Driving Angry

Things got a little out of hand last night in Pittsburgh's South Side, an area of the city where many-an-On-The-Rocks-tale has taken place over the years. A gem of a human being, it seems, decided to take out his self-hatred on several cars, street signs, pedestrians, and a night club.

As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler said around 2:30 a.m., Maceo Fulmore, 23, crashed into the front of Diesel Club Lounge on East Carson Street near 17th Street, and proceeded to hit seven vehicles, two parking signs, two trees, a fence, a telephone pole and a fire hydrant. He also ran over a white male in his 20s, who was taken to UPMC Mercy for related injuries. Authorities are not releasing the injured man's name.

There were no other reported injuries, Ms. Toler said.

A nearby patrolling officer heard the series of collisions and found witnesses dragging Mr. Fulmore from his car and punching him. The arresting officer broke up the fray, and reported Mr. Fulmore was visibly drunk.

Thankfully the young field reporter in-the-making below was on hand to record "about 90% of it" (and to repeatedly tell people he got about 90% of it).



Not only have a good deal of On The Rocks' stories taken place in the South Side, but a few have even featured Diesel—the club that Fulmore rammed with his Jeep. Here's to being mature enough to keep my old ass from around there last night.

Welcome to the Grown-Ass Man Club

I turned 30 in March ‘09. And one of these days I may finally make peace with it. In the meanwhile, I’ve found some comfort in watching most of my friends endure the milestone. My standard text message/Facebook-wall-post on these occasions has been, “Welcome to the Grown-Ass Man Club. We meet on Saturdays. Bring scotch.”

This month saw the induction of two new club members: T.C. and Alex. T.C.’s birthday was on the 16th; his family, Hurley, and I did a little dinner in the South Side that night, complete with a cake shaped like a stein of beer. While the night was fun, it was relatively non-alcoholic (Hurley and I indulged in a couple of drinks each, just because we’re us). Everyone deserves to get ass-on-the-floor drunk in celebration of his or her 30th, though, and T.C. wisely formed a plan to do so.

He was assisted in this by the timing of Alex’s Dirty-Thirty party. Her birthday falls eight days after T.C.’s, and her friends would be holding a bash for her at Whim in Station Square the Saturday between the two days (5/19). T.C. decided he’d start that night with Alex’s soiree, and then move onto one of his own in Shadyside. Since The ‘Side is my turf, I was appointed second-in-command. O’Captain, my captain…

With so much fun scheduled for Saturday, I planned to relax on Friday and conserve my energy. What I didn’t plan on, however, was Pakistanimal getting a “hall pass” from his wife that night. He called me shortly after I’d come home from the barbershop, with designs on getting a whole different kind of fade going.

Me: “I’m staying in tonight.”
Pak: “I’ll be at your place at 8:30.”

*sigh*

He brought a bottle of Kraken with him, and was barely inside my apartment door before he was mixing together two cups of Kraken-&-Coke. While I wasn’t thrilled about having my night hijacked, I couldn’t let that delicious spiced rum go to waste. And then, strangely, I found my agitation being slowly washed away with each sip. For my second round, I abandoned the Kraken and made myself an Elder & Wiser (bourbon, St-Germain, and apple juice). And I soon forgot that I had ever considered not partying that night.

We hit up William Penn Tavern, which had a healthy Friday night crowd buzzing inside. Pak ordered himself a Captain-&-Coke, and I told the bartender that I wanted a bourbon-&-Coke. He handed us a Captain-&-Coke and a…?

Pak: “Is that a bourbon-&-Coke?”
Bartender: “No—I thought you said a ‘bourbon-&-soda’!”
Me: *blank stare*

A bourbon-&-soda? The fuck? I was more than a little disturbed by the lack of hesitation he showed in taking what he thought he’d heard and making it a reality. I know Shadyside attracts a slightly more refined crowd than say, the South Side; but are people around here really ordering that concoction? And at such a rate that he doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when he “hears” it?

He offered to take the drink back and get me a bourbon-&-Coke, but once again I wasn’t interested in wasting liquor. Now that Daddy had gotten a taste, I wasn’t letting any of it get away. I drank the misbegotten mixture as Pak and I lost convincingly at darts to two random guys. When it was time for a re-up, I stepped back up to the bar and gave the same order Pak and I had placed earlier. And once again, the bartender came back with one Captain-&-Coke and one bourbon-&-soda.

I was starting to take this shit personally.

A cute girl sitting in front of us at the bar was Johnny-on-the-spot; she noticed the error before even I could. She took the drink from me, called over the bartender, and told him to fix my order. The take-charge attitude, the Lisa Loeb-vibe her eyeglasses gave, and her pretty face had me falling hard. Before I could start contemplating names for our future children, though, another curveball was thrown, this time by Hurley.

Hurley [via text]: “Come to [Diesel] and call my name. I got bottle service.”

Uh oh.

My nerd-hot love would have to wait for destiny’s next entanglement. Pak and I got to the South Side as fast as we could, and found…pretty much what we expected. Hurley was obliterated, as was his boy who co-signed the bottle service. They had a few random people in their VIP room that they’d pulled in from the passing throng; girls mostly—hot ones, when at all possible. Three bottles of Grey Goose stood on the table with cranberry juice, Coke [“Sure,” I thought. “NOW I have unlimited access to Coke…], and orange juice, daring me. I filled up a glass with Goose and cran, and then took a sip and realized I had grabbed the carafe of Coke by mistake in the dim room. Oh, the irony… The mix still went down smooth. “Yup,” I thought, “I’m definitely drunk.”

We drank and charmed ‘til closing time, doing our best to find hot girls to come share in the Grey Goose bounty laid out before us. And, as the lights in the club were coming up, the lights in my blotto mind were going down. Blacked-to-the-out. I awoke with the usual “What-the-fuck-was-just-happening?” startle on Saturday morning, snug in my bed sheets. I drifted back to sleep with the cloudy foreshadowing of a hangover, and the slightly-more-painful understanding that I had an even bigger night still ahead of me.

I arrived at Whim that night as the party began gathering steam. Alex’s friends had reserved a roped-off section of the club, adorned it with special napkins and balloons, and arranged a champagne toast. It was the typical elaborate, thoughtful, but-a-touch-too-ambitiously-austere party that girls tend to naively plan. It was sweet of them, and I’m sure Alex—being that she’s a girl—loved it. As a guy, well…trust me, no man wants a coronation ceremony after losing his twenties. For all the bad that went on during my relationship with The Ex, I’ll always be grateful for the job she did in planning the party for my 30th birthday. It was elaborate, sure, but it never carried that overwrought I’m-a-big-girl-now feel that women usually build into their big parties. In other words, it was fun.

Earlier in the day, Entertainer had made it known that he wanted to join T.C. and I in adjourning to Shadyside for the second half of the night. But now, as Alex’s party got into gear, it was ever-so-obvious that he was already too drunk to make the transition. T.C. and I were taking it easy, and drank only two beers apiece while biding our time until we could escape. Entertainer, on the other hand, was slamming shots and drinking full cups of vodka. Youngins… When T.C. and I kissed the girls goodbye and headed towards the parking lot, we had to leave our comrade to the care of his girlfriend, Shannon, all of us understanding that trying to do the Shadyside portion of the night would likely kill him.

T.C. and I found our way to Shady Grove, where we met up with Tony, Nate, two of Nate’s boys, and our buddy Trip. Beautiful Coors Light girls patrolled the premises, as did a multitude of attractive women who weren’t being paid to flirt with the bachelors among our ranks. T.C. and his wedding band, when not watching on in amusement, did their flirting with shot glasses at the bar. Eventually our friend “Lotus” made her way to the bar, adding a touch of feminine charm to our drunken male banter. Any charm I was adding, however, came straight from the Elder & Wisers I was putting away one after another.

Several drinks and shots had been thrown T.C.’s way by the time she got there, but that wasn’t good enough for Lotus. “You’re not drunk enough,” she protested to T.C. “I’m buying you a shot!” An hour or so later, she looked over at T.C. and said (with a noticeable slur), “He still doesn’t look like he’s drunk!” “Trust me,” I countered, having spotted the telltale signs—talking loudly, eyelids dropped slightly during regular conversation and squeezed completely shut when placing emphasis on a particular point, etc.—that T.C. was feeling it. “He’s crushed.”

We fit in another couple of rounds of shots—and a round of drinks—as 2 a.m. came calling, and then all headed out into the night. Tony, T.C., and I did the gentlemanly thing and walked Lotus home. About halfway there, though, her own drunken “tell” raised its head: stubbornness. Despite being an intoxicated, attractive woman walking along a dark city street, Lotus objected to being escorted. She stopped dead in her tracks and refused to walk any further if we continued to follow her. We negotiated for a minute, and finally she agreed to move on with just me chaperoning her, while Tony and T.C. headed straight back to my place. [Don’t bother asking what kind of sense this makes; I assure you, it makes none.] Once she was safely in her place, I headed home and caught up with the boys as they reached my block. Lotus sent me this the next morning: “Omg what did u guys do to me last night? Haha the path to my room looks like a tornado came thru!!”

T.C.’s night ended with less spinning winds, and more spinning rooms. He hugged my toilet for about 20 minutes, as Tony and I tried to talk over the awful retching sounds coming from behind the bathroom door. When he had finally emptied himself of all that he could force out, he stumbled out to the living room shirtless, and plopped down awkwardly on my loveseat, passing out in mere seconds.

No one said becoming a Grown-Ass Man was pretty.

What I Learned This Summer (2011)

[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…”

Yup, I was standing in the middle of Interstate 579. I’m infinitely grateful that no cars or semis were on that stretch of highway at that moment—although I’m sure it would’ve clued me in a little faster. As you might imagine, I wasted little time scurrying the rest of the way across the highway and up over the embankment.

• 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.

They held at least four or five parties over the course of the summer; the invitation for one even led to a “Wifey Material” post. These are some new friends that I definitely cherish.

• 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.

I relayed this information to the group, but Enzie struck upon an idea. Squeezing together her ample chest in her tank top, she told me to snap a picture of her cleavage and send it to him. A few minutes after I’d hit “send”, Armo responded with, “Well, I guess I can stay up for a little while longer. How long ‘til you guys get here?”

• 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, Belle, 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.

Then, while next door at Saddle Ridge (…fight me), that end finally came. Enzie wanted to dance again, and again dragged Kara out to the dance floor. I turned my attention towards the bar, trying to find Russ, who had walked over there a few minutes prior. Then I heard a thud. I spun around to find Enzie sitting on the floor in a heap near my feet. She had come running over to where I was—still barefoot—and slipped in the process, going down hard [the following week a doctor would diagnose her with a separated shoulder, caused by bracing herself as she fell]. In running from the dance floor, she had somehow managed to elude Kara’s observation, and I now had to signal her to come over and assist our drunken Italian friend. I helped her get back up on her bare feet; Kara decided it was best to quit while Enzie wasn’t ahead, and to take her back to her house in Mt. Washington for the night. I agreed, saying goodbye to them and finishing out the night at the bar with Russ and a group of bachelorettes.

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.

The Calm Before the Storm

It’s been a little quiet here at On the Rocks this week; but have no fear, inebriation is coming. Saturday will be Toe’s birthday celebration—and you all know how those turn out around here. Last year his birthday party resulted in an energetic lesbian lovefest in Diesel’s VIP section. Not surprisingly, we’ll be back at Diesel again this year, and again we are scheduled to have a table or two in VIP. Girlfriend will be there, and she’s bringing some friends.

“Honey check it,
Tell your friends, to get with my friends,
And we can be friends…
Shit we can do this every weekend…
Aight? Is that aight with you?
Yeah... keep bangin”

I foresee Dupa dancing on a couch wearing stunna shades—and no pants. I foresee Girlfriend (who, at 3:47 pm this afternoon sent me a text message that said, plainly and succinctly, “Car bomb”; god I love that woman) extending her pinkie while downing muchas Coronas. I foresee Chappy bailing on everyone in pursuit of a girl who he won’t score with. I foresee a Farmer’s Special at Tom’s Diner at 2:30 a.m. I foresee…well, basically, more of the lunacy that has taken place at every other birthday outing that I’ve been a part of before [If you doubt me, scroll down to the “Labels” list below. Click on “birthday”…and picture me rollin’.]

Monday, however, will be an even bigger event (and, in my decidedly un-Christian view of life, the real holiday of the week): the Pittsburgh Pirates' Home Opener. I wrote last year about the escapades that the day saw, and I fully expect more of the same this time around. Tony and I talked last night, and it looks like we’ve nearly doubled our number of revelers. We could be pushing the needle towards “epic.”

So enjoy this mild pause in the action, readers. Rest your eyes, because the forecast is calling for a heavy downpour of “lol” across the page next week. Salud.

Random Scraps of Fantastic

Is it just me, or does that title sound like the name of a rock band?

I laid low this past weekend (not entirely by my choosing, but oh well), so there’s no got-drunk-and-streaked-through-city-hall stories for you to shake your heads at; not this week, at least. I thought I’d take this opportunity to catch up on some small stories and postscripts related to recent blogs of mine that haven’t been reported yet.

• The St. Patrick's Day Massacre – I had thought that I left the Irish cap from the picture behind before we left Shannon’s apartment that afternoon; I distinctly remembered leaving it on a doorknob in her place. But, apparently, I was wearing it all day. I know this now because:
  
  At some point in the day an unknown trespasser kicked down Shan’s front door; he or she then closed it again without taking anything from her apartment. When I came by that night to see if anyone was home and found the door locked (oblivious to the damage done by the force-in, or the footprint left on the door), I left the hat on the doorknob outside and walked off to my car. So some of my friends, upon returning to her place and finding the scene, assumed it was me who kicked in the door. Let’s be real, though; I’m not saying I would never kick a door in, but I definitely would never leave incriminating evidence behind. Even when I’m drunk, I’m not that stupid.
• B-Day – When Tony saw me heading for the bathroom, he rushed in and found me at the sink and the random victim of my digestive acrobatics standing there in shock. Looking to keep the guy calm, he said, “I’m sorry man; it’s his birthday.” Then, as he was turning to leave behind me (I was getting kicked out, of course), he pointed to the stack of white t-shirts that the bathroom attendant was selling, and suggested, “You should probably grab a shirt off him.”
• 5 Nights in Tampa – One of our customers (“L-Boogie”), who I usually only see at the conference, is a tall, leggy blonde with large breasts who is a lot of fun to hang out with—not like that, you heathens; she’s a married woman (shut up TJ). Last year, my birthday was the last day of the conference. So that night she and some other friends of ours took me out on the town in Austin, TX. At one bar, I was talking to one of my coworkers when I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw that L-Boogie had a shot glass full of liquor sitting neatly in the cleavage of her tank-top. And all she said was, “Let’s go.” When I said she was fun, you had no idea, right? Fast-forward to this past March, and the St. Patrick’s Day reception on the first day of the conference. She was wearing a business suit, the skirt of which was blissfully short. “Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting” was how one of my friends put it. My department manager was talking with her; he called me over and asked, “Have you met [L-Boogie]?” The green beer told me to glance down at her chest and say, “You better BELIEVE it!” But I remembered that this was the man who authorizes my paycheck, so I bit my lip, smiled at her, and said, “Yes, we’ve met.”
• 
  5 Nights in Tampa – The favorite pastime at “The Club” was a touch screen game called “Wordster” (I know this sounds odd in an establishment that features dancing, nearly-naked women, but don’t underestimate the addictiveness of video puzzle games). TJ, the manager (what’s good “Big Poppa Ike”?), one of the bar regulars, Sage, a few of the other dancers, and I would all sit around the machine scrambling to come up with words that we had learned in 12th grade English class. When I would take a seat in one of the barstools in front of the game, it wouldn't be long before one of the dancers playing would climb up onto my lap. I honestly didn’t notice it while it was going on—partly because of the Makers & Cokes that S-Money was mixing, and partly because I was intently focused on the game (okay, now it’s even sounding a little sad to me, too)—but a majority of the time that I was seated, I had a dancer sitting in my lap. A week or so later, while talking with TJ and looking back on the trip, I came to a realization: “I was like the strip club Santa Claus.” I owe him another bottle of Parrot Bay.
• O.P.P. in V.I.P. – While standing at the bar with my friends, I noticed an attractive girl walk by who I had first met months ago. She gave me her number, but drunken a** that I am, I never called her. Wanting to be sure it was her, but unsure of how she would react to seeing a jerk who never called her, I yelled out her name and then quickly looked in the other direction. She turned around to see who had called her, thus confirming that (a.) I had correctly remembered her name, and (b.) I am a 29 year old child. Later in the night I saw her again, and this time I actually talked to her (novel idea, I know). Luckily for me, she’s a really nice girl (or she took pity on me because she thought I was mentally-challenged) and she gave me her number once again.

‘Tis all for now. Don’t forget to tip your servers.

O.P.P. in V.I.P.

Last night found me back in the South Side for the first time since just after Christmas. Pittsburgh’s South Side consists primarily of one long road, Carson Street, which is flanked by hundreds of bars and clubs along a two mile stretch. I did a lot of my post-college drinking in this area, but lately my friends and I haven’t frequented it quite as much. So when my friend Tony C.—or “Toe,” as we affectionately call him—said his birthday celebration was going to be at Diesel, I was more than willing to partake in the debauchery.

Toe told us that he’d be there at 9, but when I showed up at 8:58 the doors were locked and he was nowhere in sight. I decided to kill some time down the street at Jimmy D’s, which is probably my favorite bar in the city. For quite some time, my friends and I considered this to be our “St. Elmo’s Bar.” T.C. and I even worked there as bouncers on a few occasions. I hadn’t been there in nearly two years, and it was odd to look around and feel so much nostalgia. What does it say about me that I can turn wistful over a bar?

We all eventually convened at Diesel. I got to talk to Nick (Toe is his little brother) for the first time since my birthday adventure, and I made sure to buy him a shot as a small “thanks” for his help. He also filled me in on a part of the story that I hadn’t heard before: My…stomach eruption…started while I was sitting at the bar. I had thought I reached the bathroom sink first, but apparently not. I made quite a mess on the bar and floor in front of it. It’s going to be a very long time before I go back to Buckhead.

Some of Toe’s buddies decided to get a table and a couple of bottles upstairs in the V.I.P. area of the club. I joined them, but we quickly realized that we had the makings of a sausage party—four guys, zero chicks. We needed to diversify our crowd. The guys seemed a bit shy, but I was just tipsy enough to step up to the plate. After all, it doesn’t take a lot of smooth words to get girls to come hang out in a V.I.P. section, especially for free. I just walked the length of the velvet rope, inviting the best looking girls to come chill with us. Boom—we suddenly had a nice mix of hotties around our table. MVP of the V.I.P., baby.

The first two girls that I invited actually had a guy in their party, who I didn’t notice until after offering them asylum on our side of the velvet rope. And not just any guy; one of the two was his wife, and the other was his cousin. Great. He was a cool cat, though. We were talking for a few minutes when I looked over and realized that his wife and cousin were aggressively making out on one of the couches. I pointed this out to him, and he just shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Yeah; they do that all the time.”

Women like that make marriage worth the hassle.

They continued the lovefest throughout the rest of the night; at one point, the cousin laid back on the couch, while the wife straddled her (I got a great action shot of it with my camera). While they were taking a break, the wife came over to me and said, “Thank you so much for inviting us over.” “No—thank YOU.” She laughed, and said, “Yeah, I just love mauling his cousin.”

Best. Wife. Ever.