I Love Your Show Let's Make a Deal

Despite what my buddy Craig thinks, my job can be stressful at times.

 All in all the job is awesome. I sell beer for a living. I mean hell, on Cinco de Mayo I had to go out on a Saturday for my job, and since I don't get paid hourly, it was basically pro-bono work. But what did that work entail? Drinking Corona, Modelo Especial, Negra Modelo, and doing shots of tequila from the highlands of Mexico while giving out bottle openers and t shirts to drunk girls. 

On the other hand, I have a couple hundred accounts that I call on every week and each of them are looking to me to help their business.

Maybe it was just me, but I felt like nothing was really going right for me at work on Wednesday. Whether it was the  nasty paper cut, the angry customer calling my boss's boss's boss to complain about something silly, a missing sign in the window I had hung the week before, or even a loss draft line, it was just a shit day.

So when I saw an email this morning from the owner of the whole goddamned company about one of my accounts, needless to say I began to feel stressed again.

As it turned out, he had a pleasant experience at the account, which is a fancy restaurant, and felt his brands were well represented.

***

In other non-stressful news about work:  Crown Imports, who imports beers from Grupo Modelo, has offered to send me, as well as quite a few of my fellow co-workers, to Mexico for selling a whole bunch of Corona and Modelo. If I don’t want to go to Mexico, I can take a nice chunk of change instead. So now I have to decide. Do I go to Mexico with some people I work with for a few days, or take the money?

Audience?




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Last Chance

I guess I'm a bit proud of myself that it has taken me this long to write a post like this, on the other hand, I wish I didn't have to.  I have not written a post for this blog since March 11th, and not a single one in the entire month of April, until now.

These posts are on almost every blog ever published and they usually start off something like this: "It has been so long, too long, since I wrote anything for my blog!" There are probably some emoticons or acronyms scattered throughout, also. 

I guess I could list a few excuses: I've been running a lot. The road trip Measy and I went on was so epic that I was unable to handle summing it up in a post, or even a series of posts, and my brain shut down. Shall I continue the excuses? Let's not.

The thing is, I keep a list of ideas for posts on my desktop, and the plan is to try to tackle that list in the month of May, and churn out a solid handful of posts.

Other writings in the month of May will include writing another letter to another baby born in our family.

***

I saw a lot of old friends this past weekend, and they all polity asked what I've been up to. I gave them a typical spiel about my recent happenings, but the whole time I just kept thinking that I really need to update that blog of mine so I don't have to give this typical spiel. I intend to keep up on this blog more often, or at least for the month of May.

Harahan Export Whiskey

For Christmas Jacqui bought me a one liter barrel from the Thousand Oaks Barrel Co. The barrel, made from American White Oak and chard inside, is used to age spirits to create new and exciting flavors. You can also use the barrel to ferment beer and wine if you're looking for something new and exciting from your home-brews.

So I took a liter of Smirnoff vodka, added about an ounce of Thousand Oaks' magic "Irish Whiskey Essence" and aged it for about six weeks. They say that in 2-4 weeks you get something that resembles Jameson, and if you go six weeks, you have Jameson Twelve Year. The smaller barrel allows more contact to the liquid, allowing it to "age" more quickly.

I've got quite a few acquaintances and friends who enjoy the drink up here in New York, and I've been meaning to fill my flask and pass it around, but as of right now I've only bought a (customized) bottle from their website to hold my "water of life" (Ulsce Beatha).

Jacqui and I tried tasting it, but I think she started to cry about how awful it was. Thankfully our friend Jessie came to visit, and with her peer pressure, the three of us took a few shots throughout the night of what I have named "Harahan Export Whiskey." My supervisor, Rudy, who lives in my building, came down and partook once I told him I was taking shots with some sexy ladies. He called it "swell" so we sipped on some Laphroaig Ten Year, Glenmorangie's Quinta Ruban, and beers for the rest of the night, instead.

So I encourage the rest of you outside of New York to come visit, and partake in a drink with Jacqui and I, whether it be "Harahan Export Whiskey," beers from Captain Lawrence, or whatever we can find at the local bars, our door is always open.


Cheers.

ROAD TRIP!

When talking about, or writing about, a road trip, you have to yell, or write, “ROAD TRIP!!!” at least once. This is to partly embrace the cliché, and partly because road trips are awesome.

You know this.

You also know that your new job gives you way more vacation time than you've ever had before. How much is "way more" than you've ever had before? Well, let's just say it's your first job to ever provide vacation time. So one day, your boss, a benign passive-aggressivist, tells you that you have a week of vacation days to use by April 1st 2012, and that, if you're going to use them, he needs at least three weeks’ notice. You don't know what to do with yourself.

You work six or seven days a week without any complaints in part because it is what you're used to, and you secretly enjoy it. You're afraid of how nerdy you can become with your books, video games, and writing, if you don't work all the time.

Years ago, you met with your old friend Derek at your favorite pizza place. He told you a story about a life changing road trip he went on, how his perspective on the world changed while eating fried chicken in the hills of Kentucky. You would later write a story about that meeting that was published in the Pisgah Review. It would be your first short story to make it to print since your college days.

So when your boss tells you about this week vacation you have ("use it or lose it" he'll say) you think of your friend Derek, and how you always secretly wished for your own 1980's cliché coming of age style road trip.

***

There is a story in your mind that goes like this: Your grandfather, James, is sitting in a bar one day. It is day-light, there is smoke, red candles, and the beer isn’t very cold. A dart board hangs crooked on the wall, and the pool table doesn’t have an eight ball.

He sits at the bar with his carimac cap, a cigarette securely in his mouth, and St. Christopher around his neck, when he and a stranger strike up a conversation. In your mind, your grandfather liked to fuck with people in the most innocent, and harmless ways possible. So when he introduces himself to his new strange friend at the bar, using his full name, and the man says: "Harahan? That's where I was born and raised. That's where I'm from." He assumes someone put this man up to this. When James yelled to the bartender, an expert in Irish diplomacy, and the bar tender looks as a taken back as your grandfather, your grandfather entertains the idea that perhaps this stranger really is from a town that shares his last name.

In your mind, your grandfather walks to the library down the street that afternoon to look up this supposed Harahan town. The librarian is a great help to him, and they discover together that Harahan is very close to New Orleans, Louisiana, and that there is a bridge, elementary school, police department, and fire department, that all too hold his name. In fact, the founder of the town shares his first name, James.

Your grandfather then walks home, a grin on his face, hands in his pockets, smoking a cigarette, and tells his family at the dinner table what he had learned at the library.

Years later, your father would tell you a simpler version of this story to you, and you would fill in the rest.

***

You walk out of your office, and drive home to see your girlfriend. You tell her about your copious amount of vacation days. She can't find the time to take off, and suggests that you take some time off for yourself. You head into the bedroom, lay down flat on your back on the floor and call your brother. You tell him that you are thinking about taking a road trip through the south, one that would end in a place you've only seen in your mind, and on the internet, called Harahan, Louisiana.

He is excited, your brother acts like he doesn't get too excited about anything, but this time he can't seem to hold himself back. He is eager. He requests his own week off from work, and everything is set. Your last days of work are on the 23rd of March, and are not obligated to return until the 2nd of April. You both pretend that there is so much to do, so much to see, and in only a short amount of time, but the truth is, neither of you really know what the hell to do with yourselves for such a long period of time. You will write a blog post and hope that your friends will leave you suggestions on what to do while down south on a road trip with your brother. After they give you some reasonable advice, you will hop in the car, and see what story down south awaits its end.

2012 Ship Boxing Home Show

Every year I head back to Shippensburg in early February to watch the boxing club compete in one of the first boxing events of the season. As a veteran of the club (and a recent inductee into their Hall of Fame) most years I offer to help at the show with the glove table, or warming up fighters, or whatever is needed. This year though, I consciously took a back seat to simply enjoy myself.

I called up the Mailman, and we made plans to meet up for the event. And instead of, like in years past where we found a floor to sleep on, or a bed to fight over, or simply driving all the way back home after the show, we actually got a hotel room, which was pretty sweet. We ran into Johnny K, had some beers, and played Tom Waits on the jukebox at Knutes. A couple was sitting on the other side of the bar and asked Matt and I who was playing, and that they loved it. We laughed, almost in disbelief, told them, and then we put another $5 in the jukebox in case they were being serious.

Knutes didn't have any Guinness on draft, but instead Victory's Donnybrook Stout. A pleasant surprise! Hell, I was pleasantly surprised at a lot of the beers available in Ship ($4 Pints of Mad Elf!?!?).

After drinking and reminiscing for a few hours, Mailman and I stumbled through the streets humming, trying to remember those old drinking songs of ours. We walked by the old apartment and called Hoi Yee and Kathy on the phone with no answer. We walked through the newly renovated CUB which was completely unrecognizable from the inside, and nearly unrecognizable on the outside. A concrete amphitheater replaced what I remember to be grass. I thought I saw the ghost of Socrates mumbling to himself on the freshly poured steps.  As we made it inside the warm gym, the jump ropes were smacking hard, and the gloves and mitts were playing patty-cake. We found a seat with the rest of the old boxing guys and girls.

Ship had five fighters for the evening, our girls lost, and our guys won. All in all, it was an entertaining night for amateur boxing's finest.

Tyrone suggested that afterwards we all meet up at Marketcross for a beer or two. As it turned out, Marketcross has been renamed Ship Wrecked, but the bartenders were still the same, and even recognized a couple of folks in our group.

Matt told me that once he was asked to leave that bar when he (a non-smoker) drunkenly tried to light a cigarette on the wrong end. We asked the current bouncer at Ship Wrecked if he would throw us out he, hypothetically, saw us doing the same today. "No smoking in the bar!" he said. 

I got to catch up with the old boxing crew, find out what everyone has been up to. Matt and I were able to relive, if ever so shortly, what the good life was once like for him and I. And after waking up in a comfortable hotel bed, I drove home and got the best hangover cure in the world: Sitting at my favorite table at Bravo with my brother while we ate and talked for a couple hours.

I made it back to New York before 9PM to spend what was left of the weekend with Jacqui and Felix.

The Bet

Yesterday was the official grand opening of Captain Lawrence Brewing Company's new location in Elmsford, NY.

It was insane.

The place was packed, and the place is five times bigger than the old tasting room. The line for growerls was nearly out the door the entire day.

Finally, at the end of the day we all cleaned up, counted our tip money, had a beer, and relaxed. Then Brett, one of the veterans of the tasting room, put ten bucks on the table and bet me a coin toss. I put my $10 down we went best of three.

I won.

Double or nothing, I lost.

Again, $10 on the table, I won, and walked away.

By this time, Brett had that betting man's twinkle in his eye, and some how the idea of me running a marathon came about.

"I could totally run a marathon at a 7:30 mile pace."

"Bullshit, there's no fucking way, do you have any idea at how imposible that would be for you? I bet you a thousand dollars you can't do it."

"He could probably do it, actually," said Gary Steinel the 2002 Beer Drinker of the Year.

"SShh, shut up Gary, I don't need him changing his mind on this one! A thousand dollars you say, Brett?"

"Yep."

"Brett, listen, I bet I could, but I can't afford to lose a thousand dollars in case I don't," I said.

So over a few more drinks and another hour, we hammered out the details of the bet: Win, or lose, Brett and I are taking our ladies to a fancy restaurant. If I run the Philadelphia Marathon under a 7:30 per mile pace, Brett pays, and if I don't, I pay.

Originally it was going to be the Rock 'n Roll Marathon in Philly, but they are only running a half marathon. Then I looked into the one in New York, but the Rock 'n Roll people are only doing a 10k in New York. I looked into the New York City Marathon, but unless you raise a ton of money, you need a pretty fast time to qualify. So, the Philadelphia Marathon it is, the weekend of November 16th, registration opens April 1st.

I ran the Philly Half Marathon at an unofficial 7:48 pace this past year, and now have ten months to train, get fast, drop 20lbs, and earn a delicious dinner. I was thinking about starting today, but it's a bit cold out, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and I have a few growlers to rip through.

A Fifth Poem

For the past five months I've been posting my shit poems. If you haven't read them, and I sure as hell don't blame you if you haven't, they seem to contain everyday observations, but with a punch line. And for the past five months I've been tiptoeing around posting poems that are more serious in nature. What is serious is more the subject and less the creation of them.

A couple people have encouraged me to post some of these pieces not having read them: "Be brave!" they'll say, or, "Why the hell not!" as if to pour a feeling of apathy over me. This encouragement makes me less inclined to publish these works, "What do they know? They haven't even read them," I think.  However, anyone who's opinion is worth a damn, if given the chance to read them, would probably be more reluctant towards encouraging me to post them, which their discouragement would probably only work in the opposite of its intended effect. Why discourage me? Because those closest to me have a problem of being able to clearly see what is true and what is false in almost anything I write. For them, what is true is too revealing, and what is fictional is simply unnecessary. Trying to explain that it is all technically considered fictitious has become a futile effort. Fiction is not too revealing of fact because none of it is fact, but instead fiction, and telling the story is necessary for the writer or it wouldn't have been created.

The piece you're about to read has gone through a lot of transformations. I have written it, and deleted it, and written it again a dozen times, even the title has changed drastically from its original form. I feel as though every time I read it, I add or take away another word. It is essentially prose written in poetic form. It is to be read as a work of fiction. Yes, there are certain undeniable facts in the piece: McCall's murder, and that my friend Kate and I got really drunk together one night. But the night with Kate was a fun one that we all got to laugh and reminisce about later and in this instance is only used as a conduit to tell a story.

If this piece is really trying to say anything it's that two and a half years after Ryan's murder I still think about it every day. 

  

A Night with Kate

You kept me

company while my girlfriend

 visited her mother in Philly.

We got drunk together in bars

while waiting for the train

to take us to a quieter place with cheaper beer.

My place.

Hammered, you asked me

to tell you a sad story.

I  filled the train car with

 boisterous drunken laughter,

 and said that I had plenty,

that I had been to more funerals

than you had members of family.

“I don’t wanna here about

your fucking dead grandmother, Jon.

Give me something I can really get a good

cry in about,” you said.

“Well my grandparents are dead, and

my grandmother did shoot herself in the

mouth with a shotgun, if that counts,” I said.

“Really? Wow, my friend in high school did

the same thing, but he was 17,” you said.

“Jesus,” I said.

“So, what do you got for me? I really wanna

hear some sad shit. Make me cry,” you said.

By this time we had made it

on and off the train,

transported to another bar.

Loud, and dark, and drunk, and hungry,

waiting for quesadillas, I told you a story

about my friend Ryan and brother Michael,

about the time they were

robbed at gun point.

I gave you a wonderful back-story of how

Ryan lived with my family

four months out of the year after

his family moved to Tampa,

and how Ryan and my brother were the

best of friends.

I told you how

Tampa only suffers from

about 30 or so

murders a year.

Ain’t bad when you’re used to

living in the shadows of

New York and Philadelphia.

I explained how Ryan and Michael

were leaving me a voice mail,

full or booze and cheer,

until a man in the background

told them

repeatedly

to

“get the fuck over here.”

“You can hear my brother

 being pistol-whipped

on the voice mail,” I told you.

And it’s true, you can. His grunt

is let out like an tremor.

I explain how they

ran.

 I explain how my brother

heard the shot, how he thought

it was pointed up

and not

out.

And when he got home, around

the block, Ryan wasn’t

right behind.

“Fuck,” he must have thought.

I explained the 9-1-1 phone call

And the dash back to the scene,

and seeing Ryan’s body.

I didn’t tell you about

a news cast I once saw

after the earthquake

in Port-Au-Prince,

about the hunger and looting,

and how I watched on TV a

man shoot , dying, shaking,

the scared shitless look on

his face knowing he was

 suddenly close to death,

or how the news man, and

cameraman didn’t do a single

thing for him except allow him

to live forever, printed

on my brain.

I didn’t tell you how

I thought that my

friend Ryan probably had the

exact same look on his face

as his heart failed and he bled

out.

I didn’t tell you how the bullet

hit his shoulder and ricocheted 

into his heart.

What are the odds?

Instead I ordered another

round as we choked

down quesadillas.

You didn’t want your beer, so

I drank for two.

You felt satisfied after my

story and I found myself stumbling

into a black hole.

As we finally made it

comfortably back to

my apartment and partook in

yet  another drink I couldn’t

 understand how my story didn’t

make you cry. I wanted you to,

                needed you to,

                                                cry.

I hoped to god that you would,

just so that I would

have the excuse

to cry, too. 

You then told me

about your friend who

shot himself in the mouth

with a gun.

You went into great

detail and back-story,

too.

 When you were done, I felt

 satisfied. You looked like

 you were in your own black hole.

You couldn’t understand how

your story didn’t

make me cry. You wanted me to,

                needed me to,

                                                cry.

You hoped to god that I would,

 just so that you would

 have the excuse

to cry, too. 

We were two kids,

                stumbling drunk,

allowing each other the

chance to remember that

not everything is alright,

and that it didn’t need

                                to be.  

***

Slàinte