Your Road to Blackout, Documented

Some people like to drink. Some people like to write. I happen to fall into the middle portion of that Venn diagram, as I’m sure some of you do too. For multi-taskers like us, the revolutionary 33 Bottles of Beer journal has arrived.

For just $12 you can put your two most coveted and practiced skills to use simultaneously, or in whatever order you want, I suppose. Here’s how it works: buy journal, buy beer, drink beer, open journal, open pen, proceed to capture the essence of said beer whilst still in that foggy, euphoric state where everything just seems to make sense. So simple, yet wildly entertaining. Perfect on a rainy day, like today...

And when you’re done with page one, turn to page two where you can begin all over again- a long and arduous journey, I know, but someone has to do it.

For the slight chance your vocabulary possibly begins to inexplicably diminish as your entries pile up, the good people selling 33 Bottles of Beer journals have stocked your book with a flavor wheel to provide some commonly used terms to describe exactly what you'll be tasting. (“Toffee,” “Sulphury,” and “Floral” seem to pin-point the tangy, sweaty pang of Natty Light in a keg, don’t you think?)

And just in case you’re really ambitious (or in college) these manliest of diaries come in packs of 3 (so you can finally get to 99 bottles of beer on the wall, for all you non-math majors).

Or you could just drink the beer and use the twelve bucks to buy another 6-pack. Up to you.

A Farewell to Arms

Well, faithful readers, it's been a long time. You may have thought you lost me. Or maybe you were relieved to know your inbox would be a little bit lighter this winter. For those of you who've been angry at the lack of posts, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry I'm not sorry. I've been busy, what do you want from me? It's like like you pay me to do this! For those of you happy your inbox wasn't plagued by SOMETHING EVERMORE, I'm not sorry at all.

Here it is. My grand return. And the theme- A Farewell to Arms- says it all. I'm putting my guns away. No more bashing "the man" or complaining about the uncomfortable, unnatural process that is becoming a contributing adult member of society. This blog is now dedicated to finding whatever it is you're looking for in life.

Here are some places I think might be a good place to start looking...

the American West

They say you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been. Making a new life in a new place is no different. You can't be an American in [insert your destination here] when you haven't seen America! That would just be un-American. So your first stop- the Gold Coast. I'm thinking this one is about getting the full experience though. No direct flights to LAX with a cab to Santa Monica. Get in the car, get on the road and see if you can make it through the Rockies to the coast. That's the only real way to get to where you're going. San Francisco. This town is littered with bars and young people. It's not too far off from what you're used to, so it can act as a good transitional place. Spend a year or two.

Next up: South America

Costa Rica to be exact. After a year in San Fran, it's time to get closer to the equator and out onto the beach. Here's what I'm thinking...

The fact that your dollar goes a much longer way here than in say, Europe, doesn't hurt either. For about 50 bucks a day you can live like a king in this paradise. It beats a packed 4 train on a snowy winter's evening, don't you think?





Final destination: The Caribbean.

Now if all goes to plan, you survive the trek to Cali, you survive (or find the energy/desire) to leave South America, the logical final resting place has got to be the Caribbean. The melting pot of the New World, this small tropical sea has been the hot-spot for wealth seekers and hedonists for centuries. And while we're at it, let's get really far out there...Barbados. It's a tropical Eden at the western most outskirt of the Caribbean sea. A place where no one will find you. Set up a little rum punch bar on the beach, live on your boat, wakeboard by day and drink yourself tired. It's the ultimate early retirement.

Good luck wanderers.

What's Next for Tiger?

Sex: check. Drugs? Perhaps. So rock-n-roll? Is that the final frontier for the famous Tiger Woods? It certainly seems to be the natural progression. I can see it now: Tiger sporting dreadlocks and a leather vest, wailing on a Fender with a neck shaped like a 9-iron, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I don’t care about sports or family, I just wanna rock!”

Some image of our recently crowned Associated Press, Athlete of the Decade. But as it stands now, that’s not too far off. We didn’t want him to fall off his pedestal, but he did, and I’m afraid this time, if the drug accusations are proven true, Tiger will officially lose his stripes.

It all can be attributed to the male psyche, as many issues with our sports figures tend to be. Unfortunately for the female sports lovers, girls are more of a side note than a major issue. Much to Tiger’s chagrin his lady issues were blown up due to his God-like status among moms and daughters across America. But let’s be serious here. He’s a professional athlete with a ton of money and all the potential in the world. What did you think was happening? You really believed Tiger was dressing up as Santa, drinking hot mocha with his Swedish nanny-wife, humming his son to sleep, all while traveling most of the year, winning every major over and over, and sleeping in hotel rooms flooded with women and press?

We can speak candidly here. Athletes don’t usually make good husbands. Even the great Michael Jordan, the man who changed basketball forever, the savior of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in Space Jam, has been known to sleep with a college-aged model or two from time to time. I think he even slept with a girl from my Alma Mater while she was spring breaking at the Atlantis. And why shouldn’t he? He’s MJ.

But when it comes to cheating the game, well that’s a different story. Men can forgive cheating on a wife and family, but cheating on your team, your fans, or your sport- that’s a big no-no in Bro-land. Issues of pride, honor, and friendship always trump those of infidelity in the world of the Y chromosome. Always. Just ask Alex Rodriguez.

Supporting my point further is Dr. Gary Wadler World Anti-Doping Agency. (The fact that the World Anti-Doping Agency even exits is a testament to the importance we place on our athletes remaining clean). But even further, when asked about the outcome if Tiger were confirmed as a steroid user, Dr. Wadler said, “That would be devastating.”

It would be. We men, we fellow golfers, fellow athletes, fellow lying, cheating, affair-having men, would be crushed to learn our favorite hero had been alluding us this whole time. We’ve had to endure betrayal in baseball and listen to debates on home run records; we’ve had to hear about it in basketball, whether King James could possibly be that big; and we all know that it’s the life-blood of football, creating middle linebackers bigger, faster, and stronger than ever before. But we never thought it would ruin golf. Golf was our golden child, our sanctuary.

Tiger if you’re reading (which I’m sure you’re not), say it ain’t so. Don’t let us down. You can have all the models and nannies you want, sext all day on an unlimited plan, just please, tell us you haven’t used steroids. Tell us those 350+ yard drives are real. Because if they’re not, Christmas in Bro-land is officially ruined. Thanks a lot.

Your New Favorite Employee

It’s late Thursday afternoon and you’re sitting at your mahogany desk (cubical). In the distance you can hear your boss’ voice down the hall, screaming about the sub-par (in his opinion only, of course) TPS reports you just submitted. If you don’t mask these nails on the chalkboard, this is going to be a long end to your week, and you may end up jobless for the Holiday season. Fear no more, workday warriors, your prayers have been answered.

Swimming its way to the top of my favorite workplace pass-times is GrooveShark, the online radio website at the cutting edge of the digital media market. Yea, yea, I know you’re used to your faithful Pandora, and you’re scared to leave that old box behind. Or maybe you’re thinking, “I can just search tracks on YouTube.” But it’s time to move on. It’s December, and almost 2010. You’re about to get that big promotion (when you fix those TPS reports), and you’re a more experienced listener with higher standards.

Unlike its “competitors,” GrooveShark has respect for his god-like new manager. And why wouldn’t he? You, the soon-to-be corporate leader, don’t take no for an answer, and you won’t stand for anything but studio quality from your employee(s). You also don’t actually want to do any plebian work like searching, scrolling, or any other –ing that involves thinking creatively on your own. No worries. Your best suck-up has you covered. Just type in the exact song or artist you’d like to help drown out your workday sorrows, GrooveShark finds your track or tracks, along with a host of other similar songs; you choose the song to start the playlist and GrooveShark (as a good worker should) does the rest.

With an option to turn the radio function on or off, you have free reign to decide how much or how little control your assistant can have over this acoustic challenge you’ve so graciously let him take on.

Oh, and did I mention there are no commercials or audio advertisements? Well, there aren’t. But then again, that would be rude of lower management to interrupt a more senior member of the team, wouldn’t it? I think so too.

Enjoy.

http://www.grooveshark.com/

Going Blue

There has been a lot of hype lately about the world “going green.” All of a sudden everyone is very concerned with saving our planet and restoring the environment to the Eden of yore. But there’s another color we now should consider with just as much fervor and zeal: blue.

Recently I discovered what I guess isn’t such a recent discovery, but alas, one overlooked by the public eye. Blue Zones, or the marketing ploy of a guy, Dan Buettner, trying to sell books, are places in the world where people are 10% more likely to live to be 100 years old. 100 years old! And these people aren’t setting dates and times to jog in Central Park, nor are they going to an expensive and crowded gym. They’re simply living their lives as those before them had and as those after will. So what’s the secret?

Buettner lays it out in 5 loosely defined categories: diet, work, community, purpose, and environment. The right combination of a few of these factors and you’ve got yourself on the longest path possible towards eternity. The nature of these categories is what really intrigues me. Some, like diet and environment, are fairly scientific. With the right ingredients, for instance the herbal teas of Okinawa or the unbelievably anti-oxidant rich wine in Sardinia, you can keep your body clean and fit, and thus extend its usage period. This fits well into the American mindset, doesn’t it? No matter what, if you have these set things you will always achieve a certain outcome, given the correct mixture. 1 plus 1 ALWAYS equals 2. It’s as simple as that.

The other elements are somewhat more circumstantial. The kind of work people in these Blue Zones are doing is manual type labor. Most are farmers in mountainous regions, walking miles every day, performing low intensity exercises while maintaining a sense of purpose. All of these things come “naturally” to people in the region. There aren’t any crowded bus rides or polluted street cars. People use those things we in the Segway-era have forgotten about: legs. And in doing so, they decrease their chances of heart disease and high blood pressure.

With increased vitality comes an increased sense of purpose and activity within the community. People living in Blue Zones tend to be connected with the others living around them. Unlike here, where people are senior citizens by 65 and are done, worn out, too old to be of use, and shipped off to nursing homes, elderly people in Blue Zones remain vital to their communities’ culture. The bridge between young and old barely even exists.

Recently I read an article about a related story from which I’ve found new words to live by. In Australia there’s a competition unlike any other. A race that’s longer, more grueling, and frankly unfathomable for the normal human being. (Of course, right? I mean, it’s Australia. What else would you expect from the land down under?) It’s called the Westfield ultra-marathon and it’s a 543-mile trek from Sydney to Melbourne. Most of the 150 entrants are, as you might assume young adults in prime shape, geared up and ready to go; their bodies are the culminations of 20-some-odd years of intense training.

In 1983 however, a 61-year-old man, aptly named Cliff Young, entered the race and stunned the world when he finished first and set a record time by 2 days. Young, a sheep farmer from Victoria, Australia, said he trained by working through the nights without sleep. His advice for others and my new words by which I live: “No matter what you do, you have to keep moving. If you don’t wear out, you rust out.”

I think Buettner and the Blue Zone people would agree. It’s all about remaining active. Activity stimulates the body as well as the mind. When you’re active, you have purpose. When you have purpose, your attitude toward life is positive. When you stay positive, you stay healthy. And when you stay healthy, you live longer.

Whether or not I will live to be 100 remains a moot mystery. But what I can say now is that along with going green, (as I register for paperless statements from my Visa card…) I’m also dedicated to going blue. Anyone interested in coming with?

He's Just Not That Into Them

Have you ever met a guy (no not like that), just casually met a guy, a classmate, friend of a friend, regular old guy...that just wasn’t into sports? You know the guy I’m talking about? He seems completely normal. You met him through your girlfriend’s friend, or he sits two cubicles over from you. He looks, sounds, dresses, and acts like a normal dude. A bro, even. You might even think about hanging out with him, picking up a new friend, and maybe adding him to your fantasy football league.

But then you figure it out. It’s the last “feeler” question in your arsenal. Just after, “So, where are you from?”

“Oh, San Diego? That’s awesome. Great weather I hear. What’s the deal with LT though? He has been streaky at best, don’t you think?”

That’s when you get it. The blank stare like a confused 2nd grader looking intently at the math problem, 3 x 4 = ?. That’s when you realize, this guy doesn’t watch sports! I know it seems impossible, but I’m sure some of you out there have come across this guy and know he’s real. It’s a phenomenon of the straight masculine race I had yet to figure out until I met the guy who sits two cubicles down from me. We’ll call him by an androgynous name: Sam.

Sam is your typical guy. Drinks beer. Jokes around. His tie hangs sluggishly from his collar most days, the remnants of a lackluster attempt at dressing that morning. He flirts with the younger girls in the office, as any good, middle management co-worker should. He’s a great guy to work with. But he doesn’t watch sports.

I found this out about three months after I started working near Sam, which is longer than it normally takes. Our thing was, we were close enough to make small talk, but never worked on the same projects or went out socially where we would be forced to have the aforementioned conversation. Just recently we went out after work for a few cocktails with the parting interns. That’s when I learned of this mind-boggling fact. How is it possible?

Once I got past the initial flabbergasting I became very excited. Sam can be my test dummy, I thought. Finally I’ll be able to crack the mystery that is the heterosexual anti-sports male. I can ask him all the right questions to get to the bottom of this case. Elementary, my dear Watson (or Butros, a buddy of mine whom I know is deeply concerned with this issue). Piece of cake.

Much to my chagrin, the answers were unyielding.

“Not a sports guy?” I say to him.

“Nah, not really.”

“Well then I have a question for you, and it comes in two parts…so really, I have two questions.”

1. What do you talk about with your friends besides girls?
2. What do you watch on TV?

The answers were, music and fighting, and “I don’t watch TV, but if I do, porn or HBO.” Ok, so I guess there are other things on TV besides sports. Hell, LOST is one of my favorite shows of all time, and God knows I love the Discovery Channel. But still, music and fighting? Can that really solidify a male friendship?

Everyone has different, if only slightly, music tastes and talking about/learning new music can be awesome. But at least throw some video gaming in there, or maybe, some extreme sports (I guess that wouldn’t be allowed either, so never mind). I don’t know. I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but there’s got to be something more to a conversation with a friend than music and fighting! I’ve only been in one fight in my whole life and that was in 5th grade, what could we possibly talk about?

Sports, that’s what. So to Sam and all the others of his kind I say this: learn to love them my would-be-friends. Sports account for roughly 87% of all male-to-male conversation (statistic yet to be confirmed) and are the glue that binds us to one another in a completely non-suggestive manner. Let them into your life and you will find yourself on the road to…well you might find yourself at very least with a few more friends. Just a thought.

It's Not a Myth

The South that is. And all the things you’ve heard about the South, they aren’t myths either. It’s there, it’s all there. The blondes in sundresses, the cute southern twanged voices, the rah-rah spirit that far surpasses the most passionate school in the northeast, it’s all there. And it’s absolutely amazing.

Getting there, however, can be prickly.

FRIDAY:

My particular trip started at LaGuardia Airport when I boarded a plane for Alabama to see the Crimson Tide take on the Tigers of LSU. There are only two flights that leave New York bound for the Yellowhammer State, one in the morning and one at night. I opted for the morning, of course, as an excuse to miss work on Friday. Missing work was great, but the guy sitting next to me, well, he was not- at least that’s what I thought at first.

As I stuffed my Mets bag into the storage compartment overhead, I looked down to see a cynical face staring back at me. The balding, overweight Rico Suave look-a-like ran his hands through his greasy hair and blurted out his first words. “You sitting here?” I nodded. “Good, you’re not a fatass.” “Okay,” I said as I slid my not-so fat ass past his fire truck red flannel shirt and skin-tight white jeans. Labor Day was a long time ago, pal, I thought to myself. I sat and waited patiently for take-off, hoping that was the end of our conversation. Too paranoid to put on my headphones which (allegedly) interrupts the pilot’s radio signal, I was forced to listen to Rico and his two goons in the seats behind us.

“Let’s get this bird in the air,” he yelled out. His buddies started laughing. “Hey, remember last year,” he turns to me, “we took my plane…we were rolling joints on the way, banging girls in the bathroom. This sucks!” The conversations went on and on along those lines, and from what I could deduce these three were all in their 30’s, all married, all currently cheating on their wives, and all obsessed with money. I put my ‘Bama hat over my eyes to tried and avoid further engagement. But I could feel Rico’s eyes staring at me. His breath smelled like burnt coffee. I didn’t want to open my eyes but his buddy reached from the seats behind us and tapped me on the shoulder. He asked what year I graduated, assuming I had gone to the University of Alabama. “My friend Greg was president of ATO there. Did you know him?” “No I didn’t go to Alabama,” “Oh neither did we, we just go down for this game every year.” Great, I was thinking, as I moved back into sleep positing. Again, that didn’t stop them.

The questions kept rolling in. Where did you go to school? Were you in a fraternity? Villanova. Yes. SAE. All of a sudden I found myself in a 20 minute conversation with these assholes, until finally Rico next to me started laughing, his coffee breath stinking up all of row 9 as he looked to his friend and says, “He,” meaning me, “doesn’t know who he’s sitting next to.” I pause and look at him. “I’m a worldwide influential person,” says Rico with the coffee stained tongue. My jaw dropped, and with the little air I could consciously gasp into my lungs I said, “Cool man,” and rolled over to nap until we landed. Rico had just stunned me to the point where I couldn’t tell if I hated him or loved him.

I woke up to the wheels screeching along the runway. I had made it! I took my headphones off (I guess they really don’t interrupt anything at all) and found the Three Stooges seemingly still amidst the same conversation they had been yelling an hour ago somewhere over North Carolina. More coke and stripper stories (some kind of funny, others too unbelievable to hold comedic value, but Rico was still creeping onto my sweet list). The guy from row 10 got on his cell. “Yea dad, just landed. I’m with a few of my buddies.” Rico chimes in, “Tell him you’re with the ‘King of the Business.’” I bit my lip and shuffled off the plane.

It was 10 a.m. in Birmingham when we landed, an hour earlier than we were scheduled to be there. Luckily my friend, the ‘Bama local and reason for the trip, was awake and able to come to the airport and get us. What’s there to do in Birmingham, Alabama, you might ask? Well, when the sun is up, you can get BBQ, and when the sun is down, you can drink bourbon. The rule of B’s, as I’ve come to know it. 10 a.m., sun was up, BBQ it was.

Much to my delight, Birmingham was awesome. It’s a quaint little city, with only a few small high-rises about ¾ the size of the New York Times building on 8th Avenue. Most of the streets are little bars and restaurants, or shops filled with UA and UAB gear, others lined with more traditional southern threads. We went into a popular place at the “5 points” area of town called Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q and got a table. The three of us ordered food and few beers and settled into the booth with some laughs. I think we were about midway through our meal when we were interrupted by a loud and smelly voice.

“Strongman!” Rico belted out, lending an outstretched fist to give me a pound. We exploded with laughter. I thought for a second, maybe I don’t hate this guy so much after all. He had just pounded a complete stranger in public while screaming out the (unbeknownst to me) nickname “strongman” in the middle of a crowded southern restaurant. His partner in crime (adultery) came over as well and introduced himself. Paul was his name. Rico never disclosed his true identity to us, but I guess that kind of info is top secret when you have worldwide influence. After I explained the whole story to my Alabama native friend, we finished our beers and I hit the urinal. My love for Rico was sealed when I over heard this final conversation between him and Paul:

Rico: “You see the blonde out there?”

Paul: “Yea, hot man, real hot. Much hotter than Myra (Paul's wife). She’s like a 6 or 7, easy.”

Rico: “Yea…That’s like a 2 for me.”

Thank you Rico, that was phenomenal. And we left the bar.

SATURDAY:

With the remaining time of sunlight on Friday we bought some University of Alabama merchandise (aka “merch”) from a store called “Bama Pride.” Then we lounged on the couch, and caught up on this season of Californication. You might think this would be a waste of time, but it wasn’t. It was just the quiet before the storm. We went out in Birmingham Friday night, yes, but we didn’t go out hard for a reason.

Saturday morning we all woke up at 7 a.m., which really shouldn’t be hard to do when your body is still on Eastern Standard Time and you’re in a Central Time Zone state, but for some reason 7 a.m. and I can’t seem to get along no matter what. So after a few minutes, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. It was game day, and I was excited.

Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama are about a 45-minute drive from my buddy’s house in Birmingham, the perfect amount of time to eat some Chick-Filet for breakfast and down a cup of Joseph. (That’s coffee for any of you wondering). In the spirit of the situation we blasted Alabama's "Song of the South" and sung along in our best southern twangs. We were on our way. No longer would the snow white A on our Alabama hats be mistaken for Atlanta Braves paraphernalia. We were here, the place where A meant “rammer jammer,” the land of cotton, where crimson and white meant you roll with the tide, hate the tigers (of LSU and of Auburn, equally), and if you were heading south on interstate 59 that sunny Saturday morning, you were heading to the game.

We pulled onto campus around 9:30 a.m. thinking we were going to be catching the early crowd of tailgaters heading to the parking lot. We arrogant northerners refused to listen to our southern friend when he said, “We really need to hit the road no later than 8.” He was right. By 9:30 the party was in full swing. Streets were crowded beyond belief. Flags were flying and banners that read “Give ‘Em Hell Alabama” hung proudly from the second floor balconies of rundown student houses. Luckily for us, my friend’s cousin lived in one of such houses and had a bed and a parking spot ready for us. Then the bourbon came out, and though it wasn’t our first shot of the trip, it held a special place in my heart.

9:30 turned into 2:30 (game time) pretty damn quickly as it tends to when you basically brush your teeth with whiskey. We walked over to the stadium and entered. We were a small speck of dust floating along a crimson sea 92,000 bodies strong, rushing into Bryant-Denny Stadium. The atmosphere was electric.

I’ve never cheered so hard in my life. The game was a thriller and when Julio Jones ran a small out pass 73 yards for the go ahead touchdown, my voice flew off in the swirling Alabama winds that whipped across the faces in the upper deck. When the final whistle blew, here is what ensued:

After the game we regrouped and put together a game plan. A few beers in the quad, dinner, then out to the bars for the night with my buddy’s cousin. We downed the beers and walked over to the restaurant for food. The restaurant turned out to be a corner burger joint with a superb bar. Once we fought our way to the front of the long but disorganized line (got to respect that northern, “me first” mentality sometimes) we parked ourselves at the table and called over our waitress. She was a cute girl with brown hair and that funny accent. I would attempt to explain to you how our order went, but I think seeing the bill for yourself will better serve my point:

Needless to say our waitress loved us. We didn’t get much eating done, but we did get a head start on the bars. Which is exactly where we headed when we parted ways with our little country helper.

From here things got a little hazy. There were definitely a few bars hit before we found ourselves at our final destination, a place called “1831” aptly named for the year the University was founded. It was a long and narrow place with a fantastic southern-style porch out front and a DJ in the back.

Only one memory sticks out clear as day. The DJ put on a catchy beat with a southern sound to it. You know how it goes, something like “a-one-TWO-three; a-one-TWO-three.” Everybody started to dance to the beat, abandoning their drinks at the bar or on the floor and bobbing around as if there were no other choice. The beat, tractor beam, lured us in. Then the DJ started singing chants to the song. First I remember him saying, “a-F**k Tebow, a-F**k Tebow” bashing the hated Florida quarterback and rallying the crowed behind an enemy. Then slander turned into celebration as the chant morphed into “a-roll tide roll, a-roll tide roll!” At this point the place was shaking. More shots were ordered and bourbon, music, and laughter are the only things I remember from then on. Simply perfect.

SUNDAY:

A quick nap at my buddy’s cousin’s house and we were on the road, headed back to Birmingham to ensure we made our 12 p.m. flights to New York. I was still filled to the brim with whiskey when we got in the car. Needless to say we had to pull over. Here I am on the side of route 59…making sure all of the grass was planted properly:

The Tide fans honked as they passed, cheering on a fallen soldier and friend. I was proud to be like them, leaving everything out on the field like a true southern gentleman.

Despite my two and half hour delay on my flight back to New York, the trip was absolutely amazing. Anything I said in this post indicating that I was unimpressed with the south after recapping a wedding in Virgina, should be thrown in the trash with yesterday’s news. I have seen the promised land. I have been to the Mecca for all fun loving people. I’ve been to a place where you need not worry about pick up lines because the beautiful girls come up to you just to chat. It’s out there my friends. I’m talking about a little place called Alabama. Go, see for yourselves. I promise you’ll come back singing the same tune (Song of the South!).

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

p.s. to any followers reading, one of my traveling partners and I are looking to find a good Alabama bar in the city to watch the games on Saturdays. I know Brother Jimmy's is technically a Bama bar but if there are any other suggestions, let us know. Thanks.

One last thing...

Here's a link to a book supporting parts of my story. Enjoy: Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer