Sobriety

As mentioned I’m my previous blog, the question of why I don’t drink anymore has come up many many times in the past…wow, almost 7 months that I've been completely sober. I didn’t really drink all that often anyhow, but when I did bad things happened. Boobs were grabbed, wallets were stolen (see the P.S. for that one) and waitresses (and one waiter) were brought to fucking tears. For the most part, this isn’t the usual funny blog. It’s a story, but it does have its funny parts.

Now if you know my family, you know that there is quite a history of alcoholism. On both sides. Some of my earliest memories were of the smell of vodka and cigarettes as I crawled into my fathers lap to get him to read me “Curious George”. Now don’t get the idea that Bruce was a bad father from that. Sure he was drunk, but I still got read to and he played catch with me and stuff. From the stories I hear about my paternal Great-Grandfather were of him getting drunk, having all his teeth pulled one night during a bender into town while he was drinking with the town dentist, and him falling off a horse that knew the way home many times. So we have it from the Robinson side. On the other side, my Moms’ mother left her and her brothers to pursue a life of being an alcoholic scam artist and failed marriages. She was in and out of rehab many times throughout her life, which was probably a good thing since she was the meanest drunk ever. Think of the meanest, stupidest, bat-shit craziest angriest drunk you know. Got it? Now picture that as an old lady. Now double the alcohol content. Yeah, that was my Grandmother. So I have the genetic disposition to be a stupid, mean, clever, asshole of a drunk. As you read this story, you’ll know why I decided to wage war on my heritage before it waged war on me.

This story takes place very late the evening of December 29^th/December 30^th 2005: The night of the "Sir Beef Wellington" blog if you’ve been a fan for a long time, or feel like looking it up on my Myspace page.. I had just gotten off work at maybe 8 or so, went home, changed clothes, showered and headed to the trashy Town Tavern bar in Louisville. I know, it sucks, but people were home for The Christmas Episode, and I wanted to see how downhill most of the girls I went to high school went since graduation. Most pretty far. Like rock bottom third anonymous father pregnancy far. Anyhow, they had this special where you could get a big draft mug of beer for $1. I bought no one but myself drinks that night, because I don’t buy girls in bars drinks. It’s a rule. Unless you drove me, and I know you. So like $20 was spent that night, which if you remember from grade school math = 20 beers. We close down that bar and blindly stumble across the street to Floyds to get beers that I have no idea how I paid for. People were buying me drinks in exchange for stories I think. Or I just didn’t pay. I don’t know really. Either is completely possible. So we close that bar down and I drive to Wal-mart in Alliance to get some food since I hadn’t eaten yet that evening. You know, because I’m super smart like that. Plus, it was the only thing open and they’re used to drunks on a Friday night. I check my voice mail while I‘m browsing the chicken nugget aisle and while I had been in mid debauchery I had gotten a call from Turd Ferguson who was back by popular demand to guest star for the Christmas Special. So I call him, and proceed to drive back to the Warnatorium on the snowy icy roads going waaaaaay too fast (via the back way through hillbilly country) to visit with Steth, Bob-o, and his brother Crazy Ben (also back by popular demand for the Christmas special).

We started to play cards, I think and I drank like 4 Windsor and cokes. In like half an hour. Somehow I broke my watch on a street sign I had braced against the door to keep D.W.'s girlfriend out so I could smoke cigarettes where it was warm, there were people that didn’t want to arrest me, and there was booze. From what I recall, much booze fueled fun was had by all. After the guest stars had left, I watched The Jim throw up in the street with an old man’s driving hat and aviator sunglasses on (no clue. The booze may have rewritten the data on my memory card there), and then drove home even more filled with holiday cheer, but mainly booze, than I was earlier that evening.

New Years Eve morning, I woke up at like 10 am, not really hung over, but you know the pseudo-hangover you get where you just drink lots of water and poop fire every quarter hour? Yeah I had that. We’ll call it a Hold Over for the sake of conversation. The kicker was my Aunt and Uncle (my Dads’ brother and his wife) show up to my haggard pseudo-hung over ass watching M*A*S*H in my bathrobe and my dad who had, apparently, completely lost his damned mind. He was supposed to wake up at 10 and go out to brunch (God I HATE that yuppie ass word!) with them. Where was he? He was in his underpants, very drunk. He then proceeded to tell my uncle the same anecdote three different times, and that he was having a nervous breakdown from too much alcohol, the impending divorce, going through his first holiday season without my mom, and not being able to remember how to fix a dishwasher the day before. That’s kind of all the old man knows: How to fix things. So you can understand his fear at losing the one skill he had. I mean if one day you woke up and forgot how to read or something, you’d be pretty freaked out too. I then find out that my Uncle is also an alcoholic, and had gotten more than his share of D.U.I.’s and had been in and out of rehab/AA for YEARS. So after my dad stopped weeping about losing his goddamn marbles and got some coffee in him, they went to an AA meeting. Apparently they have those like 8 times a day during the holiday season. I am learning all this while i'm trying not to ruin my pajama pants with draft beer-shit as I drink a gallon of water and chain smoke.

So at this point one of the little guys that live in my head and sits at the dashboard that controls my thoughts turns to the other stations up there and says "OK….. That’s fucking it. We drove around very very VERY drunk last night...IN OHIO SNOW, and now we find out this shit is completely genetic from both sides. That’s it lads (the guy on duty that day was British), New Years Eve or not, we are not drinking until at least 2007. Pack up the booze: its Coke, water, Gatorade, and chocolate milk from here on out!"

I could elaborate several more pages as to why, even without the DNA reasons, that I quit drinking. But most of you reading this read things like “threw up in a cat’s litter box”, “needed 15 stitches from where he hit the beer pong table”, “was caught raping mailboxes” or “passed out naked on the hood of my car” and be all offended that I was “talking mad shit” about you. So we’re just going to leave it at my crazy drunken family and call it a day.

Thanks,

Dr. R

P.S. Ok, I promised a stolen wallet story here: here it goes.

We’re at Sadie Rene’s to see a few bands and this guy gets up to use the bathroom or choke a prostitute or whatever skuzzy looking guys do at bars alone and leaves his wallet to save his seat. In a dark corner. Now, I was pretty drunk by this time and in full Bizarro mode, which means something that will make a great story is about to happen. So I think (and maybe said aloud) “Hmmm….Me thinks that t’was foolish thing for that lanky man to do! I shall teach him a lesson he won’t soon forget!” Then I twirled my mustache, flapped my cape menacingly and swiped the dude’s wallet with my top hat. Think of it as a PSA for the drunken masses. Don’t use your WALLET of all things to save your seat in a dark bar! All I have to say is he got off light. He had like $12 and no credit cards. He should consider himself lucky. Bizarro would have WRECKED his credit score by morning. So if you’re reading this, Eric, you need to use a bank instead of a credit union, I did you a solid by stealing THAT license picture, and $14 is too much to pay for a haircut. Especially THAT haircut. Oh and sorry about jacking your wallet and all.

Calmer than you are, Dude..

Ok folks, that's it. It's been ten years, off and on. Almost to the day. I'm finally trying to quit smoking. For good.

Aside from waking up at 10 am, for no reason, it started out as a good day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was going into nicotine deprivation and twitching like Michael J. Fox. Still, I can deal with it. I'm calmer than you are, Dude. Then I go to Wendy's for a spicy chicken sam'mich value meal and what happens? My brakes in my car go out. Pedal to the floor go out.

I make it home, thankfully, and eat my number 6 value meal. Then I hit the parts house with the old man, and go outside to fucking fix them, A-Team style. What happens? It starts raining. If there's one thing I hate more than working on cars, its working on cars IN THE RAIN! So yeah, its raining, I'm taking off the back wheels of my cougar and watching my dad smoke the way a fat girl eye humps the ice cream buffet at Ponderosa. Murder was contemplated. Both of my father, and of the engineer that designed my car. Fuck you, Henry Ford. I will see you in hell for where your company puts rear brake lines.

So in conclusion, I'm going to need eveyone to not be a douchebag for the next week or so, or I might kill you. Not you know, physically murder you, but I might go to your mom's house and punch her in the tits for raising you to be retarded. You've all been warned. And so has your mother.

Thanks kids.
Dr. R

The Oregon: Year One - The Tale of Young Pancho

The time was early 2001. The boys and I had just moved into a one family dwelling that made the people on our street think we were either running a meth lab or were, in fact, pirates. “The fucking jerk kids down the street threw a scotch bottle in my mailbox!” And “those pirates are crazy, honey. Don’t make eye contact!!” The day was sometime in May or June of that year. I had just gotten off from a super boring day shift at Subway in East Canton and wanted to go home, take off my work clothes and chill out. I get there and Mike is sitting on the couch watching SpongeBob or Pokemon or something on Cartoon Network. Beside him sits a boy of around 10 or so. “Hey Mikey, what’s with the kid?” I asked as I grabbed 3 cokes from the fridge and gave one to Mike, one to the boy and opened one myself. “Oh, him?” he asked as he poured his Coke into a beer stein that I’d never before seen. “Dan and I got him at a garage sale. Dirt cheap. Got like 3 of these beer steins too. You should check it out. I think his name is Pancho or something. Well…that’s what I’ve been calling him all day. He didn’t have a collar on or come with a manual or anything. It was a garage sale, he came ‘as is’ ” and Young Pancho just smiled, nodded and said thanks for the Coke. At The Oregon this kind of explanation would fly. You could be wearing a brightly coloured outfit with a mask and a cape, saying you were going to fight crime and the only response you’d get is “Buy some more beer while you’re out!” Mike bought a kid at a garage sale. Good enough for me. We were officially a REAL family like the lesbians down the block.

I guess what had really happened was Mike was going to the garage sale down the street and as he was walking back he saw a young boy who I guess looked sad. Now I’m not sure how, but he started up a conversation and decided to ask the kid back to the house to watch cartoons and hang out with people much older, and thus in 10 year old logic - much cooler, than himself. As much as your parents tell you not to talk to strangers as a kid they don’t expect someone like Mike to be the one trying. The guy is a big kid himself. And he doesn’t look all creepy like the people you see in the PSAs about kidnapping. So Mike asked the kid if he liked cartoons, dubbed him Pancho, and brought him home to hang out. If he’d used that power for evil, you’d all be bowing down to Lord Calhoon and his Tiny Army of Terror.

Now before you freak out and think we made a 10 year old do keg stands, taught him to short change strippers, or corrupted him in some way, we didn’t. We’d just hang out and watch cartoons, drink Kool-Aid and eat pizza. I don’t even think we swore around the kid. In fact no one really even drank if Pancho was there. Sure, he’d show up after wed been drinking, but still. It’s all semantics.

From what I gathered Pancho didn’t have a dad at home. His mom worked long hours and I guess kind of left him there alone or something. I never got the whole story, but that’s kind of what I’d figured out from talking to him a bit. We’d play catch in the backyard, or sit around and play board games and stuff. Mike or D.W. would take him down to Dairy Queen to get ice cream. It was like a completely surreal version of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program they advertise on late night television. He was just a cool kid who had nothing else to do really, and did what people twice his age did: hung out at The Pirate House. But in a way it was different. Sure he was hanging out, but we were teaching him stuff that a father or older brother would. I remember DW taught him how to shave. I taught him the proper way to grill steaks and burgers. Mike taught him about Star Trek and wanted to teach him how to drive (we didn’t let him drink, so there’d always be a sober driver by that logic), and from what you’ll read later, maybe gave him a few lessons.

Young Pancho hung out on The Oregon for most of that summer. We never let him drink, never let him smoke, and it didn’t hurt anyone’s standing with the ladies that we’d “adopted” a street urchin and bought him tacos on a regular basis. But our time with Pancho was cut short. Turns out a chick named Holly that partied with us used to baby sit him, and knew his family. She went over and told his mother where he’d been while she was at work the whole summer. She’d heard the stories of our antics, probably signed the petition to get us kicked out of town, and while never having met us, knew us by reputation. Pancho was ratted out by a girl who was one time groped in exchange for gas money. Irony at its finest. So from that day on, Young Pancho was banned from coming over and watching cartoons, eating hamburgers that he’d grilled himself and drinking his weight in Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid.

So sad and angry were we that young Pancho had been banished by a working single mother and half naked Holly that the news of what happened next struck a chord in our black hearts and brought a tear to our booze and PS2 blurred eyes. He’d tried to come over and hang out many times, and had gotten caught by his mother, who by this time had enlisted the help of another babysitter to actually WATCH her child. But Pancho had the ultimate P.S. to this Epic. Turns out that a few months later he STOLE A CAR and tried to drive it over to The Oregon to impress us with his homecoming in style. He was picked up by the police for running a red light, or hitting a mailbox or something, several blocks from our house. I really don’t remember the whole story. When I heard The Epilogue to The Tale of Young Pancho I was too busy laughing at his boyish antics and making a toast to his Tale and rechristening him as Grand Theft Pancho. Perhaps if he’d been able to have some positive male role models in his life, he wouldn’t have gotten arrested. Or, more likely, we’d have loaned him one of our cars. And at the very least taught him how to steal a car and not get caught. And as for the deed? I for one was COMPLETELY fucking impressed.

So if you’re reading this, Young Pancho, you should email me. It’s warm outside and I could really go for a hot fudge sundae and some burgers.

Dr. R

P.S. Mike, if I got any of the details wrong, I’m sorry. This is how I remember it; I mean it was 5 years ago. Maybe you taught him how to shave, D.W. taught him how play Blackjack, and I taught him about Star Trek, I’m really not sure. Point is this all really happened, details be damned, and is a great story that I had to share with the world.