What I Learned This Summer (2013)

You know the drill.

This is the fourth one of these posts that I’ve done in the past five years. If two is a coincidence and three is a trend, then four is definitely a standard. Which is ironic, since I’ve often been accused of not having standards. *cough* Moving on…

I love summer, and since my childhood I’ve worshipped it with a reverence typically reserved for favorite grandmothers. Ice cream truck jingles, pickup baseball games, and firecrackers started the romance in my days of innocence. Pool bars, bikinis, and outdoor happy hours have kept the flame alive after all of these years. For me, summer air carries a certain magic with it, be it real or imagined.

My list of memories from the Summer of 2013 feels a little less extensive than in years past (maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, though, given how long some of those posts have been). That may be due to shoddy note-taking (as always); or, maybe, it’s due to fewer shenanigans being had. Working 50 hours a week has worn me down over the past year, and as a result most Friday nights I’m too drained to get turnt up at the bars. I hate it—it’s like I’m being force-fed adulthood—but, unless I hit the lotto or marry a beautiful heiress, that’s life.

So, with no further delay (since it’s, you know, November December January February March [fight me]), and in no particular order, here are my lessons from the physically painful, mentally exhausting, emotionally dulling summer days of 2013 that I would gladly relive if given the chance.

• If a drunk friend runs away from you, let him go; if he comes back, it was meant to be. If he doesn’t…at least you won’t need staples in your leg. Yup. June 22, 2013 will go down in history as the dumbest day of my life. Well…top-5. Who would’ve thought going to a country concert tailgate wouldn’t be the stupidest thing I did that day?
  
  
• Parents always know when you’re being stupid. I limped into my mom’s house the day after the accident, expecting hysterics and motherly lectures. Instead, she reacted with a measured, cool demeanor, and calmly told me she’d dreamt the night before that I was in the hospital. That’s some ESP for your ass. At the same exact moment I was laid up in a hospital bed—in the same ER room, coincidentally, that she’d been in a little over a year before that—getting 16 staples put in my leg, she was having a dream about me being in the hospital. Our bond is tight.
  
  
• Stupidity is expensive. The bills for the ER visit and multiple follow-up doctor appointments were not cool. Perhaps worse, though, was buying more medical tape and gauze bandages every week. Somewhere out there is a mid-level manager at Johnson & Johnson who should shake my hand for sending his or her kid to college.
  
  
• There’s something scarier than 16 staples in your leg: Sobriety. My leg became infected during the recovery period. That meant antibiotics. That meant two weeks of July spent sober, praying PowerBall and modern science would rescue me with an infection-fighting rum that could only be found on a tropical beach populated by beautiful, sexually-adventurous women.
  
  
• Finding the right party means making tough decisions. Armo hosted a pool party in mid-August, but unfortunately it didn’t command the same attendance demographics (see: lots of morally bankrupt people, many of them in bikinis) that similar parties have in the past. Alex suggested, as the night set in, that we all head for life rafts and paddle back to Shadyside, where the season’s third and final “Jam on Walnut” was roaring to life. Armo refused to leave his place, vowing to go down with the ship. He’s a valiant captain. At least, that’s the thought I had as I fastened my life preserver seatbelt.
  
  
• When you’re friends with someone, there’s usually a pretty good reason for it. Alex, Tony, and I were the three mutineers that night. As we walked from her place to Shadyside Saloon, Alex tripped over the uneven sidewalk ahead of me. I began chuckling—fully intending to grow it into a self-righteous LOL—when I felt myself stumbling over the very same sidewalk bump. Just that quickly, my feelings of superiority had turned into dejected realism. As I stopped and collected my shattered self-worth, I heard Tony trip over the bump.
  
  We’re idiots.
  
  
• Only a drunk idiot puts a drunk idiot in charge of pizza. After the bars closed that night, we grabbed a couple of pies at S. Aiken Bar and Grille. For reasons unbeknownst to any of us once the sober hours arrived, I was given the responsibility of carrying the pizzas from there to my apartment. Alex instructed me not to eat any until we got to our destination; that rule might’ve held some weight with someone who hadn’t been drinking for most of the day, but…#drunchies. We weren’t even a quarter of the way to my place when she and Tony turned around to find me with sauce and cheese all over my face.
  
  
• What some call binge drinking, I call efficient packing. Each of the summer’s big three holidays—Memorial Day Weekend (MDW), Fourth of July, and Labor Day Weekend (LDW)—saw my friends and I squeeze three or more days full of crazy into one small calendar entry. As natural as such mini-binges have been over the past 15 or so years of my life, it took until just now for me to realize that those were the only three-day calendar entries of the summer. Far from being a symptom of alcoholic dependencies, those multiday adventures were actually a symptom of adulthood. We’ve found ourselves clinging ever-so-tightly to the windows of liberty shared by our calendars as we’ve grown older (especially as, in turn, those windows have grown increasingly-rare). It’s the life of busy adults trying to get the most out of the infrequent times when they were free from responsibilities.
  
  

• Responsibilities are Father Time’s rapey minions. Like many people, I often daydream of winning a huge PowerBall lotto payout. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not necessarily the financial freedom that fuels those fantasies, it’s the freedom itself. No alarm clocks, no project deadlines. No bosses. Just living life as it comes to you each day.
  
  
• Not working can be hard work. Of those three holiday weekends, LDW was arguably the least hedonistic. But it might still have been the shortest on sleep.
  
  We kicked it off with the Oddball Comedy Festival that Friday. TD, Boy Toy, Armo, Weatherman, and several others joined me in some parking lot imbibing (read: pounding beers like they were cheap sluts earning rent money) in the summer sunshine, followed by throwing back tallboys of Heineken inside the First Niagra Pavilion grounds in the summer moonlight. Dave Chappelle, Hannibal Burress, Kristen Schaal, and everyone else killed it, while I killed every beer and shot that came within 10 feet of me.
  
  
• Following your dreams is scary as shit. And I haven’t even done it. But I’ve stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the ground below, and wondered how I could ever fly above it. I have endless respect for those who’ve taken that step forward. I pray I man up and follow you soon, before it’s too late.
  
  
• When you do make a bold decision, don’t half-ass it. In July TD and I, out of the clear blue sky, decided to go on a bar crawl—after a whiskey distillery tour. And when we come at you, we come hard. (Wait…)
  
  
• Life is what you make it. Seriously, we wrecked shop that day. Nine bars. Nine bars AND A WHISKEY DISTILLERY. And we never really broke a sweat. In fact, all of us handled ourselves like all-stars the entire Fourth of July weekend, going strong four days straight. That was one of those moments where you find yourself smiling at all that just took place, as you lay on your couch in agony on Sunday afternoon.
  
  
• LDW is officially fantasy football Christmas. Saturday of LDW—as is tradition—featured the annual W&J draft at Armo’s house. It was one of two that I attended that weekend. Finn, Chief, Esq, BBB, Tony, our friend Keith, and others met to bust each other’s balls and select fantasy teams over lots of pizza and lots of beer. I don’t know if it’s due to football having dominated that weekend for numerous years now, but hearing “LDW” just triggers images of the game in my head, like saying “Fox News” makes you picture a monkey throwing its own shit at a wall.
  
  
• The better you are at something, the more you suffer for your art. This year saw me manage six fantasy football teams of my own, and consult two of my friends’ teams. Every godforsaken day from mid-August through the end of December saw me dividing up the free time I don’t have between fantasy research, eight leagues, and the CS pages. Who needs a love life?
  
  
• Love lives are second-class citizens in a world that’s home to fantasy football. One of those friends who employed me as a consultant was Dupa. He flew into Pittsburgh late on the Saturday night of LDW for his league’s draft, which would be held Sunday afternoon. By early Sunday evening, he was on a plane headed back to Houston.
  
  His girlfriend lives here in Pittsburgh. He didn’t visit her during the approximately 20 hours he was here. …She was not happy.
  
  
• Getting drunk with your homies is like riding a bike. On his one night in town, Dupa dialed the knob to “full turnt.” He drank himself silly on the plane, and then led Tony and me to Shady Grove straight from the airport. In the 20 minutes after we walked through the doors, we consumed a round of Long Islands, a round of Jager Bombs, and a round of Heinekens. By the end of the night I was taking pictures of Dupa sitting alone on a city bench with his arm around a pizza, as he made sex faces at it.
  
  
• Fuck fire hose fittings. Seriously. To this day I feel myself get nervous and twitchy each and every time I walk near a fitting sticking out of a wall or a hydrant on the sidewalk.
  
  
• I don’t know how Pak’s wife does it. For reasons only known to divinities of the universe, I spent three consecutive weekends hanging out with Pak in Shadyside. Week 1 was two homies wanting to drunk; Week 2 was the summer’s second Jam on Walnut; and Week 3 was the annual kickball tournament that turns my friends into booze zombies. Safe to say, Mrs. Pak hated me as much as I hated Pak by the end of that stretch.
  
  
• It’s possible to be a bigger drunken spectacle than Pak. The second of those weeks, the Jam, found Tony in his drunkest form. Pregaming at my place, drinking beers on Walnut St., and downing shots and drinks at Shady Grove did in the homie, who was an irrationally-angry mess—a.k.a. “full-on Irish”—by midnight.
  
  Realizing that his night had reached its peak, I walked him home. Along the way, we passed various random bands of revelers strolling through the neighborhood. And each time someone in one of those clusters would raise their voice in excitement over whatever it was that they were discussing, Tony’s reaction was to accuse them of talking shit on him, and to attempt to dart in their direction.
  
  
• With age comes experience…and shame. The following week—that of the kickball tourney after party—Tony balked at Pak’s and my suggestions that he come catch up with us. He was worried that most of Shadyside would remember him as the blotto fool he had been the previous week. He finally relented when I reminded him that all of the people that had seen him be a drunken asshole that night were, themselves, drunken assholes that night.
  
  
• Fate is a woman. Related: Women are cruel. The postgame partying after the kickball tourney saw some wild sights, including our girl Liz expressin’ herself on the wall at Mario’s East Side. The star of the night, though, was Armo.
  
  It’s rare that we get the Italian Stallion to venture outside the five-mile radius encircling his house (as evidenced by the fifth bullet point of this post); his average is about once a year. On this uncommon night, he met a cute blonde girl at Grove, who talked him up for most of the night. Keith and I watched from nearby barstools, sipping our beers like proud parents. At close, her friends pulled her in the opposite direction from the one our collection was headed in, so Armo and blondie did the whole huddle-on-the-sidewalk-away-from-your-friends-while-exchanging-phone-numbers ceremony. She then made him a tongue-wrestling practice dummy in front of their friends and the world.
  
  
  That Monday he texted her to see if there were flames to fan. She mentioned that she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend with whom she lives. Armo considered that maybe once-a-year was too often to venture out into the world.

The Summer of 2013 may have turned into November December January February March [fight me] as quickly as it appeared, but we’ll always have the memories.

…And the scars.

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.

Holiday Seasoned

The last week and a half of December is like a drinker’s March Madness. It ends a long and arduous year; you face seven or eight contests, the last of which is the grandest and most-hyped; then, once that’s over, you start preparing for the next year—recruiting, scouting reports, press junkets…

...Or maybe that’s just me.

I feel that some of my recent posts have been of the long-winded variety, so add, “Wrap that shit up, B!” to my list of New Year’s resolutions. I’ll try to focus on getting right into the meat of my tales and drunken rants this year. If you’ve been visiting this page specifically for those superfluous ramblings, I apologize. And you’re clearly drunk. …Which means you’re also now scratching your head at the word “superfluous”. Salud.


Friday, December 23rd

TK came into town for a day, so we joined him in the South Side for Christmas Eve Eve festivities. Tony, Pakistanimal, TJ, LRG, and I were among those who caught up with the Tampa resident at Mario’s. Most of us, of course, had pregamed in the hour(s) leading up to the get-together. I was enjoying a smooth little buzz myself, and looked forward to methodically building a solid drunk. I didn’t want to rush into things and risk ending up like I did last Christmas Eve Eve (throwing up in a bathroom sink just doesn’t make for as festive of a holiday tradition as you may think).

Shortly after arriving, though, Pak opened a tab with our waitress and asked for a round of shots. When she asked what kind he wanted, he replied, “Surprise us!” What a dick. The waitress came back to the table with Redheaded Sluts; I went from cursing Pak to praising this angel for choosing something so tame. For the next round, she came back with Crown Royal. She was accused of treason. For the third round, she brought out Buttery Nipples. Now I couldn’t tell if she was a traitor or a confidante. Or if she was hitting on us. Or if I was talking to the coat stand.

Our crew soon relocated to Finn McCool’s, where we continued our sloppy antics. We bumped into Hurley, who was up to his own holiday celebrations, and who was so drunk that he couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear. He looked like a drunk cartoon character. I was rapidly making up ground on him, though; as Pak’s handiwork kicked in, things were becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. Eventually, I was at Jimmy D’s circling the dance floor with Pak, LRG, and Tony, looking for potential baby mamas true love slores. Finding none to our liking (and being that we were each very wobbly), Pak, Tony, and I parted ways with LRG and headed off to our respective comas.


Saturday, December 24th

Hangovers hurt; lying on your couch hungover while watching your fantasy football team lose in the championship game—thanks in part to Tony Romo’s fragile right hand—is excruciating. That pain carried over into the night, as my cousin Jump (along with his family), TD, TJ, and I convened at my mom’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. While everyone else poured glasses of wine, I sipped at a glass of ginger ale, which led to some chastising from TD (who stared at me with a disappointment akin to that of someone watching Santa urinate on their Christmas tree). I would eventually down two cans of Miller Lite after dinner, but that was as close to the battlefield as my wounded body would drag me.


Sunday, December 25th

As per tradition, I drank spiked eggnog while opening gifts with my mother, and then later had a glass or two of wine with dinner. I stopped by Jay Swag’s afterwards to catch the second half of the Bears/Packers game with him and TJ, though his household was a dry one, as per court orders. Back at home later that night, I cracked open the bottle of 12 year old Glenfiddich that my mom gave me. But, on the whole, my drinking on Christmas day was purely light cardio; I barely broke a sweat. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.

My final gift tally for the holiday, by the way: The bottle of Glenfiddich, an airplane bottle of Jameson, and a bottle of extra-strength aspirin from my dear ol’ mum; tumblers and a bottle of Ketel One from TD; a bottle of Crown Royal from Jump; and a huge cocktail recipe book from TJ. As I said to my mother that night, “I’ve got all of the tools and materials for a home bar, except for the bar itself.”


Monday, December 26th

Mofo was in town, and demanded that I join him, Hurley, T.C., and others in South Side that night. But after the previous several days of booze, food, holiday commotion, and fantasy football heartbreak, I needed a night of chilling at home. Besides, I knew what would be coming in the next few days, so I took a rain check.


Tuesday, December 27th

Since some of us haven’t really seen each other in some time (at least since Esq’s wedding in September, though much longer in some cases), Chief organized a get-together among some of our W&J family. Finn, Genoa, Tony, Dupa, Smashley, Chief, Kim, T-Bags, Armo, Sloku, our boy Milhous, and others caught up with each other while polishing off liter steins of Hofbrauhaus’ various biers. We would eventually move to The Claddagh to finish the night, and then, well…Then I browned out and came to once again while watching TV in my place. Apparently all of the German and Irish elixirs detonated my central nervous system right about the time I got to my car. I’m not proud of this, mind you. Damn those Europeans. [Note: Just this morning I took a look at the shirt I had been wearing that night; large beer stains ran from top to bottom across the front of it. It seems that, in addition to my memory of my drive home, the European Union owes me a Tommy Hilfiger polo, too.]


Wednesday, December 28th

I met up with Pak and our friend Ruby at Rivers around 8:30 that night. We bs’d over a few beers at the bar and then moved to a craps table. I watched them play for 15 minutes or so, trying in vain to figure out how the hell you play the game. Soon I decided, though, that my time and money would be better served in the poker room. I found Esq at a 1-3 table and joined him, playing for a few hours. For the record, I was fairly card-dead, and never really got anything going. My night ended when some donkey sucked out 6s-up against my wired Qs. Felted and sober, I headed home and poured myself a few Crown & Cokes to ease my pain.


Thursday, December 29th

I originally had dinner plans with Steph and others, but they were cancelled when the woman of honor had to scrap her travel plans and stayed in NYC. Thankfully, Armo reminded me via text that on Tuesday several of us had asked him to hold a bar night at his house. I joined Finn, T-Bags, and Dupa in Armo’s man cave to watch sports—college bowl games and the Pens/Flyers game—while eating pizza and drinking copious amounts of beer. A night of low-key, low-dough, highly-fattening, and highly-inebriated fun with my peoples. Basically, a snapshot of the holiday season.


Friday, December 30th

The day being Entertainer’s 25th birthday, Shannon planned a party for her boo at Picsi’s in Munhall. Pak, Tony, TJ, and I each made an appearance, and got twisted while delighting in the Munhallian exchange rate. My tab, which contained a round of shots and various rounds of drinks, came out to $25 (had we been in the South Side, for example, that same bill would have been nearly twice as much).

Pak, Tony, and I headed back to Shady Grove around midnight. As soon as I walked in, I had a Long Island Iced Tea in my hand; I sensed doom for me and my consciousness. We ran into my favorite Grove waitress, “Lil Mo”, who was off duty and off-her-ass drunk. When Pak made a joke to tease her, she slurred back, “Fuck you, motherfucker! I’ll fuckin…suck your dick! Wait…no…that’s not what I meant.” While the rest of us cracked up, she slowly caught up to what she had just said and began laughing as well. Though it was just a flub, and she obviously had no intention of following through on her “threat”, Pak still took it as an ego boost. Suffices to say, Lil Mo is now his favorite Grove waitress too.


Saturday, December 31st

The Championship Game—also known as New Year’s Eve—was played out at the house that TJ and TD rent. The place was filled with guests, many of who (such as yours truly) jumped on the beer pong table in the garage. The table was draped in a Captain Morgan shower curtain, and the beer being poured into the twelve cups on top of it was from the keg of Sam Adams Winter Ale on the back porch. Beer pong with Sam Adams…ohhhh, us. TD passed out Jell-O shots as well as Fluffed Vodka shots, and no one even considered the possibility that we all wouldn’t blackout. When the ball dropped, I popped the cork on my bottle of Moet and got my New Year’s kiss from Belle—not a bad way to start a year. I passed my bottle around, and tried some of TD’s, which was a special 2002 bottle of Moet. God I hope the rest of 2012 is as ballin’ as the first four hours of it was.

I awoke mummified in a sleeping bag on the living room floor the next morning. As I gathered my belongings, I surveyed my surroundings and typed the following into my Droid:

New Year's Eve is a microcosm of a drinker's year: everything you could ever want will come and leave you, all before your eyes.

And you don't want to look at anyone you were drinking with the night before. At all.

My 2012 is perfectly summarized by what sits before me: a molested bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. People were doing shots of it last night. It was like watching Miss America get raped on stage.

That passage, and the fact that I was still drunk until about 3 pm that day, is all I need to say about the quality of the party. And, for that matter, of the close of 2011. Now it’s on to 2012. Chiefapalooza, St. Patty’s Day, the Pirates’ Home Opener, and Brewski Fest loom large in the approaching months.

Time to start going through those scouting reports.

Some of This + Some of That = Sum of Zero

It’s Monday afternoon, and I just took two aspirin to help quiet my hangover. This just feels…wrong.

So I was drunk on a Sunday afternoon, and it’s all Carson Palmer’s fault. His inability to throw the football to players in Bengal uniforms helped lead to a blistering defeat at the hands of BlahBlahBlah in fantasy football. And my subsequent need to erase all memory of Troy Polamalu posing like a Vegas showgirl while flying across the goal line led me to assault my new bottle of 1792. Maybe I was wrong for doing it, but let’s be real: Look at it in that picture. You can’t tell me that sexy bitch wasn’t asking for it.

Nevertheless, I awoke drooling on my couch at 12:30 a.m., instantly knowing I was going to regret everything the next morning. And when my alarm blared at me at 7 a.m., I did. What makes it all the stranger is that I didn’t drink myself Palin on either Friday or Saturday. And Friday was…eventful.

It started with the annual Christmas party thrown by my mother’s former coworkers. Once again I was her DD, and this time the venue was the Lexus Club inside the Consol Energy Center. When we reached the doors of the club, my mother—who hadn’t even had a hint of alcohol to that point—clarified to one of the CEC hostesses working the party, “I’m not a cougar; this is my son.” (For the record: No, the girl hadn’t asked.) I polished off Michelob Amber Bock draughts and an after-dinner glass of Glenlivet while listening to my mom’s friends bitch about their boss. Throughout the party I was receiving text messages from TJ and Jay Swag about how much they were drinking (I believe they started with personal pitchers of mixed drinks at 1311 Tavern). So after I finally dropped off my mother—who was feeling no pain—at her place, I went home, changed, and headed down to the South Side to catch up.

As I approached Rumshakers I found Swag; or, rather, I found a super drunk interpretation of Swag. With a fuzzy red beard (that, we later realized, makes him look like Treebeard from Lord of the Rings) and speaking 10 decibels too high on the phone while slumped in a doorway on Carson St., he was just a little brazen hubris away from being in Swag Montana mode. He was also the only member of the crew still in the South Side, as TJ had gone home and Mitch Canada had left for a house party in McKees Rocks. As I talked to Canada on the phone to get directions to the party, Swag stumbled off to another doorway, where he found a dark corner and unburdened his bladder. I chuckled as I watched a guy and a few girls walk past and one of the girls, curious about the source, began to follow the stream trickling from out of the doorway. Her shriek and fast retreat from the doorway was priceless.

After some time spent driving around the West End and McKees Rocks while Canada and others tried to give us directions, Swag and I finally arrived at the party. The first two things I noticed upon entering the house: (1.) It was a Christmas sweater party; (2.) there was a little person in a Christmas sweater on the couch. There weren’t very many people in attendance, but there was plenty of cold beer, so I was more than happy to work with it. And I was glad I had when Canada said, “You know, that midget’s my cousin. Or so I’ve been told.” And I was even more glad when a Backstreet Boys song came on the stereo and she and several others started a dance party in the living room.

When Canada introduced me to a girl of plus-sized proportions and she immediately looked at me as though I was a 6’6” 5 Guys double burger, though, I knew getting drunk was not a course of action that would end with me being in any way proud of myself. A little later, as I stood talking to one of Canada’s boys, I overheard him say to Double Burger, “I’d love for you to see my place!” The look on his face when he turned around and saw our grins proved that he clearly didn’t expect anyone else to be listening.

Alcohol is evil. Even on a Monday afternoon. I think I’ll buy some Gatorade on the way home from work.

And another bottle of 1792.