52-37-48 & a new way to drink beer

 (601 words)

One of my favorite road-to-sobriety moments came during a ’94 “60 Minutes” interview Ed Bradley conducted with Mick Jagger when Bradley asked Jagger about his addictions.

Jagger gravely intones about slaying his demons. 

“You think you’re having a good time, but you’re really a slave to (the drugs). Then there comes a point where you prefer to just do what you enjoy” without the interference of the addictions.

How long, Bradley asks earnestly, did it take you to come to this realization?

“About 25 years!” Jagger says and then he begins to cackle. It’s not a gloating cackle. It’s more a mirthful acknowledgment that, man, he got away with it, that there were zero consequences to his defiance of conventions. That, indeed, it is good to be Mick Jagger (as if there were any doubt).

It’s a marvelous cackle.

Well, I’ve come to a similar revelation about my excesses and that’s where the numbers 52-37-48 come in.

Those aren’t the measurements of a voluptuous girl.

Well, maybe St. Pauli Girl.

Those were the timed minutes it took me to drink 3 beers in one session. By timing my consumption I was able to put the brakes on yet another night of run away drinking.

My conditions have  forced me to become more aware of my body, its habits, flaws and failings.

See, I realized the other night I’ve been drinking beer for nearly four decades like my house is on fire and the only way to extinguish the flames is with my beer-based urine.

I think it’s because I’ve always since, oh, about the 4th grade been encouraged to drink beer. Lots of it. Fast. This custom was amplified when I began attending class at Ohio University; popular T-shirt: “Ohio U. A Fountain of Knowledge Where I Go To Drink.”

Some graduates depart schools of higher learning with quotes of the great philosophers ringing in their ears. The mantra that rings still in my ears is of maybe a dozen other young men circled around me screaming “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!’

They said it with such willful urgency it felt like if I let them down and drank at a rational pace they’d be expelled from school and thus miss out on five or so more years of pre-adult debauchery.

So I chug! Chug! Chugged!

And today I’m left to wonder how different my life would be had I surrounded myself with scholars who’d exhort, “STUDY! STUDY! STUDY!”

It was never meant to be. I’ve always felt right at home with the wrong crowd.

But I began to realize I was getting unnecessarily tipsy without intention or pleasure. 

There’s no novelty for me to getting drunk. So I’ve basically cut that out. And I’m trying to lose weight and alcohol is a contributing obstacle to achieving that goal.

So I started timing how long it took me to drink one 16-ounce glass of Yuengling.

The positive results were immediate. I could see I needed to slow down. I’m sure I was drinking about three beers an hour. Sometimes four. 

Now — finally — I’m drinking less, spending less, and risking less. I’m adding productive minutes and hours to a life that treasures them.

It’s fair to ask how things would be different had I come to this obvious conclusion 10 years ago? Twenty? Thirty or forty years ago?

Would I be more successful? More prominent? More fit? Happier?

Those are fair questions and I’ll get to them one of these days, I promise.

But first I must excuse myself.

I have some cackling to do.

• Here’s the Ed Bradly/Mick Jagger interview. The part where Bradley grills him about his drug use is at 13.13

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Ways in which I'm similar to Pluto

 

(673 words)

You and I probably share a lot of similarities. We’re a couple of carbon-based life forms who rely on oxygen for necessary respiration and we have a biological need for things like pizza about about once every four days.

But there’s one realm in which we’re not at all alike. That is you probably don’t spend much time thinking about how much you have in common with the planet Pluto.

You probably don’t even give much thought over whether it’s even a planet or not.

I’m the exact opposite. I think about it all the time.

 I one day dream of walking into a saloon strewn with evidence an angry brawl had just occurred — busted pool cues, broken glass, pools of blood mingling with peanut shells and sawdust on the floor.

I’ll step over the bodies and ask the bartender what happened.

“Well, ol’ Burt said Pluto wasn’t a planet and he just wouldn’t let it go. Hank wouldn’t have any of it and it was on.”

My kind of bar.

I’ve been comparing myself to Pluto for about five years now. It’s all because of Arnold Palmer, who to my knowledge had never golfed there.

Neither have I, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one day future explorers find some of my old Titleists on the planet surface from back when I couldn’t control the driver..

A visiting friend observed how lucky I was to be good friends with Palmer, to be in his inner circle.

Not true, I’d say. I was, indeed, fortunate to have chummy access to him, but I wouldn’t presume to say I was a close friend or part of his inner circle.

“It’s more accurate to say, I was lucky just to be in his orbit. But I was like Pluto and many scientists argue whether or not Pluto is even a planet.”

So I began to wonder about Pluto. Often. How much do we have in common?

Did you know Pluto has five moons and they went billions of years without being seen? If you have moons to me, right there, boom, you’re a planet. And its moons have names: Charon, Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos. We have one lousy moon and it's named "Moon."

What gives? It's like having a dog and naming it “Dog."

I have one moon and it gets seen in public about once every 12 years or so or whenever I have an occasion to don a kilt.

It takes Pluto 248 earth years to make one orbit around the sun — 248 years! Just imagine what a Plutonian calendar would look like. And let’s not even think about adding the chaos of things like leap years or Daylight Saving Time.

It’s difficult for our feeble minds to fathom such stellar distance. For instance, the light leaving the sun right now won’t hit Earth for eight minute.

That same light won’t reach Pluto for another 5 hours and 42 minutes.

Another example: It would take a solar powered golf cart traveling 36,400 mph about 9.5 years to reach Pluto -- 9.7 years if you stopped for pee breaks.

It’s just a long way off and there’s no conceivable reason to go there. I say that with the understanding that, mark my words, one day there will be a souvenir shack there and its top seller will be one that says, “My Grandparents Went to Kerberos and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.”

I guess I feel a kinship because of the intangibles.

It takes Pluto nearly 250 years to orbit the sun; It takes me nearly that long to get out of bed on a Sunday. 

Pluto is made primarily of rock and ice; many of my career decisions seem in hindsight that they made after consulting a man whose head was filled with rock and ice.

Pluto struggles for recognition among its larger, gassier neighbors. And that is where the similarities end.

No one’s gassier than I.

But if you’ve read this far, you probably already knew that.

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Gone almost a year, still missing Zack

 

(758 words)

The tall brown-haired stranger pulled up his stool next to mine and smiled sunshine. It was just the kind of subtle move a savvy bar patron makes that lets me know I’m in for about an hour or two worth of agreeable conversation.

It’s cheerful, unimposing and cracks open the door to chumminess.

We began to chat. He was polite, well-spoken and conveyed a mirthful demeanor.  I felt we were on the verge of instant friendship.

But then he did something utterly despicable. Something so upsetting I knew I couldn’t stomach another minute with him.

The guy began to remind me of Zack.

I paid my tab, left my tip and abruptly told the friendly imposter I had to go.

The nerve. It’s nearly impossible to calculate how many hearts you’ll break if by millions-to-1 genetic chance you resemble the late Zack Starrett and turn out to be just someone who sorta looks like him.

Appearing to be Zack when you are not Zack is a cruel fraud. It’ll be one year on December 23 when Zack, 33, died of Covid-related killers.

I still really miss Zack. And I know I’m not alone. It’s a rare day that goes by when I don’t hear someone express a similar sentiment. 

He was funny. He was thoughtful. He was charismatic. He was a good listener. 

He was a bartender!

I’ve said before how I once went through a list of the five most influential people in my life and that four of them were bartenders and how the realization helped me make sense of my life, which more and more seems to be one punctuated with professional failure and personal joy. 

But a good bartender, one like Zack, has all the ingredients one needs for enduing camaraderie, but in addition has one that so very many in our busy world  either lack or refuse to indulge.

Zack had time. All the time in the world, it seemed, admittedly a miscalculation in regards to Zack and his slim life portion. But before the demise no one saw coming, Zack had time to chat, to philosophize, to mull over all the robust mysteries of life.

If I’d have only known he was going to die so young I’d have talked much faster. 

Have you lost your Zack yet?

St. Vincent College here in Latrobe lost theirs last month. His name was Patrick Kennedy. He was 66. He, too, tended bar. He was a fixture at Falbo’s Restaurant & Lounge near campus.

I’d been hearing about him a lot lately. He was beloved and really catered to the student crowd. Not in a mercenary way, but in the way I guess Jesus would have if instead of carpentry he’d have been involved in serving libations.

Incredibly to me, I, one of Latrobe’s most enthusiastic inebriants, had never met Pat, one of its most enthusiastic inebriators.

I chock that up to my serial monogamy when it comes to things like my bartenders and my bride.

So I had all this on my mind when I see a sign on Route 30 outside one of the franchise burger joints a plaintive message that said, “We’re All Thinking of You, Aiden.”

Who was Aiden? What had happened to him? Could he get the message to Zack that we really miss him?

I stopped in for some answers. 

But I was rebuffed. The manager seemed very suspicious of me.

I get it. Responding like a caring human being IS suspicious. Good thing the manager wasn’t packing heat. My empathy could have gotten me killed.

I did learn that Aiden was hurt in an accident and is expected to recover. 

I was happy to hear that. 

Let’s end today’s meander not on a note of departures, but on arrivals.

This will be the first Christmas for a boy who very well may grow up to look like Zack. In fact, Zack is part of his name. Part of his DNA, too.

Born in August to Josh & Jami — Josh is Zack’s big brother — the boy is named Brooks Zachary.

Now him, I’ll not begrudge if he grows up to look just like Zack. He can imitate his mannerisms, his confidence, his cheer, his eagerness to sit down and try, really try, to figure out what it’s all about. 

It won’t bother me one bit if I look at him and think, my God, it’s my friend! He’s back! I’ll, in fact, revel in the mistaken identity. 

Just as long as he behaves like him, too.  

Related …

• We Heart Zack! A love story about a man and his bartender

• RIP Zack & the tears we shed for the ones we love

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I look great! (and other hallucinations)

 

(683 words)

I’m beginning to wonder if I experienced my first Parkinson’s related side effect last month: my first hallucination.

If so, it was a cruel disappointment.

It’s said about 50 percent of PD patients experience some hallucinations. That’s not necessarily bad. For instance if someone told me I’d hallucinated the last two years, I’d feel great relief.

Not just for me.

For the whole planet!

I had a friend tell me you hallucinate what is most on your mind.

“For instance,” he said, “I’m having new roofs put on my buildings, so I started seeing roofers all over the place.”

How odd. Not the hallucinations. What’s odd are my friend’s priorities. He’s way too conscientious. 

I figured for sure my hallucination would involve beautiful naked waitresses bringing me trays of Sprite and Christmas peeps.

Don’t judge me.

And could someone please explain to me why peeps are seasonal when the world will be a better place when they’re customary year-round?

But my hallucination, if that’s what it was, was upsetting — and not for reasons that had to do with everyone being fully clothed. 

I was led to believe a good friend of mine was dying of colorectal cancer.

It was at a Ligonier book signing. I was making small talk with a woman who mentioned she worked at a chain bank in Mars. Mars, by the way, was not part of the possible vision. There really is a Mars, Pa., which is, in fact, near Moon Township. 

Now, if I were to say the woman ran the cash register at a hardware store near Uranus …

I asked if she knew my friend, one of the bank’s execs. He’s a great guy. Occasional golf buddy. Vivacious. She did.

“Isn’t that a shame with him? Such a nice man.”

Pray tell, what’s the matter?

“He has colorectal cancer. He’s got six months to live.”

Well, I was just devastated. Forlorn. Bereft. And when I get those feelings, there’s only one thing to do.

Break out the crayons!

Yes, if I want to make a real impression I write the person in crayon on my “Use All The Crayons!” stationery. I only do it if someone’s written a me a large check or been the recipient of a fretful diagnosis.

So if you receive a letter written in crayon prepare to either be profusely thanked or get busy updating your will.

I told him we were all praying for him, that his memory would live forever. I did everything but assure him we’d keep the creeps away from his widow for at least a month or two past his demise.

And, gulp, I told him I loved him.

It’s an interesting time for me and what I euphemistically call my “condition.”

I feel good and everyone goes out of their way to tell me to my face I look great.

“Man, you look great!”

They say it with such warmth and cheer I’m chagrinned no one noticed my looks back when I actually did look great.

My goal remains for me to appear symptom-free for so long the gossips will begin to suspect I made up the diagnosis just to get attention.

So I drop the letter off at the bank and who do I see strolling across the parking lot? It’s my friend.

And he looks great!

I hop out of the car and begin mumbling my apologies, my promise to pray and a respectful request that he gives me the snazzy putter he suddenly no longer needs.

He’s puzzled. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s being honest. Just saw the doc. Clean bill of health.

So was it my hallucination? The woman’s?

All I know is I’m now mortified that I revealed to a dear friend I really care about that I consider him a dear friend I really care about.

For a man like me, it’s just so awkward.

And there we stood, a paunchy pair of aging, graying, increasingly decrepit old white dudes confronting our flimsy mortality.

Buy, hey, we both look great!

Maybe that’s it.

I’m not having hallucinations.

I've become one.

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November Tweets of the Month!

 

Hi! This above was from a couple years ago. It's a picture of my battle-scarred first box of crayons from when I used to wear every crayon down to the sorry nub. Note, the top row, far left: The caucasian crayon is hardly used at all. In fact, you can almost discern a spectrum from top to bottom, left to right, with the primary colors being heavily used ... Gosh, I really tend to dwell on crayon usage.

• I understand we're all hyper-sensitive about race issues these days, but I hope we never get to the point where my black brothers and sisters become blind to the humanity of my empathetic ice-breaker/greeting of "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

• On this Cyber Monday, I’d like to pay homage to our computer overlords by vowing to never again use the phrase “command” when it comes to me and computers. It’s more accurate for me to from now on call “commands” “suggestions.” #SuggAltDel

• I’m lately finding myself getting angry at my car. Its insatiable thirst for fossil fuel means it consumes gas even when it's not in motion. I foresee a future where "smart" cars only run when the accelerator is depressed. You know, like stupid golf carts have been for 60 years!

• It’s not uncommon for me to hear friends confide they believe I'll one day become a famous writer, but it won't happen until after I'm dead. I share this around the supper table and I can tell my dear loved ones are thinking, "Should we kill him now or just hope for the best?”

• Had an embarrassing lunch with an old friend last week. He wouldn't quit putting his hands on my knees. Everyone was staring. It got so bad I nearly felt compelled to put pants on.

• I’ll be speaking today to Ligonier Valley HS students about how to succeed in life ... and you thought mask mandates were controversial.

• On this day we as a nation should vow to never again say Happy Veteran's Day until we're certain we've done everything we can to ensure every veteran is happy. #VeteransDay2021

• French police close highway after random pig stops traffic. #RogueHog

• Reuters headline -- "Russia/West in row over climate change solutions" -- has me worried ill-timed bickering over rising seas will result in all of us dealing with a different kind of row. (Picture of couple in boat rowing)

• One was one of history's most bloodthirsty tyrants. The other a humble tender of ovens. But they both bore the same name so there had to be a way to differentiate the two. That's how one became Atilla the Hun while the other Atilla the Baker.

• It’s been said hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe. It was created in the Big Bang. Don't believe it. From my observations, the most abundant substance in the universe is cardboard. It was created by Jeff Bezos.

• Spent a frantic 30 minutes this morning searching for misplaced car keys. Was so elated when I found them I'm vowing to lose them at least once a week.

• If a diplomatic rooster tries to avert a cock fight is it fair to call him chicken?

• Red & blue states are behaving like conjoined twins fighting over whose turn it is to use the penis they share.  They tolerate no compromise and revel in scorched-earth tactics that guarantee the only one who's getting screwed is one another.

• This Jake Gyllenhaall/TaylorSwift dust-up brings back some painful memories of my youth. To my everlasting shame, I once mistreated a beautiful young songwriter and without mentioning my name, she bashed the hell out of me in chart-topping song. It was 1973. The singer is Carly Simon. The song is "You're So Vain." And I was 10. But c'mon! Being 10 and dating Carly Simon! It was bound to go to my head.

• I suspect it’s universal for every region to have a neighborly punching bag to make fun of for perceived or obvious stupidity. It’s why N. Dakotans make fun of S. Dakotans, Ohioans mock West Virginians, etc. But is it truly universal?  And if so how often are we the butt of the jokes? Like is some alien wise guy on Kepler-23b entertaining his friends by saying, “Three Earthlings walk into a bar …”

• Here’s one the best brains at #COP26, guaranteed, won't think of: Hook every treadmill and exercise bike up on the planet to generators to produce the cleanest & greenest alternative energy known to man.

• Fuddy-Daddy: A male parent who wishes, goldarnit, TVs would go back to just 13 channels, that phones were still phone-shaped and that his adult kids still looked up to him the way they did when he was 32 and they were 4.

• When the end is near I believe it'll still be possible to buy time, but I'm pretty sure payment will involve an unforgiving sort of lay-away plan best described as “grave.”

Farts for Peace! How flatulence can save your Thanksgiving

Before we get to an anthropological dissertation about flatulence, I must begin with a confession that will shock many of you. Here goes:

I am a bigamist.

I for years have kept a secret family, entirely separate from and unbeknownst to the family I splash all over Facebook so people will think I’m a swell guy in the traditional sense.

Coincidentally, my secret family consists of a wife to whom I’ve been married 25 years and two daughters, ages 21 and 15 — just like my Facebook family! In fact, my two families are exactly the same in every respect save for one characteristic of my shame family:

My shame family farts.

Oh, boy, do they. They let ‘em rip.

My primary family doesn’t fart. They never have. None of ‘em. Not even once. They’re the ones who know to not under any circumstances accept my pleas that someone — for the love of God — please pull my finger.

So if you think any thing you’re about to read is based on the actions of my Facebook wife or either of our Facebook daughters, you are mistaken. They’re far too proper to stoop to farting which, by the way, is a posture I recommend for beginners.

All the observations are based solely on what I’ll for now call my Fart Family.

I’ve heard it said the Inuit have 47 different words for snow.

I’ll wager we have that many for the fart. There’s the bottom burp, butt bugle, the one-cheek squeak, the anal ahem, ass thunder, backdoor breeze, the stinker. As a kid, we used to for some forgotten reason call it “shooting a bunny.”

I mention this because I’m toying with the idea of really letting one rip at the Thanksgiving dinner table. 

“Pass the stuffing — ttttthhhhhhhhuuulllppp!”

A real plate rattler.

The key will be to maintain a poker face while everyone at the table stares gape-jawed at me awaiting some awkward apology, one that would not be forthcoming.

The trigger will be the instant Grandpa brings up politics.

I think this is the Thanksgiving America should welcome the fart to the dinner table.

I fear too many meals are jeopardized by partisan bellyachers eager to ruin this special holiday by monologuing about Trump, Fauci, Rittenhouse, Kamala, Tomlin, Taylor Swift vs. Jake Gyllenhaal or any of the radioactive topics people use to divide us.

A fart would emphatically change the conversation. 

America is tearing herself apart. Let the fart bring her together!

Everyone loves to fart. More satisfying than even a splashy sneeze, a fart is considered in some earthy nations a sign of appreciation for a satisfying meal, although I hope for the sake of our nation’s waitresses  the custom doesn’t replace folding money in the tip realm.

My Fart Family would roar their approval. A good, loud fart is to them a benchmark others strive to beat — and, yes, I deliberately chose to use the term benchmark for a bodily function that has the potential to leave marks on benches. 

They understand flatulence is a natural by-product of a healthy digestive system. They demonstrate their advocacy by farting in ways that fill me with recollections of the old fraternity house in Athens, Ohio.

My eyes tear up just recalling the ambiance — and those tears aren’t from sweet nostalgia. My eyes still sting from the stink.

Those were the days when young like-minded scholars could expound for hours on topics like: “If farting were an Olympic event, what would the matches look like?”

The precise wording was key because, of course, lighting farts is a marvelous spectacle so matches would be involved. Or maybe a lighter. Or how about …

The Olympic Torch!

I’ve ignited the interest of my Fart Family when I told them of an old friend who used to speculate on what life would be like if we could all see farts.

“It’s coming straight for us! Duck!”

Feel free to take my idea about farting should your drunken uncle decide to share his expertise on topics like epidemiology or constitutional law.

There are bound to be some of you who think I’m just being silly. That I’m pulling your leg.

I certainly am not pulling your leg.

But in keeping with the spirit of the sentiment, I'll be happy to pull your finger.

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When drinking buddies become alcoholics

(786 words)

I know of two very dear friends who are going through serious alcohol addiction problems and all I can think to say to them is “Cheers!”

I’m not joking and I fear for my friends. They’ve lost families, jobs and, I guess, hope.

It seems with alcoholics the only thing that never departs is their thirst. 

I’m utterly ill-equipped on what to say to friends who were HOF drinking buddies and have gone on to become problem drinkers.

A lecture from me is probably about 40 years too late. Had I been prescient back then, I would have maybe said, “Fellas, here it is 1981 and here we are, freshman at Ohio University. We are surrounded by parties in the dorms, the frat houses and in bar-after-bar on fabled Court Street.

“Now, we can accept any of the numerous offers to go and drink to excess, but that will hurt our grades and lead to bad habits that will catch up to us in, oh, the year 2021.

“Because I strive to be prescient — or at least how to use ‘prescient’ properly in a sentence — I suggest we stay here at Alden Library studying ECON 101 and learning about Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand.”

Had I said that, I’m sure one or two of them would have shown me their Visible Fingers.

Instead, we went to the bars.

And we never left. The fun I had in college was one of my life’s most indelible experiences.

It was in Athens I became who I am, a guy who drinks responsibly whenever he should and irresponsibly whenever he can. And my life has been nothing but fun. No DUIs, no rehabs, no interventions.

Of course, it’s only Tuesday so who knows what the week has in store!

It’s fair to wonder if I’d be more successful — or forget the more, just successful — if I’d been more moderate in my consumption.

I don’t think so. It’s not like I work in an air traffic control tower or am the guy they summon when delivering the triplets gets tricky.

I think excessive drinking were the problem it would show in productivity. But I’m nothing if not prolific. I’ve written close to a million words over the past 30 years (full disclosure: To make it appear I’m working hard, I use many of them twice. I use many of them twice).

The problem is it seems they aren’t the right words. None of my books have been mainstream hits.

That’s not a drinkin’ problem. 

It’s a thinkin’ problem!

I was telling all this to another very good friend of mine. He’s a celebrity in his field which is helpful because his field is a field. The man’s a farmer.

He told me the story of how in his 30s he realized he was drinking way too much and decided he needed AA or else he’d lose his family, his business and the promise his future held and eventually fulfilled.

He’d been 13 years sober when he was asked to deliver his product to a famous chef. The chef was busy when he arrived but arranged for him to enjoy a glass of champagne from a $500 bottle of fancy French hootch. The maitre’d offered five times and my friend five times said no.

He had a different answer on the sixth offer. He said, “What can it hurt?”

He drank.  His first thought was, “This is wonderful! What have I been missing?” His next thought was, “What stupid behavior will I regress to now?”

Happily, there was no party-boy “Animal House” regression, a surprising result, perhaps, from a gentleman whose farm houses animals. 

He and his wife are today very convivial company and our treasured friends. He had a problem drinking. I’m happy he solved his problem and resumed his drinking.

Val and I are currently immersed in the Hulu show “Dopesick,” starring Michael Keaton about the opioid crisis.

It’s riveting. Dreadful. With two episodes remaining, we’re fairly certain there will be no silver linings. The addicts lived and died and there was nothing anyone could say or do to quell their cravings.

Is that where my friends are? How come some of us become alcoholics while others do not?

Again, I don’t know what I could say in that situation.

All I can do is hope they get the help they need and let them know I love them — drunk or sober — for all they’ve meant to me. And that one day they’ll announce a cure for the things we demonize and have the potential to become, to some, truly demonic.

I’ll drink to that. 

It’s just what I’ve always done.

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