Merry New Beer!

I’ve hated Christmas since I was old enough to know why to hate Christmas (about 23, for those of you still not quite there yet). This time around, it was New Year’s Eve before I realized how little hating of the holidays I’d done.

Don’t misunderstand—I wasn’t happy about it being Christmas; I just didn’t pay attention to the same raw nerves that typically get exposed this time of year. Work has sought to absolutely destroy me over the last few months, and as a result I’ve been largely numb to all that was going on around me. [I legitimately thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown one day, but that’s for a blog I’ll inevitably write and recite as part of a group therapy session.] The obvious negatives of such a situation aside, the positive is that Christmas was blandly tolerable. One might say mildly enjoyable, even, if for no other reason than it forced my company to let me stay at home for a few days. Yay work misery!

I certainly didn’t get to relax as much at the end of December as I used to, back when I worked for a company that gave us paid holidays from Christmas Eve through New Years. But old friends being in town and a few nights where you don’t have to set the alarm clock mean booze is going to be poured. And if booze is going to be poured, well then…something, something, me waking up in weird places.


Monday, December 23rd
Once upon a time, I tried to bring rise to a new tradition called Christmas Eve Eve. It went strong for about four years before fading in ‘12. But it’s not dead yet.

Dupa, home from Houston for Christmas, gathered several of us that night for dinner at Church Brew Works. Six young professionals ate, drank, and became increasingly louder and more profane, to the point that I could feel the families seated near us cringe each time one of our voices built towards its crescendo. After dinner most of us went to our respective homes to decompress—including me. I honestly thought Christmas Eve Eve’s tradition had entered oblivion. Turns out, I just wasn’t believing in it hard enough.

TD and Canada believed, though. An hour after I had come home, I began receiving picture texts from the two of them. Awesome, drunken images of Lil Sis and various people with their eyes narrowed paper thin, chucking peace signs and grabbing breasts at Sloppy Joe’s. I’ve never been prouder of family who aren’t really family but are really family.

A week later, Canada gave all of us his postscript to that night: TD and Boy Toy dropped him off in front of his house around midnight (he’d managed to spend $80 at a dive bar where a mixed drink costs about $4, so you can go ahead and calibrate your expectations to how this ends). They watched him open his front door and walk into the crib before they left. Nevertheless, around 4 a.m. Canada awoke…lying in the bushes in front of the house.


Tuesday, December 24th
TD, Boy Toy, and TJ joined my cousin, her husband and I for dinner at my mother’s house. Bottles of wine and Heineken marched in full and rolled out empty. The guests marched in empty and rolled out full. Mom has never been one to half-ass it in the kitchen, and we feasted on a delicious home cooked ham dinner (TD ate fish) with all the fixins’. Also, a giant cake shaped like the Grinch’s head that TJ brought (it’s tradition; the last couple of years have seen cakes shaped like Santa and Rudolph).

When I got back to Shadyside that night, I stopped at William Penn Tavern to catch up with Mo-Fo and Jed. It was the first time in over two years that I’d seen Mo-Fo, who lives in North Carolina. As we caught up over draughts, a steady stream of familiar faces from around the neighborhood rolled in for drinks and holiday cheer beer. It wasn’t a night of loose women and drunken episodes, but instead a chance to catch up on each other’s tales of loose women and drunken episodes. You need those nights. When stress melts away and all that’s left is laughter and community.


Wednesday, December 25th
Christmas Day. Spiked eggnog with my mom while opening gifts. Wine with dinner. Sometimes things don’t change simply because they ain’t broke.

For those wondering (and since I’ve catalogued my alcohol-related gifts in the past): A bottle of Bulleit 10 Year Bourbon from my Lil Sis, a bottle of Glenfiddich Nadurra from my manager, an On the Rock Glass and bottle of Makers from Armo, and a bottle of Chivas Regal 12 from my mom. The quantity of booze gifts may be going down, but the rising quality is more than making up for it.


Thursday, December 26th
I fought the system by calling in sick instead of going into the office. Never mind that I legitimately needed it because I was too exhausted to function when I awoke that morning, or that I still put in about four or five hours of work from my dining room table…Viva La Revolucion!

That night T.C., Hurley, Mo-Fo, and Jed convinced me to venture over to Grove for the second half of Pitt’s bowl game. I began drinking Manhattans, and then…well, the next-to-last entry in this post happened. The most irreversibly shlammered I’d been in some time, I barely remember being at Cain’s. I do recall sitting down and ordering a beer. Then I awoke on Hurley’s couch.


Friday, December 27th
If you’ve gotta spend half of a day at work drunk, and the other half viciously hungover, I recommend doing it on a Friday when none of the executives are in the building. Thank god I have the kind of cool-as-hell manager who found my ever-deteriorating state hilarious and not wage-garnering-ous. I spent my Friday night at home, thank you very much.


Saturday, December 28th
Esq and Shock hosted the annual holiday reunion of some of our closest friends at my homie’s big, beautiful “lawyer’s house” (think it was my mom who coined that term) in the far northern suburbs of the city. Chief, Tank, Mrs. Tank (Katie), Finn, Genoa, BBB, Tony, and others gathered to drink the booze, catch up, and reminisce on the good ol’ days. All of the college stories about the girls we did or didn’t bag, the fights, the Federales, the masturbating roommates—all of it played like a classic movie marathon, one after the other.

Some in the crowd, like the ladies and the suddenly urbane Chief, drank wine. I, on the other hand, eased into the night by drinking bottles of Miller Lite. By around midnight we’d killed off two cases, and it was time for some beer pong in the three-car garage (once Esq had backed out one of the “his-and-hers” Escalades). That’s when the Beast Light came out—W&J waters run deep. By 4:30 a.m. I was passed out in one of the guest rooms.


Sunday, December 29th
I awoke the next morning to Chief passed out on the floor of the room. “I was so mad when I got up there and found out you’d beaten me to it,” he told me before we each headed home that day, “that I decided to sleep on the floor out of spite, even though I knew there were 50 open couches in this house.”


Monday, December 30th
…What am I, an animal? I laid low and stayed dry. Bitches.


Tuesday, December 31st
The main event. The Academy Awards of Drinking. The Blotto Super Bowl. I prepped like any professional does: by shoving a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal down my throat and showing up on TD and Boy Toy’s doorstep around 8 p.m. with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in my hand.

There was beer pong in the garage, of which I took part in for a while, Armo and I hardly making a dent in the night’s competition. There was lively, drunken conversation in the kitchen, of which I took a LOT of parts in. There was a game of Spades in the dining room with Joel, TJ, and Affliction, of which I cheated in (…was totally playing “Asshole” in my mind for the first hand or two). There was the ball drop, punctuated by about 10 different bottles of champagne being popped in a living room filled with 20 people and zero cups—straight chuggin’, homie.

Shannon provided my New Year’s kiss; Mo Paddle provided my New Year’s style via comically-oversized sunglasses; Lil Sis provided my New Year’s ego by pointing out that we were the only two drinking real champagne (she had her own bottle of Clicquot); and one of Boy Toy’s best friends provided my New Year’s comedy by passing out on the toilet with his pants around his ankles. And the host himself provided the New Year’s drama, getting into a fight with Under The Porch (UTP) that spilled out into the front yard, and resulted in me shoving Toy and TD back into their house and others shoving UTP into the backseat of a car headed away from the scene. (By the way…we’re all adults.) Toy found out a couple of days later that he had broken a couple of his ribs in the commotion. And, for some reason, the people who removed UTP were mad at TD the next morning for him being at their place. (…Adults.)


Wednesday, January 1st

Tradition is tradition. pic.twitter.com/bT6pc7GmDD
— The D.E.F.I. (@CS_Defi) January 1, 2014

Of the two couches in TD’s living room, I awoke on the smaller one. Of course. “Toilet Napper” had taken the larger couch the night before. But when I awoke, it was unoccupied. I moved over, stretched out, and began drifting back to sleep in the growing 8 a.m. sunshine. I soon felt someone shake my leg. It was Napper.

Him: “Ah, dude, I was sleeping there. I just got up to go to the bathroom.”
Me: “Yeah…that sucks.” *rolls over and goes back to sleep*

A couple of hours later I finally headed home, with a quick stop at Shannon’s along the way to help her with her Irish family’s tradition (a dark-haired man must come into her home and receive a shot of whiskey and one dollar at the start of each year, before she’s allowed to cross her threshold). The whiskey provided cover fire against hangover laying siege to my head, giving me the chance to retreat to the safety of my couch and five more glorious hours of slumber.

Sometimes you need a holiday from the holidays.

How It All Shakes Out

“You know, when you get old, in life, things get taken from you. I mean, that's... that's... that's part of life. But, you only learn that...when you start losin' stuff.”

— Tony D’Amato, Any Given Sunday.


Getting old…blows. And that may be the best way I can put it. I could try to twist eloquent phrases and metaphors into a melodic expression of regret and fear, but…nah. Getting old blows.

I know for some, that statement sounds amusing. They would be the 20-something set, the people still experiencing the ten years I cherish most of the 34 I’ve lived. For them, “old” is a word thrown lazily at any person or thing unfortunate enough to have been born before them. There is no “old,” only whimsical musings on the far, far, far-off future.

For others, the statement sounds downright ludicrous. Not because they disagree with the core principle, mind you; but, instead, because it’s being said by someone who’s 34 years old. They would be the 40-something set, the people who look at me and wish they still had the years I’m spending. In ten years I’ll be them, looking upon the currently-20-something set, as they bitch about getting old.

Not to get too Freudian on you, but everyone wants what they can’t have. Especially if it’s something they once had, but can’t have now. “Tis better to have loved and lost…” Bullshit. Ignorance is bliss. If you don’t know the feeling of having it, you won’t miss the feeling of knowing it.

When I tell you, now, that this post is about the closing of a bar, I’d be shocked if eye-rolling didn’t follow. Though I admit there are easy jokes to be found in me, of all people, speaking in nostalgic tones about a dirty little piece of real estate with cheap booze and cracked-pleather bar stools, understand that there’s reason for my passion. And it extends beyond $1 draughts.

Rumshakers became a part of my life more or less the instant it opened its doors in 2003. To be fair, the cheap beer and $2 shots were a big part of the initial draw. Those were the wild days, when Friday nights saw any number of us congregate at the huge Mt. Washington house where BlahBlahBlah (BBB) lived; we’d drink ourselves silly with beer pong and cards, and then hop into cabs down to the South Side to start our night in earnest. We were fresh out of college, earning our own (adequate) salaries, buying cars, paying taxes, and living aggressively. It was a love affair with the moment. So when a small new bar opened up on Carson Street, stocked with a pool table and $2 tall draughts of Miller Lite, it was inevitable that it would be added to our monthly rotation of watering holes.

It became one of our “go-to’s,” a place we could always count on to treat us well, no matter the day or time. But, at some point in the years that followed, our migration patterns shifted, and Rumshakers fell from our regular itinerary. Hey, life changes. BBB moved out of the place on Mt. Washington and went back out to the far suburbs, which ended our weekly parties. A few friends got married. I moved to Shadyside, and was suddenly within walking distance of my nightlife needs. New bars and clubs opened, some in other areas of the city. The world is an Etch-a-Sketch—nothing’s permanent.

Then, in 2009, Jay Swag became a fixture in our crew. And he brought Rumshakers along with him.

Swag is nothing if not loyal to those who he feels have earned such endearment, and Rumshakers has earned it. If you think my reflective reverence for it is funny, that’s only because Swag doesn’t write. To me, the closing of Rumshakers is saying goodbye to a friend; to him, it’s saying goodbye to a brother. During a recent visit, Swag and his roommate Canada asked the owner if they could have some kind of keepsake, something to honor a time and place in their lives that they knew they’d always cherish. There are now two beat up old barstools sitting in their living room.

Since ’09, a lot of the days and nights of Swag, Canada, and I—and, really, of everyone in our circle of friends—have involved drinks at 1224 East Carson St. Search this page for “Rumshakers” (or just click on this link), and you’ll find tale after tale. St. Patrick’s Days, birthdays, bar crawls. Dupa so drunk, he couldn’t talk. The whole shebangabang.

When I gashed open my leg this summer, it was just down the block from Rumshakers. And Jay, a bartender there, is the one who drove me to the ER. There’s a story from there that I’ve never written, purely for legal purposes. There’s one that involved a manhunt, that the perpetrator insisted I write.

I got stalked by The Ex there. While we were together, I would’ve had to have carried her over my shoulder—kicking and screaming in Spanish—to get her to go into Rumshakers. But a year and a half after the relationship ended, I got an email from her one Monday telling me she’d seen me there the previous Saturday. I didn’t sleep so well the next few weeks.

Rumshakers was where I met the man who would eventually marry the girl responsible for the deepest crush I’ve ever known (and even though they’d only just started dating, even then I kind of knew they’d end up together; which makes that memory a little more painful than most).

I still remember games of 8-ball at Rumshakers, especially those with BBB as my teammate. There were bar tabs I don’t remember closing, women I don’t remember meeting, conversations I don’t remember regretting. Photos of friends, photos of hilarity, and photos of jubilation. Moments of dancing, moments of laughter, moments of…youth.

We all get old, we all lose the things that we hold dearest. Even the superficial things, like bars we hung out at, and the fleeting connections to people we drunkenly made out with. But those feelings, the atmospheres, the friends, and those times… We’ll hold on to them forever.

Is it silly to say goodbye to a bar? Probably. But sometimes, it’s more than just the bar that you're saying goodbye to.

Slash and Burn

“So, were you at Chesney?” The ER nurse didn’t even look up from her paperwork while saying it.

And, in fairness, I really didn’t have to answer. My bloody cargo shorts, body smelling of sweated alcohol, and 10:30 p.m. visit to UPMC Mercy spoke for me. It was more of a rhetorical question, anyways. Kind of like when you stumble while walking with someone, and they ask, “Walk much?” Sarcasm is the one luxury afforded to those who must suffer the fools.

*********************************************************************************************

It was a little after 11 a.m. when I parked in front of Jay Swag’s house, but I instantly—and, hindsight being 20/20, prematurely—chalked the day in the “Win” category. Four beautiful 20-somethings with tight, revealing tops and even tighter, even more revealing shorts were gathered on his porch. One—tall, mixed, and of King Magazine cover proportions—I quickly recognized as Liz, a friend of Swag’s that I had met once or twice. The other three were faces I wasn’t acquainted with, though none were making it easy to maintain eye contact long enough to know for sure.

Swag: “Sup dude.”
Me: *In my head, while beaming like a kid who had just walked through the doors of Toys ‘R’ Us* “…Wow.”

This, of course, was the one thing I had been consistently hit over the head with each and every time friends tried, in years past, to convince me to go to the Kenny Chesney concert: You’ve never seen as many hot, nearly naked women as you will at this tailgate. Last year, that stream of relentless hyperbole was finally validated when I attended my first Chesney tailgate. I walked through parking lots so chock full of tanned, toned female flesh that you could’ve mistaken the entire scene for a Michael Bay remake of Bikini Beach. You literally could create a “Chesney Concert Girls” Tumblr page and stock it with a year’s worth of material from just that one day every June.

Liz and her friends—a slender stunner with dark eyes and hair; a smoldering redhead with great curves and girl-next-door beauty; and an energetic, Italian brunette who looked like she belonged in party pictures from the Playboy Mansion—had begun dipping into their cooler bag, which was filled with cans of Bud Light Lime. Swag invited me to grab myself a beer from the fridge. I returned to the porch with two stacked Miller Lites in my right hand and confessed, “I got two.”

After some discussion between Swag and I about auto body repair, and between the girls about anal suction (ask Liz, not me), we all headed for the T. The train was already nearing capacity when we stepped on board, and we still had to pass through five more stops teeming with guys and gals giddy on the one day a year they wear their cowboy hats. We were crammed together, and surrounded by overgrown frat bros who alternated between repeatedly trying—and repeatedly failing—to get “Let’s go Bucs!” chants going, and not-so-subtly nodding and making reference to Liz and her girls (…and their “girls”). Oh well, at least there was cold beer from the cooler bag.

In the year since my last Chesney tailgate, I’ve become a regular on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. Every morning, Monday through Friday, I park in a garage down the street from PNC Park, walk over to North Side Station, and take the escalator down into the city’s underground. And every evening, on my way home, I drag myself in the opposite direction up the towering incline, towards daylight. But arriving at the top of that escalator on Chesney Saturday bore no resemblance to any other time I’ve done it over the past seven months. It’s like your attention span is a Marine standing on a WWII landing craft as the gate comes down. Suddenly sensory impulses are flying at you from every angle: music, noise, skin, pickup trucks, cowboy hats, heat, smells of food, smells of booze, bikini tops, and frenetic bustle covers every square foot of concrete as far as the eye can see. Making it to the beach Gold Lot 2 is a victory in itself.

We found Bill’s annual tailgate party, and got down to business. Swag and I handed over our cover fees and grabbed drinks. The girls had another party they wanted to stop by, so they asked us to wait there for them and headed off. I sipped from my cup of alcoholic lemonade (there was a whole Gatorade cooler of it there; Bill is apparently a fellow student of Ron White), while surveying the landscape in and beyond the party. The scene may be the closest to the definition of “bacchanalia” that any non-swinger will ever know. When Swag mentioned that his girlfriend, Skeets, would be joining us later that afternoon, I expressed pity for him—and I like Skeets. But a Chesney tailgate is no place to endure the limitations of monogamy.

During a brief lull in conversation, Swag suddenly pivoted and headed off towards the port-o-johns. I didn’t think much about it, other than to note that the need to urinate would have to be particularly strong to convince anyone to wait in the lines that stretched around the block. I continued schmoozing with Bill and other guests (including one friend who carried with him a Mason jar filled with a much stronger lemonade mix). Our host expressed gratitude for the visual delights that I had brought to the party, even if they had only been there briefly. Sadly though, his girlfriend, too, was due to arrive soon—and I like Janna. When Swag finally returned to the party, he succinctly explained to me why he had left so suddenly: “Thought I sharted. Had to go deal with it.”

We were far from the only members of our crew who were roaming the wilds of the North Shore Thunderdome that afternoon. Alex, Shannon, and others were a half mile away, camped out closer to PNC Park (Alex had tweeted—while I was still on the train—that she was on her way to being “looped”; she would be in bed by 6 p.m.). LRG, to my amazement, was also tweeting from some unidentified parking lot near us; all attempts at coordinating a meeting with him failed. Entertainer seemed to be the nearest to our position: He was over by the Clark Building, drinking shirtless—that part was a guess, but a pretty odds-on one.

The girls returned, as I worked on my second—third?—third cup of alcoholmonade. We journeyed off with them in search of one of their friends’ parties. All Liz knew was that the party was “by the Clark Building.” This superior field intelligence resulted in the six of us trekking through every foot of parking lot around the building. While walking through the tailgate tent city that stood under the overpass, I couldn’t help but note the feel of a rowdy refugee camp in the air. The air was thicker; the tone was darker, tenser. Dark Eyes grabbed me a Bud Light Lime from the bag; I gulped it down as a coping mechanism as we soldiered on towards brighter terrain. In a small lot located at the base of a cliff, we found both Entertainer’s and Liz’s friends’ parties. And Entertainer was shirtless. I suddenly wished I’d bet someone on that.

While Entertainer was called away by some minor event, Swag and I grabbed beers from his cooler and took cover in the shade at the foot of the cliff. As we stood there bullshitting, I casually turned and looked up the steep hillside…to find a girl halfway up it with her pants around her knees, hovering on a small ledge, pissing. I turned back around and took another sip. Chesney, man.

Down at our altitude, two cute girls—a blonde and an Asian girl—were nervously circling the area. Finally they explained their problem: They had to pee, but didn’t want people watching them as they did. Prudes. I told them to squat behind one of the cars parked in the spots at the base of the hill, and that we would turn around while they did. Out of better options, they dipped down behind a Nissan to our right. After a few minutes, I noticed the blonde walking back out into the parking lot, alone. I turned to find the Asian girl still squatting, looking frustrated.

Me: “You’re still pissing?!”
Asian Girl: “I have a shy bladder!”

Swag and I headed back to Bill’s party to meet up with Skeets, who was finally arriving. Shortly after we got back, Janna passed out Jell-O shots to go with our alcholmonade. Yeah, I could feel all of this going to a good place. We decided to investigate some of the parties that stretched out closer to Heinz Field, in search of…someone. By this point in the day, I’m more amazed that I was standing than disappointed in my recordkeeping. I know we found Rushel Shell for the second time (Swag had spotted him walking past during our first stop at Bill’s party), who informed us that he was trying to return to Pitt. [That, of course, was a failed venture, as would be announced a couple of days later.]

From there, my next clear memory, after walking through various North Shore tailgate parties, is the three of us being on the South Side. For those unfamiliar with Pittsburgh and its geography, at a minimum that transition is typically a solid cab ride spanning two different rivers. And I have no idea how it all happened, and if a cab was even involved. Damn alcoholmonade.

What I’ve since learned from Skeets, however, is that before we ever left the North Shore, we walked over to Rivers to eat dinner. Swag even found photographic evidence on his iPhone; the three of us are gathered at a table full of food in Wheelhouse. To this day I have absolutely zero recollection of this, though I clearly remember the events that followed it in the South Side. …Chesney alcoholmonade.

We went to Mario’s South Side to catch up with TD at Jenn’s bachelorette party. And, as an unforeseen consequence, that resulted in me having to see and speak to BIO for the first time since August. [Guilty of whore crimes, all personal and public record of her was subsequently napalmed. And yet, that persistent, hot ass fought its way through the debris to get in my face, quite literally. Fun.] We moved on to Rumshakers; and then, sometime later…

We were heading elsewhere when Swag, who had decided he wanted a tattoo, broke loose. Skeets spoke the words that were already in my head: “Go get him!” I took off down the sidewalk of Carson St. in pursuit. And then I crumpled to the ground. And strangers on the sidewalk around me had recoiled in disgust. Fun fact: Fire hose fittings protruding from the sides of buildings are impervious to human flesh. Who knew? A girl walking past with her boyfriend was Johnny-on-the-spot with a rag to apply pressure. Though I’m grateful to her for her kindness, concern, and assistance [Seriously, if you’re reading this, Miss, I owe you and your man each a drink; click on my profile name below to contact me by email.] she kept overreacting by saying that the cut was so deep that my bone was showing. It was not. But I was going to need stitches, at a minimum.

As I sat on the ground talking to Skeets and the strangers about my next move, Swag randomly came jogging back past, headed in the opposite direction. When I yelled at him, he strolled back over and said, incredulously, “What? What happened?” Thankfully, our buddy Jay—a bartender at Rumshakers—also happened past, his shift just having ended. He ran and got his car, we hopped in, and he zipped us to Mercy.

I never wanted to watch S.W.A.T., but I caught the bulk of it while laid up in the emergency room. Skeets and a remorseful Swag waited patiently for me in the waiting room while a doctor stapled me together, and I freaked out people on Facebook with a picture of the open wound. As bad as it looked, though, I never really felt much pain. Thank you, alcoholmonade. After my leg had been bandaged up and I was released, I rejoined my friends, and we joked around on the sidewalk outside the hospital as we awaited our cab at 2 a.m.

Me: “Call Liz.”
Swag: “Why?”
Me: “I want one of her friends to come be my private nurse tonight.”

Miller Quest

I haven't even seen this ad on TV. Miller's even turned Questlove into a spokesperson? Goddamn...

Miller Lite Harmony

Miller Lite nails it with this one. Everything's better with when you're Changing with friends.

Just a Pup to the Game

These young bucks, man... They just can't hold their booze.

A New Day

For the first time in seven years, I’m having a few drinks on New Year’s Day. That may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing. Right now I’m just going to go with “good thing”.

I certainly didn’t slack off last night. For those people who pursue kids and homeownership as a means to giving their lives purpose, Christmas is probably the main event of the holiday season. It certainly was when I was a kid. New Year’s Eve was just the closing bell of the weeklong vacation from school.

Then, when I got a little older, I realized that I didn’t really care about getting gifts. And I discovered NYE parties.

I’ve been a part of some legendary NYE parties. Some highlights:

• One year BBB’s aunt and uncle let him and his cousins throw a party at their Seven Springs condo. Having packed 20+ people and three kegs into the lavish condo on a snowy December 31st, we welcomed 2002 by me blindly walking a few miles through the wilderness to get back to the cabin after a latenight voyage to another party, and several people in our crew watching two party guests have sex on a hallway floor when they thought everyone was asleep.

• A few years later we managed to put together another Seven Springs NYE, though not at a swanky condo. T.C. found a big cabin available for rent, and on the first night I counted 30+ people in attendance. We ran simultaneous games of beer pong and flip cup (on the same table), deep fried turkeys, and chilled in the hot tub. At the end of the night BBB unwittingly cockblocked me in said hot tub; then his little brother, Affliction, wittingly cockblocked me with the same girl inside, as she and I tried to get things going on an air mattress in the living room, when we thought everyone was asleep.
• The following year our friend Cara hosted a party at her apartment in Squirrel Hill. I know there were games of flip cup. I also know that I made out with an Asian girl whose name I never caught. I threw up in the bathroom and passed out not long after midnight. K-Man made out with the same Asian girl, then threw up outside in the bushes. I woke up the next morning while trying to fit all 6’6” of myself onto an ottoman. Cara said that at one point late in the night, all seven of the guests still at the party were either throwing up or passed out.
• Some NYE exploits have already been published, so I’ll just give you a link and spare the recap.

To ring in 2013, Jay Swag decided to throw a blowout at his and Mitch Canada’s home. I braved Mt. Washington streets in a snowstorm with rear wheel drive; when I had arrived and parked safely, I took it as a sign from above that I was supposed to get ridiculously shitfaced that night. I found Swag, Canada, TD, Boy Toy, Belle (who was hammered off her first three beers, after a week of inactivity due to illness), and others inside, racing towards that very same end. We were eventually joined by TJ, Finger Bang, Tony, Shannon, and many more of our fellow lushes—quite the assembly of masters of the alcoholic arts.

I started the night drinking Sam Adams Cream Stout and Sam Adams White Christmas. Once those were polished off, I moved on to cups of Miller Lite from the keg as TD and I repeatedly got mopped off the beer pong table. Throughout the night shots of Crown Royal Maple were passed around. At midnight I popped a bottle of Taittinger brut, and by 12:20 it was gone. I’m not quite sure what I drank the rest of the night, but the Belle & TD dance party that I found immortalized in photo and video on my phone suggests there was no stoppage to anyone’s consumption. I awoke on a couch this morning with a blanket over only half of me, and Tony snoring from a nearby recliner.

Before heading home, I helped Shannon with a family tradition. I stopped by her apartment, and in doing so ensured that she had a dark-haired man walk through her door on New Year’s Day; she then gave me a shot of whiskey and a dollar. God bless those crazy Irish.

2013 is looking like it’ll be a strange, wild ride. Salud.

Family Matters

I may be a victim of my own success.

Last year—somewhat miraculously—I managed to scribe the highlights of the 7th annual 837 Bar Crawl. In the weeks leading up to this year’s event, however, I gave little thought to repeating that output. First, there’s the simple difficulty involved in accurately reporting something so gleefully awash in beer and shots. On the Rocks’ rich archives notwithstanding (I mean, seriously, look at that list in the side bar on the right; nearly five years of drunken mayhem!), having enough material memorized and available for reporting in the days immediately after a night of high-tempo heavy drinking is asking a lot of your cerebral cortex. It’s almost a contradiction; you’re either taking notes, or you’re drinking like someone gunning for that year’s MVP award.

[Note: Yes, this is a real thing. Participants can make nominations in the days following the crawl, with the award winner named by J-Sun and T.C. shortly thereafter. No, I have not won yet. Yes, this bothers me. Much like it bothers Derrick Rose that he hasn’t won an NBA championship.]

Second, as fans who have been around since the early days of those aforementioned archives can surely attest, my writings for On the Rocks have been much more infrequent this year. My free time has been at a premium as of late; and, even when I find a chance to journalize any recent shenanigans, laziness often steals my attention away. I have about four or five unfinished writings that I am continually juggling on my home and work computers. If I ever hit the Power Ball jackpot, there’s a better-than-even-money chance you’ll see at least three stories a week written and posted, right up until my eventual death in a swimming pool filled with bourbon.

(To the police detectives that will eventually work the case: It wasn’t the Thai hookers. Those gals are saints.)

I had resigned myself, then, to allowing this year’s bar crawl to fly under the radar. But five minutes after I walked into T.C.’s house that Saturday night, I started to realize that wouldn’t be an option. As he, his sister’s husband (“Bear Cub”), his cousin-in-law (Po-Po), and I stood in the kitchen drinking warm-up cans of Miller Lite, T.C. began effusing about last year’s blog post. “I read it again the other night, dying. I sent it to everyone. ‘You HAVE to read this!’”

T.C. is nothing if not excitable, though—as evidenced by the six-message-long series of mass texts he sent out that morning in anticipation of the night’s festivities. [Note: There’s nothing quite like being 20 seconds removed from a vigorous sex session with a girl you’re dating, both of you panting and shaking, when your phone starts going nuts on her dresser. The look of “I’d be angrier right now if I hadn’t just had all of the strength fucked out of me” in her eyes is something to behold.] Or by Exhibit B: He did a dry run—actually, as he himself corrected, “A not-so-dry run”—of the crawl course on the Wednesday night prior. Maybe, I thought, I should take his enthusiasm over last year’s blog post with a grain of salt. Maybe his excitement was just that: his excitement. I couldn't even be sure that anyone had read it after he sent it to them. I mean, it’s not like everyone’s eagerly awaiting this year’s edition, right?

But, shortly after arriving at the night’s first bar, Pit Stop, J-Sun and I got to talking.

J-Sun: “Tommy sent me the blog from last year—it’s hilarious! I’d forgotten half that stuff! It’s great to be able to go back and relive it all again...”

*sigh*

The night started steadily but earnestly. Bear Cub and I teamed up, buying each other rounds of Miller Lite draughts at Pit Stop, and Miller Lite bottles at our second stop, the Floreffe Hotel. Our 50+ person, black-t-shirted army swarmed the surprisingly roomy bar in the basement of the building, quickly tying up the three female bartenders with drink orders that came at them from all 360 degrees. Earlier at Pit Stop, I had mentioned that my favorite part of the crawl was seeing regulars walk into their small, just-down-the-road dive bars and freeze in their tracks when suddenly confronted with our huge, loud flock. Then, as T.C., Po-Po, Bear Cub, and I stood talking in the Floreffe, that very scenario took place: Two local women, one wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt, walked through the door and instantly halted in shock. They then cautiously waded their way through our crowd, after Yellow Hoodie did a quick double take and mouthed “What the…”

A younger, rather attractive woman at the bar drew Bear Cub’s notice, though only because of her demeanor. “She looks really pissed off that we’re all here right now.” Indeed, she sat alone with a beer, occasionally sneering at all of us in disgust. But I had a different theory about what we were witnessing. I watched her briefly interact with a bartender, who then came from behind the bar to sit and talk with Angry Girl for a while, before getting up again to shoot pool with some regulars; I spotted the symptoms of a jealous lover. “Actually,” I offered, “I think that she and that bartender in the black are lesbians, and she’s upset that the bartender isn’t paying more attention to her. We forced her to go behind the bar to help handle the rush, and now she’s over there playing pool with those guys.” Bear Cub was initially skeptical of my analysis, but a few minutes later he tapped my arm. “Holy shit, I think you’re right!” Angry Girl had now relocated to near the pool table, and vigorously competed against the guys for her “friend’s” favor.

Me: “I am the lesbian whisperer.”

The next stop on our tour was Scotty’s Bar & Lounge. Last year’s visit was made slightly awkward by a bartender who was as bitchy as they come, despite the windfall in tip money that our drunk-and-happy group represented. Thankfully, this year she was nowhere to be found, and instead we had a bartender who was her polar opposite, and who cheerfully served us drinks. Bear Cub and I took turns ordering rounds of Stoney’s draughts, by now tipsy enough to not think too much about the fact that we were drinking Stoney’s draughts. But the awful beer is part of a terrific tradition, as were the shots of whiskey toasted en masse to the memory of J-Sun’s grandfather. And so is the group photo we took in the rarely-used dining room, on the dusty stage for live music that I doubt is ever played there. In essence, the stop at Scotty’s is the family reunion of the bar crawl. It’s where everyone takes a small moment to acknowledge…well, the moment. Ticking clocks and drink counts become inconsequential; camaraderie and family are the only concern.

From there we moved to Beer Belly’s. Bear Cub, T.C., and I talked by the bar, putting away Yuengling draughts as we did. “Wait…,” Bear Cub said incredulously as he watched a bartender pour a beer from a tap. “That’s the woman—the woman in the yellow hoodie!” Indeed, the older of the two bartenders on staff was Yellow Hoodie, who we had seen at the Floreffe Hotel—less than an hour before that—posing as a common 837 native at odds with our locust-like takeover.

Me: “The fuck?”
Bear Cub: “Did she…pregame her bartending shift?”

Next up: Tim’s Corner Bar…and the realization that I was hitting some rough waters. I had made sure to eat on the way to T.C.’s house earlier in the night, so that I wouldn’t be playing on an empty stomach. But I was putting away beers at an aggressive pace (When in Rome…on a bar crawl…), and my central nervous system was begging for a chance to come up for air. I conscientiously slowed myself down, drinking only two bottles of Miller Lite. I’m nothing if not responsible.

I like Tim’s, but there’s one undeniably fantastic fact about leaving there: You know you’re heading to the Elrama Tavern, the bar crawl’s final location. It’s the stretch run, since the stay at Elrama is the longest of all the bars and their kitchen is open late. If you’ve made it this far without succumbing to attrition, you’re going to finish the race.

Once inside Elrama, I quickly got myself to the bar counter and asked for a menu. After ordering chicken tenders and fries, I returned to drinking my beer and taking in the surrounding crush of exquisite drunkenness. Sitting at the bar next to me was an older couple, probably in their late-40s/early-50s, who were not part of the bar crawl. The gentleman had a wiry-Sam-Elliott look, with straight, steel gray hair that hung just above his shoulders; his wife was short and chubby with a cropped haircut, and carried the overall appearance of a 3rd grade teacher. We exchanged a few pleasant words of small talk. Then, strangely, the wife suddenly rushed to correct a confusion that had never existed. “We didn’t mean…I’m not trying to pick you up.”

I assured her that I hadn’t thought that. I forced myself to blink when they looked away, and wondered if I was so drunk that I’d missed something. Up until that point, I had only considered our dialogue to be polite conversation between drunken strangers sitting at a local bar. And since I have a Ph.D. in that particular field, I felt comfortable in my analysis. …So what the fuck was she talking about? When my food came, though, my attention shifted. I focused on fortifying myself, while the odd couple moved off to another part of the bar.

Bear Cub, unfortunately, was in that part of the bar. And when he later appeared in front of T.C. and I, with a sheepish look that spoke to his violated sensibilities, things became all-too-clear.

Bear Cub: “I just had someone say something racist to me.”
Me: “What was it?”

As you might expect, I was one the few people of color in the bar, and probably in all of this small, somewhat rural community. My guard was up as a matter of protocol, despite being amongst “family”.

Bear Cub: “I… I just got propositioned by two swingers!”
T.C.: “What?!”
Me: “Were they hot?”
Bear Cub: “NO! They’re old! And…”
T.C.: *laughing* “What?!?”
Bear Cub: “They asked if I wanted to come home with them…” *to me* “…And they asked about you.”
Me: “Me? Why?”
Bear Cub: “They said, ‘Your tall friend…is it true what they say? Once you go Black, you never go back?’”

Yup—a victim of my own success.

Big Swag Steps Off Laughin'

I wrote in May that 30th birthdays are kind of a big deal. They represent the end of a process that begins with the first loosened baby tooth and then carries through puberty and on past using a proper name when ordering a cocktail. On your 30th, the last remnants of youth are shed. Sure, some try to accelerate the aging process by jumping into marriages and parenthood in their 20s—the less-homophobic cousin to “pray away the gay” camps. But, in those rare moments when these misguided souls find themselves free of the shackles by which they have willingly come to be bound, they still fall back on the their birth certificates as evidence that they can party all night and laugh it off in the morning. And it’s accepted currency—until they turn 30. Then they’re as tattered and worn as the rest of us, if not worse.

Dupa has done it. T.C. Aff. Mitch Canada. I did it before all of them, though not before TJ, Tony, and Pak. But two weeks ago it was finally Jay Swag’s turn to join the Grown-Ass Man Club.

For a guy who treats his ordinary birthdays like full-blown, must-see events, turning 30 presented Swag with a new mountaintop of shenanigans to ascend towards. His birthday was Thursday, August 8th; being that his good friend Tennessee (or “The Nashville Knuckler”, as I kept calling him that week) was coming into town that morning, Swag called off work for both Thursday and Friday, with every intention of staging a (minimum) three-day boozathon. He even suggested holding Beer Olympics on the first day, but relented when he realized he didn’t have most of the supplies such a sporting spectacle would require. He fell back on a tried and true game plan: I’m drinking, Tennessee’s drinking; come on over if you want to drink, too.

What he hadn’t factored in, though, was that Wednesday nights he and others play in a kickball league (…I know). After every game they then retire to their clubhouse—a.k.a. Rumshakers—and proceed to party like they have just won the World Series. This led to Swag drinking away the final hours of his twenties, and led to me receiving pictures the next day from both Finger Bang and TJ, in both of which Swag was laying shirtless in his backyard. In TJ’s photo (which was accompanied by the text, “The last photograph ever taken of [Swag] in his 20s. Rather fitting.”), our boy was facedown with a lit cigarette in his outstretched hand, his pale back seemingly intensifying the moonlight that it reflected amid a green pool of grass.

I arrived at Swag and Canada’s Mt. Washington home around 7:30 Thursday night to find Swag, Tennessee, Belle, Bang, and Entertainer drinking Leinenkugels and in relaxed, jovial moods. Then TJ and Canada returned from a beer run, carrying into the house a case of Miller Lite…and a case of Four Loko. I mentally high-fived myself for having had the forethought to call off work the next day.

We watched the Pittsburgh/Philly preseason game, hung out and just enjoyed the moment, drinking and laughing like a group of good friends in a primetime sitcom. Belle danced on a chair, I cracked open a Loko to the cheers of those around me, and everyone fired bottle caps and good-natured jokes at each other. Alex eventually made it up to the party, took the stick, and carried on the pace as if she had been there all day. When I found Bang laying on the couch and drifting away around 9:30 p.m., she blamed her sluggishness on being drunk.

Me: “Would it sober you up if I took you upstairs and banged you silly? Because I’ll do it.”
Bang: “Will you bang me sober?”
Me: “Yes, sweetie. I will do that for a friend.”

By 10:30 we both made our exit from the party; Bang needed to go home and rest up for work the next day, and she dropped me off at the home of a “special *wink* friend” who lives a couple of streets away from Swag and Canada. …Yup.

I played the sidelines Friday (I mean, I’m not a machine…), but Swag certainly didn’t. He, Tennessee, and Belle hit the Pirates game, and managed to fill their time before, during, and after it with booze. “A man got to have a code.”

After 60+ hours of nearly-nonstop alcohol consumption, you would expect a newly-30-year-old man to slow things down, right? Wrong. At 10:18 a.m. Saturday, Swag posted this to Facebook:

“Well, I'm awake so anytime you dickheads want to come over, I'm going to crack beer #1 in less than 5 minutes. Since I've nearly refused to make any decisions about times/places, I'm just going to check-in on here. Otherwise, I'm sure you have Mitch or [Tennessee]'s number. I hope everyone remembers to bring loose women. Extra credit for ones that are morally bankrupt. Can't wait till see all of you fuckers. Deuces.”

He’d later tell me, “Remember when I said I was going to ‘crack beer #1 in less than 5 minutes’? That beer turned into a Four Loko.”

I walked through the door carrying a 30-pack of Miller Lite at about 4 p.m., commanding, “Shut up, [Belle],” as she told some story to Swag, Canada, their buddy Tim, Tennessee, and Canada’s ladyfriend Collette. I squeezed my case into the fridge, where two more Miller Lite 30-packs and a case of Miller Lite pounders were already residing. I cracked open a beer, joined them in the living room to watch Olympic handball, and away we went.

Swag, Belle, and Tennessee had a new—albeit really strange—obsession that week: Listening to “Goodbye Horses” and dancing around like Buffalo Bill…

*sips his drink*

…I have no punchline for this, folks.

I also have no cause or explanation to add. The most telling fact about all of this, though, is that I had no real moment of shock as it was happening. “Swag and Belle are imitating a cross-dressing serial killer from a movie. …So what’s the score of the handball game?”

We were eventually joined by JL, Bang, Courtney, and Alex, and we made our way to Rumshakers. Once there…well, I’m having trouble remembering exactly what happened there. I know Tony met up with us in time. I remember talking with Joe, a bartender (who bears a striking resemblance to Chad Johnson, and who is nearly as charismatic), as we watched female members of my crew run around goofily. Which girls, or what exactly they were doing to make the two of us shake our heads…yeah. Gone with the booze. I also remember going across the street with several others to get some dinner from Dairy Queen, which we brought back and ate in the bar. But what I drank, what quotes others or I made, what hearts I stole, and what laws I broke are all a blur.

From Rumshakers, we backtracked back to Mt. Washington, heading to Redbeard's. We drank and celebrated there for a couple of hours before finally returning to Swag and Canada’s around 11:30. Checking out from the bars before midnight during a birthday bash? How positively “30” of us. We finished the night throwing back beers at the house, some people congregated (relatively) quietly in the living room around the TV, others (including the birthday boy) loitered on the front porch, enjoying the summer night.

By around 1:30 I moseyed off into the darkness, finding my way over to my “special friend”. Since she had taken in a healthy night of drinking as well, it was 11:30 before either of us got out of bed with any real resolve the next morning. In doing so, I checked Facebook and saw a 6 a.m. post from Swag asking if anyone else was awake. “Wow…” After a hearty brunch, my friend dropped me off at Swag’s, and I walked in to find Collette, Canada, Belle, Courtney, and JL in a joint state of “fml”. They reported that, though most everyone else had called it a night around the time that I did, Swag stayed up well into the morning, drinking and roaming the house. “I probably woke each guy up at least once to do a shot with me,” he explained when I went upstairs and found him awake again. “Mitch and I did a shot of Red Stag at 6:30.”

Dark Country

The muffled bars of Childish Gambino’s “Lights Turned On” broke me from the blackness of unfiltered sleep, and into the bright, balmy late-morning air that filled my bedroom last Saturday.

“Swag…
2:30 and we still makin’ progress,
Talkin’ on Twitter to see where to go next…”

My phone vibrated near my outstretched right hand. I picked it up and forced my eyes to focus on the screen. I didn’t recognize the number, so I hit ignore. I glanced over at the clock. 11:02 a.m. My phone buzzed with a new message; it was a text from the same number that had just called. “Hey are you down here for the tailgate?”

“Wait…” I said, picking my head up off the pillow. “I’m supposed to be at a country music tailgate right now…”

A little over a week before that, my friend Bill was once again attempting to persuade me to come to the tailgate party he and his boys throw each year for the Kenny Chesney concert. The show is a huge event in Pittsburgh every summer, and it brings in country music fans from as far away as western New York and Michigan. Bill, Steph, and others had petitioned me for years to come to the party. I flatly refused each and every time, usually countering by naming another activity I’d rather do than sit through a country music concert. Like…solder my tongue to a bus.

As we sat in Bossa Nova at a friend’s birthday party [Note: Their caipirinhas are still magical.] that Friday night, Bill finally won me over with a simple clarification. When I reminded him that I love nothing less than country music, he laughed it off. “I hate it too! I don’t actually go into the concert; I just go to McFadden’s once everyone else goes to the show.” Now he had my ear. And so, when he then reminded me—for the 5,309th time—that the tailgate is always packed with scantily-clad tail, I finally saw the wisdom in exploring this local tradition. You know, for the blog. Yup. *sips drink*

As the week had went on, Dupa and Jay Swag were convinced to join me. Armo decided to have a pool party that same Saturday, and the forecast of temps in the mid-90s indicated that making our way to his place to end the day would be in our best interest. I made preliminary plans to meet up with Dupa and Swag on Mt. Washington around 11 a.m…

…Well, that part was going to have to be amended. I climbed out of bed, exchanging texts with each of them as I looked for my phone charger. My Droid's battery was at less than 20%; which, for a smartphone, means it was running on fumes. When my charger wasn’t in its usual place, I remembered having put it in the gym bag I’d taken with me the night before—I had gone to Dupa’s to pregame by his pool before catching “Ted” on its opening night [absolutely hilarious film, by the way]. And my bag, more than likely, was still in the trunk of my car. I grabbed my keys and stumbled out to my garage, hitting the trunk button along the way. When I didn’t hear the normal sound of the trunk unlocking, I looked up: My garage was empty. What…the…fuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk?…

11:21 a.m. text to Swag and Dupa: “Ok, got a whole new problem. My car is missing.”

Part of me felt I should call the police. Another, much more logical part of me felt that my propensity for drunken foolishness may be a more likely culprit than a thief. I threw on a shirt and some sneakers, grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, and trudged up the sidewalk. I could only guess that maybe I had, for whatever reason, parked on the street instead the night before. Then, about halfway up my block, a memory jolted awake inside of me: On my way home from Dupa’s place, I had met up with Pakistanimal at Shady Grove. And I had parked near the bar. It seemed probable, then, that I had never moved my car from that spot. The fact that I had no clue if I had, indeed, left my car at the bar—and barely remembered being at the bar at all—made me all the more thankful that this scenario was the most likely one. I found my Bavarian chariot exactly where I had parked it the night before, now with a fresh parking ticket tucked under one of the wipers.

By 1:10 p.m. I was at the Wendy’s drive-thru, picking up some spicy chicken fortitude and receiving confirmation from Dupa that my sunglasses weren’t at his place, which meant I had, indeed, lost them the night before. The very same sunglasses that I’d bought less than two weeks before, to replace the pair I’d ruined at the Furry Safari. Which were purchased in March to replace a pair Dupa stole from me the day after the Super Bowl…

There’s a reason I buy my shades at Target.

I met up with Dupa at his place, parked my car in his apartment building’s garage for safekeeping (I wasn’t going to risk losing it again), and rode with him to Swag’s house. Once Swag had made some quick modifications to his facial hair (see right) and we’d done a shot of Dr. McGillicuddy’s Mentholmint, the three of us set off for the nearby T station. Dupa had brought half a case of Miller Lite with him, but by the time we were boarding the train there were only three cans left. And since Swag is continuing to obey the open container laws while on probation, that damage was done entirely by Dupa and me.

Once we reached the North Shore’s parking lots, where container laws don’t apply, Swag joined us in killing the remaining beers. We waded through thick 95 degree air and thicker swarms of people, many in cowboy hats and little other clothing. The attire for this tailgate has always been described to me as “slutty casual”, and those reports came in years where Pittsburgh wasn’t suffering through a record heat wave. With the sun burning away any fucks that people might otherwise have given, nary a Chesney fan in this land—male or female—hid behind stitched modesty. While surveying this landscape, we walked right into Bill’s party, completely by accident. Even the drunken squirrel finds a nut. They had cornered a large section of Gold Lot 2; here we found music pumping (mostly hip-hop, I believe), kegs tapped, a buffet of food set up, and red plastic cups a-tippin’.

We stopped only briefly, as we each needed to hit an ATM, and had other people we wanted to catch up with first. We walked along the river, taking in the sight of hundreds of boats docked with people partying and dancing everywhere, many of those people being young, tanned women in bikinis. I mentioned I was doing all of this strictly for the blog, right?

Swag broke off to catch up with Belle and her posse, while Dupa and I found Shannon and her girls crowded under a 5’-by-5’ blue canvas tent, tucked in amongst a hundred others like it, a broad ocean of asphalt, sweat, and beer away from Gold Lot 2. They fed us cans of Labatt Blue while we hung out, and we appreciated the cold sustenance and familiar faces.

Occasionally I looked around to find an inquisitive eye staring at me from a pickup truck or tent in the wilds beyond Shannon’s plot of land. Let’s face it, a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate isn’t the well-trodden domain of my people; when I did happen upon a fellow person “of color”, we gave each other knowing nods, as if to say, “The world done changed, homie.” Yet, what struck me more than how many people stared at me, was how many people didn’t stare at me. The overwhelming majority of revelers seemed indifferent to the fact that a 6’6” half-Black man was walking amongst them at a country music concert. The world done changed, homie.

Dupa and I journeyed off to Bill’s party once more. Upon arriving we found Swag, Belle, and the other gals, including Stacks and “AIDS”. [Note: This nickname is real, though it is hardly based in reality. The story, in a nutshell: Upon meeting this cute blonde friend of Belle’s for the first time some years ago, Swag thought it would be charming and/or clever to tell her that she looked like she had AIDS. Needless to say, it didn’t win her heart.] While her girls wore shorts and little t-shirts, AIDS went all-in with a little pink cowgirl hat, a tiny blue bikini, and cowgirl boots. “I told you,” she reminded us, “I don’t really like wearing clothes.”

By around 6 p.m. Dupa, Swag, and I were ready to switch things up, since everyone else (save for Bill and a few of his boys) was heading into the concert. The three of us flagged down a cab, and headed for Diamond Market Bar & Grill in Market Square. I know I ate while we were there, but all I really remember consuming was Moscow Mules. Swag disappeared mid-meal, and was gone a long while. Just when we had begun formulating plans for moving on without him (and eventually exacting revenge upon him for ditching us), he reappeared with a look of pure glee on his face. He had gone outside to smoke a cigarette; while out there, he ran into the ex-WWF wrestler Virgil. Twenty minutes of conversation and an autograph later, Swag was like a kid that had just met Mickey Mouse. He was so giddy, in fact, that he volunteered to pay the bill. All plans for revenge were scrapped.

We caught another cab; Swag, being averse to all things swimming pool, had us drop him off at his second home, Rumshakers. Dupa and I continued to his car on Mt. Washington, and then found our way to Armo’s. My Polish homie was soon snoring from an inflatable raft as the breeze gently pushed it to every corner of the pool. I occupied the rest of my night swimming, eating burgers from the grill, and kicking it with TJ and other party guests. I awoke the next morning to Armo poking my arm, for no other reason than his sheer desire to not be the only one awake. For a solid five minutes I puzzled my mind around how I had even gotten there. A short time later, as Armo drank a Bloody Mary to kick off his Sunday Funday and Dupa moaned like an orgasm-faking porn star from the kitchen for no reason whatsoever, a thought popped into my mind.

“Wait...I was at a country music tailgate yesterday…”

Viva Las Vegas: What Had Happened in Vegas Was...

[When we left our band of blottos, they were at the Fremont Casino on the final night of the three-day birthday bacchanalia, merrily filling plastic footballs and themselves with booze.]

We sat at the bar talking for a while (during which time Dupa and T.C. each put away a couple more drinks, and B Rush and I each drank about another three quarters of a football), and then moved on to the Golden Nugget. One of the oldest and most legendary of Las Vegas’ casinos, the Nugget was surprisingly modern inside, including a large, exotic pool area located in the center of the complex. Soft red and white lounge chairs take up a field of poolside real estate, and special waterproof, minimalist lounge chairs sit wading in about one foot of water on another side of the lavish urban lagoon. Those chairs face a glimmering wall of glass, which separates thousands of fish—including sharks—in an aquarium tank from the tourists swimming outside. The aquarium is part of a large structure in the middle of the pool; this structure, with streaming waterfalls shooting out near the top and pouring down into the pool below, encases the Nugget’s pièce de résistance: A waterslide that twists through the aquarium on its way down to the pool.

Pimpin’.

The far corner of the expansive courtyard is a cabana lounge, and is home to hot tubs, couches, and a bar. Having dusted off my second football of beer, I felt it time to find an alternative fuel. Hello, frozen margaritas. I braved the pain of brain freeze—while, ironically, numbing up the rest of my body—as we took a few minutes to collect ourselves and relax in this oasis.

When we finally strolled out of the Nugget, our eyes wandered down Fremont Street to the left, and landed on a pink, blinking neon sign that beckoned to us: “Glitter Gulch”. We asked the bouncer what the cover charge was. “No cover. There’s a two drink minimum, though.” Well now… The four of us strolled through the doors, and walked right into a feeding frenzy. Consider the following factors:

• There may have been 10 other customers in the establishment that night.
• There were approximately 40 dancers working.
• Dupa, T.C., and I smelled of alcohol and tourist money.
• B’s neck and wrist were frozen.

If you’ve ever seen a nature show where a doomed cow tries to cross a piranha-filled river, then you have a good idea of the scene that ensued. A hostess sat us at the edge of the stage, and a waitress took our drink orders (two Miller Lites for me). And before either of them had left, the horde was on top of us. Dancers in lacy lingerie came at us in schools of three or more, each rubbing shoulders and caressing necks, trying to seduce rent money out of our pockets.

Now, I consider myself a strip club Jedi; I was trained by TJ, the Obi Wan Kenobi of spending a night in a club without becoming a mark. I looked at my traveling party: Two seats to my right was the Vegas resident, jaded to women who are out to make a buck; between he and I sat the faithfully-married man, who probably hadn’t smelled another woman’s perfume in ten years; and to my left was a wildcard drunk, in Vegas to celebrate his 30th birthday. It seemed pretty obvious who was going to be the one to crack and buy a private dance.

Me *juggling swigs from each Miller Lite bottle and pulls from the straw in my frozen margarita*: “You know all these girls just want you to buy a dance. Fuck if I’m spending any money on that.”
Dupa: “Yeah, me neither. I’m staying right here.”

Feeling secure that none of us were going to get suckered into a $15,000 night, I turned back to my right…to find two empty chairs. “Son of a…”

T.C., as it turned out, had only gone off to the restroom. B, however, had fallen into the trap. Seven years in Vegas, it seems, is no match for a pretty face and a thick ass. I returned my attention to the ladies working the stage. As a cute dancer with sandy blonde hair leaned over and slapped the sides of my face with her D cups, I heard a girl’s voice behind Dupa and me. “Hey, are you [Dupa]? Your friend needs you in the back.” He followed a beautiful brunette dancer back to the private rooms, where T.C. was standing with a smile. “Get in there,” he said to the birthday boy as he pointed to a curtained-off room. “I bought you a dance.”

T.C. returned and sat in Dupa’s seat; after having spent the previous ten minutes fighting off about 30 half-naked, cash-hungry zombies, I could only react to news of his generosity with jealous bemusement. “Wait, why didn’t you tell ME you were buying dances?” My covetousness, however, was quickly trumped by another of the seven deadly sins: lust.

A 5’2”, milk chocolate beauty strutted out onto the stage, her eyes locked on mine. I felt a “damn…” escape my lips. She danced for me, and after accepting my dollar, moved off to another guy. A minute or two later, though, as I talked to B, I suddenly felt her grab my face and my attention—and soon, another dollar. Her dance ended and she walked off the stage, and all of 20 seconds later I found her sitting next to me. She was West Indian, and her casual Rihanna-like accent gently wafted over me. Feeling her hand on my thigh, I quickly threw out the same tried-and-true shield I had used on her coworkers in self-defense: “I’m not buying dances tonight; I know you’re on your hustle, so I don’t want to waste your time...” Her response? With a sly grin, she cooed, “Who sed enehtheeng abou ta dance?”

Uh-oh.

Though she was petite, my West Indian Princess was a woman of big plans. “I want you to give me baybeez,” she said with twinkling eyes. “You and me could make some beautiful baybeez. We don’t have to git mayred. I doan want money or enehtheeng; I juss want you to give me baybeez. You have to get tested first; then you can give me baybeez.”

I mean… What’s $15,000, really? Who can put a price on happiness?

For maybe the first time in history, someone (…that being me) was saved by someone else’s shameless hating (…that being B). Having not made the same type of deep, spiritual connection with any ladies, the homie wanted to roll out. And he was driving, so me standing up to him in the name of love wasn’t going to happen. Alas, my West Indian Princess and I were torn apart. [Maybe Nancy can pick her up on her way to Pittsburgh?]

We moved on to Binions, intent on finding a blackjack table where we could drown all the hate and heartache in some split aces. A quick stroll through the premises proved fruitless, though, and we decided it was time to move back to the Strip. Remembering our encounter with the off-duty Paris dealer the night before, we chose that as our destination. B decided to call it a night, but dropped us off at the doors with some daps and a “Good luck.”

Being inside Paris is always a little disconcerting [*stifles a “night vision/Rick Salomon” joke*]. The casino’s interior is designed to simulate a sunny Parisian day, 24/7. When a heavy Friday night crowd is bustling around well after 3 a.m., it’s like having your eyelids stapled-open, then being bombarded by the flashing signs from roulette and Pai-gow tables. We searched for the blackjack-dealing cutie from Tommy Rockers, but halfway around the gaming floor T.C. remembered that Friday was her night off. Dupa, undeterred, found a table to play on; T.C. and I considered our options: Spend $15 a hand on blackjack, or $12 a round on draughts. We flipped peace signs at Dupa and headed to a bar just off the floor.

We got ourselves a couple of comfortable barstools and a couple of tall glasses of…some kind of beer [if you can still remember details like the brand of alcohol you’re ingesting by the 67th hour of a Vegas trip, then you’re clearly doing something wrong]. It had been a long time (the previous couple of days excluded) since T.C. and I had gotten to hang out together one-on-one. Marriage, fatherhood, responsibilities—and whatever booze and loose women I happened to be occupying my time with—have a way of limiting your chances to have a beer at a bar with one of your boys. Realizing we were in the waning hours of the voyage, we talked about life, soaked in the fake-Parisian atmosphere, and toasted to one hell of a trip.

Near the bottom of his first draught, T.C. taunted me for being behind. Even in our most reflective, camaraderie-laced moments, guys have to be dicks to each other. ‘Tis the rule. As I chugged the last quarter of my glass, Dupa appeared; his birthday luck was officially no more, the dealers having handed him a small beating at his table. We suggested he pull up a stool next to us, but he chose to call it a night. We wished him safe travels, and ordered another round. And then, as though the Sin City gods had found one last blank box on a “Vegas Experiences” checklist for us, two beautiful blonde cougars stepped up next to us at the bar. Well now…

The more engaging—and hotter—of the two introduced herself as "Terry Jones". “That sounds like a porn name,” I noted, ever-so-suavely. She laughed in agreement, though, which made me all the more certain it was a “Vegas name”. I’m sure to her husband and her fellow PTA members in Oklahoma she’s “Susan Kowalski” or “Rebecca Smith”, etc. But when she’s on the prowl with her BFF at 4 a.m. in Vegas? “Terry Jones”. Sure. Any two names will do.

I certainly wasn’t going to grill her on it. Ms. Jones was stacked; her body and face could have easily appeared between the covers of Playboy 15 years ago, and yet neither would give you the slightest reason to suggest it was past its “prime”. And her personality held up its end of the bargain, as she fell right into bullshitting with the two of us about her night, and about how a creepy older gentleman was following them around and trying to buy his way into her friend’s heart (and failing horribly at it). I considered—this being Las Vegas, after all—that she might be a pro, and trying to get us on the hook. If she and her friend were prostitutes, though, why avoid the guy trying to spend his grandchildren’s inheritance on them? Especially for two younger guys drinking draught beers at the floor bar? And they were definitely trying to get away from the geriatric creeper: Ms. Jones’ friend would disappear with him, reappear without him, and then dejectedly walk off with him again when he’d come back in search of her. No, I concluded, Ms. Jones was just a regular gal out trying to have fun. …Well, a regular gal that looked and sounded like a “MILFs Like It Big” scene, with the fake name to match.

Although I understood just what the level of legendary-ness would be if I were to cap off my Vegas trip with an “I boned the hottest 39-year-old you’ve ever seen” tale, I couldn’t deny that I was starting to drag. Ms. Jones’ body made me want to get her into bed, but I was afraid once we got there my body would shut down. T.C. was as ride-or-die as ever, and did his best to keep me in the game. He put in a commendable wingman effort, but it wasn’t to be. By 5 a.m., I waved off Iceman’s suggestion to pull the trigger on another round, deciding instead to head back to base. Ms. Jones, more than likely, could’ve made my legs go numb; but that was of little concern when I already couldn’t feel them beneath me. T.C. and I bid the ladies adieu, and stumbled back to the PH through the haggard streets of 5 a.m. Vegas, hitting our beds without removing so much as the shoes from our feet.

The next morning, still disoriented, all three of us haphazardly packed suitcases, tossing dirty underwear in next to disillusioned realities. We ate breakfast at Planet Dailies, and then hopped into cabs [Dupa, instead of going straight back to Pittsburgh with us, was heading to a work event elsewhere in Nevada] at the curbside pick-up—the very same place where we’d arrived 76 hours earlier, animated and ready for all Las Vegas had to give us. And although Dupa “died” Wednesday, T.C. “died” Thursday, and I “died” Friday, the one thing that Vegas had given to each of us, really, was life. Three days in Vegas tells you who you are and who your friends are. It shows you everything you could ever want, and makes you grateful for everything you’ve ever had. You cherish the present, embrace the past, and toast to the future. It’s not that it makes life greater; no, it simply makes you accept just how great life is.

My cousin has recently suggested I join him for a bachelor party in Vegas this upcoming September. If I go, I’ll be sure to have the results of my latest STD test on the ready in my pocket. A guy’s got to start a family sooner or later, right?