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.

Spring Cleaning

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who first said, “The more time I spend being drunk and awesome, the less time I have to write about being drunk and awesome.”

March and April were so full of shenanigans that I skipped out on writing about most of them. It tends to happen every year, since you get three significant drinking holidays—St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th, my birthday on March 29th, and the Pirates’ Home Opener in the first week of April—packed together in a three-week window on the calendar. Add in TJ’s birthday, Penguins playoff games, and Brewski Fest tying a nice bow on it all at April’s end, and you get a whole lot of “Wait, whose couch is this?” mornings. In past years, when I worked at my old job, I would’ve devoted some of my daily free time during workdays to retell the details of those events. But, with my current occupation, there is no such thing as “free time”; consequently, it’s you the viewing public who suffer. ‘Tis a cruel, cruel world, I know.

Let’s see if I can give a quick rundown of the blurry-visioned fun that has taken place through the first half of spring.


St. Patty’s Angels (Saturday, 3/16)

• Our standard squadron of drinkers assembled on Mt. Washington, with TJ, Specs, and I starting our morning at Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s house. Making a special appearance was Affliction, who quickly explained his recent M.I.A. status: He’s (reluctantly) going to be a father.
  
  Yes, he accidentally impregnated the hot, mentally-unstable Jesus freak that he had been casually bodyrockin’ for a few months. This chick is so crazy that he once caught her reading the bible aloud…to her dog. Seriously.
  
  Always wear a condom, kids.
  
  
• For weeks, Shannon had been teasing that she would have a surprise waiting for me when I arrived at her annual party. Given my various bedroom entanglements with her and her sister’s friends over the years…well, I didn’t expect good things.
  
  My god was I proven wrong. When we walked into her apartment, she pointed me towards her kitchen table, on which sat a pyramid of Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. Whether she knows it or not, we’re getting married. And we’re consummating the marriage on a mountain of those cupcakes.
  
  
• I did quick, swift damage on St. Patty’s. True, it was to myself; but…whatevs. Before I knew it I was sitting at the bar in Redbeard’s, using chicken tenders to ward off a full-on blackout.
  
  
• By the end of the night I was air-humping a passed-out-on-the-couch JL at Swag’s, while everyone else played drinking games. About seven of us passed out in that living room, and that eventually turned to eight when Tony showed up out of nowhere at 2:30 a.m. and began drunkenly groping his way through the room with a goofy smile that beamed through the darkness.
  

Meet the Parent (Friday, 3/22)

• Alex’s parents were in town for her Mom’s birthday. To celebrate, Alex took her to a local place where you can do amateur painting while sipping wine. Her dad, however, is like the rest of us normal people, and therefore chose sitting at a bar over sitting in an art studio. So Tony, TD, and I caught up with him at Shady Grove.
  
  In about 30 minutes of hang time, TD fell in love with him and I gave up Alex’s secret about the parties she threw at his house when she was a kid. This is why we shouldn’t be allowed around parents.
  
  
• We offered to buy him a shot, but he wouldn’t hear of it, saying firmly that he wasn’t up for anything crazy like us “kids”. Curious, though, he asked TD what kind of shot she would normally buy.
  
  TD: “I don’t know, probably some kind of bomb…”
  Alex’s Dad: “No, I don’t want one of those. *to me* How ‘bout you?”
  Me: “I’d probably just do a shot of Jack.”
  Alex’s Dad: “Now that sounds good.”
  Me: “Bartender!”
  
  
• The night ended with TD, Tony, and I back at my place, obliterated and suffering from drunk munchies (or “drunchies”—copyrighted). Tony found out Dominos was still open, and ordered up two pizzas. Three minutes after he hung up, TD accused him of not ordering pizza. She called Dominos herself, and was told by their staff that the order had been placed, as Tony and I laughed.
  
  That wasn’t enough confirmation for her, though. She called back several more times, to the point where the people at Dominos asked her to please stop calling them.
  

Treat Yoself! (Thursday, 3/28)

• My birthday weekend kicked off with Aziz Ansari’s “Buried Alive” tour stop in Pittsburgh. After work I caught up with Alex, TJ, and Armo at Olive or Twist, and swilled Manhattans while taking in Pittsburgh’s young professional set (shocker: I wasn’t impressed). We moved from there to the show (much love to all three of them for covering the cost of my ticket for my birthday—a truly fantastic gift), and Aziz brought the heat throughout his performance.
  
  

Birth Dazed (Friday, 3/29)

• The day’s fun started that afternoon. TD picked me up at my office building and took me to lunch at Fatheads, handing me a gift when I hopped into the car. My present? A bottle of Bulleit bourbon. Love. My. LSFAM (Little Sister From Another Mother).
  
  
• We met up with Boy Toy and Special K for beer and fantastic sandwiches. I ate until I couldn’t move, washed it down with drafts of good beer, and then ate some more. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to work half of a Friday while simultaneously fighting off a Fatheads coma and a coronary.
  
  
• That evening we gathered troops in Shadyside. TD, Special K, Special K’s husband, Tony, and Pakistanimal, all met up at my place for some pregaming, and then headed to Shady Grove for dinner and drinks. Hollywood, too, would eventually make an appearance.
  
  
• Pak, in particular, was anxious to start ordering me shots (#shocking). But even TJ—who couldn’t make it out that night—was in on the assault, ordering the modified Liquid Cocaine shot that has by now become our traditional birthday napalm. I texted him something anti-Semitic and threw it back.
  
  
• At William Penn Tavern later in the night, Tony was utterly dumbfounded to find out that the lyrics are “Highway to the Danger Zone,” and not “I went to the Danger Zone.” Yes, I’m serious. Yes, we made fun of him.
  
  
• For the second Friday in a row, it was TD, Tony, and I back at my place to the end the night. And for the second Friday in a row we ordered pizza from Dominos. But this time we kept TD’s phone away from her until the food was delivered.
  
  

Cold Open (Monday, 4/1)

• 
  This year Mother Nature played a cruel April Fools’ joke on Pittsburgh: the high for the Pirates’ Home Opener was a sweltering 47 degrees Fahrenheit, though for most of the morning and afternoon—the prime tailgating time—temps hovered in the low 30s, with frequent snow flurries. Ever get pelted in the face by snowflakes as you grip a can of Miller Lite with a shivering, numb hand, all while trying to watch a guy and five girls do some hip-hop line dance a row of cars over? Mother Nature is a devious bitch.
  
  
• LRG was on hand, along with his crew of young(ish) millionaires. Once we had all migrated indoors to McFadden’s, they quickly set up shop at the bar. And, before long, shots were being passed in every direction. I got hit by a few, and the next thing I remember with 100% certainty, I was sipping a beer on Swag’s porch.
  
  
• Somehow, someway, we found our way to Redbeard’s, where we were joined by Boy Toy, Mitch Canada, and a few of Canada’s boys for dinner and more booze. Lil Mo even made a brief appearance—just enough time for me to drunkenly yell at her for absolutely nothing. We closed the night at Cafe Nikos, and I finally called “No mas” around 2 a.m. Not bad, considering I’d started drinking at 9:45 that morning.
  
  

TJ’s Birthday (Sunday, 4/14)

• The birthday boy waited until that afternoon to decide that he wanted to have drinks at Grove; Alex and I faithfully obliged. A drunker-than-usual Lil Mo made an appearance, the Grove bartenders worked their magic, and we managed to get the homie buzzed-up on his day. It was small ball, but a win is a win.
  
  

Brews’ Clues (Saturday, 4/27)

• Brewski, oh Brewski. 20+ of us swarmed Seven Springs for this year’s event. I sipped beers during pregaming in TD’s room, pounded beers during the event, pounded beers and shots during the after party at Matterhorn, and threw the last shovelful of dirt on my coffin during the after-after party in BlahBlahBlah’s room.
  
  
• The best-kept secret of early 2013: Dupa made a surprise guest appearance at Brewski. The homie, who now lives in Houston, TX, flew into town to ensure that he, like me, extended his attendance streak to eight straight years of beer-tasting, booth-babe-teasing awesomeness.
  
  
• Among this year’s rookies was Jay Swag…who was technically one of last year’s rookies. But last year he spent the entire event sleeping off the hangover he’d incurred the night before; this, therefore, was his first time actually tasting brewskis while at Brewski Fest.
  
  
• When entering the event, you file in past security, ticket takers, etc. Nodding towards the policeman working security detail, I flashed a smirk at a female member of the event staff. “Have you guys ever had to throw someone out for being too drunk before they even got in?” Without a hint of a smile, she looked directly into my eyes and said, “Yes.” I suddenly wished I’d never said anything at all.
  
  
• 
  That night at Matterhorn, I stepped up to the back bar with T.C., and waited while a middle-aged white woman—the only bartender at that post—worked her way clockwise around towards our spot. And when my turn came a good ten minutes later…she passed me over for the guy standing to our left. T.C. and I both instinctively yelled “What the fuck?!” And in my alcohol-sodden state, I added, “That’s racist!”
  
  Was I entirely serious with the accusation? No, of course not. If anything, it was a reflex, given the humor my crew and I engage in on a daily basis. As you might expect, though, the bartender did not take kindly to my comment. Her claim that I had just then walked up to the bar, however, inspired shock from both T.C. and some of the guys standing around us. Then, when she could have saved herself by selling me booze to erase my memory of the whole situation, the bartender instead waited on a guy who had just walked up to the right of me. I walked off, calling her a “fucking racist”, and listening to T.C. telling her how full of shit she was as I went to the bar on the other side of the room.
  
  
• Once back at BBB’s for the after-after party, we decided to play beer pong. Someone had been smart enough to bring cups, but no one had been smart enough to bring pong balls. W&J boys never falter, though; BBB and I played one-on-one, using bottle caps.
  
  
• …All of that lasted one lengthy game, before the girls took over and started rounds of flip cup.
  
  
• I awoke a few hours later to my boy “Hurley” standing in the room with his new friend, a trashy blonde. Hurley, Dupa, and I were splitting the suite. But Dupa had the girl he’s dating with him, and had weaseled his way into the deckside bedroom, leaving Hurley and I to share the hallside bedroom. And since I’d gotten there first, it seemed like Hurls was all out of options for lovin’ in Room 356.
  
  He and his gal pal left. I got up to use the bathroom, and as I walked out a few minutes later, they came back. I went back to bed, and realized soon after the light went out that they were now cuddled on the other half of the bed. So I did what any reasonable friend would do: I got my phone and snapped a picture of her laying on top of him.
  
  
• Eventually, I was awakened again, this time by…certain sounds…and a moving bed. I refused to roll over to see something I couldn’t unsee.
  
  
• When I told Dupa the story the next morning—Hurley had left early to catch a flight—and showed him my photographic evidence, he expanded the picture, chortled, and shoved the phone back in my face.
  
  Dupa: “What do you see?”
  Me: “What?”
  Dupa: “Look at her hand!”
  
  There, on the second-from-the-left finger on her left hand, were a wedding band and an engagement ring.
  
  
• I realized, as I got dressed to leave that morning, that the lace from my left Timberland was missing. Gone. Nowhere to be found.
  
  This is now a cold case. R.I.P. Timb lace.
  

MDW 13

“[Jay Swag] was obliterated. [Boy Toy] only had one beer. [MoPaddle] and [“J-Cray”] were hurting. Alex’s parents are pretty cool.”

And with that, TJ summed up his Memorial Day barbecue.

I could turn this into a lecture as to why you don’t plan parties on the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend when everyone there has to be at work on Tuesday morning, but I think the lesson’s pretty clear. The very fact that he had to tell me about the party via email on Tuesday says it all. I was involved in a deep catch-up nap on my couch for much of Monday afternoon, after 60+ hours spent alternating between inebriated and hungover states.


Friday

We gathered at TD and Boy Toy’s home in Mt. Washington for the Penguins’ playoff game. TD and her crew had been drinking for most of the day, so by the time I walked through the door with two six-packs of Goose Island, drunk people were rolling back and forth between the kitchen and living room like a wave motion machine. When you add in that the day was also Alex’s birthday, you have a recipe for reckless boozing—and my crew is Gordon Ramsey when handed that recipe.

• I could barely fit my six-packs into the fridge, which was packed with Miller Lite, Miller High Life, and other various beers of low pedigree. And then Tony rolled in around the start of the second period with a case of Hoegaarden. Almost all of that beer was gone by the next morning.
• It occurred to me that Tony and I were the two most sophisticated drinkers at that party. And that is a thought I never thought I’d think.
• “Under The Porch” (UTP) christened Tyler Kennedy “Sniper Pig.” Which means nothing to you if you’re not a hockey fan, and everything to you if you are a hockey fan.
• Swag insisted on feeding people shots of Jacquin’s Blackberry Brandy. The crowd was underwhelmed.
• Alex once again proved herself to be a woman who isn’t afraid to try new things.
• Shots, shots, and more shots. Holy shit was there a lot of shots being done. And TD was the ringleader, using them as a cure-all. It’s your birthday today? Let’s do a shot! Your birthday falls sometime in 2013? Shot? Oh, you’re feeling tired? Wanna do a shot? Pens just won the series! Do a shot bitches! Feel like calling it a night? How about a shot? Everyone thinks you’re racist? A shot’ll make you feel better!
• I was only half kidding about that last one. While some of us watched a Kevin Hart clip, MoPaddle leaned over to me and whispered, “I just don’t get Black comedy!” Of course, in her hammered state, her whisper was actually a normal-decibel’d exclamation, and UTP picked up on it right away, nearly spitting out beer and stammering, “Whaaa?!?”
• In her defense, though, MoPaddle prefers the comic stylings of Kevin Nealon.
• …That wasn’t a joke.
• I passed out on an air mattress in the freezing spare bedroom next to our friend “Marty”. I can feel 100% secure in his and my heterosexuality, since we didn’t wake up snuggling for warmth.
• …Instead I used a bath towel I found in a bathroom closet.

Saturday

I awoke on an air mattress, shivering under a bath towel with a throbbing headache. A great start to any day, really.

Saturday was actually the day I’d been looking forward to all week. Alex and I had made plans to have a Shadyside night. Perfect temps, my homegirl and her sis, dozens more friends, and my home turf on the Saturday night of MDW—what could go wrong?

• …Oh yeah, hangovers from getting ridiculously wasted on Friday night, that’s what. Saturday was a 10-year war with my hangover. We each won battles, but I won the war by still making it out that night. Tony, TD, and others weren’t so lucky.
• I dragged myself to Shady Grove to meet up with Alex, her little sister (“Bedazzle”), Alex’s girl Em, and Shannon.
• …And Shan eventually checked out early. My favorite Irish lass, victimized. Friday night was a mother.
• I drank a gin & tonic, and realized it wasn’t going to fix me. Gin & Silver Edition Red Bull doubles are now a thing. You’re welcome.
• We learned that Bedazzle has a wild crew of her own in West Virginia. Including one friend who unabashedly turned an “I’m drunk and going to piss on your deck in front of you,” into an “I’m drunk and going to go ahead and follow through with a deuce. On your deck. IN. FRONT. OF. YOU.”
• …that friend was a female.
• This line from Bedazzle: “I guess some people think it’s a big deal to take a shit on a deck…”
• A sexy blonde girl with multiple visible tattoos began dancing—still seated on her barstool—when “Crank That” started playing. Yeah, I don’t know either why that sentence didn’t start, “My new bride began dancing…”
• I taught the bartender, our boy Greg, how to make a Fitzgerald. You’d think that would’ve qualified me for free drinks the rest of the night, but nnooooooo…
  

Sunday

My alarm went off at 9:30 a.m.; I chucked a pillow at it.

TD and Boy Toy picked this fine morning to move most of their belongings to their new townhouse, and several of us kindly lent a helping hand, out of the goodness of our hearts. And for beer. …And pizza.

At least the beer was Victory Hop Devil. That was just the day’s warm up activity, though—something to get the blood pumping. The second half of Sunday was earmarked for drinking faces off in the South Side on a bar crawl that would celebrate the start of Skeets’ 29th year. When I left everyone at the old Casa de T-Toy around 3:30 p.m., my immediate plans were getting cleaned up and navigating my way to my mother’s for dinner. Their immediate plans: BOOZE. (Don’t get ahead of me here…)

• I caught up with everyone at OTB in the sidewalk seating area around 9 p.m. The scene I walked into: Skeets was wobbly, but standing; TD, MoPaddle, and J-Cray were crushed; Swag was nearing Swag Montana territory, and was so invested in a conversation with some guy I’d never met before that he barely noticed my arrival; our girl “Special K”, Mitch Canada, Tony, Marty, and UTP were in varying degrees of “functional”, and were herders keeping the cattle on the ranch.
• Missing-in-action was TD’s significant other. Tony explained that Boy Toy had been playing beer pong at Belle and Finger Bang’s house, and arrived at the birthday crawl’s first stop completely shitfaced. So much so, in fact, that he had to be driven back home shortly thereafter, and threw up all over the car of the friend taking him there.
• J-Cray was so wound up that she was in full-on molester mode, smacking my ass and dancing her booty on me anytime I turned my head. I felt so cheap.
• TD was on a mission—a mission to remove panties. It’s well known that my little sister from another mother isn’t a fan of wearing skivvies, and something inspired her that night to crusade against any other woman who didn’t adhere to her religion. One-by-one she led Skeets, MoPaddle, and J-Cray to the women’s room and ordered them to remove their drawers. After Cray surrendered her panties, the little blonde pantyjacker threw the captured underwear straight into the garbage.
• Her crusade ended, however, with Special K, who fought to keep her panties on no matter how much I loudly TD protested.
• We moved on to Cupka's…with a quick stop to take pictures in front of Chinese So Relax Massage, first. Because why not?
• By now the mystery guy to whom Swag had been talking had been revealed to be Belle and Bang’s neighbor. And homie was going through some things. Tony happened to make a trip to the men’s room at the same time as “Neighbor”; while finishing up at the urinal, Tony said to him, “You know, there’s nothing quite like taking a piss when you really have to go.” Neighbor, who was at the sink washing his hands, paused in thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he replied, “…This definitely isn’t where I pictured myself being at this point in my life,” and walked out.
• This being the height of the NHL postseason, some of the guys—myself included—had been growing playoff beards. TD informed me that J-Cray and MoPaddle, wanting to participate as well, had been growing “playoff bushes.”
• Yes, I gagged a little, too.
• TD’s buddy Tom stopped by. She told him that she’d made three girls remove their underwear that night. Tom’s response: “Teach me your ways…”
• While sitting on the patio talking, I heard a crash and looked up to see Neighbor rolling on the ground next to an overturned chair. He was helped to his feet, and advised to cab it home while we walked off down Carson St. Rumor has it Bang came and got him—that has yet to be substantiated, but may very well have happened. There’s also a rumor that she took advantage of him in his physically-and-emotionally-weakened state. That also has yet to be substantiated, but is just as believable.
• When Tom went in to pay his tab, he was told that Neighbor had taken a similar tumble inside Cupkas, prior to doing so on the patio.
• We were headed towards Rumshakers, but given the distance, we stopped at Mullen's On Carson along the way. A regular seated across the bar thought I was pimping, because I had Cray, TD, MoPaddle, and Skeets all around me at the bar. I was tempted to yell back, “…And none of ‘em got drawers on, homie!”
• We finally made it to Rumshakers. Shots and beers, shots and beers, shots and beers. And dancing. Then more shots and beers.
• Our buddy Joe, a bartender at Rumshakers, took a shining to J-Cray’s drunk behind. We then killed his designs on the night when we told him she’s married.
• Swag Montana was shlammered, and it was time to say goodnight to the bad guy. Canada, Tony, and I bought six packs and got everyone into cabs.
  

Monday

For the third morning in a row…“Ouch.”

• I awoke on the floor of Canada’s bedroom, clutching a large Clifford stuffed toy that I’d used as a pillow.
• TD was still smashed. Swag slightly less so, but he wasted no time in cracking a beer from the fridge to start anew.
• The three of us, Skeets, and Canada went to DeLuca’s in the Strip District for breakfast. While we waited in a line that extended out the door of the restaurant and down the street, it quickly became apparent that having my little sis out in public was both a bad idea and incredibly entertaining. She was like a puppy sister.
• 
  It was my first time eating at DeLuca’s, but not my last. D-to-the-lish. Just typing about it is making my mouth water.
• The Pirate Parrot, without warning and completely at random, rode past on a moped, tooling down Penn Avenue.
• As we walked back to Canada’s truck after eating, we happened upon two women getting into a parked car. TD yelled “High five!” and put her hand up for the woman getting into the passenger side door. The stranger looked back at her with a shocked, nervous smile; TD reacted by yelling “Hunnnnhhhh!” and running away.
• Everyone planned to hit TJ’s party that afternoon, and Swag saw no reason to half-ass it. He asked that we drop him off at Redbeard’s. We stopped, he and TD hopped out, and we pulled off. “So,” I surmised, “They’re actually going to be worse by the time the cookout starts?”
• I got back to my car, got back home, grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, hit my couch, and slept through the cookout.
  

For the first time all weekend, I woke up without a hangover. And yet, I still felt like a champion. Who knew it was possible?

Grin & Bare It

Headed to a broke down strip club to watch unattractive dancers spin to drunk ppl singing karaoke. Fuck am I doing with my life?
— The D.E.F.I. (@crkstr_defi) April 20, 2013

A few months ago, I challenged that my friends are more fun than your friends. And I was right, of course. Why do I feel so confident in saying that? Easy: my friends are crazy.

A couple of weeks ago, Belle and Jay Swag randomly decided to put together an event night for all of us. The destination? An area strip club called the Tennyson Lodge, for their “Bareoke Night”. If you’re not familiar, this involves fully-clothed customers singing karaoke songs onstage while naked dancers gyrate to the music a few feet away.

Now, I feel the most important detail to this picture is one that’s not readily apparent unless you’re familiar with Western PA strip clubs: There are really only three or four reputable clubs in the area. These are the clubs that get the porn stars doing dancing tours. These are the clubs getting most of the bachelor parties. And these are the clubs where you can expect at least 85% of the talent to be, well, talent. These…are not the Tennyson.

If you go to a smaller, lesser-known club, odds are you’re going to find the B Squad from Van Wilder. Prior to Friday night, the only glimpse inside the Tennyson that I’d ever seen was a picture of a middle-aged, man-faced woman on a stage wearing a bra, panties, and a knee brace.

In other words, you don’t go to the Tennyson to be turned on. You go for the comedy. YOLO!

The following is a rundown of the events that transpired that night—which began with the tweet at the top of the page. I really only captured two notes in the moment, as well as fumbled out a few more tweets. The rest of this blog post is coming from recollection (both mine and that of witnesses who didn’t do as many shots as I did; it took a while to find any, but there were a few). I’ve tried my best to keep it all in chronological order, but I think you can forgive me if I’ve gotten distracted somewhere along the way.

• I arrived at Swag and Mitch Canada’s place in Mt. Washington around 8:30; by then, there was only a cab waiting outside and Belle and two of her gal pals from work waiting inside. My Amazonian blonde friend handed me a ¾ full beer and said, “Chug.” I obliged, crushed the can, walked back outside, and hopped in the cab.

• We were less than five minutes into the cab ride when I was introduced to Belle’s friends. And less than five minutes after that, Friend #1 was telling all of us the story of how, the week before, she and her girls got into a fight in a movie theater with a random chick who disrespected her. I checked my watch; it wasn’t 1997, and we weren’t all in high school.

• Friend #2: “All I know about the Tennyson is from the review I read on Yelp.”

• As it turns out, Belle was at the Tennyson for Bareoke the week prior. After a night of karaoke, dirty strippers, and a barrage of shots, she threw up in the parking lot in front of her date…who hasn’t called her since.

Some guys don’t deserve a penis.

• We finally arrived at our destination and walked in. Well…let’s compare what I saw to what my expectations were:

1.) It was fairly clean. Expectation = exceeded.
2.) The first dancer I saw looked like a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome awareness ad. Expectation = met.
3.) The establishment, on the whole, looked like a slightly-above-average dive bar that someone stuck stripper stages into. Expectation = exceeded.
4.) The next two dancers I saw were fairly cute. Expectation = obliterated.

• The Tennyson has something I’ve never seen at another strip club; they have a solitary pole on a 2½’-by-2½’ platform situated next to the bar, far away from the main stage. Dancers spin there when in-between shifts. It’s like a stripper bullpen.

• Roll call (pt. 1): When we arrived, TD, Boy Toy, Swag, Swag’s girl (“Skeets”), and Canada were on hand. After a short convo I learned that Tony, too, was there; but he had waited until the last minute to eat dinner, and was now up the street at Dairy Queen. That’s just poor planning right there. I had scarfed down a Wendy’s value meal on my way to Mt. Wash; he couldn’t have done the same thing? Who heads off to drink at a D-level strip club and thinks, “Eh, I’ll grab something to eat once I get there”…?

• Roll call (pt. 2): Eventually our friends “MoPaddle” , “Mr. MoPaddle”, “Bobbo”, and Shelly joined us as well.

• Swag was so enthusiastic about bareoke, that you would’ve thought it held some type of religious meaning to him. In increasingly excited tones, he relentlessly explained how much fun I was going to have. After a minute I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Calm down, buddy—you don’t have to keep selling me on this. I’m here.”

• The first round of shots was supplied by TD. Snake Bites, I believe.

• Tony: “I know, from the outside [the Tennyson] looks like a family restaurant!”

• I felt the table vibrate, and checked my phone; no messages. A minute later I felt another vibration and checked my phone. Again nothing. I looked under the table, and then at the floor around us, before feeling the vibration once more. This time I realized that Bobbo was swirling his Miller Lite bottle around on the table, causing the vibration. “I thought that was my phone,” I explained. “When I realized it wasn’t…I didn’t want to know what could be vibrating on the floor here.”

• The second round of shots was supplied by Swag. Rumple Minze—a good deal of which Swag spilled on my sleeve.

• One dancer walked out and I caught myself saying, “Well now…” About 5’7” (in stripper heels, but still…), curly dark hair, cute face, and a well-sculpted set of surgically-enhanced C-cups. TD was smitten.

• One chap, sitting on the other side of the stage, was also a fan. As she laid on her back and put the kitten within purring distance, he leaned forward in his chair. “There’s always one guy who’s too into the girls,” I said. “Look at him, staring at her crotch like he’s watching television.”

• There was a shot girl walking around, with the tray of neon colored water that you usually see at night clubs. Normally, the shot girl is the hottest waitress at a bar or club. This one was short and round. I’ve dubbed this the “Tennyson Effect.”

• A random guy with a tight Affliction shirt and a backwards Affliction cap appeared. Belle was smitten.

Some women don’t deserve a vagina.

• An old woman walked in…with a dog on a leash. I turned to Canada and asked if he had seen the poodle. He thought I meant the guy with the funny haircut who had walked past a short time earlier.

• A bouncer informed me that the old woman with the dog is the owner. Of course she is. She set up shop behind the bar. A doggie gate, situated under the servers’ bridge, kept the resident guard dog penned up.

• I noted to Canada that the owner looked like a female version of Dan Aykroyd in Nothing But Trouble. For the rest of the night, he laughed himself silly each time he saw her.

• The women’s bathroom doubles as the dancers’ dressing room. Of course it does. TD came back from powdering her nose; a dancer had been doing her makeup in the mirror next to her as TD washed her hands. With the excitement of a kid trick-or-treating, she reported, “I told her, ‘I like your ass!’”

• Belle, Swag, Canada, and others in the audience all performed medleys at different times. If you think you know what it would be like to see drunken amateur singing while simultaneously watching slightly-less drunken, slightly-less-amateur stripping, let me tell you now: you don’t. Nothing fully prepares you for that kind of sensory overload, when everything that shouldn’t happen is happening all at once.

• Tony: “I have to go to a baptism, tomorrow. Who schedules a baptism on a Saturday?”
Canada: “What is he, Jewish?”

• It took me a good five minutes before the comedy of Canada’s question truly hit me. Hurray booze!

• Every time I turned around, a different selection of our crowd was at the bar buying shots. Mr. MoPaddle bought some, I bought some, Boy Toy bought some, Canada bought some… It was like we were actively trying to disinfect ourselves as a precaution. Hurray Tennyson Lodge!

• TD asked the deejay if she could sing “Fuck Her Gently”. She could not.

• Near midnight, TD’s favorite dancer—with the fake Cs—was working the stripper bullpen while several of us were gathering at the bar to leave. Tony and I told Fake Cs that our little blonde friend had a crush on her. We then called over said little blonde friend. Fake Cs began grinding on her, trying to seduce her with all she had. Then she motorboated her. Yup.

• We thought, of course, that TD was going to love it. As soon as she came back to us, though, she explained why she had not.

“Oh my god—I saw her teeth in the light, and they’re horrible! She started moving her face towards my chest, and I thought I was going to get cut!”

The Tennyson Effect.

• Six of us made our escape—in one cab. Skeets, Swag, Tony, and Boy Toy squeezed into the back, somehow. I sat shotgun, with TD in my lap. And though she’s like a little sister to me, that fact did not stop me from joining Swag and Tony, who were throwing jokes at Boy Toy about me banging his girlfriend.

Me: “Oh damn—halfway in!”
Boy Toy: “Let me out of this cab!”
Swag: “She’s never going to be the same again!”
Boy Toy: “Why is this happening?!”

• Between our juvenile antics cracking him up, the alcohol fumes coming off of the bodies filling every square inch of his cab, and the paranoia of looking for cops when you have six passengers crammed into a standard-sized automobile, I’m shocked the driver didn’t wreck. Kudos to him.

• We were dropped off at Redbeards, where we got a table and drinks. We ran into Entertainer, Shafe, and Shafe’s girlfriend. While the first two were just quietly hanging out, the third member of that trio was emphatically dancing around with a random guy and gal at the bar. Redbeards doesn’t actually have a dance floor, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. Shafe stood there calmly pulling swigs from his bottle of beer while his girlfriend, wearing short shorts and high heels, put it down like she was auditioning for a Jeezy video.

• I think more shots were done, but…yeah.

• We found our way back to Swag and Canada’s, where supposedly there was beer waiting for us. There was no beer waiting for us.

• TD, Boy Toy, and I went back to their house (they live a street over), where TD passed out on the living room couch while talking aloud to herself. Boy Toy and I drank Captain & Cokes while discussing politics, sociology, etc in the kitchen, until well after 5 a.m.

The next morning I shuffled down the sidewalk from TD’s place, past people setting out to begin a productive Saturday; my only goal was to crawl into bed. And with every sideways glance I got, I just smirked.

I love my friends.

The Hangovers

I was legitimately concerned. I had awakened after a night out with friends—a night in which I had slammed empty glass after empty glass on the bar—with no ill effects. Maybe I had a slight twinge in my head, at first. But that went away after a few hours on the couch. I should have been half-dead in a nauseous haze. My friends certainly were. But I was fine.

For a split second, I wondered if I was a superhero.

A high alcohol tolerance sounds awesome, until paranoia takes over and you start thinking about your uncle who died of cirrhosis. It’s incredible how removing something you loathe can send your world into chaotic unbalance. (This also applies to ex-girlfriends…)

Luckily for my sanity, my imperviousness to hangovers was only temporary. The wretched aching of mind, soul, and body soon returned, bringing even more torment with it the next time around. (…this also applies to ex-girlfriends).

The hangover is a strange animal. You’re (normally) guaranteed to come face-to-face with one the morning after your drunken fun, but you never quite know how sharp its claws will be. Or which of your vital organs it’ll bite first. The brain is its favorite prey, but we’ve all had stomachs and intestines ravaged by the beast. Regardless, you know pain and hatred of everything are the two constants that you can count on the morning after a good boozing session.

Some people like to brag about knowing of surefire hangover cures. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Those people are full of shit. There’s no easy way out—aside from drinking more booze. This past New Years, my hangover was remarkably downgraded. Typically, New Year’s Day is a 24 hour struggle to think a thought without falling over, crippled by a crushing weight of pain. This one, though, was a breeze. It took me a day or two to realize what I’d done differently. The answer? I’d started the first morning of the year by taking a shot of whiskey at Shannon’s. Those Irish…they have the instruction manual to the world that the rest of us have been longing for.

I’ve had, of course, a litany of hangover experiences. Although drinking more booze works best in the short run, it usually just f’s you in the long run (though I’m thinking of experimenting with this solitary shot of whiskey thing, pending a returned phone call from Shannon). The most common remedy I employ, of course, involves throwing lots of food at the beast, and hoping it’s distracted as I float away on a tide of Gatorade while wearing aspirin floaties.

As you might expect, quite a few of my best and worst hangover moments have been covered before. Like Sunday at Ohio University; or the day after my 29th birthday; or the flight home from Vegas in ’11; or the Wednesday of my Savannah trip in ’10; or…hell, spread out all of my On the Rocks tales and throw a dart, and you’ll probably hit a morning and/or afternoon when a hangover was using my skull like a blowup doll. Of the unpublished tales about my encounters with the spirits of spirits passed, here are some of my more noteworthy moments:

• One winter day, in early 2003, was a prime example of “let’s eat so much that our hangovers leave out of sheer disgust”. As per usual in those days, we’d spent Saturday night drinking our faces off in the ridiculous Mt. Washington house where my homie BlahBlahBlah lived. And, as per usual, we all awoke late Sunday morning in a state of, “What-the-everloving-fuck did I do to myself last night?!”

Besides me, only Affliction, LRG, our boy Michael T., and BBB were still in the building. Feeling the need to replace our bodies’ missing hydration

with grease, the four of us triaged in the living room—on the first floor of the house—beckoned to he with a bedroom (BBB) for leadership. Without moving from his bed—on the second floor of the house—BBB directed us to the stash of delivery menus he and his roommates kept in the kitchen.

We soon found a deal to our liking: two pizzas, one hoagie, 40 wings. We called in that order like a boss. Shortly after it had arrived, BBB made his one and only trip downstairs that day. He tore off the top half of a pizza box, shoved half a pizza, a quarter of a hoagie, and a share of wings onto it (in seemingly one swipe of his hairy arm), then sauntered back upstairs to his room. When the last of we downstairs-dwellers left the premises that afternoon, nothing but discarded pizza crusts, hoagie lettuce, and chicken bones were left on the kitchen table.

• That, of course, hadn’t been my first time going to battle with these gents against marauding hangover armies. In 2001, all of us (minus LRG) had been at Thiel College for homecoming weekend, crushing beer pong, winning bars, and cuddling dogs. The next day, before returning to civilization—well, something like civilization—in Pittsburgh, the four of us and Sales Machine stopped at a nearby Pizza Hut.

My assfucked-sideways state, and the avalanche of mozzarella, pepperoni, and tomato sauce that buried my cerebral cortex, have forever hindered my ability to remember any specifics regarding the financial or quantum metrics of our feeding frenzy. I do remember Sales having a hookup with the manager that resulted in us eating at a drastic discount, though. Aside from that, the only commentary I can offer: If you mention that event to any of the five of us now, the immediate response is, “Uggghhhhhhhhhhhh…”

• One of the more blissful moments of the 2003 Ocean City trip was the very first morning in town, when I realized that the hangovers had stopped at the Maryland border. When you drink all day, sleep for 4-5 hours, and then wake up and start drinking again, hangovers want no part of you. The problem, though, is if you keep that up for a week and then spend the entire car ride home without booze, you go through legitimate withdrawal. By the third hour of the drive you’re hallucinating and yelling racial slurs at the magical llamas dancing along the side of the highway while the Easter Bunny slaps you and demands that you tell him where you hid all of his PCP-filled eggs. You may have avoided a hangover for seven days, but withdrawal is its angry, sadistic, rapey older brother.

• In late-2001/early-2002, I was fresh out of college in a post-911 world, and thus still looking for a full-time job. This meant working temp jobs for a local college—manual labor/warehouse jobs, for the most part. In those days, Wednesday dollar-drink nights were a regular staple of my diet. If you’re reading this and thinking, “Manual labor on a hangover at 8 a.m.? That doesn’t sound like fun!” (a.) You’re right, but I was 22/23 and unconcerned with self-preservation; (b.) fuck you.

Thankfully, the office admin for the warehouse was a middle-aged woman named Sandy. And Sandy was a sweetheart. And Sandy treated me like her favorite nephew.

I walked into her office one particularly bad Thursday morning; she looked me over and said, “Go lay on the desk.” There was a spare desk in the far corner of the large office, tucked out of view from the office windows. I laid down on it and let the alcohol fumes coming off my skin lull me into a vegetative state. After 10 minutes Sandy warned, “Here comes the boss—get up!” I rolled off the desk and into its accompanying chair. The boss carried on past the office; Sandy gave me the “all clear”, and I returned to my prone state on top of the desk, where I rested for another half hour.

• After a New Year’s Eve of beer pong, Jell-O shots, champagne, and shame, Dupa and I found ourselves radiating 90 proof on the first morning of 2009. The solution? The Ponderosa buffet.

We found one within a few miles of us, plugged in the GPS coordinates, and snarled louder and more angrily at the computer lady each time the turn we took wasn’t into Ponderosa’s parking lot. When we finally arrived, tiny angels floated us from my car to our booth.

• At the time, Dupa and I thought we had created a new tradition. Indeed, the following year Chappy, TD, Baby Joey, and TJ joined us in the buffet line. Sadly, though, that “tradition” halted in its tracks in 2011. I honestly can’t remember how I spent 1/1/11, but I can guarantee I didn’t spend it hammering through plates of wing-dings and lumpy mashed potatoes.

• As for 2010; after Dupa, Chappy, and I left Ponderosa, we congregated at my place. And since I had just purchased A Very Sunny Christmas on Blu-ray and there were bowl games on…we ended up camped out in my living room all day like refugees in the war between booze and livers, watching Always Sunny and college football while noshing on hoagies, calzones, French fries, etc.

• One of my worst bar nights during a work trip came in San Diego in 2005. The night itself has been mildly referenced here from time to time, and surely deserves its own moment in the spotlight. But for now we’ll focus on the aftermath, which came early the next morning.

We were in town to throw our annual fall conference for our customers, which meant I had to report for work at 7:30 that Wednesday morning. I shuffled/stumbled down to the hotel’s conference space lobby at 7:52, wobbly and reeking of booze—despite having showered. My friend Michele took one look at me and abruptly said, “No.”

“Go back upstairs and go back to bed,” she ordered. “I’ll call you in a few hours for lunch.” I obediently turned around and shuffled/stumbled back; I awoke four hours later in a confused—but much more alert—state, to a ringing room phone.

• I, of course, was only following the precedent set before me by my coworkers. One of the first times I traveled for work, in March 2004, I was too new to be invited to the parties our customers threw. And since I hadn’t played in any of the reindeer games, I was in sound condition when my program manager—a former colonel who had spent part of his career in the Pentagon—stopped me in the main hall of the posh Orlando hotel where our conference was being held. In his often gruff and direct tone, he growled, “So you’re alive?”

Me: “Yeah…”
Him: “Weren’t you at the party last night?”
Me: “No sir.”
Him: “Ah, that explains it. *smiles* From what I hear, we have a few men down this morning.”

• After a bachelor party in 2004 where I got hit on by a stripper and blacked out before reaching the Pittsburgh city limits, I awoke on the porch of my mother’s house. And it’s not like I was sleeping on a chaise lounge chair; no, I was passed out on the hard concrete…in full view of her neighbors.

My car was at Tony’s, 18 miles away. My phone was…well, I didn’t know where my phone was. It was MIA. Most of my recollection of the night was, too. When I’d come out of my blackout, I had been leaning against a random van parked in the backstreets of the South Side at 3 a.m., waiting for I-don’t-know-who to come take me home. My mother looked out her kitchen window at 7:30 on a Sunday morning to find her 25-year-old son snoring on the concrete porch, next to a bottle of Miracle-Gro.

Then, to compound her pride, she had to drive me out to pick up my car from Tony’s wrecked house (the bachelor party had started there with three kegs and two strippers doing wonderfully lascivious things to each other) while I chugged Gatorade from her passenger seat and ruined her car’s upholstery with my booze-laced pores. I wonder if, in that moment, she regretted not having other children? You know—just so she could’ve hedged her bets.

I’ve always said that the hangover is god’s little way of telling you, “Job well-done.” Of course, the true measure of a man isn’t whether or not a hangover knocks him down; it’s how fast he picks up his next drink.

The Grinch is a Teetotaller

I’ve been spoiled over the last 10 years: I worked at a company where Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day was a blissful seven-business-day stretch of paid holidays. Every year I left the office on December 23rd—or sooner, depending on where the weekend fell—knowing I wouldn’t be back until January 2nd—at the earliest.

As you might imagine (or might have read, somewhere…), that kind of winter break can give a man ample opportunity to suitably numb himself up. And you would be right. Oh, so right.

I now work for the typically sterile, overly-cautious kind of corporate organization that wants employees to drive through a winter storm to be at work the day after Christmas—just because. Don’t get me wrong; there are, of cour$e, benefit$ to making that kind of tran$ition (especially when you’re not married to a beautiful European duchess—damn you, life goals!). But after 10 years of drinking single malt scotch well past 4 a.m. on Christmas night to wash away any headaches my family had caused in the prior 48 hours, drinking ginger ale and going to bed before midnight is roughly akin to that first Christmas when every gift you unwrapped was some item of clothing.

Long-winded intro short, I didn’t get to drink as much as I wanted to last month. And I have a newfound respect for the words of Joni Mitchell.

But I did drink, of course. I mean, it’s not like my failings as a human being stopped being a topic of family discussion.


Saturday, December 22nd

While I have my atheistic leanings, here’s why there’s a small part of me that believes in not only intelligent design, but intelligent design by a deity who’s a total dick: Esq, soon to move into a big new house, chose this night to be his final “Let’s all black out and fall down” night at the swanky apartment where he’s resided for the past eight years. That Saturday was also the opening night of the NFL’s Week 16, better known as championship week in fantasy football. I had managed to make it into the title game in my most cherished league. My opponent, you ask? Why, Esq, of course. And this meant that I got to hear his shit talk live and in person as Tony Gonzalez scored one solitary point for me, and got the ball rolling towards my second straight year as league runner-up. *sigh*

Fake football aside, the night was a welcomed reward after a long week of work. Chief was in town; and along with Tank, Breitling, Tony, BAL, and “The Greek”, we helped send off Esq’s once bumping bachelor pad in grand fashion. Before we had even finished pregaming, there was gambling, wrestling matches, slices of bread being scattered about the apartment and hallway as people beat each other with loaves, Esq strumming a guitar in a neighbor’s pad, and a warning from the building manager that the police had been called because of the ruckus. We had clearly devolved.

That seemed like as good a time as any to make our way to the bar, so we grabbed roadies and headed out. As we strolled out through the building’s parking lot, a police car rolled in. While the cops went inside to respond to the call, we discreetly dropped our half-full cans of beer into the bushes like eight drunken Keyser Sözes and calmly continued on across the street.

Cabs took us to Barroom, and alcohol took us over the edge. Breitling got a table in VIP, and I played Entourage for the first time in a few years. At some point several of us headed down to the dance floor, where I managed to slip and fall flat on my back while trying to pull off some dance move that I’m 15 years too old to do. I laughed my ass off, grabbed another drink and kept on partying. One of the few joys of being in your 30s: The simple fact that you don’t care anymore.


Sunday, December 23rd

…Well, until it comes time to clean up the messes you’ve made. Pre-treating the stains on my shirt that morning was delightful. And I felt like I’d damaged at least two of the three major ligaments in my left knee. My hangover was of secondary concern.

My friends and their respective hangovers, however, were not on so casual of terms. The doldrums of married life has softened some of them, and as a result their day was especially excruciating. Esq, for one, texted me updates throughout the day.

“Woke up at 1:30. What the hell happened last night?! Too old for this shit!”

“It’s 5 pm and I still feel like hot garbage.”

“8pm, still feeling terrible. How the fuck did we used to do this twice a week EVERY week?!”

By that point I was at Armo’s, putting back drinks with TJ and others. It’s so sad to see people fall off their game.


Monday, December 24th

Christmas Eve, as is tradition, saw TJ joining some of my clan for dinner and drinks at my mother’s house. Wine bottles, beer cans, ham, and weapons-grade-passive-aggressive-vitriol found their customary places at the dinner table. TJ gave me a bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet, which I’m confident will get put to good use. Maybe not quite as early as it would have in years past, but…


Tuesday, December 25th

Before the aforementioned ginger ale and self pity, the day resembled just about every other Christmas of the last 10 or so years. Late morning my mother and I had breakfast, and then opened gifts while sipping spiked eggnog. I got a bottle of something nice among my gifts (this year Jameson; there’s a running debate between that bottle and I over whether or not it’s going to live to see St. Patty’s Day). And we had a few drinks during a quiet dinner, while wistfully remembering Christmases past. Later, I briefly considered stopping by Shady Grove on my way home, before remembering…*sigh*


Wednesday, December 26th

Work, snow, and shitty roads. The City of Pittsburgh gives about the same amount of effort to clearing snow from its streets that Rolando McClain gives to self-awareness. (The answer, for those of you playing along at home, is “zero”.)


Thursday, December 27th

Dupa was back in town, and gathered several of us to join him at Fathead’s. [It occurs to me that even the most loyal and regular “On the Rocks” reader might be confused by Dupa being “back in town”, seeing as how I failed to inform you that early in December he moved to Houston, TX. Seems that would be a fairly obvious blog topic, right? One that would have been discussed at some point in the past month? What can I tell you—I suck.] I downed some He'Brew Jewbelation and doubled my body fat percentage with TD, TJ, Mitch Canada, and Dupa. Then I went home and fell into a beer-and-grease-induced coma.


Friday, December 28th

For all of my bitching about not having more days off, when Friday night rolled around I chose to stay at home (I would argue, though, that this had more to do with the exhaustion brought about by working that day; had I been home and rested, things may likely have gone differently). Instead of foraging for boobs and drinks out at the bars, I ordered food and did some home bartending while watching Goldfinger on DVD. Don’t judge me.


Saturday, December 29th

TD has recently moved in with Boy Toy in Mt. Washington, and had told us at Fatheads earlier in the week that she wanted to have some people over for a small party. Nothing too crazy, just some drinks, games, and laughter; a low key night. As I went about my Saturday afternoon, she sent a text at 1:57 p.m: “Come on over whenever!” That was followed just a few seconds later by another text reading, “[Swag] said he has Four Lokos.”

“I…but…One fifty-sev…I…”

Thankfully, my schedule (and more shitty weather) meant I didn’t get to their place until after 7:30. TD, Boy Toy, Swag, Mitch Canada, Finger Bang, and Boy Toy’s buddy “Friction” were playing Catch Phrase, wherein each round the members of the losing team had to take down Crown Royal Maple minis (there are thousands stored in TD’s place—a perk of her job). “This is healthy,” I thought. I popped open a bottle of Sam Adams Cream Stout, and was one sip in before being admonished by a slurring Bang, all because I wasn’t drinking Four Loko (mind you, the Loko can she was waving around as she talked was bigger than her face). TJ eventually joined us, and I soon had a can of Loko in my own hand. By 9:30 I couldn’t spell blotto—though I’m sure I could’ve written a 30-page blog/thesis about being it.

Canada and Bang found their way to the South Side, while TD and I walked to Redbeard’s. I don’t remember much of our time there (aside from a convo that was more familial than those that I’ve had with my actual family, and TD asking our cute waitress if she could make out with her). We stumbled back to TD’s, and at 2:30 a.m. I snapped out of a mini-blackout to find her facedown on the living room floor. Friction and I, like any good friends would do, snapped pictures of our fallen amiga like paparazzi seeing a Lindsey Lohan/Amanda Bynes head-on collision.


Sunday, December 30th

When I opened my eyes late the next morning, I was the only one in the living room. The scene was no less damning, though. As I jotted on my phone:

TD’s kitchen looks like something out of Mad Max. Half-empty bottles of Ciroc. Fully-empty airplane bottles of Captain Black and Crown Maple. Miller Lite cans. Sam Adams bottles. A frozen pizza box. A jar of pickles. Four Loko cans. Bottles of water—as though there was innocence amongst the carnage.

I gathered up myself and the bottle of Ketel One that TD had given me for Christmas, and shuffled up her snowy street. New Year’s Eve was only two nights away. But before that, unlike in years past, I had to be at work—no carousing the night of the 30th.

My head throbbed anger at itself for thinking too hard. Maybe I could get used to this more restricted way of life after all.