One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer, and Three Sippie Cups

This post contains 43% sarcasm by volume.

Trends in life, like the movies, tend to happen in groups. In 1981, we had three movies about werewolves with The Howling, American Werewolf in London, and Wolfen. This was nearly three decades before Jacob Black was a thought in the minds of tweeners. Then, in 1989, we had three underwater disaster movies; The Abyss, Deep Star Six and Leviathan. While The Abyss was clearly the better of the three films, you see that Hollywood tries to mimic itself in order to up the returns. The same thing happened with other disaster movies in the 90s. We had Deep Impact and Armageddon. There was Volcano and Dante’s Peak. There was The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan, both featuring all star casts.

The same thing seems to happen in real life, especially this year. We’ve had multiple reports of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job and my personal favorite, neighborhood family friendly Americanized ethnic restaurants serving alcohol to kids.

Now, apart from Applebees being a more American based menu, the Olive Garden and Chili’s tend to lean towards Italian and Southwest Tex-Mex style cuisine, respectively. Yet, regardless of the menu, the servers seem to think that kids should be enjoying the over sized alcoholic drinks. If Chi-Chi’s was still around that would have been your ethnic food trifecta.

This is where I feel the need to take a stand. This is an outrage. Everyone needs to understand that giving alcohol to kids in restaurants is a serious offense. Giving alcohol to children begins in the home.

It starts on your daddy’s lap. I remember my dad giving me a sip of Budweiser while I was upon his knee at an early age. It was horrible. I think because of that experience, I never developed a taste for beer. Perhaps by exposing me at an early age, I was demystified by beer.  Maybe it was just that Budweiser tasted horrible.  I can't decide.

I tolerated it in college because it was cheaper than the whisky drink I would have preferred. My own child has had her share of sips from her pappy’s beer, Miller Light in this instance. But you see, today it’s OK for restaurants to ‘accidentally’ give alcohol to kids and get away with it.  If parents sue the restaurant for blatant mistakes, they are check chasers.  Yet, 40 years ago, you could be kicked out of establishments for giving your own kid a sip of your drink.

For once, I’m not talking about me. No, I wasn’t even a thought when my father got the family kicked out of Lum’s restaurant for giving my brother a sip of his beer. Just goes to show you how much things have changed and how more relaxed the drinking stigmas have gotten.

Soon, we’ll see a little league baseball team heading over to a T.G.I. Fridays for shots after they beat their division rivals at T-ball.

Drink up, kiddies.

Here We Call It A Pop Tax, Ya Jagoffs

I am no picture of perfect health. I weigh more than I should. I do not get enough exercise. I do not get enough sleep at night. I am your typical office worker and your typical out of shape American. But, I am also a pseudo Pittsburgher. That could be a bad label. Look, I was born in Southwestern Pennsylvania, grew up to bleed black and gold and even liked the Pirates until the mid 90s. I went to school at the cities namesake University and still love the area and would love to have more interaction with the burgh. But, I do not live or work in Allegheny County. That’s why I call myself pseudo Pittsburgher. So, even though my zip doesn’t run through the streets of The Golden Triangle I feel as much connection to the city as the next Yinzer.

That is why I am so utterly peeved that the mayor is trying to implement the soda tax. First off, it’s pop, you jagoff. The only soda around here comes with the either the word ‘club’ in front of it or ‘bread’ behind it. Secondly, how bad is that budget if you have to come at us from all sides? A few years ago you instituted a drink tax, or should I say Dan Onorato did and you know he’s keeping his mouth shut right now because he’s running for governor. That was supposed to help the Port Authority System by adding 10% tax to alcoholic beverages sold in Allegheny County. The argument was either this tax or raised property taxes.

The bitterness of this tax has been stuck in the craw of Burghers for a few years now and then when the mayor tried to redirect some of the overflowing funds, collected from said tax, towards the city’s pension fund which is anemic at best. But he was given the dolphin on that one and after roughing it out at Seven Springs during Snowmageddon he came up with a new plan. Well, I should say he “borrowed” a plan from the mayor of Philadelphia. Listen, if you want to start looking at other cities for best practices on how to run yours I’m all for it, but Philadelphia? This is a town that should consider changing its motto to “Philadelphia: Come for the crack!” The one in the liberty bell? Nevermind.

So, here’s how, I imagine, the meeting went down. The mayor is sitting there fragging his frat buddies in a Halo 3 deathmatch and after his ninth Diet Pepsi he has the greatest idea. “How about a soda tax to help the pension fund?” As everyone around the room sat there and wondered what the hell a soda was he clarified. “You know, sugar in pop? High Fructose Corn Syrup? The stuff that makes you fat…” as he chugs his 10th or 11th Diet Pepsi. Let’s add a tax on the sale of sugary drinks and reap the benefits.

“But why?” One of the meeting attendees asked. The mayor grabbed his nerf basketball and made jump shots into the waste basket with the little suction cup net above it. “Because the city is fat. Too fat. I’ve got three city projects going on to fill the potholes from the snow we had and I suspect that the fat people contributed to the holes as much as the snow. Also, I know I told everyone I couldn’t enjoy going to Steelers games because of the press but really it was just that I kept getting elbowed by fat people next to me. Maybe if we tax the hell out of sugary drinks we can get some of them to lose weight.” The idea of the soda tax is to collect the revenue on sugary drinks at $0.02 an ounce and then use the funds to bail out the pension fund. But it’s in our own best interest to lose the weight, right?

No, it’s not. Look, if you propose a tax, a sin tax, as it were to curb sinful or risk behavior, how do call it successful? Does everyone stop drinking sugary drinks or do you have a fully funded pension plan. I don’t think we even need to vote for the right answer to that one. Now, it’s not that I have a problem with a sin tax per se. I am not a smoker and when the whole smoking ban and higher taxes on cigarettes happened I didn’t care. Sorry. I didn’t. But I also don’t drink regular pop or soda, in this case. Yes, my body is saccharine. According to a friend, the saccharine in my Diet Pepsi is turning to plastic and binding to my nerves and will never leave my body. If that’s true I should look like Heidi Montag in a coupld of years. And yes, studies show that drinking diet sodas are more harmful because of the emptiness you feel, prompting you to eat more. And the rationalization of “Hey, I’m drinking diet. I can drink as many as I want” is questionable. To that I also admit I do drink 64 ounces of water a day, but that’s just for the Prozac and Viagara added in at the treatment plant.

My big issue here is when government, local or federal, institutes some tax that is supposed to be health conscious and all it really does is get more money to pay off something that shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. Here’s my suggestions on the whole scenario.

If you think that we, as consenting adults, cannot make healthy decisions about diet or any other thing that someone considers bad for us, then make it go away. Cigarettes. Take them out of the store. Beer. Get rid of it. Jolt Cola and Sugar Shock Soda and Five Hour Makes-Me-Fart-But-I’m-Awake-To-Hear-It-At-2:30-In-The-Afternoon Energy Drinks. Shit can them. If you truly think we need outlet covers plugged into the receptacles of vice in our lives then treat us like infants and put the good stuff on higher shelves.


OR


Balance Your ‘Effing Budget Better.


Which sounds like a better idea? I’ll take a seat right here and call Dominoes for a Big Ass Pie, two liter of Mountain Dew Code Red, and a pack of unfiltered Marlboro Reds while you to think about it. Jagoffs.

Let the Games Begin, Eh

The 2010 Winter Games are here. Regardless of how people feel about the Olympics or your general distrust of a governing body like the IOC, you have to admit that it’s just a cool sight to behold. The U.S. definitely got caught up in the 2008 Summer Games in Bejing with the Michael Phelps whirlwind in and out of the pool and I personally loved seeing Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh snap up the gold in Beach Volleyball. But for all the fanfare and bravura that the Summer Games hold, I still find something more magical about the Winter Games.  And I also feel the slowly rolling eyeballs of my wife shifting around as I get geeked over this.

For any of us that grew up in the early to mid 80s we are all pretty much familiar with the EPYX line of Olympic Games titles like Summer Games, Summer Games II, and of course Winter Games. I can remember being in grade school and playing Summer Games on a Commodore 64. The state of the art graphics *sarcasm* that was the C-64 made us drool at the prospect of competing in events like diving and the pole vault. I actually found a glitch that let me keep going until the height of the bar in the pole vault was way above the screen. But even then, the Winter Games edition was so much more fun and to this day I don’t think I ever successfully completed a bobsled run.

Maybe it’s the snow and the winter themes that make me want to watch the Winter Games more. If I were still in high school or college I could probably get away with vegging out in front of the television to watch all the events, but sadly, adulthood has robbed me of that luxury. In fact, I remember sitting in my homeroom in 1992 watching the U.S. Hockey team play a few rounds. Unfortunately, we took fourth place that year, far removed from my all time childhood geek moment in 1980 of seeing the Miracle On Ice. At the age of five I thought it was Pittsburgh that one because I hadn’t quite separated the Pittsburgh Steelers from the rest of the sporting world. So a win for the U.S. in my mind was a win for Pittsburgh. It wouldn’t be true for another 11 years when The Penguins won their first Stanley Cup.

But three years earlier, something out of the ordinary happened at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary.  What seemed like a joke became a phenomenon as the Jamaican Bobsled team blazed onto the games, no pun intended.  While they didn't even finish, due to crashing their sled, they gained notoriety for showing what many consider the spirit of the games by picking up their sled and walking to the finish line.  They simply made it look fun.  They managed to qualify in 1992 and 1994 but did not win any medals.  However, they did reach 14th place which put them ahead of the U.S., Russia, Italian, and French teams.  Sadly, they did not qualify in 2006 nor did they qualify this year.  It's a shame, really, because they did win the gold at thr 2000 World Push Bobsled Championships.  Maybe next time, mon.

Also, us 30-somethings can remember that prior to 1994, the games ran in parallel with the Summer Games. Then skipping only two years, the Winter Games went opposite the Summer Games letting me bask in my dorkiness every couple of years.  That brings me back to the 1994 games.

It was a snowy Friday in February and I was a freshman in college. A high school buddy of mine had just transferred to the Oakland campus but still had friends at the UPJ location, where he spent his Freshman year. He invited me to trek up to see them for the night, which happened to be the night that Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding, and Oksana Baiul competed for the medal in figure skating. The whole Kerrigan-Harding scandal was all the rage at the games and now it was time to see just how good everyone really was.

Johnstown is only around 90 minutes away from our hometown, but it's in what we call the snow belt. Being a recent transfer student myself, I was going from the mild climate of Myrtle Beach to the freezing concrete jungle of Pittsburgh so this trip took me full circle at seeing a winter wonderland. UPJ’s campus is/was like a ski resort. Nestled into the woods and with the new fallen snow, the campus buildings resemble the ski atmosphere of Aspen or the Poconos. This was a great setting in which to enjoy the Winter Games and to hold our own.

Between the main dorms, the frats and apartments, there lies a road that goes down a huge hill. The snow had packed into a slope of sorts and had become slick. We all took turns running from the top and diving onto our stomachs as we careened down the hill. I’m sure I was doing irreparable damage to my body, but at that age and with alcohol, anything was possible. We spent the rest of the evening watching the carnage of Tonya Harding breaking a shoe lace and ultimately Oksana Baiul taking the gold. It wasn’t exactly a very manly sight to see us critiquing the performances but again, with alcohol, anything is possible.

I spent the night curled up under a blanket on the cold tile floor of a dorm room and the next morning, my friend Scott and I made our way back down to civilization. The snow had continued to fall another couple of feet that night. I was totally unprepared for the weather, opting for a leather jacket, IIRC (mandatory Internet slang quota for this post reached). But I was really unprepared to see the snow up over the back bumper of Scott’s AMC Eagle. This did not phase Scott in the least.

You have to understand Scott to truly appreciate his insanity. This is the kid in high school that knew how to make bombs. He has a civil engineering degree and now works for the DOT. Go figure. In any case, while he was a freshman, the year before, we experienced The Storm of the Century. Being at UPJ, Scott was kind of like Dennis Quaid trekking to New York City in The Day After Tomorrow. He went out for a walk one day to the local Giant Eagle Supermarket. As he walked, he kicked something hard with his foot. He bent down and cleared around it and found a car that was buried in the snow. Again, I saw insane because he decided it would be a good idea to just go out for a walk in the snow that had buried a car.

But back to the Eagle. If I ever move to a region that ends up with a ton of snowfall, I would highly consider getting one of these classics. It’s like a tank. Scott had outfitted his with a hood ornament that was an actual Eagle from one of his childhood trophies. As I was lamenting the chore of having to dig out the car before we could leave, he simply said, “Get in.” I did and he fired up the beast. Threw it in reverse and simply backed out over the snow. As we drove away, I looked back at our parking space which now resembled the bottom portion of a Styrofoam packing insert. We drove out onto the highway which was completely devoid of cars, buried or otherwise.

While I was keen to catch what I could of the Olympic Games that year, I felt that I deserved a Gold Medal for using downhill body sledding and Scott deserved one for snow driving. Unfortunately, these events are not a part of the games, yet. The skeleton needs to just get rid of the sled and we’d have it. That may seem highly dangerous, but I’ll say it again…with alcohol….you get the picture.

 
 
 
 

Meet Me At Hemmy's.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.  So, why not go where everybody knows your name?  I used to back in the day.  That place was Hemingway's, nestled right among the dormitories of The University of Pittsburgh.  It was the kind of bar that you could walk into and disappear.  This was the kind of place that didn't cater to the meat market college coed.  It was a more refined outlet for libations and relaxation.  It seemed an unlikely fit for all the hustle and bustle of the campus lifestyle, yet it was the one place I could count on to provide me with what I needed.  Every college area has its various outlets for drinking.  We had a bar that specialized in Greek life.  We had one that dealt with the general meat market crowd.  We even had a bar that primarily embraced the alternative music crowd.   But Hemingway's embraced, well, everybody.  Yet, not everybody went.  That was the magic.  They didn't discriminate but most people couldn't get past the name when choosing it for a place to patron.  Most people felt it was a hoity-toity, high faulting, artsy fartsy, and other "pretentious words that don't exist" kind of place.  Really, it was a small pub that just emanated class.  Stepping off the street onto the tiled floor you can feel the history of this place.  It wasn't famous like, say, Bull and Finch but it had that ambience of an established watering hole.  The brass railings and "judges paneling" style of walls were the perfect setting for cracking open a book written by someone who has been dead for over a 100 years.  Granted, the place wasn't enormous but the mirrored wall behind the bar gave it that larger than appears look.  It seemed a timeless place that could never change to keep up with the habits of the college crowd.  Of course, that was 15 years ago and the bar has gone through extensive changes, not all for the good.

It was truly by accident, that I discovered Hemingway's.  Being a sophomore, one would think I would not be able to hang out in bars, let alone hang out in one that wasn't wall to wall drunken coeds.  I was a fledgling Theater Arts student and after successfully being cast in my first show at The University of Pittsburgh, I tagged along with a group of other well seasoned member of the Pitt Theater Community.  I sort of just kind of showed up and blended into the tapestry of characters.  Being underage and unemployed I didn't exactly have the means or the right to be there but nobody bothered to ask any questions.  It was a different scenario when frequenting the beer garden meat market just around the corner.  Two bucks and your college ID got you into the show and most people went for the quarter drafts.  Here, I was never questioned about my age, because I was with a group of people who frequented the bar enough that after a few visits, there was a drink in front of me before my butt was in my chair.  In fact it became so commonplace that as soon as we entered the premises, glasses began filling and were delivered to a table already established as our spot.   It was truly the kind of place I could get used to.   It was a dizzying courtship as I became engrained into the group.  One of the gang was taking orders and asked what I was drinking.  I told him I wasn't 21 and he gave me "pfft" and said, "So."  I replied, "But I'm broke, too.  I just came to hang out."  He said don't worry about it and got me a beer.  He was an upperclassman and had just received a small inheritance from a late aunt and was buying a few rounds.  Eventually, I did secure my own funds and became legal to drink, but by then, I was already recognized by staff and was given the same standard of service as my fellow cohorts.  When I had no one to watch Superbowl XXX with in 1995, I just went down to Hemingway's and enjoyed a few beers and a nice spread of sandwiches and snacks.  Hemingway's was that cool without being "cool".  I only wish we had beaten the Cowboys.  That would have been super cool.

If were to describe an evening with friends at Hemingway's, I would say it was laid back, a little smoky, and full of interesting tales.  I've spoken before about my friend Ray, who was the lead singer for a band out of Philly called, Open Cage.  We would sit and listen to his tales of being in the air force and every once in awhile he'd break out into song, usually leading to a rousing chorus with everyone joining in on the act.  We'd drink some more and eventually close the place.  It was never busy, but it was always doing good business.  Hemingway's had a built in fan base and even though the members rotated in and out every year due to graduation, it was always some place you could drop in for a reminder of what the simple life in a bar was like. 

Unfortunately, I cannot say that the owners of Hemingway's felt the way I do.  It had been quite some years since I had been in the bar, but in 2004 I met up with an old college friend who was in town for a conference.  It was also a chance to put a face to the name if you will.  I had told so many stories about Hemingway's that she was convinced that the bar was an old girlfriend and that any other bar just couldn't compete.  I merely related tales of what a real bar was like in comparison to the dives I had been dragged to by her friends.  When we arrived, it was like seeing your old house completely remodeled, but in a bad way.   There were colored twinkle lights that are only permitted in dorm room windows at Christmas time.  The back room where we held many an opening night cast party was now housing a pool table.  It was like a bizarro Cheers with Rebecca and Woody, not Diane and Coach.  Suddenly, the color drained from my face.  "Our" area was gone, replaced by tables and chairs that echoed a patio bar complete with plastic cups.   I was sick with grief over the changes. 

Because other bars had been closed for violations coeds were pushed like deer from the woods in favor of housing plans.  They migrated down into the once "deerless" areas and suddenly became a nuisance.  Seizing an opportunity to make more money, Hemingway's cranked up the college music and watered down the drinks and soon the place was packed wall to wall with loud and obnoxious students who didn't appreciate the architecture and acoustics of the bar.  Even the bathroom had been painted like a school locker-room taking away from the nostalgic "Here I sit, lonely heated..." decor.  My friend and I looked with a teary eyed as we saw our young adulthood wiped away with a coat of paint and string of lights.  The bar was gone, replaced with a younger, hipper, model that just didn't have the character.  My wife kind of liked the place.  She's younger, and doesn't get it.

Perhaps one day I will have the financial wherewithal and ambition to open my own bar and make it into a sort of Hemingway's, Too, or maybe just add the extra M to differentiate.  In any case, I will never cater to the crowd that sees it as a place to serve beer in a cup or shot in a test tube.  This place will have glass mugs, frosted within an inch of their life.  We'll have whiskey and scotch, aged to perfection.  There will be no quarter draft night and anyone who comes in will know that they are welcome as long as they don't tell the cool kids where we are.