So, now y'all know this blogging thing is merely the tip of an iceberg of depravity. In the not too distant future, we will be working non-stop to make sure every last dime of your disposable income is in the wrong hands of people like Matty and I. We're going to take you on our hedonistic binges roughly as often as you brush your teeth, which will likely inspire you to brush your teeth a lot more.

As lil' baby Lush Life is gathering strength, I feel it's my sponsitility to take a good hard look at the dark side of this jus-stained, booze-soaked culture of pleasure seeking we call "home." And this one's for the kids. So, if the very thought of your fading youth sends your right hand racing towards that special drawer in your desk, then just stop reading now. You're already about to get the "e" in alcoholic horse.

Now that you're 21, you've got a lot to lose
Look back on better times, fuck all 'til 22 
Dillinger Four, "21 Said 3x Quickly"

Although 3 out of our 4 previous posts featured our adventures in underage drinking, for legal reasons (I don't want this to become The Death and Co. of blogs if S.L.A. enforcer Bill Crowley starts reading this), I have to assume our members are of legal drinking age and the youngest of them are twenty one years of age. If you're still tingling with the thrill of legal passage into bars and finally being able to enjoy a Lobsterita with your cheesy biscuits, head on down the line.

This is a cautionary tale. There are many of these related to the international pastime of drinking. Matty's adventure with T-bone is one of the finest. Beware the beguiling simplicity of the Rum and Coke. I'm going to keep it simple here and offer you just one caution:

If you party like you just turned 21 until you're 26, you'll look like your 36 if you're unbelievably lucky. What's more likely is you find yourself stumbling through a condition known as CC DeVille Syndrome or CCDS as our friends in the quasi-medical recovery community commonly refer to it as… unless you're Iggy Pop. Whatever he's got has left him at the same age for going on 40 years since he was 24. But that's a whole other blog. Let's turn our focus to another infamous rock 'n' roller for exhibit A:

Bruce Anthony Johannesson was born in 1962, but by 1983, the world would know him by a different name: CC DeVille. Around the time his first "Look what happened to me" human interest story aired 27 years later, he looked like he was a 62 year old. . . call girl. Did CC have some horrible disease?  Since the AIDS rumors remain unsubstantiated, we have to assume that the only thing CC had was a stronger than average lust for life.

CC is a victim of getting dragged in by the cat with a mouthful of dirty talk after just having nothin' but a good time and letting his want for action ride the wind. And, like the subject of most cautionary tales he represents an extreme. But if you rocked 1/5 as hard as he did in his hey-day, you would still have aged at 6.45 times the normal rate. Are you ready to look like you're fresh out of you're 2nd marriage when you're actually fresh out of Scantrons during your junior midterms? Do you really want to hear random douchebags at downtown saloons offering you retirement advice while you can still avoid having a real job for another few years?

I started smoking and drinking my spirits without mixers when I was 14 because my heroes were Joe Strummer, Dicky Barrett, Mike Ness, and Steve Jackson. I was a thrift-store suit wearing punk rocker cum rude boy who reveled in horrifying my bandmates' older siblings and used-to-be-cool dads with how ravaged my voice was. After hearing Kurt Cobain used to take a rowboat out to the center of a lake adjacent to his grandparents' house and scream for hours, I thought, "Fuck this quasi-hippie slut. I'm gonna ride my bike screaming Dropkick Murphys songs through a Puerto Rican neighborhood from breakfast to happy hour every Saturday." I wanted to sound as old as my supposedly weary teenage soul felt. The result was a habit that I still can't kick despite it's detriments to my palate. But, sounding older was what I was after, and it always felt great when I was recognized for that. I thank lil' baby Jesus, Satan, Hindu God, and Tom Cruise for not wanting to look like any of those guys. I'd have probably turned out some twisted man-child of Tom Waits and Eric Estrada.


Do you really want that to happen to you? This shit is serious and easy to prove. It first came to my attention at my current gig as the monkey bastard responsible for the bar program at a MePa members-only star-fucking terminal. Upon learning the actual ages of most of my regulars via their friends' jabs or personal moments of horny and twisted revelation, I was shocked to find everyone looked an average of nine years their senior! I mentioned this to my coworkers only to find that my thirty-something friends were actually only a year or two older than me…. And thought I was only a year or two younger than them. Yeah, being the Huck Finn of mixology has taken its toll on me. My trips up and down the whiskey river have certainly rolled the biological odometer forward a bit. I used to think I was hardcore, but now I know I'm just pop-punk compared to so many of my contemporaries…

And I'm damned happy about it. Premature aging isn't where the damage stops.

I know Tennesseans who can't drink a drop of their native whiskey for fear of awful flashbacks and immediate and uncontrollable digestive system retribution. That's like telling a kid from Mill Basin they'll never have another chicken parm. In sandwich, pizza, or hero form! It's like telling French people they'll have to trade in their "breakfast" of coffee, cigarettes, and baguette crumbs for Rootie Tootie fresh 'n' Fruity's- extra meat. I work with Irishmen that can't drink their whiskey for fear of reenacting The Crying Game scene by scene once under the influence of the hard stuff. Even the high priest of the evil powers of rock 'n' roll himself, Mr. Eddie Spaghetti, hadn't touched hard booze in years until he enjoyed a Hellsmoke Cocktail during a recent interview. I plan on going out with a glass of whiskey as old as I am in my right hand and a freshly rolled Cuban in my left.  There's no fucking way life is going to be worth it deprived of any of my primary recreations (see also: boozing, rocking [my/the] face off, etc.). So, I've scaled back a bit. Joined a gym. Started using vitamin-enhanced water for my old-fashioned ice cubes. Might even stop tempting the bony hand of death once a week like some kind of heathen Shabbas.

What do I recommend you do? You, the bright-eyed, youthful, with a ready-to-be-defiled- liver A&F / AE / Benetton ad that you are ought to simply think about the eventual ramifications of sowing all those wild-ass oats. Go ahead and watch the CC footage again, if it didn't loosen your bowels the first time. Re-think that baker's dozen of binge weekends you're approaching. If the last time you hung out with your mom and slept through church on a weekend was sometime around Independence Day, you're probably on the fast-track towards picking up cougars when you appear old enough to be a standard mate rather than underage love slave. Start asking the proprietors, employees, and there-so-often-it's-basically-their-job people that inhabit your favorite water holes and restaurants how old they really are during candid moments. They'll all serve as sobering reminders of your own mortality. And hopefully prolong the magic of looking like you've got the world by the balls even if Sallie Mae has threatened to cancel your reservations at Tailor due to a lack previously scheduled payments.

Living The Lush Life isn't about ending up some awful Bukowski type. And if you drop the funny-after-you're-dead cynicism, characters like Sal Paradise may have sounded as cool and calm as Heath Ledger at a custody hearing, but Daddy Jack and Brokeback ended up in the transdimensional coat check long before last call. And there's no way their last meals involved perfectly prepped uni or muddled calvados-cured Cape Gooseberries. It's called Live The Lush Life, not Die The…

It's awesome to be the cool vampire at your job amongst the work-day zombies. But it's never cool to be an aged vampire. You come off as some awful Bumble and Bumble acid-day fashion warbirth. Just ask Tom Waits. He knows a thing or two about being a fashionista's worst acid experience and Bram Stoker. Now, go ahead and ignore everything you might have learned here. From what I'm told, everybody's a hot piece in hell. See ya there.




P.S. Here's a tasty concoction for that never-ending barbecue/eternal slumber party:

The Hellsmoke Cocktail

2.0 Muy Anejo Tequila
.5 Lucid Absinthe
Bar Spoon Sweet Vermouth
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
Dash Fee Bros. West Indian Orange Bitters
Flamed Lemon Twist

Glass: Cocktail

Prep: Stir all ingredients w/ wet ice (to further stimulate the louche and tamp down the proof) thoroughly. Strain into cocktail glass.

Garnish: Flamed lemon twist.