This Week for Happy Hour: Three Day Weekend Your Face Off

An important distinction: whenever there is a national holiday on a Monday, and most everyone gets the day off from work or school, that is called a “three day weekend.”  It is NOT, mind you, called a “long weekend.”  I’ll explain:

There’s something about that third day off that makes people act a little different.  And you know exactly what I mean.  There’s that whole extra day until your responsibilities come knocking, and generally that results in lots of – as if I have to say it – parties.  Especially in the summer.  Daytime drinking, nighttime drinking, beach drinking, bar drinking, hopefully not car drinking, but you just never know.  And what happens when you drink that much?

Besides good times.

Remember?  It’s what makes time travel possible.  The flux capacitor’s half-brother, alcohol, gets excited and buys you a ticket for a cerebral roller coaster.  You’re at a backyard party, you’re drinking, you black out, you come to: you’re at the Rhino.  (Ok, we expected this.)  You keep drinking, you black out, you come to: you’re in Ocean City.  (What?  How?)  More drinking, you black out, you come to: you’re walking down M St. and it’s dawn and you’re broke.  “What day is it?” you ask a passerby.  And it’s Tuesday morning.  Quick, run home and shower and change because you gotta be at work in two hours!

Now, in what way was that a long weekend?

It wasn’t.  You know why?  Because it was a three day weekend, and those little fuckers go by faster than green grass through a goose. 

But hell, it was well worth it.  Never mind that you’re broke now and very badly sunburned and you’re probably going to have to use that special shampoo for a couple weeks, again.  Because you just three day weekended your face off, my friend.  Understand, that’s some accomplishment.  It’s like the drinking equivalent of hitting three homeruns in a game, or completing the Hail Mary pass with three seconds on the clock, or clearing every hurdle without tripping and eating poo in front of a sold-out crowd at the Olympics.  Or, you know, something like that.  It’s impressive, and you should hold your chin up and push your chest out, find your wits and swagger proudly home, taking your time ’cause you’re cool, baby, and also hum Fanfare for the Common Man, by Aaron Copland the whole way.  Here it is: 

Maybe put your hands to the sky at the dramatic parts.  I don't know, just a suggestion.  Anyway, kudos and well done!  You deserved every second of it, fully conscious or not.

Start the three day weekend off right, at Rhino Bar for Happy Hour.  Half-price everything (except the alfredo and JWB scroners).  See you there!

Cheers,

Finnegan

P.S. You think you’ve got the plums to four day weekend your face off?  Oh, really?  Then prove it: come upstairs on Thursday, before midnight, and make it official.  (…this guy thinks he can four day weekend his face off…)

This Week for Happy Hour: Graduation and the End of the World

Two biggies are penciled into the country’s schedule for this weekend.  First, a great many of our nation’s young adults will be graduating from institutions of higher learning on Saturday, descending the big stage with a liberal arts education in-hand and striding out into the world to live rich, informed lives.  And second, the World is going to end.  That is really not good timing, is it?

That’s right, the World is supposed to end, again, this Saturday, May 21^st, according to yet another small group of American evangelicals.  Despite the obvious, I think the strangest thing about this apocalyptic prophecy is that we’ve heard so little about it.  Perhaps its’ been overshadowed by the Mayans’ 2012 extravaganza that’s sure to go down next Winter.  Yeah, that’s probably it.  Americans don’t like to believe other Americans.  The other ones are always dumb as nails or phony bologna.  Mayans, however, are exotic, and therefore may have some superhuman insight.  Flashes of Estelle Costanza and Donna Chang, the not-Chinese woman on the phone.  She was duped!

Maybe another reason this Judgment Day prediction hasn’t garnered much attention in the press is that the date is plain old inconvenient.  Y2K sounded scary enough to be true, but also we could plan for it, get hammered, light candles around JonBenet Ramsey’s grave and wait for industrialized society to implode upon itself.  Same with 12.21.2012.  Spooky numbers, oooh. 

But this one sucks because it’s freakin’ graduation weekend.  We already have plans, stupid Universe.

Anyway, I’m not too concerned that the World’s gonna end like that – some Irish-tempered soccer hooligan Jesus coming down and filling the graduation quadrangles with the blood of financially insolvent nonbelievers.  Partly because it didn’t happen on Y2K.  Partly because now Arnold Schwarzenegger is single again, so he should have free time to save the World, if only for a day.  (Wow, imagine that?  It would be just like the inverse of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.)  But mainly because the banks have too much to lose in all those indebted young bodies.  It would be the banks vs. Jesus.  And apparently the banks are too big to fail.

But the whole idea got me thinking.  Not about the rapture and the furious vengeance of God, which would be – let’s face it – really interesting to watch, no matter what happened.  And what an awesome way to go, incidentally: by the fiery sword of Jehova. 

“Holy Shamwow, they were right!”  Whack.

No, it got me thinking about the timing of it all, about graduation as the potential end of not the World, but the end of a world.  A sort of microcosmic apocalypse.

College graduation is the end of a big party, for sure.  But it’s also, for the vast majority of graduates, the end of the liberal arts educational experience.  The late great David Foster Wallace spoke on roughly this subject (sans Irish soccer hooligan Jesus Apocalypse) in his 2005 Kenyon Commencement Speech.  Here’s the little story he opened with:

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”

The story illustrates the difficulty in understanding some of the most simple and obvious aspects of our existence.  Those things, as the cliché goes, that are “hidden in plain sight.”  The fish didn't recognize the water because they were constantly in it.  For humans, the analogy is a bit more complicated, because we're not stuck in something external.  We're stuck in our own brains - the filter through which we have perceived everything.  And we're not alone in there, exactly.  We're stuck in there with that little ego fucker who pipes up time to time and causes trouble.  And I’ve always felt that was a great gift of a liberal arts education: learning how to try to overcome the default human setting, trying to get beyond the skull-sized centers of our own little universe.  Problem is, maintaining that “this is water” perspective takes lots of time and hard work.  And life intervenes, it fuckin’ does.

Still, the choice is there even after graduation, even post-apocalypse – the choice to think one way or the other, to work for and enjoy the simplicity of the human condition, or to be swept away by the institutions of our particular time and place.

DFW goes on, “... there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.  That is being educated.”

I’m not saying I’ve got any of this figured out.  It’s hard.  I’m no wise old fish.  On the contrary, I am young and spritely and nubile, and I’m still recognizing my mistakes, let alone correcting them.  But I appreciate the idea, I believe there’s value in the concept, and I’ve ranted about this kind of thing before in slightly less serious terms: being able to appreciate and enjoy life’s simple things, more or less.  Expressing romance and love in more frequent, less-than-grand gestures.  Finding happiness on plain dry land instead of inside a multi-billion dollar cruise liner.  Maybe even just some nice doggy style sex.  You get the idea.  And as long as I’m writing a drinking blog here, I should say that I strongly believe that sharing a drink with friends falls squarely in this category as well.

Buddy Christ

Ok, here's my Jerry Springer final thought: Maybe on Saturday, some kind of friendly, happy, fun time Jesus will descend, as predicted, and turn a thousand barrels of water into wine (or maybe whiskey or beer?!).  If that happens, I’m rolling a few of them into Rhino Bar and turning them upside down until they are empty.  And I’d encourage you all to come on down and join me for the fun, the drinks, and the graduation celebration.  The water, I’m sure, will be fine.

Cheers,

Finnegan

P.S. If you’d like to read DFW’s speech in full just click those three words in the middle of this sentence.

This Week for Happy Hour: Hold My Prescription Arthritis Medicine

Hello my babies,

A brief word: as you read this week's entry, please remember that I love you all.  If you feel your sphincter start to clench, I suggest you have a cocktail and take it down a notch.  Ok, here we go:


In the great historical tradition of one-named highly influential cultural leaders such as Madonna (either the Holy Mother or the Lucky Star music slut), Prince (Machiavelli or Purple Rain music slut), Caesar (latently homosexual dog whisperer or Roman Head of NAMBLA), Jesus (Christ or approximately one out of every three Hispanic-born baby boys), and Oz (note to self: Oz is due for an encore – or was it that prison show with loads of forced sodomy which soured that particular proper noun?  Yeah, I guess so), emerged what has undoubtedly become the most dynamic and preeminent multiracial Southern soft rock band of our time, or of any time or place in our Universe.  Of that, I am confident.

Who am I talking about?  You don’t really have to ask, do you?  You already know deep down.  Search your feelings, young Happy Hour Padawan.  Yes, that’s it.  I’m talking about the one and only Hootie and the Blowfish – the musical juggernaut of the mid to late 90’s that took the world by storm.  Well, maybe storm isn’t the best word to describe their modest, good-timey sound.  But you know, they took the world by, let’s say, a nice cool breeze.  Hootie totally took the world by a nice cool breeze. 

And so this Friday, May 13^th is indeed a momentous occasion.  Not only is it Friday the 13^th, an already crazy day when nightmares come true and creepy acid-faced guys in striped sweaters outshine Johnny Depp at the box office.  But on TOP of that, the man behind the man in front of the Blowfish – Hootie himself, one Darius Rucker – turns the beige age of 45.

Come wish the soft rock icon a very Happy Birthday at Rhino Bar’s Happy Hour, this Friday from 5-9 PM.  Drinks are half-price, and we can all hold hands and sing songs from (this is actually serious) the 16x Platinum record, Cracked Rear View.  You remember the hits like, “Only Wanna Be with You,” “Let Her Cry,” and of course, “Hold My Hand.”  These are among the guiltiest of the musical guilty pleasures, but at the same time, they’re irresistible.  And we all owe it to the man who made us smile and hum with such satisfying regret over the last 15 years.

Granted, Hootie is starting to get a little older.  Remember that he might actually mean it these days when he says, “Hold My Hand.”  He may not be singing.  He may be urgently in need of balance assistance, maybe getting down a flight of slippery stairs.  Seriously, hold his hand.  He’s unstable.  And nobody wants to have to yell, “Hootieee!” in a moment of fright and concern.  Nobody.  Not ever.  In fact, this is the only instance where you may freely laugh at an old man falling on stairs:

Which brings me to my next point: if you were going to pick a stage name, why would you go with “Hootie?”  I mean, those other famous people went grandiose, but not Hootie.  So what’s up with Hootie?  Hmm?

Supposedly, the name Hootie doesn’t actually refer to Darius Rucker.  Supposedly, Hootie was some classmate of Darius in South Carolina.  This weird little guy, allegedly, looked like a cross between a hoot owl and a blowfish (thick glasses and chubby cheeks?), and thusly was born the band’s name.  Allegedly.

No way.

But you know and I know that this is a bunch of goddam rubbish.  There’s this rule in rock and roll, I’ll tell you about.  It’s called the Huey Lewis and the News Rule.  This Rule clearly states that when a band presents its name in this format, the band must indicate first the name of the front man (Huey Lewis/Hootie), and then lump the rest of the band members together with some random plural noun (the News/the Blowfish) in order to grammatically imply their inferiority to the only band member whose name actually matters.  I’m not saying it’s fair.  I’m just explaining the Rule. 

So, therefore, whether Darius Rucker likes it or not, he is Hootie.  And the other guys are most certainly the Blowfish.  Now, do yourself a favor and save your pity for something worthy.  Hold out for your next ASPCA commercial or something.  And here’s why: Darius/Hootie, as the band’s singer/rhythm guitarist/front man, knew exactly what he was doing when he agreed to this band name.  He’s in rock and roll.  He knew the Rule.  And he willfully accepted the title of Hootie.  To be sure, it was no accident. 

Though I wonder if, like the original Jesus and Madonna, he didn’t accept the title of Hootie with some reluctance.  I bet somebody had to press it on him a little.  Like Bruce Dickinson with Blue Oyster Cult’s prominent use of the cowbell in “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”  Darius was like, “I don’t know…  Hootie?”  And somebody said to Darius, “I’m telling you, people are gonna love this Hootie thing.  It’s magic, baby.”  I would hypothesize further, but I have a crippling fear of Christopher Walken and don’t need those nightmares between now and this Friday the 13^th.

He could make you burst into flames.

Hope to see everybody there for Hootie’s 45^th!  Half-priced everything.  JW Blue is now $10 during Friday Happy Hour only.  Scroners abound.

Cheers,

Finnegan

P.S.  This week the blog could have its 1,000^th visitor.  If it’s you, print out the screenshot, bring it in, and trade it for $10 in already half-priced drinks during Happy Hour, 5-9 on Friday.  Hey, that’s like a free gallon of gas, or 10 Hootie and the Blowfish songs on iTunes, or a free two hour booze buzz rental.  Don’t say I never gave ya nuthin.

This Week for Happy Hour: Cinco de Drinko!

Let me open with a half-hearted apology of sorts: I’m not sure how or when this drink-face fun-time party “blog” started turning into a 19^th century military history trivia page, but what am I gonna do – not celebrate Cinco de Mayo?!  C’mon.  Can’t change the past unless you own the presses.

Ok, real quick: May 5, 1862, Battle of Puebla: Mexican army defeats French forces in an unlikely but major move toward being occupied by only the Spanish.  Big win!

But Cinco de Mayo is important for two less obvious reasons (if that’s possible).  First, it proves my long-standing hunch that big and bushy always beats thin and weasely in a Central American mustache-off.  Seriously, more often than rock beats scissors or Bobby beats Whitney or Chris beats Rihanna or whatever.  Big and bushy, baby.  That Pancho Villa had one hell of a pair of Mexican lip curtains.

My rods and cones are permanently damaged from the unnatural brightness of this horse.

The second reason this holiday is so important is that Americans have, once again, wildly succeeded in turning an inane historical event into a major drink-til-you-speak-in-all-vowels tequila fest.  And I have no problem with that.  At all.

Cheap drinks tonight at the Pumphouse - $2 Coronas and blah blah tequila party and Johnny Walker Blue is on sale for $15 per shot – and fond we are of all of them – for those of you with debilitating agave allergies and affinities for top hats and latent longings for low-intensity class warfare.  But seriously, its’ only $15 per shot.  Johnny Walker blue, I’m saying.  Which is half what you’ll pay anywhere else.  And it always goes down smooth, down into the belly.  Yum yum, so smooth… 

Question: what’s the word for a non-sexual scotch-inspired boner?  Anybody?  What would you call that?  Would it be, a scroner?  Yeah, that’s it.  I’m getting such a huge, raging scroner right now just thinking about it.  For Johnny Walker Blue, which is $15 per shot, if I didn’t mention that already.  Everyday, not just today, mind you.  Oh, and the scroners come free of charge.  Unless you’re a lady, in which case it costs extra.  Sorry, it’s just science.

Whoa, way off topic with the scroners and whatnot.  Back to it: guys, listen up: tequila party and Mexican techno and M St. Latinas and big, beautiful power mustaches – all tonight at the Rhino.

Ladies, I know what you’re thinking, oh, yeah, sure, we’ll just stop fighting the phallacracy for a few hours and come have a good time tonight, huh?  What with the delicious ethnic drinks and music with a great beat but too much referee’s whistle, and all the guys milling around with either top hats or sombreros sporting extremely prominent pants-tenting scroners?  Exactly.  Everybody’s gotta have a good time.  Especially on a special day like today.  Especially you.

See you upstairs tonight for Cinco de Drinko!  Cheers!
-Finn

P.S.  Best ever list of history’s greatest mustaches.  Lick your lips and enjoy:


http://nationallampoon.com/articles/the-90-greatest-mustaches-of-all-time