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.

The Worst: The Program

[This series of stories explores some of my more embarrassing achievements in the category of "drunken fail". And in every fail in life, there's an ounce of naivety, a pinch of redemption, and a bucket of lessons learned.]

When you’re a senior in high school, you think you’re prepared for everything. It’s not that you think you know everything—you’re overly aware that you don’t know everything. From the first bell of the school year on, you’re sliding towards a cliff called “graduation”. And over that precipice is college: a swirling sea of teachers who know what they’re talking about, classmates who know the answers, and girls who know what orgasms are. But regardless of all that you know you don’t know, you know you’re prepared to jump headfirst into that new, unknown world.

One thing I didn't know was booze. (Yeah…let that one sink in for a moment.) I really wasn’t much of a drinker in high school…in that I didn't drink anything. Ever. Sure, I had the occasional half a beer that an older cousin slipped to me at a family reunion, cup of champagne on New Year’s Eve, or few ounces of crème de menthe to sip when Mom was having a nightcap and feeling lenient. But hanging out in the woods pounding cheap beers bought with a fake ID? That wasn’t me.

Then, in the winter of my senior year, college coaches began taking an interest in seeing me line up for their defenses, and thus started inviting me to spend time on their campuses. When a recruit visits a college, he's assigned a host—a member of the team who acts as a guide through this amazing world of liberties. And a host has one job: Make sure the recruit has as much fun as he can have without dying.

Now, if you’re a blue chip prospect being recruited by a D-I school, there are seemingly endless options available for what the word “fun” can mean. But the schools interested in me were D-II at best. The quality and amount of amenities drops significantly with each “I” you add after that dash.

One Saturday morning that January, my mom dropped me off at Washington & Jefferson College. W&J was D-III; by the time you get down to the third “I”, the only real indulgence available in attractive, abundant quantities is booze. Today, that sounds like heaven. 16 years ago, it sounded like trouble.

My host was “Varsity”. Varsity had been the starting quarterback for my high school’s team when I was a freshman. Of course, back in those days we had been a run-heavy offense; in college, therefore, Varsity was a punter. I tried to bust his balls about this while we caught up, but he pointed out that he spent all practice kicking and rarely running, spent games not getting hit, and then spent Saturday nights celebrating wins at the same parties as the rest of the team and—this being D-III—boning girls of the same quality that any other starter was boning. I had nothing in response, and silently vowed to follow his every word like gospel from there on out.

After meetings with coaches and watching part of a wrestling match in the gym, we headed back to Varsity’s dorm room. He was in a fraternity—the prototypical “football frat” on campus. The sound of loud music and the smell of stale beer greeted you from the muddy hallways, as guys still reeking of the previous night’s parties and sexual conquests moved from room to room. Varsity’s roommate was the team’s starting center, a 6’2” block of muscles. “Block” was twice the size of the kids I’d tossed around in high school games, a big ol’ country boy with a dip in his mouth, a hungover grin on his face, and a handshake that almost dislocated my shoulder. Yeah, college was going to be different.

Being a strapping young lad of nearly 18 years, the most prominent thought on my mind in every second of every minute was girls. Varsity, his frat brothers, and other members of the football team all painted the picture of drunk, immoral slores who treated parties like the dick aisle in a supermarket. The abundance of willing females, it seems, was never in question at W&J.

…No, what was in short supply, was physical beauty. In a school of only 1300 students, there were only so many hot girls to go around, and the odds of bedding one were in no man’s favor. And so, when it came to drunken hookups, lowered expectations were the name of the game.

I was learning so much, and this was only my recruiting trip.

To illustrate this concept, at dinner they pointed out “Hulkamania” from across the cafeteria. [Note: This was really one of her nicknames, but it wasn’t actually born until the following September, when one of my friends—a fellow freshman on the team—hooked up with her. During their encounter, she ripped open her own tank top, reminiscent of the old Hulk Hogan move.] She was a sophomore sorority girl who had the build of a pulling guard. She was always a booty call away any time of day, and had already put together quite an impressive resume after only a year and a half of college. Several of the guys on the team, in fact, had been down that (well-trodden) path. I shuddered at the thought.

After dinner we got ready for the night’s parties. Now let’s stop to take in this full picture:

• I was 17-going-on-18;
• I was not a drinker;
• I was about to spend a Saturday night partying with members of the W&J football team;
• …who also happened to be members of the school’s rowdiest and most notorious frat.
  

I mean, even if you’re drinking along with me as you read this and have already forgotten the story’s title, you’ve still got to be thinking, “Holy shitballs—this will end up in a bad place...”

There’s no slowroll when you’re drinking at W&J. That’s a casual, understood truth for me now, but I was utterly ignorant to it on that January evening. The second a can or bottle is opened, it’s “go time”; whether it be the last night of Carnival, or a random night when you’re babysitting a naïve high school kid.

Pregaming at Washington & Jefferson is equivalent to the two minute drill at a lesser drinking school. A case of beer found its way into the room…somehow. I’m sure I knew of its origin at some point, but not anymore. We cracked open cans of Beast, and my temporary guardians were throwing them back with little care about anything else in the world. I was sipping, they were gulping.

Their boy George joined us, and we began playing “Caps”. The fact that they had a stash of beer bottle caps saved specifically for this pastime unnerved me, slightly—especially since I had never played this game (or any, really) before. I was seated across the floor from Block; as the first bottle cap was about to fly through the air, they informed me that he was the best player in the frat. Maybe even the best at W&J. I might’ve gotten “Wha—” out of my mouth before a cap landed in my cup.

I was told I had to chug.

*in my head*

“This just doesn’t seem fair. I’m new to this shit. Maybe I should say
some—”

Another hit for Block. Another chug for me. Another can of Beast.

“I mean, I can handle this shit. Fuck that, I’ve gotta be a man! Who
are they—”

Another hit. Another chug.

“Fuck! This dude doesn’t miss! Was this one of his daily chores on
the farm where he grew—”

Hit. Chug. New can.

“I…what was I thinking about before?”

Varsity: “You okay?”
Me: “Yeah, I’m cool.”

“You’re NOT cool, dick! You—”

Hit. Chug.

“Make this stop, NOW! How fucking stupid—”

Hit. Chug. New can.

“I…whew…did the room suddenly get spinny?”

Hit. Chug.

“Thas a lots beer...”

Varsity: “How you feelin’?”
Me: “I—”

The vomit hit my shirt before I knew what had happened.

Here’s where I learned something important, though. You see, as an inexperienced kid surrounded by men, you expect a moment of weakness such as that to be met with disapproval, and for shame to be cast upon you. …And it is. But you also expect them to ostracize you, and to alienate you for the rest of the night—if not for the rest of their lives. Instead, those men chuckle at the destruction they’ve brought about and crack open more beers; then Block grabs you a t-shirt out of his closet, Varsity gets you some mouthwash, and you all head out to the quads to start the night’s partying in earnest.

Welcome to adulthood.

We stepped out into a cold night that pulsated with music and a lack of worry. Varsity kept me near his side, so as to prevent me from careening into any real trouble. But he threw everything he could at me full force.

I remember being introduced to girls at parties. Lots of them. At every party. I remember dancing with some. I remember never not having a cup or can in my hand. I remember stumbling back and forth and back again through a maze of sidewalks leading from one fraternity house to another, finally ending up at the Kappa Sig house.

I remember a guy onstage inviting people to chug beers with live goldfish in them. I remember telling Varsity there was no way in hell he was getting me up on that stage, and then watching him shrug his shoulders, go up himself, and down a goldfish. I remember finding myself behind the bar handing out beers for a while, until a Kappa Sig saw me and stopped my bartending career before it got his house thrown off campus. And I remember calling it a night—probably around 11:30-midnight—stumbling to the frat house alone, climbing up to the bunk above Varsity’s bed, and being asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Then I remember the bed giving a slight wobble, and awaking to hear a female voice I didn’t know, accompanied by a male one I did.

Girl: *laughing* “I caaaannnn’tttt…”
Varsity: “Yes you can!”
Girl: “I’m too drunk! Can’t I just stay here?”
Varsity: “You can’t sleep here!”
Girl: “Why not?”
Varsity: “What’re you gonna do if you stay down here?”
Girl: *laughing* “What do you want me to do?...”
Varsity: “Why don’t you…”
*fade away to sounds of kissing, rustling, sucking…*

Thankfully, the alcohol had taken me again.

When I awoke the next day, my entire physical being had been shred apart. I may have had more impressive hangovers in the years since, but you always remember your first. Varsity’s visitor had since left, and he wore the carefree shame of a man willing to own his mistakes.

Varsity: “That was [Hulkamania]…”
Me: “What?!”
Varsity: “Hey…”

As I gathered my stuff, Block walked in with his typical shit-eating grin.

Block: *to Varsity* “How did your night end up?”
Varsity: “What?”
Block: “I brought her back here for him *points at me*…”
Me: “Wait—WHAT?!”
Block: “…but she was too drunk and fat to climb up to the top bunk. So I just told her to climb into bed with [Varsity].”
Me: “Thank god!”
Varsity: “I was wondering where the hell she came from…”

Is it any wonder I enrolled the following summer?

One Night in Charlottesville, Part I

There are hundreds—if not thousands—of drinking stories involving my friends and me. But few hold a place as dear in our hearts as the tale of a night in Charlottesville, VA in February 2002. It is frequently repeated and discussed whenever more than two of the seven key players are gathered together; especially when we’re assembled because one of those individuals is getting married. The contrast between “drunken idiot yelling/ shoving/ eating/ hunting/ slamming/ disappearing/ escaping/ etc...” and “mature man marrying” is too sharp not to inspire awe and retellings of the great adventure.

The trip arose from very basic origins: Esq was in his first year of law school at the University of Virginia, and wanted his boys to come hang out for a night on the town. Nearing Charlottesville, BlahBlahBlah and I wondered which highway exit we were supposed to take to get to Esq’s apartment. That question was answered, however, when a towering, glowing Hardee's star appeared over the trees that lined an upcoming exit ramp. Any Washington & Jefferson grad (pre Class of ’06) worth his salt has taken an intoxicated 3 a.m. trip to the Hardee's drive-thru, and subsequently inhaled the greasiest—and most satisfying—patties of ground meat to ever get adorned with bacon, cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and buns. When we took the exit and found Esq’s apartment building to be a parking lot away from the giant star that had guided us, it just felt…right.

The five of us—Chief, Baby Joey, Butters, BBB, and I—knocked on Esq’s door, and were greeted by the man himself, who was holding an open 30 pack of Milwaukee’s Best (Beast) Light. We were each handed a cold can as we filed past him. Court was in session.

Our buddy Motown and his wife (“Mrs. Motown,” though at the time she was still just his girlfriend) arrived a short while later, having driven from their home in a nearby Virginia town where Motown worked as a corrections officer at a prison. His new career path was hilarious to those of us who knew Motown. A generally jovial guy, he was ever so quick to settle disputes with his fists and muscles, which are as big as his near constant grin. Hours after I first met Motown, back in college, I watched him dish out a thorough beatdown to a guy behind a dorm building. Motown wasn’t a student at W&J, but his best friend was, as was a Phi Si with whom he had beefed the previous summer. Motown had decided, therefore, to kill two birds with one stone by visiting his buddy and taking care of his unfinished business all in the same night. His best friend (who is also a friend of mine) and I, along with 3 or 4 others, stood guard to be sure the fight stayed one-on-one (Phi Sis typically preferred 20-vs.-1 odds than to shoot a fair one). For approximately three minutes, Motown manhandled his opponent, delivering punches, body slams, and a few rib kicks—before we finally stepped in and pulled him off the poor sap—with childlike enthusiasm, grinning and playfully talking trash. As his friend walked the beaten guy back to the Phi Si house, I joined the others in laughingly congratulating Motown, all while thinking to myself, “Thank god he’s on my side.”

The eight of us at Esq’s apartment spent the next few hours trading stories, playing games, and annihilating the better part of four Beast 30 packs. I believe the final tally as we were leaving for the bars was around 96 cans of beer that had been sent to their final resting place. That’s 12 beers per person. Yessir. And now it was time to unleash ourselves upon Charlottesville.

Our first stop was a large, crowded sports bar [I cannot remember the name, but if one of my friends does, I will update the blog later]. As we reached the door and the bouncer who was checking IDs, Chief suddenly realized that he had left behind his driver’s license…in Pittsburgh. He explained this to the doorman, who was far from sympathetic. Motown, thinking fast, stepped forward and flashed his corrections officer badge. “Don’t worry,” he assured the bouncer, “I’ll keep an eye on him.” It was nothing short of ironic to see one of my friends taken into a bar by a badge.

As we filed up the steps into the bar, Chief began a “Hear we go, Steelers” chant—the same nauseating, slack-jawed chorus typically heard in and around Heinz Field in the fall. Only we were in central Virginia. In February. For Yinzers, logic is rarely an option.

Despite his conspicuous introduction to Charlottesville’s nightlife, Chief was far from being our biggest problem child. Not long after getting ourselves drinks, BBB decided he was going to try out the pool tables. But when he walked over to a busy table and placed a dollar bill down on the railing, one of the guys playing on the table informed him that this bar had a different policy regarding their billiards tables. Instead of them being pay-per-play, bar patrons had to put down a credit card and “rent” a table for a set amount of time. Unfortunately, BBB had long ago drunk himself past the point of comprehending this adjustment to his plan to secure a pool table. Seeing a confused look on his face, the other guy picked up BBB’s dollar and handed it back to him, while trying to explain the rules once again. BBB looked at him, and then slammed his dollar bill back down on the railing. The guy once again picked up the bill and handed it back to BBB, who once again slammed it down on the table. Negotiations were at an impasse.

All of this caught the attention of a bouncer, who pulled BBB over to where the rest of us were located. The owner and another bouncer came over as well, and I found myself standing between them and my boys, playing “Sober Representative” for BBB. The owner wanted to remove him (and probably the rest of us as well), but I did my best to reason with him. It didn’t help, of course, that while I talked to him Chief stood behind me calling one of the bouncers “Flava Flav.” Shouts of “Hey Flav, where’s your giant clock?” bellowed from over my right shoulder while I tried to convince the bar owner that my other friend wasn’t too drunk to be in the establishment. ‘Tis my life.

Somehow, I managed to persuade the owner that I could control BBB. As he began to relent, however, I glanced past him to the pool table where all of the fun had started. I had not realized it, but BBB had snuck away from the fray, and was back at the table. Giggling yet methodic, he lined the pool table's railing with empty beer bottles from around the bar. My mouth-agape gaze finally cued the owner to turn around, and after seeing BBB’s work, he glared back at me with anger. I’m not sure he even needed to say the words “get out” for us to know that our visit to his bar had ended.

We walked down the street to a smaller, less-populated bar. We got ourselves beers, and things were going swimmingly…for about five minutes. Chief had reached his rambunctious stage of heavy drinking—known amongst our circle of friends as “Chief Drunk”—and decided that some of the random people near him were in need of some playful shoves. The bartender, seeing a crew made up mostly of large gentlemen (Butters, at about 6’0” 230lbs was the smallest male in our group), decided to nip things in the proverbial bud. My drunk had finally caught up with me, so Esq took over all negotiation duties. The bartender made Esq see the wisdom in our leaving; but, law student that he was, my friend decided to reach a compromise. Behind the bar was a large bell (I’m not sure why it was there; maybe it’s just a Virginia thing?), and Esq said he needed to ring it in exchange for us cutting our stay short. The bartender conceded, and the bar was quickly filled with the piercing clanging of Esq’s parting gift. Finished with the bell, and grinning from ear to ear, he turned to the rest of us and said, “Okay, let’s go!”