front of us. As we snapped pictures of our respective drinks (right), the older guy in the aisle seat next to me muttered, “That’s trouble.” Oh, if you only knew sir.

Once we were on the ground, the giddy schoolchildren inside of us took over. Facebook and Twitter updates were launched, announcing our arrival. Jokes were cracked back and forth as we claimed our bags and waited for a shuttle to the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. Suggestions about where to go for breakfast, where to gamble, and where to lose all hope of ever going back to Pittsburgh were all tossed around. We were kids in the admission line to an amusement park, competing over which rollercoasters we were going to ride first.

We arrived at the hotel around 8 a.m.; being well ahead of the check-in time, we left our bags with the bellhop and headed to Pampas Brazilian Grille for a steak and egg breakfast. Dupa washed down his breakfast with a Bloody Mary, which was one of the restaurant’s two morning drink specials. I chose to go with their other special: a mimosa. I was on vacation, after all. And feeling fancy, damn it. …Fight me.

As we wrapped up the meal, we each ordered a Shock Top draught for the road, drinking them down as we strolled through the Miracle Mile Shops. [If only all malls were void of open container laws. Can you imagine how much greater Christmas shopping would be? Black Friday would be one big kegger. Picture handing your mother a box on Christmas morning, and neither one of you has any clue as to what might be in there. Is it a blouse? Is it a piece of Sbarro pizza with a bite taken out of it?] We thought about cruising the Strip, but the unseasonably cool weather (low 60s) and overcast skies encouraged us to limit our exploration to the lands within the Planet Hollywood. And there was plenty to see. The casino floor is a purple, pink, and black playground, with slot machines, blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and TVs playing promos for Holly Madison’s “Peepshow” everywhere you look. Cocktail waitresses and “Pleasure Pit” dealers, dressed in bustiers, hot pants, and thigh high boots, patrol the grounds to catch any male eyes still standing after that onslaught, before they can stray towards the elevators. The poker room—really just a roped-off section of floor real estate—was the closest the PH came to disappointing me, but even it beckoned like a half-naked siren.

In the last year, Dupa has nurtured a blackjack obsession, starting with online play and then moving to the Rivers’ video blackjack and games and low stakes tables. He found a $15 table on the PH floor that seemed to have his name on it, and changed in for $300 worth of chips. T.C. and I watched a few hands before realizing that neither of us planned on joining him at the table; T.C. suggested we find two open seats and video blackjack games at The Heart Bar, and I readily agreed. Free booze while you play—suck it Pennsylvania and West Virginia gaming laws! $20 in a machine meant we were drinking on the house, and my vodka tonics were like little reminders coming every ten minutes to say, “Hey, good for you; you made the right choice. You are very intelligent, and an exceptional human being. And have I told you how charming and handsome you are?” …Did I mention I was going through one every ten minutes?

After a short while, T.C. wandered off to the men’s room, but soon came back with Dupa. “Cashed out; I’m up $700,” the birthday boy said, grinning from ear-to-ear like a Cheshire Cat.

We played a bit more, slugging drinks and blinkingly taking in our surroundings, still in shock to be in Vegas. I took repeated breaks from the electronic blackjack cards to watch a sugar daddy across the bar who was seated with a hot woman. He was pushing 60; she was in her mid 20s. She pretended to find everything he said to be hilarious, and he kept shelling out money for drinks. Ah, the American Dream. As for this American, such pay-for-pleasure pursuits are just that—a dream; I cashed out at $10, down $50 to that point, slurping up the last of my drink as we finally made our way to the front desk to check in.

Every room in the PH is based on a different movie. The three of us were given the Forrest Gump room. It just felt…right. We made a quick trip to the ABC Store in the mall for supplies. T.C. bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black; I picked out a bottle of Belvedere and grabbed some cans of Red Bull. Happy birthday, Dupa. We also purchased two gallons of bottled water. This wasn’t our first rodeo.

Back in the room, Dupa decided he needed a nap. Why he also felt that he had to be naked to take said nap, I’ll never know. I can only hypothesize he felt it poetic to be in his birthday suit on his birthday. Then again, this is Dupa; taking his clothes off in public is as common as a handshake. (And, ironically, it’s also the next step for him in the course of an introduction.) Before he could climb into his bed, there was a knock at our door—the rollaway bed we had ordered was being delivered. Dupa jumped up to answer the door, but T.C. stopped him, and told him to go to bed. Thankfully he did, because when T.C. opened the door a cute girl in her early 20s pushed in the rollaway bed. Sexual harassment lawsuits – 0, Three Drunk Guys – 1.

After an hour or two of rest, we got ourselves together again. Showers, shaving, and Johnnie Walker on the rocks prepared us for our short walk down the Strip to O’Shea's. We grabbed a quick meal of traditional Irish cuisine at the in-house Burger King, and then found a $5 blackjack table to call home. Cheap blackjack, free drinks, and a bounty of skin populating the nearby beer pong tables. It was like a yinzer paradise. We soon learned the names and bedside habits of just about every dealer the casino employs, as we didn’t leave our seats for the better part of four hours. Unfortunately, they don’t hire from the same headhunters as Planet Hollywood. Nice people, all of them, but… Not that my boys or I cared, as long as they kept flipping over 23s to our doubled-down 18s.

One dealer (“Raw Deal”), who took over our table early in the night, reinforced my theory on O’Shea's “We don’t need hot, half-naked women to keep people playing” policy. Though, to be fair, I didn’t go any lower than her face. Dupa and T.C. stated that she had a very large rack that was eager to be freed from her uniform’s blouse. I don't remember that myself, but I highly doubt it could have salvaged anything for her.

[*pauses* God I’m an asshole.]

I asked the guys where the bathroom was; when T.C. pointed off in the distance, I couldn’t see anything. After leaning over and looking around Raw Deal, who was directly in my line of vision, I spotted the elusive men’s room sign.

Me: “Ah, couldn’t see around [Raw Deal].”
RD: *teasing* “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Me: *slightly embarrassed, trying to save face* “No, I mean, your beauty was just so overpowering, how could I possibly look anywhere else?”

This obvious (I thought) instance of back-pedaling bullshit managed to win the moment, as we all laughed and returned our attention to the blackcrack. And that was pretty much the only winning I did that night. But, I bought in at $100 and managed to play that same Benjamin all night. Not so fortunate was T.C., who made a trip or two to the ATM. Dupa, though, was actually up (call it birthday luck). Alcohol, however, was up on all three of us. To the point that, as a new dealer began at our table late in the night, I managed to spill my beer all over him, the table, and the deck of cards. “FLOOR!” [I vaguely remember joining him in yelling, “Floor!” As if I wasn’t the drunk that had caused the problem to begin with?]

I can’t imagine, though, that this is the first time they’ve had this happen at O’Shea's. Bellagio, Wynn, Caesar’s Palace—at those casinos, a couple of guys in colored blazers probably tap you on your shoulder and point to the doors when you soak a dealer, table, and cards (the trifecta!) with beer. At O’Shea's, they just walk your party over to another blackjack table, and call over a waitress to replace your drink.

Around 4 a.m., T.C. called “no mas” and stumbled out the doors. I hung on for another half hour or so, finally losing the last of my chips to a dealer’s 20. As I bid Dupa adieu and began following T.C.’s footsteps, I felt a tug at my arm. I turned to find Raw Deal, smiling at me. “Uhhhh…oh fuck.” [I mean, that’s what I said in my mind. I wouldn’t say that out loud, of course. …Then again, it was closing in on 5 a.m. and I’d been drinking all night. I can’t guarantee that I didn’t.] I gave a quick smile back, said a hurried and awkward “Be safe,” and power walked out the door.

Here’s the fun part. Ever have that dream where you’re stuck in a maze, disoriented in a haze of sleep, taking turn after turn that leads you right back to where you just were? Get sloppy drunk and stumble into the Planet Hollywood from the entrance on the Strip. I promise you, it’s the closest you’ll get to living that nightmare. I knew our room was on the 38th floor, and I knew that there were two sets of elevators—ones that went past the 23rd floor, and ones that didn’t. When I finally found a set of elevators after wandering through the casino floor, they were the wrong ones. I walked back out, and circled the floor again. Finally, I found a set of elevators. I hopped on one, and looked at the buttons; nothing higher than 23. Fuck! Another voyage out onto the casino floor, another set of elevators located. I peeked inside of one; nothing higher than 23. Fuck!

I took the escalator back down to the lobby and check-in counter. I knew we had gone up to the room from there that afternoon, and I remembered the elevators being down a hallway off to the left of the counter. I staggered past people just arriving from—or just leaving for—their what-happens-in-Vegas sin stories, and got to the elevators. I stepped onto one, feeling triumphant…only to see no buttons above 23. FUCK!

When I walked back out to the hallway, I wondered how hard the clerk would laugh at me when I asked for help getting to my room. Then a thought hit me. I had walked in from the left, where the lobby was. I turned and looked towards the right. Down the hall I saw a sign reading “Elevators: Floors 24 – 52”.

*sigh* Day One was officially in the books.

Pour-Righteous Teacher

2011-10-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Remember waaayyyy back when I said to make friends with your bartenders? This is just another vivid illustration of the value in that advice. 12 martinis, in different colors, all in one pour. This guy is sickwidit.

Viva Las Vegas: The Intro

2011-10-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

I died last week. In Las Vegas everyone dies, at least a little. You can die multiple times, too, depending on how long you're in town. Three of us stayed for three nights, and we each died one of those nights. If we had stayed a week? I'm certain those numbers would've doubled. For one or more of us, it probably would’ve tripled.

Dupa. If you’re a loyal reader of this little piece of internet realty, you know him. And you probably love him. And that’s because you know what he’s capable of: sheer mayhem. So it’s damn near poetic that he would christen the start of his third decade on the planet with a guys’ trip to Sin City. Compared to Dupa, I’m a boy scout. …Okay, maybe a scout leader with questionable morals but a heart of gold under my hard-drinking, slut-loving outer shell. Like Billy Bob Thornton in a follow-up to “Bad Santa” called “Bad Scouts”. But I digress… The point is that I’m easily the tamer of the two of us. So when my 30th birthday turned into a huge production two and a half years ago, the gears in Dupa’s head began turning on how he would make his even grander. When he announced his Vegas plan to all of us earlier this year, well…no one was really shocked. And when he then used words like “hookers”, “cocaine”, and “not coming back” to describe his vision of how the trip would go, well…

In the end, only T.C. and I were able to join him in his quest to send his 20s out with a donkey punch. I was in Las Vegas last year for work, but hardly got to experience a true “Vegas trip”, mostly due to low finances. This time I was eager to at least taste some of the fun that I had watched from afar, like a pauper at the royal gates. T.C. had been in Vegas several years ago, but had been accompanied by Mrs. T.C. and family. The opportunity to breathe in some of the fumes of bachelorhood, while barfighting his Irish liver, was something he relished.

Three very accomplished drinkers. Three days. Three nights. Las Vegas. God, it almost writes itself, doesn’t it?

Apple Sauced

2011-10-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

From the Sultan of Boozing, Zane Lamprey:

A wise man once said, "Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, never fear." I like to test out that theory from time to time around Halloween—it’s just quality control.

Come the 31st, I won’t be bobbing for apples. I’ll be turning them into shot glasses! What can I say? I’m a festive guy. Just twist the shot carver into a piece of fruit—like a pear or a baby pumpkin. Hell, you could even use a cucumber.

Out comes the core with enough room for a shot of your favorite booze.

Zane is also generous enough to provide a special shot recipe to fill your new Golden Delicious shot glasses:

Poison Apple Shot Recipe

Ingredients:

1 oz Frangelico
1 oz Vodka

Directions:

Pour ingredients over ice in a shaker. Shake and strain into a shot a shot glass....or apple's if you're using this nifty shot carver.

Not sure why I've never thought of doing something like this before. Hell, we've all seen weedheads turn apples into bongs. Why should boozehounds be left out of the fun? And, if you're the religious type, (which would be a bit of a shock to me, considering you're reading a blog devoted to debauchery), might I suggest using an apple shot to do a Snake Bite? Just a thought.

To Health!

2011-09-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

As announced in February, Belvedere has teamed up with (Red) to produce special edition bottles of their premium vodka. 50% of all proceeds go to fighting AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases in Africa. Bottles are now on shelves. Do your part to improve the planet, and then clink a few glasses of the good stuff with your peoples to celebrate.

Wifey Material: Hayden Panettiere

2011-09-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

She's always been a sweetheart. Apparently she's also a quality boozehound, as this picture of her partying it up at Oktoberfest (and looking delish in the process) proves.

Spin Cycle

2011-09-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Oktoberfest is a magical event. And, as you can probably guess, it's on my bucket list. But, if you're like me and haven't gone yet, you might do well to make the same mental note that I just did: When you finally get there, stay away from the funhouse.

If only this guy had the same foresight.

Wasted Man's Nightmare: Stuck In A Funhouse - Watch MoreFunny Videos

In It for the Long Crawl

2011-09-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

It may surprise you—considering how large and popular a part of boozing culture they are—to learn that very few bar crawls have found their way into the On the Rocks archive. And, to be clear, I’m not talking about the random act of barhopping. Everyone has those episodes where you start the night at a rooftop bar in Shadyside and end it asleep on a set of steps in the South Side…

[*looking around for the link* What the…? Wait… I never wrote about that night. Damn I’m lazy…]

…No, a true bar crawl is fairly organized, with a predetermined itinerary of bars and a time limit set for imbibing at each stop. I’ve taken part in a handful over the years, but they normally aren’t reported. Not for lack of material, mind you; I think lack of memory is a more likely culprit. Because a bar crawl, when done properly, is almost more of a punishment than a privilege. A gregarious terrorist could likely use one to torture top-secret information out of a hostage. There’s just no way to abide by the rules of “drink as fast as you can in 15 – 20 minute intervals for six straight hours” and not lose all control over any and everything you hold dear. I went on a bar crawl with Mrs. TC’s family in July of last year; and, while I can tell you where I slept that night, I honestly don’t remember how or when I got there. And I have a sneaking suspicion that her parents’ dog now knows the PIN to my ATM card.

So when they invited me back for this year’s crawl, was there really any question as to whether or not I was going?

The Route 837 Bar Crawl is the brainchild of TC and his brother-in-law, J Sun. Route 837 is an at-times-industrial, at-times-rural stretch of road that meanders along the Monongahela, through Western PA’s river towns and backwoods. Mrs. TC and her siblings grew up just a few turns away from this road, and one day six years ago her brother and then-boyfriend decided that they should explore some of the many dive bars that dot this innocuous line on the map. In fact, why not make it a bar crawl? They determined which watering holes to visit and recruited some family members; before they knew it, a tradition was born. This year’s crawl was nearly 50 people strong, and featured “Sons of Anarchy” themed t-shirts (considering that some of these places are frequented by actual bikers, though, I’m not sure many “outsiders” got the joke).

To start the night, I met up with the “gang” at Pit Stop. But, because I was late and had to temporarily leave the bar to drop my car off at Mrs. TC’s parents’ house, I only got to enjoy two Miller Lite draughts before J Sun was whistling us to attention and motioning towards the door.

J Sun and his wife are the parents of three adorable little boys. As you might imagine, then, an event like this is a beautiful oasis on their calendar; a rare opportunity to take a break from the kids and be their old selves again for a few fleeting hours. But as J Sun’s sister (Jacqui), his cousin (“LL Cool K”), and I climbed into the couple’s Dodge Caliber to head to the next bar, the infrequency of their bar nights was beautifully illustrated. I took the front passenger seat, Jacqui grabbed the seat behind me, and LL Cool K sat behind J Sun. Mrs. J Sun? Well, she sat in the backseat between the other two ladies…perched in her infant son’s car seat. In their haste to start the night’s activities, she and J Sun had neglected to unlatch it. A grown woman, in a child’s car seat. And we’d only been to one bar. Here we go.

Next on the tour was Scotty's Bar & Lounge. It had been the favorite watering hole of Mrs. TC, Jacqui, and J Sun’s late grandfather; for years, when his shift at the steel mill down the road ended, he would park on one specific stool at the bar, flanked by his oldest friends. In tribute, J Sun added Scotty's to the list of stops last year. Drinking shots of whiskey and rounds of Stoney’s (their grandfather’s favorite drinks) in a toast to “Pap” have now become an annual tradition.

If you wanted to find a picture-in-the-dictionary example of a dive bar, Scotty's is it. When we showed up last year, they were about to close up for the night—at 9:30 on a Saturday. This year was quite the contrast. It was positively jumping with activity, with no less than seven customers on hand. And one dog. Our bar crawl flooded the establishment in a sea of black t-shirts, increasing the lone bartender’s revenue sixfold. She seemed less-than-thrilled, though. In fact, she was…how you say, a tad bitchy? After ordering six shots, J Sun attempted to explain that his grandfather had been a regular; the bartender quickly cut him off with an “I know who you are.” Her dad, as it turns out, is a friend of J Sun’s parents. But she was not the least bit interested in extending the families’ friendliness to the next generation. In fact, she didn’t so much as attempt a smile the entire time we were there. Apparently, we ruined her Saturday night with all of our money, and expecting service and such. How selfish of us.

We were only at Scotty’s for about 30 minutes, but I managed to down a Miller Lite, a shot of whiskey, and a half a Stoney’s (which is a half a Stoney’s more than any human should ever consume) before we were off to our next bar, Beer Belly's Bar & Grill. This was one of the larger establishments on the tour, and one of our longer stops. Since it’s also the midway point, it carried the feel of China Beach, with our people spread out among various forms of R&R. Most of our platoon stationed itself at various barstool-posts around the large bar, while a small group played games of pool and others mingled with locals. I found myself sitting between Dupa and “Smashley”, having my innocence shattered (only these two could have a conversation about anal sex packed with so much gusto and detail that it makes me blush). J Sun eventually wandered over by our seats. We joked about his and Dupa’s bromance, which eventually made me ask, “Where is your wife?” After a brief search for Mrs. J Sun, he replied with a head nod, “Over there, playing the naked photo hunt game.”

Me: “Look how focused she is!”
J Sun: “That’s my lady.”

Since arriving at Beer Belly's, I’d been putting away Red Bull & vodkas; I had been up until 4:30 the night before, and now felt myself dragging. The beauty of drinking at dive bars, though? Each RBV cost about $4. They say that, in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. Well, on 837, the man with a $50 bill is a god. A very drunk god.

After another couple of rounds—and an unsuccessful attempt by TC and I to get the cute bartender to join our caravan in relocating—we made the move to Tim’s Corner Bar. TC and I tossed back Duquesne Pilseners while talking to Rocky’s dad, who had spotted some drunk young tough guys who had tried to start a fight with him at Scotty’s earlier that night. Uncle Donnie is hardly a fighter; he’s more Jack Tripper than Jack Bauer. So the fact that two drunk, skinny hicks in their mid-20s tried to bring static to his front door was simply hilarious. And when they saw us standing next to him at Tim’s, laughing in their direction…they left the bar.

We all squeezed another couple of rounds in before J Sun whistled one last time. We were pointed towards our finish line, the Elrama Tavern. The final two hours would be spent here, and we got down to the business of making those two hours count. Our troops were quickly ordering themselves food, doing rounds of shots, posing for celebratory group photos, and jabbering drunken nonsense in every corner of the establishment.

Several of the married guys who live in TC’s neighborhood were out for the crawl, and were now gathered around a table with J Sun’s attractive, 21 year old female cousin. While she politely laughed and humored them, they worked hard to keep their chins free of drool and relive their college days—back when they actually had a chance.

As a thank you to our fearless leader, I ordered J Sun a “bear fight” [for the uninitiated, a bear fight is an Irish Car Bomb followed in rapid succession by a Jager Bomb], and upon learning of this he gave a bear-cub-fierce growl and clawed up the empty air in front of him. Then he grabbed the shots and tossed each back decisively, and without hesitation.

I’ve never been prouder of the guy.

His wife, meanwhile, was having fun messing with a drunken TC. She pointed out to him that a high school flame of Mrs. TC's was there at the bar. As Mrs. J Sun sat at the bar less than a foot away from the both of us, laughing heartily at TC’s look of annoyance over being teased, TC looked at me.

TC: “Hey, you know [Mrs. J Sun]?”
Me: “Yeah…”
TC: “FUCK [Mrs. J Sun]!”

With the crawl at its end, participants started dropping like flies. Even Dupa and Smashley called it a night earlier than most and drove back to TC’s house to crash. Eventually TC and I climbed into Cool K’s mother’s SUV; the passenger seating being full, though, I jumped—by all accounts, voluntarily—into the storage space in the back. I curled up my 6’6” frame and lay there, growing more and more disoriented by the truck’s rear wheels bouncing over bumps (not to mention all of the alcohol in my system). Shortly after the bouncing stopped, Cool K’s mom opened the hatch. After another beer or two in TC’s driveway with him and the boys from his neighborhood, I finally passed out on a couch in his TV room, muttering to his dog (something about ATM cards, I think…).

When he finally shuffled down the steps the next morning, TC found me alone in the kitchen, charging my phone (Dupa and Smashley had disappeared earlier in the morning like ninjas). When I reminded him that my car was at his in-laws’ house, TC paused. “Well, then we have a problem, because I’m pretty sure my car’s there, too.” He called J Sun, who was at that location, to see if anyone could come and pick us up; as he talked, he walked outside to see what kind of cleanup was necessary. About three minutes later he came back inside, letting out a slight chuckle as he did. “We’re fine. My car’s in the driveway.”

Bar crawls, man.

Quitters Never Win

2011-09-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

Think you're properly soused? Before you stumble away from the bar, you'd better consult this handy chart.

From Sex, Cigars & Booze

Buyers' Market

2011-09-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

This home may be where the heart is, but the liver is across the street. In today's tough economic climate, with the housing market in shambles, sometimes you have to get creative as a salesperson.

From The Huffington Post:

When little interest was being shown in her three-bedroom north suburban townhouse after several months on the market, one homeowner took matters into her own hands by offering an unusual perk for the home's buyer: a $1,000 tab at the bar across the street.

Homeowner Melanie Gravdal told the Chicago Sun-Times that frustration fueled her idea: offering $1,000 in food and drinks at Grandpa's Place, a bar located across the street from the home she shares with her husband and two children.

Personally, I think being a homeowner is drastically overrated in today's society. But if someone were to offer a deal like this in my area...can't lie, I'd be a little intrigued.

Home Game

2011-09-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

This is the home bar of Zane Lamprey, host of "Three Sheets". #Win

Yeah, I'm just a little jealous.

House Brew

2011-09-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

Lawyer. Senator. President. Brewmaster. Barry is the man.

From The Huffington Post:

Barack Obama and the White House chefs have been brewing beer for quite some time, and on Wednesday, the president shared some of the White House Honey Ale with a Medal of Honor recipient.

Former Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer had requested to share a beer with the president before the ceremony, CBS reports.

...Early reports of the White House-brewed beer began circulating after Obama offered it to guests guests during the Super Bowl this year, CBS reports. The beer was also consumed on St. Patty's Day.

Obama Foodorama, a blog focusing on the administration's food and nutrition initiatives, reports that the Honey Ale isn't the only beer that's been brewed by the chefs. A White House Honey Blonde and a White House Honey Porter have also been created.

Mr. President, is there any way I could come over for a cold one? Other than winning a Medal of Honor?

10 Simple Rules

2011-09-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

Learn them. Live them. Love them. Salud.

From Sex, Cigars & Booze.

Wifey Material: Jessica Burciaga

2011-09-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

This was inevitable. Loyal readers know I'm a huge fan of Jessica. She may even be the one for me—THE future Ex. Mrs. D.E.F.I. And this is true, deep, and mature devotion—her flawless beauty has nothing to do with it, I swear.

Okay, a little to do with it. ...A lot to do with it.

But my ~~schoolboy crush~~ ~~obsession~~ love isn't based solely on shallow, sexual infatuation. No, this is a true pairing of soulmates. My evidence?

From her Twitter feed:

Love ya, Jess. Holla at ya boy.

Worth Every Penny

2011-09-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

That sound you hear? That's me smacking my lips.

From Bonhams:

An exceptionally rare bottle of The Glenlivet, distilled in 1883 and bottled in 1931 by George & John Gordon Smith, is to be auctioned by Bonhams at their whisky sale in Edinburgh on 12 October. It has a pre-sale estimate of £15,000-20,000.

The bottle has an impeccable pedigree. It was originally owned by Captain William Smith Grant, the great grandson of Colonel George Smith founder of The Glenlivet Distillery and has been in the family ever since.

Bonhams whisky specialist, Martin Green, said, "It is very rare for a whisky of this age with such an excellent provenance to come up at auction. It will still be perfectly drinkable though at several hundred pounds a dram it is perhaps more likely to remain in the bottle."

In case you don't happen to know the current exchange rate off the top of your head, that pre-sale estimate equals $24,000 - $32,000. That's about $250 per year of aging.

I think that officially makes this the cougar of scotches.

Assist by David Voth of Sex, Cigars & Booze.

Take Me to Another Place, Take Me to Another Land

2011-09-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

I love road trips. I grew up with them sort of being standard fare. When my mother and I moved from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, we did so by 5-day, cross-country drive. Though he still lived in California, my dad would often fly out to Baltimore for events (much of his family resided there, as well as in other eastern seaboard locations); part of his itinerary would then be to make the four-hour-each-way journey to pick me up. I’d spend summers back in my sunny native land of SoCal, where my dad’s job as a Xerox sales rep (he was responsible for slangin’ photocopiers to universities all over the region) regularly meant I was riding shotgun with him from UCLA to Cal State Northridge and back, logging hours upon hours in his BMW 325e as it charged through the tan hills and long-blonde-haired valleys. And a portion of every summer seemed to find us back in the east, driving across upstate New York on our way to a weekend in Boston, or down I-95 on our way to a family reunion in Raleigh.

When I got old enough to be behind the wheel of my own car, it didn’t take long for me to forge my own paths. Washington & Jefferson College was only 30 miles from my mother’s house—a pittance to an experienced road warrior like me; but I trekked the roundtrip at least once a week, just because I could. Soon, with or without a copilot, I was making the four hour sprints to Baltimore for familial gatherings, or just to kick it with my cousins. And a couple of times, cousins strapped into my little Ford Escort LXE with me, I’d make the drive down to North Carolina. Eventually there would be many of the crazy trips with my crew that have been highlighted on this page—Ocean City, MD (twice); Washington, D.C. (three times); Ohio University (12 hours of madness); Thousand Islands, NY (oddly enough, no real great stories came from the weekend, which disappointed on countless levels); and various others.

What I’m trying to get at here, is that I like travelling by automobile.

And yet, with all of that, I was none too excited about my scheduled drive to Tennessee at the end of July for my father’s surprise 75th birthday party. For starters, the travel time (about nine to ten hours, depending on what state troopers are watching) from Pittsburgh to Chattanooga was daunting for a solo mission. And although my cousin, Mrs. Bluemoon (MB)—normally my closest ally in our family’s boozier episodes—would be there, she was most certainly going to be sticking to water and un-rummed Cokes, being that she was seven months pregnant. Which brings up another knock against attending this family gathering: MB’s pregnancy means that I’m one of the few 30+ year old members of our clan who have never had kids and/or been married. And I was rolling dolo. The last time I saw my family, I had The Ex with me. Though, I can’t say for sure whether or not that was seen as a step in the “right direction”…

Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to miss my pops’ big day. Nor was I going to pass up a chance to see a lot of other family who I hadn’t seen in years. So on the last Friday of July I soldiered up, tossing a suitcase in my trunk and a couple of newly-burned CDs on my passenger seat. I did over half of the grueling drive that night, stopping at a rest stop several miles past the Tennessee border at around 2 a.m. to sleep. By 6:30 I was back on my way, and by a quarter to 9 I was waking up my brother, “Big Bro”, from the front desk of The Chattanoogan so he could let me into our room. I showered the previous 14 hours off me, and then I crawled into my bed and slept until about 1.

For lunch, Big Bro, my stepbrother (“Step Bro”), my sister (“Sis C”), and her boyfriend Mike stopped at North Shore Grille; the guys tossed back beers (Red Stripe for moi) while Sis C used the Bloody Mary bar to ease the hangover punishing her for the previous night’s bar fun. Step Bro and I soon found a fun game to play while we waited for our food: “Pin the Tail on the Bar Slut”. I quickly identified my preferred practice target; she was sitting at the bar in a short and complimenting white sundress, her modest-but-beckoning curves highlighted by the portions of skin tactically put on display. She sat with a male suitor whose dingy mop of blonde hair would’ve made Kurt Cobain proud. Our booth was located at an angle that positioned me in a line of sight just a few degrees left of her mismatched beau, and I frequently caught her eyes straying over to treat me like an amusement park. I enjoyed the innocent (on my part) fun, and the smug satisfaction in knowing I could, if I really wanted to.

Step Bro found a practice target of his own. Well, actually, he found several. Being relatively fresh off a divorce, my 41-year-old stepbrother has been living life to the fullest, fearlessly flirting with and pulling tail in various states. His newfound freedom has turned him into the proverbial kid in a candy store. In this particular aisle he eyed up several treats, but the biggest gobstopper of all sat at the far end of the bar. She wasn’t a perfect ten in looks, but she was a perfect piece of low-hanging fruit: she was of impressive physical characteristics (…below the neck), she was sitting by herself, and—as I quickly discerned—she was one-step-forward-two-steps-backward-drunk. And remember, we were there for lunch. It was maybe 4 pm at the latest now, and she was doing a dead-on “drunk Sweet Dee” impersonation. From the little pieces of her slurred passing conversations with the bartenders that I could hear from our booth, I picked up that she was a server or bartender at some nearby bar or restaurant (maybe even that one), who was finally off-duty and taking full advantage of the liberty she had been granted.

Eventually, the other people at our table picked up on Step Bro and I discussing her merits. Sis C simply called us “dogs,” but Big Bro contested the woman’s physical qualifications. “She’s not even hot!” “You’ve gotta remember, though,” I countered, “it’s not about quality; it’s about quantity.”

(*pause* My sister might’ve been onto something.)

After lunch we did some shopping —well, Sis C did; the guys just tagged along—and then headed back to the hotel to clean up before making our way to St. John’s for the party. Somehow, I was put in charge of (1.) getting my stepmother’s laptop and a projector set up in the restaurant’s private room, where the party was being held, and (2.) getting everyone neatly tucked away in the room before the birthday boy arrived, to ensure a quality surprise. I couldn’t help but wonder just what it said about my family that I, of all people, was the one entrusted with these vital responsibilities. But, like a good sailor, I shouldered the weight. As I worked with a waiter to get the electronics connected and operating properly, I frequently sipped from a glass of Grey Goose and tonic and periodically checked on the arriving guests to be sure they were safely in the dining room and out of sight before the Admiral got to the restaurant. [Note: “The Admiral” is a nickname used for my father within our family; though he was a naval officer, he retired as a Chief Warrant Officer. But he is the oldest of his parents’ seven children, and therefore often stands atop the family’s chain of command, especially since the passing of my grandparents several years ago.] Guests continued to roll in, and trays of drinks rolled out; before long the Admiral arrived to a raucous “surprise!” With my work done, I ordered a third Goose & tonic and set about having some fun.

I caught up with aunts and uncles who I hadn’t seen in some time, I laughed with my dad and his friends while eating an excellent meal, and I repeatedly availed myself of the open bar. …So you can imagine my surprise when, near the end of the party, “the kids” were asked to stand up and say a few impromptu words about our beloved old man. I was light on my feet; my buzz fully pulsing in and around me, I started my speech with, “I’ll keep this short…” “Good!” interjected Uncle Red, as he dug his spoon into his dessert dish. Talking to a room full of people—family, no less—with Grey Goose feathers lulling my brain to sleep is an experience I hope to never have to repeat, though I seemed to make it through without any hiccups (figurative or literal).

Around 10:30 we moved the party to the hotel, where a jazz band was playing in the bar. Since just about everyone from the party was staying at The Chattanoogan—including the Admiral and my stepmother—for the night, the bar overflowed with my extended family. Step Bro identified “targets” all around (including our waitress, a cute Latina with a slight southern drawl); Sis C. (who was easily the drunkest among us) accused each of her siblings of taking pictures from her Facebook page for use in the night’s slideshow tribute to our dad; Uncle Red chortled from a barstool about one thing or another; MB sat taking it all in, occasionally sighing because she couldn’t fully enjoy the moment like she’s accustomed to doing; and I downed Stella draughts and just soaked in a rare night of being drunk with my family. The afterparty’s limelight fell on the older of my two sisters, though (“Big Sis”), who joined the band for a song, her beautiful voice expertly rocking the bar to its foundation.

But, being a hotel bar, the place closed at midnight. As people ~~filed~~ stumbled out, Step Bro spit some game at the waitress while I talked to our cousin Sherri and finished my last Stella.

Sherri: “So where’s [The Ex]? She didn’t make the trip down this time?”
Me: *choking, as I try not to spit beer all over her*

After closing out my tab with our waitress—who shot down Step Bro, but seemed to give me a sly smile—Step Bro and I returned to our respective rooms to change into casual clothes before venturing out. When I stopped by his room to collect him, he handed me a jar of Tennessee’s finest clear liquid and told me to take a whiff. The 130 proof moonshine inside proceeded to rape my nostrils. Step Bro laughed when I recoiled in shock. “Take a sip.” I took a quick one, expecting to digest gasoline. But, to my surprise, the garage whiskey was much smoother than its scent had led me to assume. Step Bro took a quick nip himself and then sealed it back up. “Just enough to warm you up.” He wasn’t kidding; after five minutes I felt like my liver had clicked on a heat lamp.

We headed to T-Bone’s Cafe, a small bar within walking distance. While Tennessee didn’t overwhelm with its percentage of desirable women [in fact, by contrast it helped make me realize, upon returning home to Shadyside, just how many beautiful women populate my neighborhood], a solid 75% of those I encountered during the trip were at T-Bone’s that night. The problem, however, was that it was mostly a “local” crowd as well, which meant Step Bro and I made little traction. Nevertheless, I was satisfied with watching him engage girls in conversation without a moment’s hesitation, offering them an opportunity to sit down and get to know us. The fact that none of them were taking him up on the offer was of little concern.

…Well, it would’ve been of some concern, if Stella and her new buddy Garage Brew weren’t slapping around my central nervous system like two rogue cops looking for a lead. Our conversation as we walked home to the hotel that night is precisely the type of event I want a camera crew on hand to cover; the slurred, nonsensical stream-of-consciousness coming from both of us must have been absolutely riveting. As Step Bro peeled off at his room’s door, he offered me another shot of moonshine; the only reason I’m alive to tell this tale is because I said “Fuck off!” and shuffled even faster towards my own door.

A few hours later I found myself in the middle of a terrifying dream: I was trapped in a pitch black tomb, all by myself, with no flashlight and no hope for escape. As I clawed at the walls in a panic, confused as to how I had gotten here and shaking at the idea of the slow and agonizing death sure to befall me, my fingers smacked a switch.

I was in the bathroom. I opened the door, turned off the light, and shuffled back to my bed.

Sunday saw Step Bro and I squinting when we stepped into the daylight; we weren’t the only ones hungover, but we were by far the most hungover members of the family. We joined several others in checking out of the hotel and moving into The Admiral’s house, which comfortably slept nine guests that night. The entire cast of characters, however, was at the house that day for a family barbecue. We polished off more than a case and a half of Fat Tire (Step Bro and I were largely responsible for that), more than half the Mason jar of moonshine (Uncle Red and my cousin—“The Lieutenant”—were largely responsible for that), a case of Rolling Rock, and a whole “mess” of ribs and chicken (stereotypes be damned, we went all-in on that shit), as the party rolled on, well into the night. By 4 a.m. I was falling face-first into my bed in one of the guest rooms, slurring to myself, “god I love my fam!”

I love a good road trip. And so does the Mason jar sitting in my liquor cabinet.

Goodwill Games

2011-08-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article from The Huffington Post: "Seven Drinking Games from Around the World".

If there's one activity that's ubiquitous around [most of] the globe, it's drinking. Whether it's throwing back shots of vodka or sharing a cold one at a pub, imbibing in the local brew is a surefire way to get in touch with a local culture, or to .

Of course, there are drinking habits that vary from place to place, drinking games being no exception. Below, watch and learn seven different drinking games from different parts of the globe. So, next time you're three sheets to the wind in Tokyo, and someone proposes a game of Ping Pong Pang, you'll have the good sense not to join if you're already too smashed from Saki Bombs.

These are definitely worth checking out. And if the next time you're in the UK you get "penny'd", don't come crying to us.

Taking it to the Head

2011-08-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

I was reading through the most recent issue of Playboy [Yes, I actually read the articles, too; just what kind of horndog do you take me for? ...Wait, don't answer that], when a letter to the "Playboy Advisor" caught my eye. You know I love a good beer, but this is one particular microbrew that I can honestly say I haven't tried...yet:

My girlfriend and I like to drink beer during sex. While kissing, I might pass her a mouthful of beer or vice versa. Before going down on her I take a gulp, place my lips around her pussy and force the beer into her. She says she likes the cooling and filling sensation. The beer comes back to me, twofold it seems, and sometimes I share it with her. We do this often. She has had no ill effects, but could this alcohol douche cause problems? We would hate to give it up, but I love her too much to chance hurting her.—C.W., Orlando, Florida

I've had a lot of sex that involved beer, but nothing like this. The Advisor's response was to exercise a "pint of caution", as there are many harmful side effects that can result from C.W.'s love games, for both her and him—including the potential for causing an embolism by blowing into his girlfriend like he's inflating an inner tube.

Maybe I'll just stick to drinking shots out of women's cleavage.

Social Drinking Excellence: Rev. Julian Medina

2011-08-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so I'm going big.

From Aol.com:

After allegedly showing up drunk to a baptism on Saturday at All Hallows Catholic Church in Sacramento, Calif., Rev. Julian Medina was been suspended by the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, according to a report by Fox 40 News.

The 64-year-old was scheduled to baptize 15 children in front of about 150 people, but instead showed up one hour late, slurred his words and had to be carried out of the church after falling over, CBS 17 Sacramento reports. A worker had to call in a deacon to perform the sacrament.

*cracks knuckles*

Okay, here we go:

How did Medina get so wasted by 11 a.m.? I've done it a few times, but there was always a beach, green beer, or tailgating involved. Unless...
Can you tailgate a baptism? I mean, I wouldn't think you could. But then again, my crew and I just tailgated at an airport last month, so who's to say a baptism is off limits?
A baptism is off limits. I agree it's a boring, trite, outdated and antiquated ceremony, which is just the sort of thing alcohol was put on the Earth to help us endure. But kids are involved, and nothing is a bigger drunkblock than rugrats—ask anyone who used to have a life but now has kids instead. Even TJ, who was once one of the top two boozehounds in the world (I'll let you guess who the other one is), and who typically only gets custody of his tyke on weekends, has placed a ban on bottles of anything stronger than Ocean Spray entering his home. And Medina is 64, so it's not like this is his first rodeo. He has to know when parishioners are going to raise issue with him bonging the communal wine and when they might let it slide. (Say, like, during one of those marathon wedding ceremonies that you Catholics are so fond of... Seriously what's that all about? Don't you know there are shots to woo and bridesmaids to take? *thinking...*
Okay, obvious comment coming in 3... 2... 1...
A catholic priest, scheduled for an appointment with 15 kids and a tub of water, shows up drunk. *pause* He knew the parents were going to be there, right? He didn't just think his assistant had booked him a Saturday morning key party, right?

Funky Cold Medina, your Rummy Award is in the mail. Toast a glass to it and say 50 hail marys to absolve all day drinking sins.

Purity of Creation

2011-08-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Slick little ad by the folks at Smirnoff, featuring Pharrell.

Wifey Material: "Jenn"

2011-08-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

This is from the Facebook event page set up by a friend for her house party next month. No pictures this time, to protect anonymity. But trust me, she's a cutie. Unfortunately for every guy who's not her boyfriend, she's also taken.

So Jesus might hang glide, but so would we…if we were drunk enough. But what wouldn’t Jesus do? I’m pretty sure He wouldn’t hook a pink hose up to a utility sink, run it through a window and out to the backyard for a slip ‘n slide on a tarp…but we will. He wouldn’t do a keg stand, because everyone would see up his robe…but [L] did (she just puts on men’s boxer’s first). He wouldn’t slam his finger in a door, break it, the.n wait 8 hours to realize a hospital, stitches, and minor surgery should be involved…but EJ did. Jesus wouldn’t create a Team page for himself on Facebook…but [C] did (p.s. You should all go on there and “like” it). Jesus wouldn’t fall off a table drunk at his own house trying to climb through a window, and then require a Tetanus shot for preventative measures…but RJ did. And I happen to know for a fact that Jesus wore underwear at all times….[O] and [TD] don’t. Jesus did all of the wonderful things he did out of the goodness of his heart because he was selfless, not because he craved attention…like [B] does. You guys smelling what I’m stepping in? Jesus wouldn’t do all those crazy, f*cked up things, because he put us on this Earth to do them for him. Duh. And even better, he made us all friends, so we could enjoy these shenanigans together.

The party’s at my house, September 10th. Bring whatever you want. Bring whoever you want. Just don’t bring anyone I think is a whore or a douche. See ya then!

Bless her heart.

Hard Drink May Get Woman Hard Time

2011-08-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

From The Huffington Post:

Police in Boise arrested 35-year-old Victoria Hill for allegedly shoplifting a single can of Steel Reserve lager from a grocery on Aug. 11 and charged her with felony burglary, a count that carries a hefty prison sentence of as long as 10 years, The Idaho Statesman reports.

...If found guilty of felony burglary charges for the $1.50 beverage, Hill could be sentenced to no less than one year in prison and a maximum of 10 years, according to the news agency.

Imagine if she had tried to steal a good beer? No one should be given 10 years in prison for stealing one beer. They should, however, be given 10 years in prison for having such horrible taste in beer.

National Rum Day

2011-08-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Today is National Rum Day. And, strangely, I knew nothing of this until TJ emailed me earlier this afternoon. I really need to have a calendar made that denotes all of these tragically-overlooked days of reverance. How is anyone who drinks rum supposed to remember when the day comes around to celebrate rum?

And, of course, I don't have any rum at home. And I'm low-dough until Friday. So, to celebrate, I'm granting everyone a special exemption from the Rummy Award today. It only makes sense. Just make sure the daring 3 a.m. grocery store break-in and ensuing low speed police chase are the work of rum, and not something like tequila or bourbon. Then all bets are off.

Now if only Rosario Dawson would show up at my place with a bottle of DonQ...

Making Records & Breaking Records

2011-08-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

Well...damn.

From Vibe.com:

VIBE's own Datwon Thomas was partying it up last night at Club Liv in Miami, where bossman Jay-Z was throwing an epic Watch The Throne release party. Hov went all out, setting a new club record for the biggest bar tab. It was reported, Jigga shelled out a whopping $250K on Ace of Spade champagne.

"After several rounds of regular bottles of Ace of Spade, Jay-z ordered the 15 liter #BOSS $100K," tweeted promotor Purple with an accompanying TwitPic of the giant bottle in its golden carrier.

Datwon also took video of the champagne bottles as they "bring 'em out, bring 'em out."

Furry Safari

2011-08-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

I think they thought I was kidding.

When asked, in the weeks and days leading up to the Anthrocon 2011 conference in Pittsburgh, what time would I be going downtown to watch the furries, I replied, “I don’t know…11 [a.m.]? 11:30?” The friend or coworker asking would usually chuckle and then proceed on with the conversation. Sometimes, though, he or she would pause to utter an expression of trepidation. Those were the precious few people who really know me, and who realized I wasn’t fucking around.

Two years ago, my friends and I had a life-changing experience. It was a balmy Thursday night in July, and—spurred by The Ex—we’d gathered at Bossa Nova for caipirinhas, mojitos, and salsa dancing. Then, overwhelmed by the first two and bored with the latter, a casual and spontaneous suggestion was made: Anthrocon was in town—we should go look at furries. Up to that point, furries were a nearly mythical subculture to me. My closest encounter with one had been watching Drama help a squirrel find a nut on “Entourage”. But, by the end of that night, we’d had so much fun that we knew furry hunting would be an annual event.

Last year we designated the Friday of the conference to be our day of safari. I met up with Dupa and “Hostess”, an old friend of his from high school, at Tonic Bar & Grill for a late lunch at around 2:30. Tonic is Furry Ground Zero; located on the corner of Liberty Avenue and 10th Street, it sits directly across 10th from the Westin Hotel, which more or less becomes a kennel the weekend of Anthrocon. All of us having taken a half-day off from our respective employments, we grabbed a spot in Tonic’s sidewalk seating and spent hours watching the herds pass, occasionally stopping one or more of them to take pictures with us. Throughout the rest of the day we were joined by just about every one of our brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, some of whom carried the party on through the night.

How can you possibly improve upon that type of impressive showing? Well…you start three hours earlier the next time.

I was the first to arrive at Tonic on Furry Friday this year, and I locked down a large table right at the corner while I awaited my comrades. Hostess was there within minutes, and after another ten Dupa was pulling up in a cab. All of us soon had mojitos, plates of food, and cameras with the safeties off in front of us.

Over the next couple of hours we drank and ate—and drank some more—while mingling with furries, fellow gawkers, and random friends who happened upon us as they walked to or from their lunch break destinations. Chappy eventually became the fourth member of our party, pulling up a chair after calling off work for the afternoon. Armo, too, made a similar executive decision to forego work for a seat in the eye of the furricane. TK, who worked in a building adjacent to the Westin, made frequent visits. He had recently decided to move to Tampa, and was now finishing off the first of his final two weeks in town. His senioritis had kicked in, and although he was to spend his remaining time with the company training his replacement, he found himself distracted by the warm weather, cold beers, and furry fun going on outside his skyscraper window. And so, about once every hour, we found TK strolling across the street in our direction, looking for a few sips of Corona and some fun.

Early on, Dupa made it known to us that he had set a goal for this year’s event: He wanted his picture taken lying across the outstretched arms of three or more furries. In other words, the ultimate leisure pose. When a group of four furries dressed as various cats and dogs stopped for us to take photos, Dupa’s face lit up with the anticipation of a dream coming true. That gleeful smile soon turned to a disappointed smirk when the pack of critters denied his pose request, claiming that the lack of grip in their ~~hands~~ paws would make it too difficult to hold him. Not much later, however, our friend struck gold: three more furries (also dressed as various animated canines) stopped for pictures, and they happily agreed to his pose idea. Dupa beamed in ecstasy as he laid awkwardly in their arms while our cameras clicked.

Last year, a large group of furries (as well as a mix of civilians) gathered in front of the Westin to play vuvuzelas in tribute to the ongoing World Cup. This, in turn, caused me to exclaim, “The furries have vuvuzelas! THE FURRIES HAVE VUVUZELAS!!!” as I sprinted through traffic and fumbled with my camera phone. This year, another demonstration of sorts took place. A long, white stretch Chrysler 300 limousine pulled up in front of the hotel, and out climbed five or six furries. I regret not heading over to get to know these particular fur-lovers better. They could have been the key to me pulling a Johnny Drama.

Now, I think I speak for the rest of the guys in my crew when I say that sex with a furry isn’t very high up on the ol’ bucket list. But if the opportunity—and a reasonably attractive female furry—presents itself, I’m certainly game. TK had been approached by a furry earlier in the week; she even went so far as to say, “You would be hitting on me if you could see what I look like under this costume” (when he asked if he knew her, she quickly walked away without an answer). And then, for the first time in our furry-hunting years (that we know of), we actually happened upon a woman worth consideration. A small fox (irony noted), running with a pack of plain-clothed handlers, sat down at a table near ours. When the costume head came off [remember, this was late June in Pittsburgh; temps hovered in the mid 80s with a healthy dose of humidity for much of the afternoon, which isn’t very kind to those wearing large, heavy, fur-covered outfits], we found a cute, petite girl in her mid-to-late 20s wiping sweat from her face and matted-down hair. But, at the risk of disappointing my dear readers, I have to report that none of us actually played “Tony” to this Anthrocon “Maria”. We all just admired from a distance, too wrapped up in the numerous platonic attractions going on around us.

When one furry wandered near our table, holding a staff and dressed as a creature that resembled a lion with horns, we snapped several pictures. Later, a heavyset guy in civilian clothing came strolling past, carrying a bag from a nearby sandwich shop and the same staff with which the lion had been walking. When asked, he confirmed that he was, indeed, the same person. I inquired about the lavish costume, and he revealed that it cost him about $3000. And the maker, a specialist in Boston, had undercharged him. “She probably could have asked for about $5000 for a costume like that.” “Lionel” (heh…) had brought another costume designed by the same woman with him to the conference as well. In all, he had brought four different getups for the weekend. He assured us that, after he had gone inside and eaten his dinner, he would be back as one of the other three characters.

The weather, though, soon prohibited that. As bad as heat and high humidity are for furries, the inevitable result—a summer rain shower—isn’t any better. It also doesn’t work for civilians on safari, watching from uncovered sidewalk seating. Our posse (which now included Jay Swag, Mitch Canada, TD, and her sister, “Green Pants”, among others) moved inside Tonic, to the upstairs bar and lounge area.

It was now after 5 pm, and downtown office-dwellers, fresh from the workweek, began pouring into the bar. A large percentage of those people were coworkers of Dupa and TK; had my brain not been on a Corona-and-furry high, I would have recognized this as a bad sign. Among the thousands of local men and women in that particular corporation’s employ, is one person who is guaranteed to suck the fun out of my Furry Safari: The Ex. In the nearly two years since our breakup, we’ve taken careful measures to avoid running into each other—at least I have; some of hers have been described as more “stalker” than “dodger”.

I was sitting at the bar talking to TK, when I saw a look come over his face as he stared towards the top of the stairwell behind me. He leaned over to me and said, “It just got bad.” Sure enough, as I glanced past him, I saw a familiar head of brown hair bounce by on its way to a table across the room. My reaction, in true Neil McCauley style, was to immediately turn and head downstairs.

All of ten seconds after I’d stopped in the downstairs bar to take a deep breath and consider my exit strategy, TD came chugging downstairs to my aid. “I couldn’t understand why you left—then I saw her!” After a few minutes of kvetching, I once again located my testicles and went back upstairs. Once there, I posted up at the bar with my back turned to The Ex’s side of the room, did a shot of American Honey with TD and Green Pants, and then gathered our crew and moved the party to August Henry’s.

Despite the last-chopper-out-of-Saigon-like retreat from Tonic, we had actually been planning on heading to August Henry’s (just not quite so early). The decision had been made hours earlier, when we learned that they would be hosting “Furrioke”—a.k.a. karaoke featuring furries. We found a table and ordered ourselves some dinner, and I fought off a newfound paranoia that made me look around every few minutes to see if we’d been followed. Tony soon joined us, and started tossing back beers and shots to catch up. Unfortunately, hardly any furries were there, making my daydreams of watching someone dressed as a wolf sing “Life is a Highway” feel somewhat unrealistic.

After a seemingly innocent trip to the bathroom, Dupa admitted to us that he’d thrown up in a urinal. And he was still rocked. Every experienced drinker knows that—sometimes—vomiting will clear your mind, freeing you up for another few hours of boozing. That didn't happen for Dupa, and he fully understood the gravity of that fact. He bid us adieu, walked outside, and caught a cab home.

And it wasn’t even dark outside yet.

The rest of the night came at me fast and furiously. Swag, TD, Tony, Mitch, and I eventually found our way over to Rumshakers, where our standard fare of beers and shots took on a much more sinister tone after a full day of drinking. A blackout had finally taken hold of me, and I was more than happy to relinquish command of the ship. My next clear thought came as I strolled along Grant Street alone—I was downtown again. After sleeping off some more of my drunk in my parked car, I came home and flopped onto my bed like I was shielding friends from a grenade. When I awoke the next morning, I was a little surprised there wasn’t a squirrel costume on the floor next to my bed.

There’s always next year.

For That Deep Down Body Thirst

2011-07-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

A recent Spanish study takes the whole "Great Taste, Less Filling" debate in a whole new direction.

From WTAM 1100 in Cleveland:

Researchers at Granada University in Spain said drinking beer after strenuous physical activity can be beneficial for the body.

The scientists said their study found beer can help dehydrated people retain liquid better than water alone, The Telegraph, a Biritsh newspaper, reported Friday.

Professor Manuel Garzon, who led the study, said the bubbles in beer can help quench thirst and the carbohydrates in the beverage can help make up for burned calories.

The study involved a group of students asked to perform strenuous activities at a temperature of about 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Half of the students were given a pint of beer after their exercise and half were given a pint of water. Garzon said the hydration affect on the beer drinkers was "slightly better" than the sober group.

Juan Antonio Corbalan, a cardiologist who has worked with Real Madrid football players and Spain's national basketball team, told The Telegraph he has long recommended beer to professional sportsmen after exhausting activities, as the drink is optimal for rehydrating the body.

I wish this news had broken 15 years ago. It would've made three-a-days at football camp a lot more interesting.

My friend Deirdre with the find.

Charge It to the Game

2011-07-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

How do Stanley Cup champions get down? They go to a major casino and buy out the bar, of course. TD just sent me the picture below, which is purportedly the final tab rung up by the Boston Bruins after a night of partying at Shrine, a gourmet restaurant inside the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Shit. Got. Real.

Note the $100,000 bottle of Ace of Spades Midas located near the bottom of the receipt. I'm a diehard Penguins fan, but now I'm starting to like these Boston boys a little more...

Living the High Life No More

2011-07-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

If you live in Minnesota and are a fan of Miller Lite or other Miller products, stop reading now and get to the store now to stock up. Seriously, go NOW. You can read about why when you come back home.

From CNNMoney.com:

The MillerCoors brewing company will soon be forced to pull 39 brands of beers from every restaurant, bar and liquor store in the state of Minnesota.

It's all because the company wasn't able to renew their brand label registration far enough in advance before the state's government shut down.

"What that means is they're not able to either distribute or sell their product in this state," said Doug Neville, spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

When Andrew Oliver of Minneapolis heard the news, he headed over to Surdyk's Liquor to stock up on Miller Lite, his wife's favorite beer.

"We just had a kid, so she's looking forward to Miller Lite."

No longer found in Minnesota flavor.

It's well-documented that Miller Lite is my go-to when relaxing on a budget. And since I'll be in Minneapolis (and likely still broke as a joke) in October, I'm not too happy to be hearing this news. Drinking Bud Light makes me feel kind of like a traitor. I'm guessing it's something similar to how a Dale Jr. fan feels when forced to get behind the wheel of a Ford. But Coors Lite is basically pond water in a can, so...

Maybe I can convince a manager to buy me something from the adults' menu.

The 5 Levels of Drinking

2011-07-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Larry Miller with his classic analysis of a night out at the bar.

Scoping the Scene

2011-07-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

This could be bigger than "Angry Birds".

From The Huffington Post:

With its reliance on facial detection software and discreet cameras keeping a watchful eye on the front door of various nightlife hotspots, SceneTap is sure to be an app that raises more than a few eyebrows when it launches in some 50 Chicago bars next weekend.

As Forbes reported, the app will provide its users with statistics on how many individuals are at nearby participating nightspots at any given time, in addition to some basic demographics on who is there, including age and gender, picking up where other popular apps like Foursquare left off. The software reportedly scans a person's face, eyes, nose and general facial structure in order to determine sex and age -- and has a success rate of 85 percent in determining gender and 80 percent in determining age within a six-year range, according to FastCompany.com.

This application's potential for bargoers is astronomical. It's always disappointing to get to the bar and find out that it's dead that night. Or to find out it's a veritable sausagefest. For the bars themselves, though, this could potentially become a problematic Catch-22.

If your bar is experiencing a slow start to the night, the situation normally corrects itself. A few people come in, then a few more, then a few more. There's a snowball-effect to gathering a crowd; seeing other people in an establishment can often lead to others choosing to come in as well. Human beings have a tendency to act like lemmings, and this is something that businesses—and marketing firms—have been feasting off of for centuries (in fact, the very creation of SceneTap is a testament to this principle of human nature). But if potential ~~lemmings~~customers check ahead of time and find out that very few other people are there, then you've likely eliminated the very catalyst that helps a crowd grow.

There's also another way this hurts bars: It makes it convenient for people to go somewhere else. If you've just driven a half hour to pick up your friends, get to the bar, and find a parking spot, and then you walk inside to find a disappointing turnout, the cumulative effort it would take to choose another establishment and then get your group to it is often enough to dissuade you from doing so. Call it the "Fuck it, we're here" effect. You may be turned off by the lack of a crowd, but at the very least you and your friends are likely to have a drink while deciding whether to tough it out or find greener pastures. Sometimes one drink will turn into two, and two into three. And while all of that is going on, the aforementioned hearding mentality is taking place among the other people arriving at the bar. But if your phone tells you that no one's at the bar before you even leave your house, then how much more effort does it take for you to change your plans and go elsewhere? And when everyone else is doing the same, the bar with the low initial turnout is doomed.

With all of that being said, if they start running this service in Pittsburgh (or if I find myself in another city where SceneTap is active), I'll probably use it. As a bar patron, the advantages are just too valuable. But if I was a bar owner, I would definitely be wary of a SceneTap future, and what it will mean to the way I do business.

Gear Up

2011-07-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

From Two In The Shirt (click here to purchase); I think I just found something to rock at the next cookout this summer.

Wifey Material: Hunter Moore

2011-07-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

This Australian model-&-Moore knows how to pregame.

From Twitter:

My early morning pre party cocktail in the bath ;-)

Crazy Legs

2011-06-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

One Friday night a few months ago, I decided to take a break from the heavy drinking. Even though some of my friends—including TJ, Jay Swag, and others—were supposed to be starting the weekend off with a happy hour on the North Shore, I chose to stay on the sidelines. I went to Rivers instead to play cards and work on inflating my bankroll. The night went well enough that I clocked out early; not long after midnight I found myself at home, lying on my couch and watching Chappelle’s “Killin’ Them Softly” as I slowly drifted asleep.

When my phone rang around twenty after one, I expected it to be one of my drunken friends busting my balls for not being out boozing with the rest of them. That, or Jamie Chung was in town and wanted me to come visit her in her hotel suite.

…so yeah, it was probably the drunk-friend-harassment thing.

The name that appeared on my screen was that of Mitch Canada. Now, understand that Mitch rarely calls me. I could probably count on one hand the number of phone calls I had received from him before that night, and there haven’t been any since. Mitch calling me after 1 a.m. on a Friday night wasn’t just unusual, it was downright alarming. And when I picked up, the tone of his voice didn’t offer any reassurance.

In exasperated, slightly impatient words, Mitch laid out the situation for me: Jay Swag had been arrested on a DUI charge. Yayy… The police had him in a holding cell in the West End; if no one picked him up before 2 a.m., they’d be sending him over to county, where he—and his suddenly vulnerable anal virginity—would have to stay until at least Monday morning. Mitch and “Courtney” (a female friend of theirs that had been out with the boys that night) were, of course, eager to get Swag home before the deadline. But everyone they knew was either out of town, asleep, or too drunk to drive down there. Everyone, that is, but one guy. Yayy…

I got the station address and information from Mitch, and assured him I could be there before 2. A thought came over me, though: It was technically Saturday morning by then, but…that Friday had been April 1st.

Me: “Mitch, if this is some kind of stupid April Fools’ prank, I swear to god…”
Mitch: “I promise you, man, it’s not a prank. This is real. [Swag] is really in jail.”

I arrived at the station around a quarter to 2. I thought about waiting outside for another ten minutes, just to make Swag sweat it out a little more, but my benevolent side prevailed. As I signed the paperwork, I heard his voice from the other side of the secured door, as an officer gave him a final admonishment. When they opened the door, a blinking, still-drunk Swag shuffled out. The officer unlocked his cuffs, and Swag looked at me like a child who knows he’s screwed up but really just wants a hug to be reassured that his dad still loves him.

As we walked to the car, Swag thanked me with every drop of gratitude in him. I told him it was ok; I knew he would’ve done the same for me in a heartbeat. I asked what exactly had happened; he sank into the passenger seat of my car and gave me the entire story from the top…

Rumshakers

was

Swag made his way to his car, several blocks away. He got in, started it up, looked up and down the street, and carefully pulled out of his parking spot. Five seconds later, as he neared a stop sign, police lights began flashing in his rearview. The typical response in this situation is to pull over to the side of the road and resign yourself to beating the rap. But this is Jay Swag; he’s anything but “typical” when he’s drunk. Two thoughts popped into his head:

If charged, this would be his second DUI (he received one while in college), which meant “bye-bye license”;
In high school he was an all-star on the track team.

Swag gunned it, speeding around the corner and to the next stop sign before the cop could react. He slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop along the curb. He then hopped out of the car and bolted on foot into a series of townhouse complexes like a white, middle-class reenactment of “Juice”.

Kids, don’t try this at home.

In what might arguably be the craziest piece of this tale, though, his plan actually worked. He soon shook the officer chasing him. Eventually, Swag found himself lying on the ground amid the thick shrubbery that adorned one of the townhouses, listening to police as they swarmed the area. Squad cars came and went, the voices of officers and police radios grew nearer and then more distant; but no one knew where he was.

Now, obviously, this was a ridiculous idea. Every member of our crew, when hearing the story for the first time, asked why he didn’t think to escape on foot and report the car stolen. The question is an unintentional riddle though; the answer is that he simply

thinking.

would sooner tase and beat a civilian than acknowledge his civil rights

Why did you run

When I echoed those sentiments, Swag responded, “I knew I could outrun him. No one’s going to catch me in a footrace.” I mentioned he was still drunk at that point, right?

In fact, he was still nearly blacked out. At the station he had blown a .23, almost three times the legal limit. When we got back to his house, he walked straight into his kitchen. I heard the refrigerator open and close, and he returned to the living room, cracking open a can of Four Loko along the way. Then he plopped himself down on a recliner and recounted the tale for Courtney, who had been asleep on the couch when we arrived. And then, even though it was well after 3 a.m., he started calling up a few friends that had gotten DUIs in the past to tell them about his night.

The next morning TJ came by and took him down to the South Side so he could try to locate his car. They found it just where he’d ditched it—with a freshly slashed tire, compliments of the Pittsburgh PD. As he and TJ set about putting on the spare, a voice called out from a few doors down the street.

“[Swag]? What’s up?” It was one of his buddies, standing in front of his home. Swag could have simply run and hid there the night before.

There's (Liquid) Gold in Them Thar Hills

2011-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

I thought it was just my own craving for bourbon that had increased in recent years. Turns out I'm just part of a worldwide trend.

From Yahoo! News:

It's among the most ambitious of projects for this industry clustered in central Kentucky's rolling hills, where distilleries have spent at least $150 million in one of the bourbon sector's biggest expansions since Prohibition, said Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers' Association.

The producers are aiming to quench a thirst for bourbon — especially premium brands — that is steady in the U.S. and rapidly expanding overseas, thanks in part to the comeback of cocktails appealing to younger adults, lower tariffs, robust marketing and a larger middle class in emerging markets.

Personally, I find bourbon to be a great everyday, around-the-house drink. Something to sip on after dinner. Or to drown my fantasy football woes with on a Sunday afternoon (don't judge me). I even have my own bourbon cocktail recipe, which Dupa christened, "God-DAMN deeelicious." Good to see I'm more avant-garde than I'd thought.

And considering all of the Maker's Mark I've been drinking lately...

Maker's Mark, known for its red wax seal, is in the midst of an estimated $50 million expansion that will boost production by about 50 percent and expand bottling capacity at its operations near Loretto in central Kentucky.

In the next six years, it plans to build 20 to 25 new warehouses needed for storing barrels of whiskey that will age no fewer than six years.

The brand, part of the spirits lineup for Deerfield, Ill.-based Fortune Brands Inc., surpassed 1 million cases bottled for the first time in 2010.

...it sounds like someone owes me a "thank you." I'll take a couple of handles on the house, Fortune Brands Inc. Gracias.

Dan Harmon: A Functional On the Rocks-ic

2011-06-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

NBC's Community has fast become one of my favorite shows on television. Last year I wrote a post here featuring a YouTube clip of “The Breakfast Club” homage that two of the main characters performed while shitfaced on vodka [unfortunately that particular clip was pulled from YouTube due to a copyright complaint by NBC; NBC hasn’t made the clip available via their website, though, which leaves me high and (ironically) dry]. Much like its brilliance, it appears that the sitcom's taste for drinking is also inherited from its creator and executive producer, Dan Harmon. In the second installment of a large, four-part examination of Community’s second season by A.V. Club, Harmon reveals his own fondness of alcoholic pursuits. Discussion of the season’s 10th episode, “Mixology Certification”, begins with the following exchange.

AVC: This one ended up being surprisingly controversial. For a lot of our commenters, it wasn’t funny enough and was too depressing.

DH: And [they said] it felt like an anti-drinking message somehow in there. There’s no bigger drunk than me. I’m drinking a glass of vodka while I talk to you about this. I’m not Trey Parker. I don’t wanna just assume that the way I live my life and the things that I believe need to be somehow imparted to people. That’s easier with Trey because he’s a libertarian, and his views are more neutral. I can’t get away with that, because my views are left of Chomsky, and my habits are left of Belushi. I can’t just suggest that America get into what I’m into. So in an episode about everybody getting shit-faced, I was the one going, “Let’s not glamorize it. Let’s make sure that if you don’t drink, you walk away from the episode not thinking maybe you’re missing something.” [Laughs.] But at the same time, if you do, you’re going, “Finally, an episode for me.”

That, my friends, is what you call a breath of fresh air. I’d have to believe, if I were ever in such a position of success as a writer and producer and giving a lengthy and very involved interview, that I, too, would have a glass of the good stuff in my hand as I talked with the interviewer.

There is often a misperception floated in our society: If you’re a drinker, you’re a slacker. You’re a loser; an unproductive lump of flesh that never creates, only uses and destroys. This misguided deconstruction is one of my biggest pet peeves. And, as you might expect, I’ve had to deal with it on a personal level a time or two (see my disclaimer at the end of this Jan. 2010 write). Some people don't want to accept that there is such a thing as the happy medium in life. Everything they see must fall into either one extreme or the other. And, more often than not, they paint any person, place, and thing that doesn’t land on their side of the fence in ugly, undesirable tones. It’s a xenophobic and counterintuitive practice.

The fact of the matter is, many of the people whose stories I bring you on this page are anything but losers. Esq is a brilliant young lawyer at one of the nation’s top firms. Dupa has, in a very short amount of time, shot up through the ranks at the very large corporation where he works to become one of its youngest senior managers ever. BlahBlahBlah has thrived for several years now as a financial advisor. I have friends who are local TV news personalities, employees of high-profile federal agencies, homemakers, federal law enforcement agents, and CEOs, all of whom have seen their anecdotes come to life at On the Rocks at one time or another. My prolific use of aliases is the respectful offspring of this fact. These are people with a whole lot to lose if the world was to learn that it was them who were passing out drunk on barstools or having one night stands with random women at weddings.

Harmon is just like them, and he’s just like me. He’s one of us. He occupies that world of the happy medium. A place where having drinks at the end of the day doesn’t qualify you as a degenerate alcoholic; where being successful doesn’t preclude you from having fun. He’s an On the Rocks spirit: Someone who works and plays hard.

Social Drinking Excellence: Dane Sardinha

2011-06-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

I really have nothing witty to offer here. Sardinha's only real faux pas—aside from the terrible tattoos—appears to be taking a few moments to relax amidst his wash-away-losing-to-the-Pirates boozing on Saturday night. This can really just be filed in the "Professional athletes are just people, too" section of alcoholic exploits.

From Deadspin:

Journeyman catcher Dane Sardinha was seen decompressing like a champion at August Henry's early Sunday morning, which is typical behavior after anyone is forced to backstop a Kyle Kendrick emergency start. Even though Sardinha went hitless in the Phillies loss to the Pirates, he probably made solid wood contact later that evening if his forehead thumped that bar rail. Our tipster (Nick, we'll call him) says Sardinha was tipsy but I prefer to think he was privately texting Kendrick some thoughtful observations about his mechanics.

Dane, your Rummy's in the mail. Next time you visit Pittsburgh, you can use it as a pillow.

TJ with the assist.

Social Drinking Excellence: Richard Fleeger

2011-05-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

This one comes straight from Glitter's neck of the woods. I thought we might get through the whole month of May without a Rummy Award candidate being brought past my desk. It appears I was wrong. TJ with the great assist.

From WPXI.com:

KITTANNING, Pa. -- Police said a man may be charged with driving under the influence after falling asleep while waiting for food at a Kittanning McDonald's drive-through.

Investigators said Richard Fleeger, 23, fell asleep behind the wheel early Sunday morning. State police said McDonald's employees called 911 after customers complained that the line was not moving.

Fleeger failed a field sobriety test and was driven home by a relative, according to police. Investigators said Fleeger may face DUI charges pending the results of a toxicology test.

*sigh*

My thoughts:

Was a field sobriety test even necessary? He was in a McDonald's drive-through after midnight on a Saturday night. That pretty much guarantees you to be over the legal limit. They could've brought in a paddywagon and thrown everyone in that line in the drunk tank.

That being said, I'm hesitant to cast Mr. Fleeger as the villain here. Sure, he was driving drunk, and that alone deserves punishment. But maybe his act of dozing off was actually just one of sacrifice. Maybe he risked his own freedom to save that of the drivers behind him. His slumber surely distracted the police from doing anything more than glancing through the windshields of other vehicles where the occupants were still upright and moving.
There didn't seem to be any passengers in Fleeger's car. But, given that it was Saturday night, I would say it's highly unlikely that he had gotten so drunk all alone. Given those two pieces of information, it seems quite possible that he was, in fact, making a Mickey D's run for his friends. Imagine just how upset they were when, after quite a bit of waiting for their Angus burgers, they got a phone call asking them to pick him up...without the food. He avoided prison, but there's still a good chance he got his ass whooped when he got home.

Richard, your Rummy is in the mail. You'll find compartments in the base filled with Barbecue and Sweet & Sour sauces for your McNuggets.

Something Borrowed

2011-05-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this story by saying that it’s not mine; and, because of this, there is simply no way I can tell it as well as its rightful owners. But my friend that relayed the escapade to me doesn’t have a blog—to the best of my knowledge. That leaves it up to me to share it with the world via On the Rocks. If he or anyone else involved should ever want to sit down and dictate a first person account to me, I’ll be more than happy to put it on the page. But it is just too good of a tale to wait until that theoretical day. As I summarized back to my friend after hearing his rendition, “It’s like ‘The Hangover’, but without the happy ending.”

Late Thursday night, after a night of making a modest income at the Rivers Casino poker tables, I met up with Pakistanimal and stopped by our favorite spot in Shadyside. We were shocked to find the place nearly empty, which is rarely the case at 12:30 am on a Thursday night. We would quickly realize that this was a blessing in disguise, though. With all of the time we’ve spent in this bar, we’ve come to know some of the staff pretty well, including “A-Train”, a bartender. And without the usual pressing crowd of patrons demanding his attention and rocketing up the decibel levels, A-Train was able to tell us about the crazy several days he had spent in Las Vegas the week before...

The trip was actually a bachelor party for his brother. Among the wolf pack would be the bride’s brother, who A-Train had never met before the car ride to the airport. Providing that ride was the bride’s grandfather, a no-nonsense old timer. And as everyone piled out of the car at the curbside check-in, the old man grabbed A-Train’s arm and held him behind for a moment. “I want you to watch over my grandson while you boys are out there. He’s a fuckup; he’s always been a fuckup. Don’t let him get into any shit!” [Does anyone else picture this grandfather looking and sounding like Jack Palance, or is that just me?]

On their first day in Vegas, “Brother of the Bride” (BOTB) quickly got obliterated at the pool—to the point where he looked like this guy. The bouncers, as you would probably expect, soon informed A-Train and the other bachelors that BOTB needed to be removed, and offered them the opportunity to do it first. Very gracious gents, those Las Vegas bouncers. A-Train and the guys walked BOTB to his room, despite his protests. When they threw him on his bed, though, he was soon lights out, and wasn’t heard from until the next morning.

As the trip went on, this became a recurring scenario. BOTB would—seemingly without explanation—get irreversibly wasted faster than anyone else in the party. But despite this, the others were able to contain him and prevent any major damage from being done to person or property. And so on the final day in Vegas, when he again turned into a blacked-out mess early in the day and the boys again put him to bed well before sundown, no one thought anything of it.

The next morning the bachelors all awoke and packed up, wary of the 11 am departure time of their flight home. All, that is, but for one guy. With only about 30 minutes left before they needed to leave for the airport, one of the party members gave an alarm that sent chills up the spines of A-Train and his brother: BOTB wasn’t in his room, and had neither been seen nor heard from since the day before. In a last attempt at remaining calm, A-Train suggested someone call BOTB’s cell phone. “We tried that. It was in the room.”

“Fuuuuccccccccccccccccccccc...............”

The next 30 minutes were a frantic search for clues. They packed up his belongings and lugged them to the lobby, in the unlikely possibility that they would find him down there waiting. They talked to bellhops and the concierge, hoping someone had seen BOTB. They called members of the bride’s family back in PA, on the chance that he had called back there because he didn’t know the phone numbers of the guys in the bachelor party. They called the Las Vegas police, in the event that he was wallowing in a drunk tank. They talked to the Hard Rock security team and filed a missing persons report. One of the guys in the party was staying in Vegas an extra day, and was tasked with being the main contact should any information about BOTB’s whereabouts be turned up.

As the departing partiers, including the now sick-with-fear groom, rushed through the lobby to catch the flight for which they were already late, BOTB came stumbling towards them through the front doors.

Despite being stunned by their missing comrade’s miraculous materialization, they wasted no time with explanations. They shoved him into a cab and sped as fast as possible to the airport. Along the way they learned two things:

BOTB had spent the entire previous night at the strip club across the street from the Hard Rock, receiving private dances from a stripper to whom he’d taken a shining.
BOTB was still, to that very moment, blacked-out drunk. He had no clue where he was, what was going on, or why everyone was so panicked.

When the group reached the front of the security line at the airport, the TSA agents took one look at the wounded soldier. “No.” Several minutes of begging, pleading, and promises to sober-up and look after him finally convinced the security agents to let them move on to the gate. Once there, party members were dispatched for coffee and food to combat the inordinate levels of alcohol coursing through BOTB’s body. They tried to get information about his night out of him, but he seemed to know almost as little as they did. Someone suggested he check his pockets.

BOTB clumsily reached into his left front pocket, and pulled out a receipt. He handed it to A-Train, who looked it over. “$1500. Damn. What about your other pocket?” BOTB fumbled around with his right pocket for a moment, finally pulling his hand out; clutched in his mitt was a wad of receipts as thick as a wallet.

He thrust the small bundle towards A-Train, who took a moment to read through them. When BOTB asked what the total was, A-Train couldn’t do it. He handed them to someone and said, “You tell him.”

“Fifteen…thousand…”

They asked BOTB how he’d racked up that many charges on his credit card. He told them that the card company, after a point, began calling the strip club each time they rang up another exorbitant charge. “They’d hand me the phone; the card company’d ask about the charge, and I’d say it was ok. After a while they started making me fingerprint the receipts for confirmation. And they just kept bringing out champagne…”

Member of group: “Did you at least get head or fuck her or something?”
BOTB: “No…”
A-Train’s brother: “Do you know how many call girls you could’ve gotten for $15,000?!?”

Man of the People

2011-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

"Mmm-mmmmm, bitch!"

I'm not the biggest fan of Guinness, unless I'm dropping a Jameson & Bailey's bomb into it. But I would gladly drink down a pint of it, if I was doing so with the President. And the First Lady gets wifey-props, too, for her little mini-mug.

From AOL Travel:

Obama looked at the assembled crowd and quipped, "I have been told that people are very particular about the person behind the bar." He then glanced at the bartender and said "So people ask for this guy?"

He then took a long sip and said "That's good stuff there."

He looked around a bit, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out some money and stated: "I just want to show that the President pays for his beer."

Obama downed the thick beer in only four slurps. Christy O'Sullivan, a government clerical worker who took a long lunch break to watch the Obama's trip to Moneygall, told the AP: "The president actually killed his pint! He gets my vote. He's the first president I've actually seen drink the black stuff like he's not ashamed of something."

The Liquid Diet

2011-05-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Props to my girl Maria for this find. Sometimes simply drinking your booze isn't quite enough. While at least one of the five items on this list of alcoholic dishes is sure to be well-known among our readers, the others look intriguing. Especially the first one:

Gin paper

Is there anything more useless than a cocktail napkin? Well, bartender Ryan Moore decided to fix that by making the napkin out of gin. It all started with a mistake. According to The Daily, Moore, a bartender at Rogue 24 in Washington, D.C., was trying to concoct an alcohol foam to place over food when he accidentally heated and created a thin film that, when dried, turned into a thin, solid paper made entirely of gin and cellulose. Just don’t try to write your phone number on it.

I think they may have made a mistake, however: They omitted Chef Matt Levin, whose culinary exploration of Four Loko is certainly worthy of consideration.

The Dangers of Day Drinking

2011-05-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

I love a good round of day drinking. In fact, just talking about it now makes me want to find a porch or patio, a case of cold beer, and some friends to share it with. And I'm still recovering from last night's post-apocalyptic partying. I love it just that much.

But, let's be clear: Day drinking is only for those days when you don't have anywhere to be or anything to do. If you plan on being on the move and accomplishing tasks, then you're headed for trouble. Possibly trouble in the form of a light pole.

Wifey Material: Brittany Dailey

2011-05-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Brittany is a new fav of Crooked Straight's. And as you can see here, she also knows how to relax like a true "On the Rocks" wifey: day drinking.

And anyone who knows me knows I like my women well-rounded.

Don't Get Mad, Get Even

2011-05-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Revenge is a shot best served with a “fuck you” chaser.

On the first night of my Dirty-30 celebration two years ago, TJ hit me with a death blow in the form of a somewhat improvised shot. He’d wanted to order me a Liquid Cocaine, but the bar didn’t carry Bacardi 151. In its place, he asked them to mix Goldschlager with the Jager and Rumple Minze that come standard. If I remember correctly, I called upon my

Czech ancestors to curse his soul then and there. Or maybe it was my Seminole ancestors. Or was it my Creole ancestors? All I know is that I wanted some supernatural being to make him feel the same pain that I felt for the next 15 minutes, as my night dutifully faded to black.

I now owe one (or all) of those ancestors dearly, because my call was answered on April 15, 2011.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. On that night, TJ, his son’s mother (“Glitter”), and her boyfriend went to dinner and a Tom Green show in the Waterfront. Chappy, Tony, Dupa, Jay Swag and I started the night in the South Side for the Pens’ game; we then traveled to Bar Louie afterwards (minus Swag) to meet up with TJ’s trio, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Prince of Ligonier, to celebrate TJ’s birthday. The birthday boy was already showing signs of being tipsy, though it may have just been a Friday night free from responsibility, and not the alcohol, that tilted him. As for Glitter, it was most certainly alcohol that was putting in work. She greeted me with a hug, but it was less old-acquaintances-seeing-each-other-after-an-extended-time, and more giddy-five-year-old-at-Disney-World-squeezing-the-ever-loving-shit-out-of-Goofy. TJ reported that she had been drunk enough to loudly interject during the comedy show earlier in the evening, even causing Tom Green to pause and acknowledge one of her comments. Glitter was clearly in honey badger mode. She really didn’t give a shit.

Not too long after arriving, I noticed a trespasser in our ranks. A slim, tall guy in a tight shirt and product-heavy blonde hair had driven the lane and was now face-to-face with Glitter. Given her state—and that her boyfriend was standing next to her—I didn’t find this news relaxing. And when I saw her boyfriend put his hand on LFO’s chest (Glitter would later make the hilarious observation that he looked like a member of LFO) and push him backwards, I immediately darted into the fray, stationing myself between Glitter’s man and the self-tanner spokesmodel.

I hadn’t been the only one watching this pot boil. One of LFO’s friends arrived on the scene at the same time that I did, and quickly had his hands on his tight-shirted comrade to pull him away. But it was soon apparent that LFO wasn’t overlooking the potential fight that his actions were provoking; on the contrary, he was openly inviting it. Before I knew it, he was back on our side of the bar, inches away from me. As Prince, TJ, and Glitter’s man barked from behind me, I laughed off LFO and tried to talk some common sense into him by saying, “Get the fuck out of here before someone destroys you.”

Oddly enough, those soothing words didn’t seem to calm him down.

Let’s review the situation here: LFO was the most metrosexual man on Earth. He had two friends with him, neither of whom was overly imposing, and neither of whom had the same hard on for fisticuffs that he did. I had TJ, Tony, Prince, Chappy, Dupa, and Glitter’s BF lined up behind me. Even in a one-on-one tangle, LFO would’ve been a light snack for any one of us (aside from maybe Chappy; but he’s just dirty enough to use a bottle or other foreign object to tip things in his favor). But, beyond all that, we also had an ace in the hole: the bar’s manager, Stefani [not to be confused with Steph] is an old friend of Dupa’s. There was no scenario in which any of this ended well for LFO.

Although his buddy had once again pulled him over to their side of the bar, LFO continued to mouth off at us, while most of us did our best to ignore him (Prince, full of beer and childlike glee, was mouthing provocations towards him from our side, only to turn back to us and giggle, all to the disapproval of Mrs. Prince). Eventually LFO walked over to the front doors, yelling for any one of us to join him outside. As he stood there in auto-erotic gesticulation, he felt a tap on his shoulder. When he turned around, he found himself face-to-face with the police that Stefani had called. Checkmate.

After a 15 minute conversation with the officers, LFO decided—completely by his own accord, I’m sure—to leave for another bar without any further words or glances in the direction of my crew. With things quieted down, the two female bartenders and a couple of the waitresses came over to share their own encounters with LFO that night. “He was telling everyone that he’s the hottest defense attorney in the city,” reported a waitress. When someone mentioned his two-sizes-too-small shirt, Alyssa—a bartender and Maxim Hometown Hotties contestant—shrugged her shoulders and cracked, “Never trust a man with frosted tips and his nipples out.”

When I suggested that Alyssa, at 5’2”, should try fighting me just like LFO had, she quickly jumped up on the bar and flexed in my face. The thought that I might get frog splashed by a tiny amateur model in the middle of a bar gave me enough pause to consider just how likely my boys would be to believe that I let her take me down. Not very likely, I’m sure.

I would eventually triumph over the short people, though. Stefani, herself all of 5’nothing”, asked for my help in getting a bottle of whiskey down from a high shelf. When she had taken the bottle back behind the bar, I stepped up for another Miller Lite draught. Chappy, however, had also decided to order another drink, and flagged her down first. When Stefani came walking back over with his bottle of Bud Light Lime, I voiced my displeasure.

Me: “I can’t believe that, after I just helped you get that bottle down, you’re going to serve him first!”
Chappy: *laughs in victory as he reaches for his bottle*

Stefani: *grins* “You know what? You’re right. *pulls back the bottle, which was only inches from Chappy’s hand; turns, and puts it in a refrigerator beneath the bar*
Chappy: “Wha..? Hey!”
Stefani: *to me* “Miller Lite draught?”

Chappy was left to whine in protest until after I’d been served my beer and had walked off laughing.

It soon occurred to me that, even though it was close to midnight, TJ was in great condition. This was just unacceptable. I stepped up to get my homie a birthday shot, but froze for a moment while trying to figure out just what to order. Then a villainous grin swept across my face. TJ, looking at me with his eyebrow cocked, sensed something bad was afoot. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I know exactly what I’m getting you.” And if there was any internal doubt about the sincerity of my desire for revenge, it was likely erased by this: When I called over Alyssa, the first thing I asked wasn’t if she knew how to make a Liquid Cocaine; no, the first thing I asked was, “Do you guys have Bacardi 151?” When she frowned a “No,” she likely felt I was going to be disappointed by that response. Oh, how wrong she was. Instead, I smiled. “Great!” I may even have cackled.

I ordered the Goldschlager/Rumple Minze/Jager blend of hell, and then heard lines from Nas’ “I Gave You Power” in my head as I called TJ over: “He walked me outside, saw this cat, cocked me back, said ‘Remember me?’”

Me: “Remember my birthday a couple of years ago?”
TJ: *ice grills me, knowing he can’t argue his way out of this*

I handed him the shot, and Dupa tapped me on the shoulder.

Dupa: “What did you buy him?”
Me: “The Goldschlager/Rumple Minze/Jager shot he got me for my 30th.”
Dupa: *grinning* “It would be pretty messed up if I bought him the same thing right now, wouldn’t it?”
Me: “Yup. Do it.”
Dupa: “On it.”

TJ, to his credit, tossed back the first shot like a soldier. When he was handed another by Dupa, though, just as the first pains from my shot began working their way through his veins, there was murder in his eyes. He gathered his strength, and after a minute tossed back the second one. When he handed over the empty glass, Chappy handed him a Three Wise Men. I think I heard his soul cry.

Then again, it may just have been his Jewish ancestors being summoned.

Fail Tale

2011-05-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

My first thought was to make this a "Social Drinking Excellence" post, but two things changed my mind:

I can't verify that this guy was drunk when he did this.
There's not a whole lot of story here, just a horrible fail.

Not only that, but he dropped and wasted beer. And I simply cannot reward such crimes against humanity.

From Tampa Bay Online:

Authorities are looking for a bungling beer bandit who stumbled during the getaway, dropping his purloined potables.

Polk County sheriff's detectives are seeking information about a man stole two cases of Bud Light from the E-Z Food Store at 15 Acuff Road on Wednesday.

The man ran out of the store with the beer but apparently tripped over his own low-hanging pants. He dropped the beer but dived into the back seat of a waiting black Chevy Malibu that then sped off.

Rumors that Racktacular was the getaway driver have yet to be substantiated.

Going Loko Over "Blast"

2011-04-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed yesterday, when this Huffington Post article caught my eye.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is joining a chorus of state and city officials calling for Pabst Blue Ribbon to reduce the alcohol content in Blast by Colt 45, a high-alcohol malt beverage being promoted by Snoop Dog.

Madigan made the request in a letter to Pabst Thursday, according to a release from her office. She also expressed concern over the product being marketed to minors.

Officials in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Guam, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Washington, and the San Francisco city attorney have all spoken out against the beverage, and some groups have accused Pabst of targeting African American youths specifically.

Apparently I'm a little late to the party. I hadn't even heard of Blast until seeing this article. But since I'm typically the only rational one around (hush...), let me offer my unsolicited thoughts.

First, I think the sheer number of states and politicians chiming in on this "problem" can only mean one thing: it's election season. 2012 is sure to be a hotly-contested, fiercely-debated election year, and the piranhas are swarming on any slow-moving, meaty cow of an issue that comes wading into Shit Creek. Mix that with the media industry's underlying desire to scare you into watching/reading what they have to say, and you get this type of "news". All of the fear-mongering cliches are there. "Targeting African American youths" [And where was all of the concern when alcohol first got thrown at inner city kids, back in the 70s and 80s? Or, for that matter, tobacco? Or a little something called crack?]. "Marketed to minors". "The 'brightly colored cans and fruit flavors' will attract underage drinkers to the 'binge-in-a-can.'" "Blast will kick down the front door of your home, stab you in the gut, and rape your children in front of your dying eyes!"

Okay, I may have made up that last one. Of course, I haven't checked Fox News for their take on the topic yet, so... You could also point to the notion that Snoop's endorsement is an attempt to target youths as preposterous, since Snoop's biggest fanbase at this point in his career are people in their early 30s. Sixteen-year-olds today look at Snoop the same way I look at Smokey Robinson.

Second, the part about bright colors and fruit flavors is particularly laughable. When Four Loko was laying waste to the life of everyone in the nation under the age of 25 six months ago (seriously, if you

were one of the people feeding the hype about the "dangers" of Loko back then, you've got to feel like an idiot right now; if you don't, then you probably also think Sarah Palin's just a good ol' folksy, plain-speakin' gal who waves to Russia every morning), the media and moralists focused their harrumphs on the fact that the cans contained caffeine, not that they're brightly colored and come in a rainbow of fruit flavors. The FDA enacted bans on caffeinated alcoholic drinks, but not fruity ones. And now that the makers of Loko have removed the caffeine and put the very same bright colors and fruit flavors back on the shelves of stores, no one has so much as batted an eyelash. Hey, why bother being "concerned" about something if there's no ratings or prospective votes involved, right? And Loko certainly wasn't the first fruit-flavored alcohol. Remember St. Ides Special Brew? Or wine coolers? Or *gasp*...wine?

And then you have what might be the most outlandish shovelful from the pile behind the bull. Madigan states that, "A product like this only serves to glamorize alcohol abuse and promote binge drinking, threatening the safety of those consuming it." *sigh* Let's get a few things straight here:

Products don't "glamorize alcohol abuse" or "promote binge drinking". True alcohol abuse is a guy working on his third half gallon of cheap gin at 2 pm while burning his kids with a cigarette and polishing his NRA member's license. Doesn't exactly sound like a Super Bowl halftime ad to me. And no matter what uptight parents groups try to tell you, getting drunk with your buddies on a Friday night isn't binge drinking. If every few days you treat alcohol like a bulimic treats the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, then yes, you're a binge drinker. And you need help. If you drink two and a half Four Lokos and then go out to the bar with 15 of your friends and happen to fall asleep while you're there? Not a binge drinker. Still sad? Perhaps (and fuck you). But not a binge drinker.
Blast does not threaten anyone's life. The FDA, as easily bowed by rabble-roused public pressure as they may be, does have something to say about whether or not a liquid sold for human consumption has the power to kill you. It's the same reason you don't see bottles of Mountain Dew "Antifreeze Rush" behind the glass doors at your local convenience stores. The fact of the matter is, the person pouring the alcohol down your throat—which, 9 out of 10 times is you—is what determines whether or not that drink will harm you. Knowing your limits, or knowing if you have a problem that prevents you from knowing your limits, is the only real safeguard you need once a beverage has passed the FDA's primary screening. If the formula gets from the FDA's labs to your lips—without being contaminated by a third party somewhere along the line—and you die from it? Well, your family may not want to hear it, but your death is officially a suicide. There's simply no one to blame but yourself.

Ah, personal accountability...wouldn't that be something? But maybe that's too much work for you. If so, then feel relieved that there are always people like Lisa Madigan, people who are more than willing to let their foolhardy political greed be your babysitter.

A Little Science Makes Everything Better

2011-04-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

A little cheerful news to toast to at happy hour, courtesy of the American Chemical Society:

Researchers are reporting discovery of a scientific basis for extending the shelf life of beer so that it stays fresh and tastes good longer. For the first time, they identified the main substances that cause the bitter, harsh aftertaste of aged beer and suggest that preventing the formation of these substances could help extend its freshness. Their findings appear in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Thomas Hofmann and colleagues point out that beer can develop an unpleasant, bitter aftertaste as it ages. Unlike wine, scotch whiskey, and bourbon, beer tastes best when consumed fresh. Experts estimate that the average beer goes bad after 6 to 12 months of storage. Scientists have identified several dozens of the key bitter-tasting substances formed during beer manufacturing — mostly so-called "prenylated polyketides" derived from hops. Until now, however, nobody had solid information about the bitter substances that form as beer ages.

The scientists analyzed a variety of commercial beers both before and after storage. They identified 56 substances that contribute to beer's bitter taste, including five that appear to be largely responsible for its harsh flavor after aging. "The present study offers the scientific basis for a knowledge-based extension of the shelf life of the desirable beer's bitter taste and the delay of the onset of the less preferred harsh bitter aftertaste by controlling the initial pH value of the beer and by keeping the temperature as low as possible during storage of the final beverage," the study concludes.

Raise your hand if you ever thought you'd see me quote the American Chemical Society on this page? Yup, me neither.

So we have come one step closer to eliminating skunky beer once and forever. I, for one, will certainly drink to that. Now if only they could find a way to create the bottomless mug...