A Fond Farewell

If “Cooley High” and Boyz II Men have taught us anything, it’s that it’s so hard to say goodbye. On the other hand, though, alcohol has taught us that if you don’t remember it, it didn’t happen. So if a dear friend is moving on in life, but she throws herself a going away party so sadistically drenched in alcohol that you wake up at 5 am the following morning without the slightest clue how you got in someone’s living room, then you never said goodbye and she hasn’t left, right?

Steph—oh she of the wondrously foul mouth and generous pour, packed neatly within a demure “girly-girl” exterior—recently came to a realization: Like others before her who are high on talent, personality, and ambition, she has finally accepted that Pittsburgh is no place to waste her life away. And so, eager for opportunity and a better life, she has decided to move to New York City. [Note: If anything in the prior two sentences came across as sarcasm, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth; the tone is meant to be more of a seething jealousy.] Ever the enabler, last Friday she christened her departure by hosting a party that also broke the proverbial champagne bottle over the bow of my belligerent inebriation.

I started the night by meeting Dupa on Mt. Washington. Each of us parked our car near Jay Swag’s house, with the hopes of falling down either there or somewhere near there when all was said and done. Dupa arrived a good 20 minutes later than me, having had a minor fender-bender while in transit. Some clown with a less-than-agile right foot had not hit his brakes early enough, and as a result slid into the back of Dupa’s car as my friend sat idling at a red light. The two drivers pulled off to the side of the road to inspect their respective bumpers; luckily no real damage had been done.

Dupa: “He said, ‘My bad man, I’m kind of in a hurry.’”
Me: “Did you exchange insurance?”
Dupa: *completely serious* “No, I told him, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ and got back in my car.”

We made our way to Station Square via a rectangular blast furnace on rails that the Port Authority of Allegheny County has the nerve to call the Monongahela Incline. Air conditioning and the Incline have yet to meet, and on Friday it was 92°F with humidity somewhere in the mid-90th percentile—at 7:30 pm. And that was the outside air temperature; inside the small, enclosed rail cars, you could double each of those numbers. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Station Square bars pay the Incline operators to pump heat into the funiculars just to ensure that customers go searching for cold beverages when they get to the bottom.

Round 1 of Steph’s party kicked off at Bar Louie Station Square with dinner and drinks in the VIP area, thanks to a friend of mine who hooked us up [astute readers will note that this is the very same VIP area that hosted my 30th birthday celebration last year; Dupa almost looked out of place without a bachelorette party participant perched on his shoulder]. I, of course, made use of the $34 all-you-can-drink-top-shelf special that my friends and I have looked back upon fondly since last year. Chelsea, a wonderful princess of a waitress, made it her duty to have a new Red Bull and Ketel One ready for me as I finished each previous one. And the party’s attendance count grew as quickly as my drink count did. Bill, Shannon, The Entertainer, and even Hurley joined the throng of people bidding adieu to Steph’s life as a Pittsburgher. And my friend “Biff” arrived after pulling together an impromptu—yet well-executed—prank.

It was simplistic in nature and origin: Early in the night, Dupa sent a text to Biff to ask if he was on his way. Biff, feeling saucy, decided to respond with “Who is this?” Dupa showed us the text, and then responded with, “The guy you met in the bathroom at Elixir last week.” While he did that, I quickly shot off a text of my own to Biff: “[Dupa]’s almost buying it. Keep going.” And so began our dance (forgive my paraphrasing, but neither Dupa nor Biff gave me a transcript, and I was a good four or five Red Bull and Vodkas in by this point).

Biff to Dupa: “This is [Biff]’s mother. He has a new phone with a new number, and he gave me his old one.”
[Dupa begins to bite, but is still skeptical. He asks around the party if anyone knows of Biff changing his cell number. All along the way I’m behind him mouthing the words “SAY YES!” to everyone. At Bill’s suggestion, he sends…]
Dupa to Biff: “Prove it—show me your breasts.”
Biff to Dupa: “That’s highly inappropriate. If you want to talk to [Biff], his new number is 814-xxx-xxxx.”
[Dupa is stammering. Steph, Bill, and the rest of us are laughing hysterically. Dupa recognizes the “814” as a Johnstown area code, and suspects it to be the phone number of Biff’s buddy, Pete.]
Me to Biff: “You almost had him, but he figured it out when you used an ‘814’ instead of a ‘412’.”
Dupa to Biff: “That’s a Johnstown area code, so I know that’s not his number.”
Biff to Dupa: “That’s his work number. His personal cell phone is 412-xxx-xxxx.”
Biff to Me: “Don’t worry, I fixed it.”
[Dupa’s really worried now, as the added depth to the story—and the added alcohol he had consumed as time went on—was now convincing him that not only had he just told his friend’s mother that her son had picked him up in a public restroom, he had also asked her to show him her boobs.]
Dupa to Me: “Fuck! *thinks* I should text [Baby Joey] and ask him if [Biff] changed his number.”
Me to Dupa: “Probably worth a shot.”
Me to Biff: “He’s going to text [Baby Joey]!”
Biff to Me: “Don’t worry, I took care of it.”
Dupa to Joey: “Did [Biff] change his cell number?”
Joey to Dupa: “Yeah, the other day.”
[Dupa crumples into a ball, fully expecting an ass kicking in his near future.]

When Biff finally walked into Bar Louie chuckling, Dupa was more relieved than angry. I think it’s safe to say that finding out your friends have been messing with your head is a far better alternative to finding out that you’ve brazenly asked your friend’s mom to sext you.

The party moved to Buckhead at about 10. We had not planned on going there, but given its location (across the street) and the temperature (Bar Louie’s air conditioning was turned off, inexplicably), it just made good sense. Despite the lack of forewarning that Buckhead’s staff was given, Steph was able to negotiate free admission for everyone in her party (good luck pulling that one off in New York).

Things rapidly got hazy, for all of us. Dupa was “iced” by Entertainer, while Shannon and I openly wondered why we even associate with them. Steph pinballed between the four or five clusters of partygoers that had formed around the club’s main bar—and did shots at each stop. Biff held court in one of the huddles, with several of the party’s beautiful women around him; this led him to say to Dupa, “You see this? You see all of these girls? I look like the man right now, right? Nah. None of them want me. I’m deep in the ‘friend zone’.” And Hurley and I, each armed with an open tab of our own, caused me to tweet, “Hurley and I might have the most violent friendship in history. We literally will spend any amount to kill each other with shots.”

Legitimately twisted, he and I followed Steph’s bar crawl to its third location, Whim; Dupa, Entertainer, and Shannon, however, all set off for Jack’s Bar in South Side. This was my first time being inside Whim since its previous life as my beloved Margarita Mama's. It has a very Studio 54-ish feel to it; that’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s not a deal-breakingly bad thing, either. I’d only recommend it for those times when one finds himself in precisely the same circumstances in which Hurley and I found ourselves that night: part of a group that featured a high percentage of females, in high spirits, and floating towards a blackout, with no real agenda for the rest of the night.

After a beer or two—and possibly more shots (my ability to memorize was seriously hindered by that point, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out our sadistic game of “Last Man Standing” following us to Whim)—my boy and I finally bid adieu to Steph and the remaining partiers, deciding to cab our way over to Jack’s. When we found our three fellow refugees from the party at the back bar, they were engaged in the same activity as before: championship boozing. Some of our friends who hadn’t been a part of Steph’s celebration had also joined up at Jack’s, and they were no less enthusiastic than the rest of us to order more rounds of shots and drinks. I can—and more or less have to—sum up the rest of my bar night with the following two simultaneous conversations that took place the next morning.

Me to Dupa (in person): “Where did you lose me last night?”
Me to Hurley (text message): “Where did I lose you last night?”
Dupa to Me: “I think when you left Jack’s to go to Rumshakers.”
Me to Dupa: “We were at Jack’s?”
Hurley to Me: “Too many shots. I don’t know. Maybe Jack’s?”
Me to Hurley: “No, you were with me at Rumshakers.”
Hurley to Me: “We were at Rumshakers?”

I woke up alone in a living room, sitting upright on a couch. I wasn’t wearing my shirt or my shoes. The TV was on, and with a random infomercial playing on the screen. I looked around some more. I was in Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s living room. But it had been weeks since I’d seen either of them. At least I thought it had. Had I met up with Swag somewhere last night? How else would I have gotten into their living room? Did I break in? I began looking around the room for my shirt and shoes. Nothing. I carefully made my way up the stairs to the guest room. There were my shoes sitting neatly in the corner, with my wallet and watch stashed in them. And draped over a chair was my shirt. I laid down on the bed, content to sleep for another few hours, when one last thought made me jump up. Opening my phone and using the light from the screen, I checked inside my wallet. Debit card? Check. Credit card? Check. License? Check. I exhaled and fell backwards onto the mattress.

As I drifted off, I thought to myself, “Did I see Steph last night?”

Brilliant Insanity: B-Day '09 [Saturday]

[The conclusion of the 48 hour booze race...]

• While I was still fighting through a raging hangover the next afternoon, T.C. called to inform me that the Buffalo boys had already began drinking in the South Side. It was only 2 pm. I showered and shaved, and then rolled out around 5, stopping at a convenience store to pick up a bottle of Gatorade (for hydration recovery) and a can of Monster (for sleep deprivation). I slammed the bottle of Gatorade before I reached the Wendy’s drive-thru for a chicken sandwich (the only food I had eaten to that point in the day) and a milkshake (to coat my stomach prior to that night’s onslaught). I had finished my sandwich and shake by the time I caught up with the guys at 1311 Tavern.

• The Buffalo boys were crushed. When they stumbled out the door a half hour later, one of them (Pete) ran into the doorframe, bouncing off and onto the sidewalk without even realizing it.

• Dupa had met up with us a little late, and only had time for one quick drink before we left for the Sheraton in Station Square, where Girlfriend had booked a room. His choice? A pitcher of cherry vodka and Diet Coke. Granted, it was about half the size of a standard beer pitcher, but it was still large enough for him to need T.C. and I to help him kill it before we departed.

• T.C. walked to the nearby Holiday Inn, where the Buffalo Boys were lodged. Dupa and I took my car over to the Sheraton. In navigating our way over there, we happened to approach an intersection as T.C. crossed it. As we blasted past him, Dupa shouted, “Get out of the way, you Irish fuck!” With both of us nearly in tears from laughter, he looked at me and said, “It’s going to be a good night!”

• Girlfriend went all-out for the occasion. Not only did she book the room so that she and I had somewhere near the action to crash, but she stocked it with a case of Miller Lite, a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, and a bottle of Patron. She’s pure wifey material, folks.

• Unfortunately, to go to any of the guest floors of the Sheraton by elevator, you have to first swipe a room key. This meant that I had to go downstairs and escort anyone coming up to meet us. I first did so with Hurley, and then made a second trip to collect T.C. and the Buffalo boys. The hotel was swarming with girls age 5 through 17 that day, as a large dance competition was being held in the convention hall. Boarding the elevator with T.C. and the boys, we found ourselves sharing it with a girl, about 12 years old, and her chaperone. The chaperone was a heavy woman who appeared to be closer in age to us. As the elevator lifted off, she cracked that her charge was too young for us.

Me: *blinks* “Ooookkkkkaaayyyy”

We politely laughed at the unnecessary joke. We reached the girls’ floor, and as they parted through us to exit, Chaperone said, “We don’t want any perverts!” We were all stunned and confused for a split second. But before the doors closed, T.C. chirped up, “Yeah—and we don’t want any fat chicks!”

• At Bar Louie we discovered that for $15 per hour in the private section, you could purchase an all-you-can drink special featuring top shelf alcohol. Bang. 17 of us signed up for two hours of Jack Daniels, Grey Goose, and Ketel One. With tip, the bill for the alcohol came out to about $600 at the end of the special. The waiter said, “You guys drank over $1000 in alcohol tonight—you just made $400 on us.”

• Pakistanimal spotted a plump woman out on the main floor wearing a blueberry-colored jogging suit. He noted to us that she looked like Violet Beauregarde in the original "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Dupa walked downstairs for a closer look; upon returning to our lounge, he announced, “Oh my g—I just came in my pants!” Laughing, all I could say was, “Dude,” while pointing at my friend Michele, a coworker who was seated with her husband on a couch 3 feet away from him, cracking up. Realizing his level of inappropriateness, Dupa countered, “I immediately regret saying that!”

• Dupa “found” a pair of white-framed sunglasses on the bar, and rocked them for the rest of the night. The look led to me saying the next day, “You looked like a chubby Scott Storch. You’re ‘Scott Starch’!”

• Pete and T.C. began an ice cube war, tossing them halfway across the large lounge. Hurley and I, seated near Pete while we ate our dinner, joined on his side. Cubes were raining down on T.C., to our giggling delight. At one point, Pete fired a shot that landed flush against the side of T.C.’s head. Before he could react, a second volley came from Hurley; it hit the small table next to T.C., and then bounced up and smacked him in the face.

• There were a few bachelorette parties at Bar Louie that night, and one of them soon found their way over to our private lounge. The 20+ guys we had gathered for the party quickly swooped in, chit-chatting and helping the girls achieve their bachelorette party tasks (getting bench-pressed by a guy, getting a lap dance from a guy, etc.). Dupa, in pure heaven, took several pictures with the ladies, including a series in which he picked the bachelorette up into his arms, and then began swinging her around into different positions, as if performing a figure skating routine. Later, as we were leaving, he tried to get a picture while holding up two of the girls—one in each arm. He promptly fell backwards, and the camera flashed as all three lay on the floor of the lounge in pain, embarrassment, and laughter.

• I had a steady flow of Red Bull and Vodkas coursing through my veins. I routinely double-fisted, occasionally with a third drink warming up “on deck”. As the last minutes of the special ticked away, someone in the party—a saint amongst men—told the waiter to make all drinks doubles.

• The night was well documented photographically, by both me and Dupa. He recently purchased a new digital camera. It’s waterproof, a fact he displayed by repeatedly dunking it into his drinks. Standing in line for CC Saloon, he accidentally fumbled it. Our gasps were met with the unruffled demeanor of Dupa.

Dupa: “It’s shockproof, too. See?” *drops camera onto the concrete intentionally*

• Girlfriend paused to take a picture with the cop standing outside of CC Saloon. She put her hands out, wrists together, and he pretended to put his handcuffs on her.

Me: “You mind if I borrow those later?”

• The scene in Carson City was crazy, with approximately 40 – 50 of my friends packed into the area surrounding the main bar, dancing, drinking, and laughing.

• I was in remarkably good condition, largely because I refused shots all night. After Friday night, the thought of doing a shot made me gag. Pakistanimal bought me a Jager Bomb, which I politely sipped at for about 20 minutes, until Girlfriend grabbed it off me and tossed it back like a pro. A few minutes later Baby Joey alerted me that he would be buying me a shot. He asked what I wanted; “Water.” He wouldn’t agree to that but sensed my plight , so he bought me the girliest drink he could think of: a Redheaded Slut. I did the shot—it’s more or less like drinking Kool Aid—with ease, but I was spotted by Pakistanimal, who thought the embargo was lifted. He bought another Jager Bomb, which I handed to GG.

GG: “This is yours, I don’t want to do it.” Me: “Look, I can’t do it. So either you do it, or I’m pouring it out.” GG: “Well, in that case…*takes cup and throws it back*

• Hollywood came to CC Saloon straight from a wedding, and was three sheets to the wind the second he walked through the doors. He wore a jacket, dress shirt, and tie; all three were nearly danced off him by TD, Shock, and Girlfriend. I put on his jacket, which quite-obviously did not fit me, and paraded around the bar. While doing this, though, I missed out on the following action: TD accidentally tripped and fell into a random tall blonde standing near our group; the bitchy Amazon shoved TD backwards before any kind of apology could be made; Hollywood jumped to his friend’s defense, pushing Bitchy. A scuffle ensued, and Hollywood was booted. I escorted him outside, where he proceeded to yell challenges to a guy standing nearby who, though he had been in the bar, had nothing to do with the altercation. I told Hollywood to shut up and clean himself up, noting that his wifebeater (tank top) had gotten ripped during the fight. He was too gone to hear me, though. Releasing a primal growl, he ripped apart the wifebeater and spiked it to the ground in a display worthy of his “Gay Hulk” nickname. After a few more minutes of standing around, he suddenly took off running (in a manner Girlfriend described as “like a duck”), disappearing into the alleyway behind the bar. We later found out that he tracked down the kid he had been yelling at, swung at him, missed, and tackled him to the ground. A cop nearby, who knows Hollywood, pulled him off of the kid and told him to get the fuck out of there. How he got back home safe is a mystery to all of us, including Hollywood himself.

• Girlfriend negotiated for a minivan taxi, already inhabited by Chappy and two females who I had never met before, to take us back to the Sheraton. The girl sitting in the front seat of the taxi was attractive, and seemed to know both Chappy and the driver. When we reached Station Square, she opened her door to leave. Chappy, in a last-ditch effort, said, “Why don’t you come up to Mt. Washington with me? We’re going to drink some more and hang out.” The girl barely glanced at him, then hugged the cabbie and said, “Ok, bye” before hopping out and trotting off.

Girlfriend and I woke up the next morning, exhausted. She had been the drunker of the two of us at the end of the night, and her head was pounding out its revenge. My ban on shots had worked beautifully, and I was actually able to look at sunlight without wincing.

Who’s the insane one now?

Brilliant Insanity: B-Day '09 [Intro and Friday]

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” What does it mean, then, if you do the same thing and you do achieve different results?

Last year, I hosted a birthday party for over two dozen of my friends in Station Square, and suffered one of the most epic fails of my boozing resume. So this year, I wanted to avoid the entire large-scale event all together. I was weary of gathering together a horde of deviant drinkers who were going to turn me into a barely functioning vegetable by 11 pm. Why go overboard? Heck, why even celebrate the day? Despite what one might glean from some of my stories, I’m not big on being the center of attention (well, not all of the time). Why not just have drinks quietly with a few of my good friends at a bar? I didn’t want a big party because it would be a hassle, and because it would mean scores of people trying to pour shots down my throat (and because I was turning 30).

The forces of the universe, however, conspired against me. Early in March, T.C. and I were contacted by the guys we partied with in San Diego last summer. They wanted to make a weekend trip to Pittsburgh for shits and giggles. The Saturday that was the most accommodating for everyone’s social calendars? March 28th; a.k.a. the day before my birthday. Now we had eight booze hounds travelling from Buffalo, looking for a day of the best our city had to offer them. So much for enjoying a quiet night.

T.C. and I then set about working out a dinner plan where we could accommodate 20+ people. Our first idea, Smoking Joe’s, fell through, so Girlfriend took charge and set up a dinner party in Bar Louie Station Square’s private room, along with drunk limo transportation to Carson City Saloon afterwards. I now had a party consisting of 20 – 50 people (almost as many—if not more—of my friends planned to skip the first half of the night, and meet up with us at CC Saloon), a private room, limos, and multiple locations requiring the logistics management of my girlfriend, T.C., and I. Girlfriend cracked that it was my “MTV Sweet 16 party”. It’s always the ones you love the most who can own you the fiercest.

So much took place that weekend, however, that I feel writing a detailed play-by-play would take at least three blog posts. I will instead try to condense the highlights for your time-killing enjoyment (and this is a long one, so I’ll break it into two parts):

• Since TJ had to work Saturday night, he set about annihilating me on Friday night. He, “Pakistanimal” (no real need for an alias, but he’s been crying for the past few months that he doesn’t have one, so hopefully he’ll shut up about it now), Dupa, and I hit The ‘Side for a booze smorgasbord. I promptly blacked out before midnight, yet somehow made it home in one piece and without vomiting.

• That last part is all the more notable when you consider the birthday shot that TJ bought me. He and his peoples have a tradition of doing a Liquid Cocaine shot—a potent combination of Bacardi 151, Jager, and Rumple Minze—on birthdays. The bar at Shady Grove, however, didn’t have 151 on hand (I mean, of the three, how is that the ingredient they don’t carry?), so TJ’s ingenious solution was to replace it with Goldschlager. Ouch.

The best way to describe this shot is to compare it to the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon that is used to kill the sentinels near the end of “The Matrix”. The mixture hits your stomach and explodes, sending out shockwaves that shut down everything in your central nervous system.

• Pakistanimal ran into a blonde girl he knew from W&J. The last time he had seen her, some years ago, she (1.) mistook him for a friend of ours nicknamed “Black Sean” because…well, his name’s Sean and he’s Black; and (2.) told him the only reason that he (Sean) had made it into law school was because he’s Black. So, on this night, Pakistanimal decided to address this previous encounter. After first snapping a picture with her, he then reminded her of her comments. “First of all, I’m not Sean; and second of all, I’m not Black, I’m Pakistani, you racist!”

As a tear began its trail down her cheek, she responded, “I’m not a racist—I work for the ACLU!!”

To be continued...