Come on, who's gonna ever find out?

The biggest problem facing modern drinkers?  Cameras.

Everyone has at least three cameras on their person at any given time.  Every single device sold at Best Buy has a fucking camera in it.  Every phone, PDA, mp3 player, cigarette lighter, and toaster strudel has a fucking camera built into it for no damn reason.  I hear tell they're even working on a camera that has a little camera mounted on top. And for the most part, these devices go unused.  Because they're shit.  The reason your lipstick case has a camera in it is because the camera is so substandard that it cost almost no money to build one into it.  If someone really wants to take pictures of something, they bring a camera that isn't embedded into a coffee mug because even if it's 12 years old and went through the wash in your jacket pocket a few times, it takes far superior pictures.

As a result, the hand sanitizer with the shitty Chinese CCD chip in the lid stays in your brother's girlfriend's purse... until someone does something stupid.

That's how you get this

Stag Party

Jim beam has been doing some... questionable things, lately. This has me concerned because, hands-down, my favorite whiskey is Jim Beam (white label). I've tried sweeter and stronger whiskeys, but they wear thin after awhile. In addition to white label, Beam has developed and purchased some fine liquors like Booker's, Baker's, Basil Hayden, Old Overholt, and Jim Beam Rye (yellow label). Lately, though, they've come up with (rī)¹, an ultra-hip marketing plan to pick up on the re-awakening interest in rye whiskey. Richard and I haven't tried yet, but Paddy says is wholey underwhelming. But now Beam has gone a step further... in some respects. (rī)¹ was completely absent of Beam branding, but their latest creation, Red Stag, comes in a standard fifth-gallon glass bottle of Beam with a different label.

It's not the packaging that's hip and cool this time, it's the marketing campagin. If you take a moment to peruse www.theredstag.com, you'll see what I mean.

Immediately you'll notice their strategy is to associate Red Stag with getting hipster tail. In the background, people in ultra-cool clothes sweat and gyrate to an unheard beat, while a cartoon deer spouts Confucius-esque wisdom on how to get laid.

The add campaign actually reminds me of old posters advertising Absinthe. Just replace the red with green, a fairy with a deer, and update the outfits and parties portrayed in the background. Really, not a bad idea. I mean, those ad campaigns worked so well at convincing folks that Absinthe was a mind-explodingly good time, the stuff was made illegal in many countries for quite some time.

But as I and Beam have said before, the stuff inside matters most. Was this "infused" whiskey some sacchariney cherry syrup? Was it a fifth of a gallon of cough medicine? Or was it a sweetish Manhattan in a bottle? One sounds like whiskey hell, one sounds somewhat tolerable.

So last night, on my way to hang out at Paddy's place, I picked up a bottle. The lady at the checkout said she'd heard good things about it. She looked like someone who has had her fair share of whiskey, and her comments bolstered my slightly sagging confidence.

Now, I've drank quite a bit of Absinthe over the years, and I never hallucinated; I never saw the legendary green fairy. But looking at www.theredstag.com, I couldn't help but wonder just a teeny bit if some cartoonish crimson deer would start babbling vaguely sexual prose-poetry at me. Cause that might be cool.

Once at Paddy's, we cracked it open immediately and poured two glasses; no ice, no mixers, just whiskey and a glass. First impressions? Not bad. I almost said "it's too sweet" with the first drop on my tongue, but then it splashed across the rest of my palate and warmed my insides as it went down. There was definitely Jim Beam in there, and I liked it. We commenced to taste the shit out of that bottle.

Whoa, hey, um... awesome. Yeah, absolutely! Grab the bull by the balls, carpe diem, it's 5 o'clock somewhere. I mean, it wasn't much of a herd, just me and Paddy, but we were drinking Red Stag and hanging out. It was cool. We actually looked up some recipes for cocktails, because we weren't sure what you could mix with it other than the usual Sprite or 7-up. theredstag.com had some suggestions that sounded tasty: Red Stag and cola, Red Manhattan, Brass Buck (Red Stag and ginger ale), but we just kept drinking it straight.

Paddy isn't really a "potential mate", he's just an old friend. And he's a dude. And that's not really my thing.

Um... yeah. Anyway, recipes the rest of the interwebs had to offer for this liquor were less than appetizing. Some website seemed to want to mix it with every liqueur and schnapps in DeKuyper's lineup. Sorry, but watermelon cherry bourbon is pushing it a bit far for us. And besides, the flavor of Red Stag is strong enough to satisfy the kind of whiskey cravings Paddy and I are prone to, but with its sweetness I think it worked best served on its own. Maybe an ice cube or two. Kind of like a pre-mixed cocktail that's 80 proof.

No, not really. Just two old friends hanging out, drinking some booze, watching TV.

... later on, Paddy's wife came home. Her impression of Red Stag was much the same as mine, a bit sweet, but the bourbon warmth evens that out. We all thought it might be a tad on the sweet side. Paddy even suggested manly-ing it up with some Beam Rye. The sharpness of the rye might compliment the sweetness of Red Stag rather nicely.

What? No! Dude, that's my friend of over twenty years and his wife. We did not get drunk off Red Stag and have a three-way. We just kind of hung out and watched TV. It was relaxing and enjoyable. Paddy made a pot roast, and it was quite yummy. We watched them make Cheetos on the Food Network.

I didn't piss on her either. Moving along, we were about halfway through the bottle when Richard Dicks stopped by. Don't say a fucking word, deersteak! That's his PEN name, not his PORN name! Anyway, by coincidence, Dicks had just been to the liquor store himself and had picked up a bottle. We left that bottle in his car, though, and continued with the bottle I had purchased. Richard's impression was, again, the same. The cherry flavoring is definitely present, but doesn't overpower the charcoal and corn flavor that really makes bourbon the fine American original that it is. Again, he felt it was maybe a tad on the sweet side.

No!  Richard and I did not fuck in the bathroom!  There was no fucking.. It wasn't that kind of party!

No. He most certainly was not. None of us were. We weren't dressed like underage kids sneaking into a pseudo-trendy club. We were just hanging out. Damnit, this hipster ad campaign is starting to get on my nerves. I'm beginning to feel ashamed that I like Red Stag.

But I do like it, and so did everyone else. So before the night was over, the bottle was very empty. Richard was tempted to get his bottle from his car to continue the boozing, but we all had to work the next day, so we called it a night.

No! No orgies! No one had sex. At least, not while Richard and I were there. We were just hanging out. And Red Stag was fine for that. You don't need to be going out clubbing, or having a wild sex party, or even doing some serious drinking. It's a good sipping drink when you want something strong and sweet, but not brutishly forceful or vomitously candy-like. It's a good alcohol to just chill out with.

Whatever, dude... whatever.

WE ARE

Those of you that yelled the proper response to that out loud in your cubicle, causing everyone to look at you funny, most likely spent 5 years in the drunken stupor known as Pennsylvania State University. What's that I hear? Hisses? Cries of unfairness? Did you just say "Don't be a hater"? (Really? "Hater"? Wow, we'll talk about that one later on...) But I am in no way being unfair, or a "hater". In fact, I went to PSU for a couple years, and had many fun times there. But that's exactly the point, and the point of The Princeton Review who named PSU the #1 drinking party school.

I'm sure some of you are saying that "party" doesn't necessarily imply drinking. And you're right. There's plenty of awesome college parties that don't involve drinking, right?

Ok, so can we be realistic about this? College is the time when American kids first start to take part in adult festivities, mainly focusing on drinking shitty beer and fucking anything that moves (or doesn't after drinking enough).

But what makes this even more prevalent at PSU? There's bigger schools, smaller schools, better schools, worse schools... in fact, there's no factor you could pick that isn't either above or below some other school. It's not at the absolute top or bottom of anything except partying. That, to me, seems to indicate not one cause, but several factors working together. Let's dig deeper.

The most distinguishing thing about PSU, other than partying, is football. Saturdays in the fall, football reigns supreme. With the enormous influx of fans and alumni, the population of the county doubles. Not the town, the county. No, seriously. It actually doubles.

The stadium alone holds just a few thousand less people as there are in the entire county. And these alumni who pour in on Saturday set a fine example for the impressionable youngsters...



...who follow in kind.




But to be honest, it all stays relatively wholesome and within the bounds of common decency on game day.



... more or less. But that's game day. Just one afternoon out of the 168 hours in a week. What do you do the rest of the week?

Nestled into the middle of picturesque nowhere, Penn State is a pretty fucking big university where there's not much to do on a Friday night. There's two theaters, two Wal Marts, and a mall with about 20 stores. Paris it ain't. But there are 54 fraternal organizations, and 21 bars. That's fine for everyone over 21, but the bars generally employ the afore-mentioned football team's defensive line as bouncers. You don't get into a bar unless you're genuinely over 21. And if you're from a state that issues shitty cardboard driver's licenses, you might not even get in if you're over 21. So what's a college freshman to do on a Friday night?



Delicious. And that does appear to be a dorm in that picture, with the heavy freshman-proof wooden door in the institutional burgundy aluminum door frame with heavy-duty hinges.

But it's not just juniors and seniors at the bars and freshmen and sophomores drinking in dorms, there is drinking everywhere. Bars in town, frat parties, house parties. Sometimes the sports teams get in on the act too.



But what's wrong with a little drinking? Nothing, really. Paddy and I aced Drinking 101 at PSU, and look what upstanding, productive citizens we grew up to be!


But that's part of college. It's not just learning what they teach you in class, it's learning how to be part of society. Learning what is acceptable and not acceptable. Learning how to be an adult amongst other adults. That process can have high points and low points, but that's all part of learning. You learn that drinking can have many effects and consequences. Sometimes you get a little loose...



... sometimes a lot loose.




Sometimes drinking can have unfortunate consequences for you...




... sometimes it can have unfortunate consequences for everyone.



If you're not careful it can lead to poor decisions...




... wardrobe malfunctions...




... more poor decisions...




... fucking terrible decisions...





...the floor....




... the ground...



...and finally a trash can.



But really, this is shit people need to sort out before they enter the real world. These are situations adults face, and it's a lot better to fuck it up when you're in college than when you're at your new job's Christmas party and you vomit on the CEO's wife and need to be carried to the bathroom to sleep it off on the tub. What you call drunken debauchery, I call life lessons.

And looking at it that way, PSU's #1 party school ranking takes on a whole new ring. Someone from Harvard or Yale may have never paraded drunkenly down the street with a sign that says "fuck the police." How much more embarrassing and career-ending would that be if you made that mistake in your 30's?

So where students see the #1 party school, I see the #1 life school.



That being said, The University of Pittsburgh is far more academically-oriented and I learned a lot more there than I ever would have at PSU.


And, on-the-whole, Pitt had way hotter chicks.




Just saying...






For more info on drinking at PSU, see:

College prowler: Penn State - Nightlife

and

Bar Tour: State College Area - Night Life, Bars & Entertainment

The 117

I woke up dizzy, nauseous, and in pain the morning of Richard's annual party. That's the morning of, not the morning after.

Confused? Let me back up a bit.

The night before, a friend had come back into town for the party, and we'd gone out for dinner and drinks. I ordered chicken fried steak for dinner, but emotional trauma from a previous chicken fried steak experience kept me from eating much of the delectable deep fried beef before me (it's a long story). But the short and chubby of it is I didn't get much food in me, but I didn't adjust my alcohol intake accordingly. Sure, it was spaced out enough that I was reasonably sober by the time I was going to sleep, but you need the calories and moisture of a good meal to help your body process the fusel oils that exist in every form of alcohol that's intended for human consumption. After those who were pregaming for the next day left the bar, a friend of my girlfriend's showed up and we stayed a couple more rounds.

Also, I'd had a pretty bad allergy attack during the night. So by Saturday morning, my head was throbbing, I felt like I needed to vomit, and I was stumbling around like a new camera man for Deadliest Catch.


Water, Sudafed, Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, Immodium, and a whole pot of black coffee had me feeling only moderately human by the time I headed out for Richard's place.

Richard and the out-of-town friend were already setting up (they had eaten dinner). I was still feeling like shit, but I had grabbed a pounder of Red Bull on the way. That's right, a pounder! I drank it down like it was nothing and still wasn't very energetic. But guests were starting to file in, so it was time for Paddy and myself to take our traditional places for our once-a-year amateur bar tending.


I had spent no small amount of time assembling a cheat-sheet for mixing drinks. In fact, I had asked you for ideas, but I only got one reply. So I started by adding all the items from a menu Richard had made up for the first of his annual parties, then I searched for tropical-themed drinks, as this was to be a tropical-themed party. The next thing I know, the sheet had over one hundred drinks on it. One hundred seventeen, to be exact. So I called it "The 117" (pronounced One One Seven).

In no time, the booze was flowing freely. Everyone had to do a shot when they arrived, and they got a stamp on their hand/arm for that and every shot they did that night. I, however, wasn't drinking too much. I was still feeling pretty terrible.

Someone else who wasn't drinking much was Richard. Playing host is difficult, even with two suave bartenders like Paddy and myself keeping everyone intoxicated, there's still a ton of stuff to do. He was prepping food, manning the grill, meeting and greeting, and trying to keep everyone entertained.

Though I attempted to help him with this last item as well. I had come up with games that, as a bartender, I could use to keep the energy of the party going. The aforementioned stamps were one of those ideas.

We also played Russian roulette with shotglasses. Six shotglasses were arranged like chambers in a revolver. Five were filled with water, one with vodka. Two people would take turns drinking them. It was a lot of fun and helped keep people hydrated.


Occasionally I would ring a bell and ask for something from a party-goer; a receipt from the liquor store, the person who drove the oldest car to the party, the person with the most piercings, stuff like that. The winner got anything ranging from a glowing necklace to a tiki shotglass.

One game that took all evening to play was a betting pool of sorts. Everyone guessed when they thought the first person would throw up. Not who, just when. The closest person without going over won a prize. The guesses really spanned the whole party from early afternoon to near midnight. The earliest time almost won, but dry heaves don't count.


But even with all this, there was more than enough to keep Richard busy as hell for the earlier parts of the party. But at some point, the party gained enough momentum that he could take some time out. He joined Paddy and I to make a couple drinks for folks, we took a walk around the block with travelers and cigars, and then... well, he kind of disappeared from my sight for awhile. My girlfriend was handing my camera back to me when a look of shock came over her face. I turned around just in time to witness an impressive spectacle. Now, I'm no stranger to face-smashing, and I have to say that Richard's maneuver was quite impressive. As I turned around, I saw Richard bent at the waist about to ram a standing oscillating fan at the end of the bar with his head/face. He smashed into it, creating an impressive crashing sound, then collapsed behind the bar on his back. Then the fan fell on top of him.

I don't know exactly when or how, but Richard had gotten completely and utterly demolished. He was led outside where he could roll around in the grass without injuring himself too much, but soon he was taken upstairs to the bathroom, and Paddy's sister-in-law won the pool.

After purging himself of whatever the hell it was he put in his stomach, Richard tried to re-join the party. It didn't go well. He just kind of rolled around in the grass some more saying very nice or very insulting things to people. He looked up at his wife and said "I'm sorry I do this every year..." Then he looked up at one of his brothers and said "You're the best brother!" Then he turned to Paddy and spit on his foot. The pecking order had been clearly established. Paddy stared down at his foot with an expression that conveyed dismay, discomfort, and a complete lack of surprise. I told Paddy he would be completely justified wiping his foot on Richard. He did so.

Once Richard's very tolerant wife put him to bed, the party took on a bit more of a sexy and subdued atmosphere. I rang the bell and said the first person to give me their bra would get a prize. Paddy's future brother-in-law quickly appeared at the bar holding his fiance's bra high, so I gave her the prize of a flowered bra I had purchased at the party store.


Then things got mellow, but not in a bad way. The party still had momentum, it had just shifted gears. The music changed from upbeat reggae to slower classic rock. The sun was down. Tacky tropical decorations fluoresced under black light while couples danced to slower, easier music. At the end of the bar, casual acquaintances were getting frisky. Outside, the smokers waxed philosophical. I was finally feeling human again and having some serious cocktails. As the crowd grew thinner, groups of old friends got together and talked over old times. The party didn't die, or even really stop. There was no sensation of brakes being applied; it just kind of eased away like music from a ship drifting into the distant night. It was how every party should end. It's how everything should end. It left everyone feeling joyful, relaxed, and completely satisfied.


Well, almost everyone...

Mixing It Up

In a few short days it will be the weekend of Richard's annual party. I think he's mentioned this, but I'm feeling too lazy to go searching for the instances to link to. This year, it is tropical/luau themed.

Now, we know there's at least a few people out there reading this blog. Maybe not many, or regularly, but I'm interested in hearing from some of you. Paddy and I usually tend bar at this event, and I'd like to know what you think we should serve. I just started work on a cheat sheet for a few more unusual tropical drinks. The bar is pretty well stocked, as Richard has shown before:



...so damn near anything is a possibility. I'm looking for drinks 1) with appropriately themed names, and 2) that don't suck. What do you think should be on my cheat sheet? Blue Hawaiian Screw? Caribbean Queen? Screaming Multiple Orgasm On The Beach? What's tasty? What's interesting? What's your favorite? We'd love to know!

Land Shark

HELLO ALL YOU PARROTHEADS OUT THERE!!! YOU READY TO HAVE A GOOD TIME?!!!
... ... ...OK! Apparently not, but I'll get back to that later. Tonight Jimmy Buffett is coming to Pittsburgh and is playing out at Starlake. No, I refuse to call it by it's new corporate sponsor name. Starlake will always be Starlake, just like Pizza Outlet will always be Pizza Outlet and the Civic Arena will always be the Civic Arena (well, at least until they tear it down next year).


Last year was my first experience at a Jimmy Buffet Concert. I'd never been to one before and have always heard that they were a really good time. Prior to last year, I wouldn't even say that I was a Buffett fan. I knew a couple of his songs. They were fun and catchy, but I always kind of got a annoyed when Margaritaville would be played somewhere. not that i didn't like the song, but everybody always chimes in at the chorus, but never knows the rest of the song. I've always found it kind of obnoxious. Kind of like WVU fans when Country Road is played (Secret: John Denver was singing about Western Virginia, not West Virginia). But that is neither here not there.


The point is, I went to Jimmy Buffett last year for the experience, not the music. I went to party for 4 hours prior to the concert and have a blast drinking during. I went to have a good time. What I came back with was a memories of a truly enlightening experience.

Parrothead (definition): A drunk 50 year old corporate executive stumbling around in a grass skit and coconuts, beer bottle in hand and a funny looking hat, being helped around by an equally drunk and stumbling 22 year old in a Hawaiian shirt, no pants and half a margarita spilt on himself.

This trend knows no bounds. It crosses the generation gap faster than a naked man running through the Hills of West Virginia screaming "I'm not your little piggie!" I had an absolute blast. And when you're having such a good time and drinking away, you have no control over it. You just get caught up in the music and the experience. You have no choice but to love it. After the concert, I took my wife out to buy a couple Jimmy Buffett CDs (after several days to sober up of course). What Jimmy Buffett does is give a middle age person an excuse to act like an 18 year old college freshman again, if only for one night. It gives the younger crowd just one more excuse to party. And it give everybody in the middle and opportunity to escape live and get away from the house and the kids and just be free. It's a whole different culture, and they accept everybody.

Now back to the top of my post. Last year we tried to get friends to come and join us, and were received with half-hearty interest. In the end we had no takers. After the concert, and telling them about how much fun it was, people seemed genuinely interested. They all were for doing it the next time. This year, I told all my friends about the concert several times and when tickets went on sale, nobody bit. A couple said they were disappointed that they forgot, while others said "eh, I'm not really a Buffet fan." And that was just the kind of image I was tying to dispel. You don't need to be a Buffett fan to have a great time. You don't have to like his music. It's an excuse to party, and much partying we did. This year I hope for an even better time, and I know we're going to have blast and party with a lot of unique and interesting people. But I am sad that I won't have any real friends there to share it with.