In Russia, for some goddamn reason, they call a restaurant a “pektopah” and a bar a “bap.” But you could certainly argue that the bar in this particular St. Petersburg hotel deserves a word of its own. I might call it a “movie,” because that’s what it feels like when you’re here.

It’s a long movie, to be sure, what with us hanging most nights past 4 a.m. But putting in the hours means we get to see the whole story arc. How the hookers, who don’t look like hookers at all—in the US of A they’d be the most elegant broads in the room—periodically shift tables and then one after another stand to troll the crowd. How the smooth-as-silk manager signals to them with a silent nod that he needs their table and they temporarily move to the table in the hall. How each hooker (and this small bap is generally stocked with four, distributed among two or three tables) has a rose-colored drink, non-alcoholic, on her table with a straw in it. Some kind of red-light sign, but mostly, I think, to remind the staff what’s up.

But enough of my ogling the whores. What I wanted to tell you about was the gangster part of the movie from last night.
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—Jason
 

Today I’m going to tell you about something all Enthusiasts know about, have experienced, or are going to experience (for all you beginning your journey of enthusiasm).

It’s called The Nail.

Some of you might call it The Kicker, The Obliviator, The Long Kiss Goodnight or How I Met My Husband, but it’s the same thing the world ‘round: it’s the last drink that puts you over the edge. The one that makes you want to swear off drinking the next day, the one that makes you call and text everyone you know that you were with the night before asking:

It goes like this: all’s well, you’re out and about getting enthusiastic with enthusiasm. The drinks flow, the conversations are rolling. Typical effects of enthusiasm occur:

1. I am a GREAT conversationalist!
2. I am Hilarious! I should really think about going into stand-up.
3. My God! I never knew I could sing this well!
4. I am an AWESOME dancer! Yeah, I’m totally gonna talk to Rihanna ‘bout getting in her entourage …

And then:

“Less go get one more shot at the bar. No, ‘mfine, ‘swon more and then we out, promise.”

No matter what you end up ordering, the next drink you have is going to be The Nail.

The Nail. It comes in many forms:

• A freebie of Fernet from the bartender
• A shot of something you NEVER drink normally: “Gimme a shotta Aftershock, you got any a that? How ‘bout Goldschlager?”
• Something super strong and expensive to keep the bartender from cutting you off: “He’s ordering a double Johnnie Walker Blue, I’m not passing up the tip on that!”

Whatever your Nail was, one thing is certain: you are done.

The next thing you know, it’s tomorrow. Your “recently dialed” log on your cell looks like someone put the thing on random autodial. Hazily, the fragmented conversations come back to you:

 
College buddy:

“Dude, dude, dude … did I wake you up? What’s up, man? Haven’t talked to you in soo long, bro, What’s up, man? Is someone crying? You have a daughter? Wow, man …What’s up, man? Did I wake you up?” Click.

 
Your ex:

(Softly) “Heeeey you …what’s happening? I miss you. … I been thinking about us a lot recently, you know, the times we had … man, I should have never let you go. Are you at home?”  Click.

 
Directory assistance:

“Um. Illinois. Shaumberg. Kendra Duck. D-U-C-K. Thank you.”

 
Girl from high school:

“Kendra? Kendra …’sat you? Oh man! Wow! It’s me, Jason! From East High School! What? Oh fuck, man I forgot it’s like two hours later where you are. …What?” Click.

“Hey! Don’ you hangup on me! What you wrote in my yearbook was a lie!! A LIE! Cocktease.”

 
Pizza place:

“Yeah, I’m gonna need an extra large with pep, onion and mushroom … um, and 30 wings. And then, um, six wings.”

“Wait, what? Do you want 30 wings or six wings?”

“D’you sell beer?” Click.

 
Taxi:

“C’you … C’yoo … C’you … um … uh … find me with yer Jeepy S?” Click.

The pieces come back slowly, but they are horrifying as they reassemble into the Assout omelette that was your night last night. You hope against hope that you didn’t drext.

Did you drext?

You drexted.

Your boss.

Same ex.

Dude you met just pre-Nail.

Your wife.

 
I think you get it. So rather than try to wrap up with a witty dénouement, I shall leave you with this parting shot:

Whether it be the one that’s coming for you next, or the one you just survived and are living down right now, know this: The Nail is ours. A Nail will come out, but its hole remains … so let’s love The Nail and embrace The Nail. The stories, the shame, the laughter and the adventures at the edge of Oblivion. Painful as it might be, enthusiasts, The Nail is our way of showing that we’re only human, after all.

Cheers!

First nail photo courtesy of Clearly Ambiguous,  flickr.

 
Quick update: This post was dedicated to Sean Chapman—the guy that introduced me to , and has served me many, many, many of The Nail. He’s a good friend, a great bartender and a kickass artist. Do yourself a favor and check out his work here.

Do I have a horrifying personal story to share about drunk Facebooking? That’s for me to know, and regrettably blurt out in hour six of next week’s Little Friday festivities. I’m sure if we drink hard enough we’ll be able to squeeze my wasted Facebook confessionals in between my shameful vomiting story (junior year of college edition, version Tuesday, part bushes on the edge of the quad); and your semi-coherent ramblings about your obsession with your co-workers’ significant other (“… and, like, I don’t understand why everyone needs to be so fucking possessive, and fucking … do you think they’d be into, like, a threesome or something? I’m gonnacall right now. I don’t think that’s weird—doyouthinkthat’sweird??”)

But what would an Enthusiast blog be without a comment on the ancient art of drunk Facebooking? Made all the worse by the proliferation of every Enthusiasts’s favorite frenemy—the smart phone—Drunkbook is an integral part of a morning, afternoon, or evening out, as well as the following day’s hungover shamefest.

Unlike the drunk dials of yesteryear, whatever you don’t remember revealing as you stumbled home, barefoot, has been preserved in all it’s cringing detail—and not just in your exes memory or on his or her message machine. And unlike the still-persistent drext (also recorded for your future horrification), it’s not just the two or eight fortunates you made direct contact with that you need to hide from and/or apologize to later—a list of hundreds of former and current friends and lovers, co-workers, classmates, and even family members will wipe the sleep from their eyes on Sunday morning, log on to their respective accounts, and bear witness to your 5:24-6:54 a.m. rampage across their walls, photo albums, and your eighteen status updates, all mis-spelled atrociously, all caps all the way. And exclamation marks—oh, so very many exclamation marks.

It could be worse. At least you didn’t create a fan page devoted to your douchey blog about functional alcoholism as a lifestyle choice and all the perils and pleasures that accompany this—and then ask everyone on your list to join.

Back in the dark ages of Drunkbook, before they made Newsfeed, your mistakes may have been public, but they weren’t shoved so forcefully in everyone’s face(book). Now with Newsfeed + mobile updating capabilities, Facebook seems scarily designed to keep us Enthusiasts in a constant social networking shame spiral.

Also important to remember, fellow Enthusiasts: even if you delete “U LOOOOK SOUPER FUUKING HOTTTT IN THIS PIC!!!!!!!1!!!!!! COME OVER AND LET”S FUCK XXX SSOMETIME HAHAHA!!1!!@!!!!!! LIKE TOONITE????????!!” from the comments of your male and/or female acquaintance from middle school’s “Halloween ’07″ album by Bloody Mary time the following day, not only has everyone compulsively checking Facebook on their iPhones at the party and/or bar last night already had seven hours to see your shame in their ‘Feed, but all four utter strangers who soberly and normally commented on said-photo two-and-a-half years prior (“Looking sexy! Epic times at that party. =)”) have notifications of your slurred rant in their email inboxes.

(Side note: worse, perhaps, than the obviously-intoxicated comments are the heavily-cloaked-in-seeming-sobriety ones. The silent storm, the quiet rampage of comments that are well-spelled and punctuated, yet subtly off. Should you really be commenting on the cute-messy-baby picture your friend’s friend posted, obviously for the enjoyment of close friends and family?” [And at 3:32 a.m., no less?] You come across as something of a creep. Not to mention committing the Facebook version of every Enthusiast’s favorite hobby—making set-in-stone social plans while blacked-out.)

Stand proud, fellow Enthusiast. Deleting now is an admission of defeat. Not everyone who saw your: “WAAAAY-STEEEEED!!!!!! CUM TO THE BAR WITH ME I LOVE TAQUILLAAAA!!!1!!!!1 AND I WANT TO MAKE OUR WIYTH YOUUUUUU” and/or “aLL you hot bitches wantto $uck my huge dick” (dramatization; actual drunk statii will vary greatly), will think that was a fucking stupid-ass update. Some of them won’t have slept yet. And, leering at bright screens in their window-blinded apartments, while clutching shakily at, and swigging from, near-empty bottles of Jack—they’ll laugh. These Enthusiasts understand you were only half-serious—and besides, they love tequila and/or making out with everyone and/or your penis and/or their own penis, too.

And then when they awaken with splitting headaches and dry mouths later that night, and, from the comfort of their beds, decide to check Facebook, a shudder of shame will ripple through their aching and hungover bodies, when they see that little thumbs-up with their name, affirmative, beside your stupid-ass status drupdate.

 
—Josey

—Christian

Everyone remembers the first time they got drunk (at least the fact that it happened, anyway). I’m not talking about the 13 years-old time you had a couple ounces of something with your friend in your room after your parents went to bed. I am talking about the first time you get bona-fide, rip-roaringly, falling-down drunk. For some people this doesn’t happen until freshman year of college, for others it comes at a disturbingly young age. I was more in the middle of the age spectrum when I first let my enthusiasm get the best of me.

It was actually a pretty epic experience, in retrospect. A family friend invited a bright eyed and bushy-tailed, 15 year-old version of yours truly to go with them on a chartered bus trip to a gig his band was playing out at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. There was one “responsible” parent that came along with a bus full of underaged enthusiasts-in-training (although, to be fair, some of them already had full-blown enthusiasm issues), who, rather than being a draconian chaperone, ended up buying us booze after the show.
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For those of you too drunk to read any further, the short answer, according to my empirical research, is an unequivocal duh. But allow me to elucidate.

I’m 19 (back in the day when the drinking age was a sensible and civilized 18) and get an invitation to an open-bar party at my old Catholic grade school in NYC. Open bar. I don’t have to tell you that those are words to set an Enthusiast—particularly a broke-ass college kid—to a-trembling. I am so there.

Since the cocktail party is scheduled for only two hours—and since it’s my pre-heat for a Friday night frolic—there’s a lot of work to do. And I set about it enthusiastically: Jack, chased repeatedly and relentlessly by Miller High Life. Pretty soon, my skinny ass is wasted. In fact, maybe the most wasted ever, before or since. And pretty soon, I’m in trouble. Or they are.

A lot of this has had to be reconstructed later with the help of my schoolmate/drinking buddy who came with. But I have no doubt about my motivation: I’m looking at an older, irretrievably square crowd—uptight, wine-swirling mackeral-snappers in striped ties. And rather than being engaged in some bullshit conversation about my progress toward respectability, I decide to bring some “conversation” of my own.

So I circulate around to each happily chit-chatting couple, stand close to them for a moment, grinning, watching, pretending to be interested, politely waiting my turn to enter the discussion—only to issue forth with an ungodly shouting that makes all conversation impossible. Not a little whoop or yelp. This is a long (30 seconds?), high-volume, non-verbal, unremitting vocal drone, a weaponized yelling designed expressly to destroy cocktail party palaver. And when I say loud, you have to understand that people think I’m loud when I’m just talking (I once got a note from a woman at a restaurant that read “your loud voice wrecked our dinner!”) and that, once upon a time, I sang in front of a very loud rock band.

I work my way around the room, assassinating comity, one conversation at a time. And it’s not just the loudness that’s disturbing, it’s the randomness. My beef is at such a conceptual—and dubious—level that these poor Catholic partygoers are like: what the fuck?!? If they ever said the word fuck.

On and off, the sonic assault continues for maybe 15 minutes, until the principal, a gentle, caring, middle-aged gent, approaches and throws a friendly arm around my shoulders and says, with a genuine smile, “I think it’s time for you to go.”

Let me explain that when this man was younger he had been afflicted with an illness (TB?) that resulted in one of his lungs being removed, which evidently carried a certain morbid, if heretofore unrecognized, fascination for me. So he’s easing me toward the door when I fling off his arm and throw mine around his neck and drag him to the floor. I have the kindly principal in a headlock on the floor, and now I’m yelling at him: “No one-lunged bastard is gonna throw me out!”

I gotta admit, if it’s comical now, it was mortifying the next morning, and for many mornings after. In any case, it’s my buddy and our unfortunate dates who ultimately disentangle me and the principal and get yours truly the fuck out of there.

But, alas, the night is still young.

The four of us pile in a cab, headed downtown to the Village Gate, where one of my all-time favorite bands, NRBQ, is playing a couple of sets. On the edge of Union Square, we get stuck in traffic. Stopped cold. Lots of honking and yelling, but no forward movement. Suddenly, without notice, I fling the cab door open and start running into the darkness and crowds of 14th Street. My friends and my date, not surprisingly, are happy to see me go. And after patiently waiting out the traffic jam, the cab deposits them, 10 minutes later, at the door of the club.

And I’m there to greet them!

This is the superpowers part. Apparently, I flew like Superman or ran at supersonic speeds like Flash to beat them to the Gate. No other explanation is possible—unless you subscribe to the crackpot theory that I ran around the traffic jam and grabbed another cab a block or two away. But that strains credulity, not to mention the rules of super-hero science. No, the facts point incontrovertibly to me acquiring temporary superpowers through the liberal application of booze.

Once inside the club, I barge into the dressing room to tell the band (I think) how much I love them, only to be physically threatened by a visibly agitated lead singer who is restrained by his band mates who are yelling at me to “just get the fuck out!” I return to my friends, who’ve found a comfortable booth, and, at some point during the set, go to sleep. On the floor. The ushers clear out the club for the next show—my friends finally making good on their escape—but somehow no one notices me. As the room begins to fill for the second set, I rise up off the floor and, looking around for my companions, discover instead some unwitting acquaintances from high school, to whom I attach myself for still more bar- and party-hopping until six in the morning, when, my superpowers depleted, I stiff them on a cab ride uptown.

 
—Toots Shor

Superman photo courtesy of rustman, flickr.

If you live in our lovely city by the bay, then you may already be familiar with this potent elixir of joy.

But if you are visiting this blog from somewhere other than San Francisco or Argentina (welcome, fellow Enthusiasts!) you may not know much about this local hero of a beverage.

For us, Fernet is an “industry drink”—the “industry,” in this case, being the one that is often ironically referred to as “hospitality.”  This would include restaurant, hotel, theme park, general tourism, and though I have no experience with it, I’m pretty sure retail overlaps quite a bit. For the purposes of this post, I speak about Fernet from the POV of the corporate restaurant sweatshop worker, as that is how yours truly became quite the fan of this little bit o’ Darth Vader in a glass.

It’s bad. I mean, really bad. For non-industry people, just the smell is enough to put them off drinking for a good long time. They look at you in bewildered confusion—why on earth would anyone voluntarily drink this stuff?
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Back before we knew alcohol could kill you, in multiple ways, I was known to have a tipple or two of an evening. This occasional column, intended strictly for cautionary purposes, is about some of those multiple ways and some of those evenings.

We’re going to see the Tubes on their first-ever tour of the States (yeah, that long ago–you don’t even know who the fuck the Tubes are). And, of course, this being winter in Michigan, we’re wasted.

Not wasted enough, apparently. When the later-to-be-famous out-of-town rock critic offers your humble reporter a Quaalude to top off a 12-pack of Stroh’s, the humble reporter wolfs it, only to report back to the critic 20 minutes later that his motherfuckin’ Quaaludes ain’t working, what the fuck?!?

So he hands me another.

We harass the Tubes onstage–most of the harassing being done by the perma-wasted crazy guy who’s driving us(!) and who actually works at an insane asylum. He’s barking “Fuck you!” over and over in the lead guitarist’s face. Nevertheless, after the show, we follow the band back to their motel and barge in on the after-party, where, luckily, there is fine California weed to augment one’s dual-ludes-and-12-pack high.

Then we hit the road for whatever other lethal perils might be found in the frozen Michigan midnight.

We’re tooling down the highway, madman at the wheel, en route from somewhere up north to Ann Arbor down south when we spot a hitchhiker, and the madman decides to stop. Or decides a little late. So first he has to throw it into reverse on the highway. As the hitchhiker slings his duffle bag in the back seat with me, I–answering the inscrutable logic of the buzz–get out and lay behind the car. Whereupon the madman backs up some more until he’s pinned my arm. Eventually, I yell enough for him to pull forward and set me free and yell some more when I take my seat back in the car next to the (frightened? psychopathic?) hitchhiker.

Then I see her.

Turns out the hitchhiker has a girlfriend. In the dimness, I can just make out her golden tresses, wavy and multi-hued, by the far window on the other side of her man and his hobo luggage. She is gorgeous–or her hair is. And I have no shame.

I snake my arm behind the hitchhiker to tentatively touch Sister Goldenhair. She doesn’t respond. Except, well, she doesn’t respond! Which may be the best response a guy in my condition could ever hope for. She doesn’t recoil. She doesn’t retch. She doesn’t complain to her boyfriend or jump out of the car. Emboldened, I run my fingers more assertively through her mane. Again, no response. No slapping hand. No screaming, ducking, nodding or otherwise shrinking from my advances. Nor, thanks to my cat-like dexterity, does her boyfriend notice.

Now I am full on petting her, or at least her head, transported by that sleek, golden coiffure. But as my hands dance lovingly around the lassie’s noggin, it dawns on me that there is something odd. At first, I deny it. How could there be anything wrong with the most beautiful woman in the world? The most beautiful–and pliable–woman in the world?

I begin to explore. My hand arches to encompass the top of her, admittedly, not very large head, which seems to ultimately form into some kind of bump. No, bigger than a bump–a red-rubber-ball-sized mini-dome. My hand rotates left and right to assess its true circumference, but there’s just no getting around it: the top of this girl’s head comes to a weird, blunt point.

I rouse myself from erotic reveries and lean forward to peer past the hitchhiker. And it is then that I see, finally, that the love of my life, the object of my fondest fantasies, the shining vision of my drunken vision quest, is indeed an Afghan. And not, mind you, a person from Afghanistan.

Yes, dear reader, this Alcohol Enthusiast came on to a dog.

Postscript: Many years later, after I had shared this tale far and wide, a commercial for (I think) BMW came on the TV. It was a typical scene of a couple in a top-down convertible speeding down a scenic highway. The view was from the rear and overhead. The man, who was driving, wore shades. His lady sported gorgeous golden tresses, which blew in the breeze. Then the camera flipped around, and we could see the couple from the front. Of course, she turned out to be an Afghan dog.

My question: can I sue?

 
—Toots Shor

Stroh’s photo courtesy of prettywar-stl, Flickr.

Am I seeing things, or is that tiger leering at that innocent vocalist?

Every Enthusiast knows that nothing—nothing—goes better with booze than music. Especially live music.

Sure, I might have made a similar statement about drinking and air travel in a previous post, and I meant that one, too. It’s just that I mean this one way, way more. And don’t you dare think this is the final, super-definitive statement about “nothing going better with alcohol than…” that you’ve heard out of this Enthusiast. After all, what goes better with enthusiasm than loudly proclaimed, sweeping generalizations and over-blown, oft-self-aggrandizing, defiantly definitive statements which are always forgotten entirely until sobriety returns, rearing its dehydrating, leg-muscle-spasm-causing, sinus-duct-pinching presence? (Hangover symptoms may vary.)

Many of us Enthusiasts have been on this rodeo circuit for many, many years, despite little restrictions like the “law” and, additionally and prior to that, our “parents” or “legal” “guardians” telling us that we had to be over 21 (or whatever your country of adolescence’s legal boozing age is) to ride this liquid freight train straight to Enthusiasmville.

Nothing could ever stop this Enthusiast, for one, from getting wasted before seeing all my favorite bands play live. We all liked a lot of what we now realize are hilariously bad bands as we trundled awkwardly through middle and high school, so I’ll spare myself the added shame and you the boring—the way that other people’s pictures of themselves in front of C-List tourist monuments are boring—deets. This blog is about alcohol enthusiasm, anyways.

Concerts meant long, sweaty lines of washed-out dyed green hair, and tattered, baggy black tee-shirts emblazoned with imposing logos and sharp, cracked white or raised silver lettering. And acne, and loosely-laced skate shoes. Then there were the shoulder-tap acquired plastic jugs of bottom-shelf, ice-clear liquid-panty-remover, poured gingerly into dumped-out and more discrete plastic water bottles that we could slyly swig from in line. All of this burning through our throats, and chased by M&Ms or crackers and the intense desire to get super wasted before it was our turn to get padded down by security on our way through the stadium and/or venue and/or pier gates. Enviously, we watched our elders lined up at beer-fueling stations, or aside long bars, ordering and receiving that which we’d only carried in with our bloodstreams. So cool with their big plastic branded cups and/or fancy little glasses with their fancy little twin straws. By the time your or my mom and/or dad arrived to collect the sweaty teenaged music lovers, splitting headaches and joy waltzed hand in hand into the blissful sunset of our fuzzy brains as we raced down highways, home.

Last night I got drunk at a fancier-then-I recall-from-being-a-tipsy-15-year-old venue in San Francisco. Pushing past crowds towards the wrist band line, where ID shares were exchanged for rights to buy pricey cocktails, I wondered—was this what I had lusted after, when secretly guzzling seared clear liquid from those plastic lips in preparation for lights up, ear-splitting, cheering, shoving, encore? These short, flimsy receptacles lousy with warming ice cubes, infused with the faintest splash of the essence of vodka or bourbon?

Maybe you just don’t know what you got, until it becomes wildly age inappropriate to participate in it.

And we flashed our IDs to have our wrists festooned with paper bracelets, and we pushed our way past heavily-perfumed, shot taking, bumpit-ponytailed women to swig that which we still and always, lust after.

 
—Josey

Tiger lusting after rock star photo courtesy of Easystreet.

This guy knows what the fuck is up. Do you?

 
—Hardie
Reporting from Russia

I’ve never fully understood beer gardens. Now, I get the concept of an area or establishment dedicated to drinking: bars, taverns, saloons, etc.—totally on board. But there’s always been something about the beer garden that seemed off to me. Is it because they are open air? Because your beverage options are so limited? I don’t know. The beer garden I attended this weekend did have the added advantage of being private and the type you pay once for to drink as much as you can. Yet I still had my reservations.

It must be my restless nature. While I love beer as much as the next Enthusiast, the idea of a temple dedicated to a singular libation (and often single brand)—without the addition of interactivity to some extent—just doesn’t hold my attention. I need to be challenged by more than the fight against sobriety.

We spent the weekend in Portland at a private event that housed said-beer garden last weekend. I made an appearance all three days with varied success. By Sunday everyone was a bit over-enthused when the garden officially closed at 6:00pm. We wandered around for a while listening to the world’s coolest marching band, and I couldn’t help but notice a strange clanging sound, accompanied by shouts of encouragement, coming from the shuttered area behind the tarp-covered, chain-link fence. I spotted someone I knew and, being an Enthusiast of some notoriety in the community, managed to get us through the hidden back entrance, past fairly stringent security to see what all the commotion was.

I had heard of what I was about to see. I had been told stories that involved blood, sweat, tears and triumph. And I had been told that the tradition was outlawed. What we had been invited into was an annual celebration of post-beer garden keg bowling. An exclusive, non-competitive sport in which nothing but hubris and perhaps a little timé is on the line.

Kegs crashed into each other amidst excited cheers from enthusiastic bystanders. There is nothing like the sound of hollow metal against hollow metal against pavement. It’s fantastic and exciting—and I was trembling, despite the free-flowing IPA.

After surveying an assorted line of people take their shot, I gulped down the remaining ounces in my cup and took hold of the “ball.”  With a heave, I sent steel plowing through the wall of kegs.

It was exhilarating in a way I haven’t felt often since reaching that birthdate after which you must have been born to purchase alcohol. And with the addition of such a unique activity, I finally got it. The beer garden is the ultimate backyard bbq, and keg bowling is the everclear of horseshoes. While I know this experience is rare, I sincerely hope that every Enthusiast gets a chance to step up to the line to take a throw. There is nothing like it—and you’ll never look at a beer garden the same way again.

 
—Christian

Photos courtesy of Josey and Rosie