the bar crawl
3 April 2008
Among my limited talents, and despite my incredible soul-enhancing modesty, I count first and foremost my uncanny ability to organize and execute bar crawls as something that makes me uniquely awesome and desirable to women and homosexuals.
The pub crawl is an American tradition that dates back to the time well before the Civil War – or, as the people in Alabama refer to this era, “[unintelligible gibberish, but they look really nostalgic].” In those days, land-owning whites would gather at the local watering hole on the third Thursday of every month to celebrate the fact that they didn’t have to do shit, because they had a whole bunch of black people to do it for them, and drink well into the night at many different bars. The very first of these early bar crawls was borne out of necessity. The day that slavery was introduced in America, the rich white newly-minted slave-owners got together at their nearby bar and got so drunk – since they didn’t have to go to work the next day, after all – that their local pub ran out of booze. So they went to another pub. When the liquor at that pub ran out, they went to another pub. Thus, the first bar crawl. They simply kept the tradition of the bar crawl alive because they had such great fun getting shitcanned and going back to their plantations. And this, long story short, is why today we have Terrence Howard, Tyra Banks, LeVar Burton and other black people with not-brown eyes.
Today, the origin of the modern bar crawl is forgotten, washed out by a sea of draft beer and spilled tequila shots (this is probably a good thing). No longer rooted in the idea of racial superiority, bar crawls have taken up a uniquely modern theme: let’s get a group of people together so that we can get drunk, have a good time with our friends, and possibly make out and/or do it.
[Actually, there is nothing “uniquely modern” about that. Or even anything either “unique” or “modern” – it’s quite the opposite, really. Just roll with it. I’m really into the word “unique” lately.]
Many years ago, my buddy David and I started what has since become America’s Favorite Bar Crawlä, our annual “Drink Until You Shit!” Tour in beautiful North Wildwood, New Jersey. There was already a well-established bike pub crawl in North Wildwood, but due to a problem stemming from my childhood obesity and resulting in a mildly disfigured penis, I can not ride a bicycle (I won’t get into specifics, but basically, part of my penis is inside-out). David felt that this made me feel ostracized, so he approached me with the idea of starting our own pub crawl – on foot. David, who has been my friend his first grade, asked me what I thought of the idea and I said I thought it was terrific. At the very least, the guys in charge of the pub crawls usually get a blowjob out of it. Which might be nice. Even with my partially inside-out bird.
Our first step was to think of a name for our tour, something catchy that would make both our friends and family alike want to participate in it. We settled almost immediately on “Drink Until You Fight!” David and I, and presumably many people who would join us on the tour, love drinking. In fact, we love it so much that there are only a few things that stop us from drinking once we get started, namely food, sex, a fight or the Law. “Drink Until You Eat!”, “Drink Until You Fuck!” and “Drink Until You Get Arrested!” do not really have the cache of the simple and effective, “Drink Until You Fight!” So fight it was. But then shortly before we were to get the bar crawl t-shirts made, a friend pointed out that we might be asking for trouble, what with traveling around in a pack of 50 very drunk mostly South Philadelphians wearing shirts that said, more or less, we’re not going to stop drinking until we fight. Stumped, David and I put our heads together and figured out another reason that would stop us drinking: pooing ourselves.
“Drink Until You Shit!” was born. Last year, we had about 150 official people, with several dozen more stragglers, and some of you guys came from other parts of the Jersey shore, DC, New England, and even as far away as Oklahoma to attend. Needless to say, it was a smashing success. This year, on Saturday, July 12, DUYS will celebrate its 10th anniversary. And sure, even though we started at the “7th Annual” so we had automatic street cred so it’s only been around for four years, I never thought we’d make it to the tenth year. It was been a roller coaster, but I am so damn proud of what David and I have built – with our bare hands and one and a half (presumably) normal penises – as DUYS is now an entity and a major event in North Wildwood. When I die – or more appropriately, if I die – I can look back at DUYS as one of the greatest achievements of my life. I could never imagine a better bar crawl.
Until today.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and as David and I were celebrated as geniuses for our bar crawl creation abilities, we grew hungry for more. Some men and women are comfortable creating one masterpiece and being content with it, spending the rest of their lives being lauded for their single accomplishment, yet having done little to prove that they were more than just a flash in the pan (Bill Gates and his lucky Microsoft idea comes immediately to mind). But we were not satisfied. We wanted more, but we didn’t know what that meant.
Until today.
[Sorry, I already used that.]
Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to introduce you to a new bar crawl: The New York City Gentlemen’s Drinking Tour. Unlike DUYS, this is a smaller, more intimate bar crawl whose objective is to harken back to the glory days of the 1950’s New York City, when men were men, women were broads, and no one – and I mean, no one – wore condoms. There are few set rules, but tour participants are required to:
- Wear tuxedos
- Get fresh haircuts and shaves, after which not a small amount of aftershave will be applied
- Join in renting a limo (depending upon how many of us there will be)
- Barhop around NYC in said tuxedos and get bombed on Manhattans, Scotch, mint juleps, and, I don’t know, whatever else guys in tuxedos drink.
Do not think that I miss the irony: After creating a bar crawl in which at least one participant per year actually defecates in his pants, David and I have set our sights on the higher end and look to celebrate class and sophistication. Really, the aim of the tour is to get back to what being a gentleman is all about: drinking, womanizing, and general carousing. And since not everyone can be a true gentleman, whereas everyone can truly shit himself, this bar crawl is by invite-only, unlike DUYS. Being a gentlemen means being superior to other mortal men, so we’re looking to invite only our close buddies. We’re not sure how this night will end, and there’s a greater than 55% chance that at the end of the night there will be some mildly- to pretty-much-totally-homosexual orgy. So as I work to prepare the guess list, the question I ask myself as I look through my Outlook contacts is: Would I feel comfortable watching this man kiss a woman’s private parts? What about a man’s private parts? What about my private parts? If the answers are yes, yes and oh god more than you’ll ever know, then he’s invited.
Though the planning for this tour (like the planning for my cross-country drive) is only in its infancy, we at least have a date, Saturday, April 19. Spring in NYC is a lovely place to be, and besides that, it’s pretty much the only date that David and I have available (Passover be damned!).
More details will become available as they become finalized, but I have been so flush with pride and so in need of a goddamn drink that I had to share this tremendous news with someone. And since most of my friends are no longer speaking to me and my co-workers have moved beyond silence to open and random acts of violence, I turn to you. It is time to add to my legacy, and I am about ready to sing of this from the rooftops.
The pub crawl is an American tradition that dates back to the time well before the Civil War – or, as the people in Alabama refer to this era, “[unintelligible gibberish, but they look really nostalgic].” In those days, land-owning whites would gather at the local watering hole on the third Thursday of every month to celebrate the fact that they didn’t have to do shit, because they had a whole bunch of black people to do it for them, and drink well into the night at many different bars. The very first of these early bar crawls was borne out of necessity. The day that slavery was introduced in America, the rich white newly-minted slave-owners got together at their nearby bar and got so drunk – since they didn’t have to go to work the next day, after all – that their local pub ran out of booze. So they went to another pub. When the liquor at that pub ran out, they went to another pub. Thus, the first bar crawl. They simply kept the tradition of the bar crawl alive because they had such great fun getting shitcanned and going back to their plantations. And this, long story short, is why today we have Terrence Howard, Tyra Banks, LeVar Burton and other black people with not-brown eyes.
Today, the origin of the modern bar crawl is forgotten, washed out by a sea of draft beer and spilled tequila shots (this is probably a good thing). No longer rooted in the idea of racial superiority, bar crawls have taken up a uniquely modern theme: let’s get a group of people together so that we can get drunk, have a good time with our friends, and possibly make out and/or do it.
[Actually, there is nothing “uniquely modern” about that. Or even anything either “unique” or “modern” – it’s quite the opposite, really. Just roll with it. I’m really into the word “unique” lately.]
Many years ago, my buddy David and I started what has since become America’s Favorite Bar Crawlä, our annual “Drink Until You Shit!” Tour in beautiful North Wildwood, New Jersey. There was already a well-established bike pub crawl in North Wildwood, but due to a problem stemming from my childhood obesity and resulting in a mildly disfigured penis, I can not ride a bicycle (I won’t get into specifics, but basically, part of my penis is inside-out). David felt that this made me feel ostracized, so he approached me with the idea of starting our own pub crawl – on foot. David, who has been my friend his first grade, asked me what I thought of the idea and I said I thought it was terrific. At the very least, the guys in charge of the pub crawls usually get a blowjob out of it. Which might be nice. Even with my partially inside-out bird.
Our first step was to think of a name for our tour, something catchy that would make both our friends and family alike want to participate in it. We settled almost immediately on “Drink Until You Fight!” David and I, and presumably many people who would join us on the tour, love drinking. In fact, we love it so much that there are only a few things that stop us from drinking once we get started, namely food, sex, a fight or the Law. “Drink Until You Eat!”, “Drink Until You Fuck!” and “Drink Until You Get Arrested!” do not really have the cache of the simple and effective, “Drink Until You Fight!” So fight it was. But then shortly before we were to get the bar crawl t-shirts made, a friend pointed out that we might be asking for trouble, what with traveling around in a pack of 50 very drunk mostly South Philadelphians wearing shirts that said, more or less, we’re not going to stop drinking until we fight. Stumped, David and I put our heads together and figured out another reason that would stop us drinking: pooing ourselves.
“Drink Until You Shit!” was born. Last year, we had about 150 official people, with several dozen more stragglers, and some of you guys came from other parts of the Jersey shore, DC, New England, and even as far away as Oklahoma to attend. Needless to say, it was a smashing success. This year, on Saturday, July 12, DUYS will celebrate its 10th anniversary. And sure, even though we started at the “7th Annual” so we had automatic street cred so it’s only been around for four years, I never thought we’d make it to the tenth year. It was been a roller coaster, but I am so damn proud of what David and I have built – with our bare hands and one and a half (presumably) normal penises – as DUYS is now an entity and a major event in North Wildwood. When I die – or more appropriately, if I die – I can look back at DUYS as one of the greatest achievements of my life. I could never imagine a better bar crawl.
Until today.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and as David and I were celebrated as geniuses for our bar crawl creation abilities, we grew hungry for more. Some men and women are comfortable creating one masterpiece and being content with it, spending the rest of their lives being lauded for their single accomplishment, yet having done little to prove that they were more than just a flash in the pan (Bill Gates and his lucky Microsoft idea comes immediately to mind). But we were not satisfied. We wanted more, but we didn’t know what that meant.
Until today.
[Sorry, I already used that.]
Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to introduce you to a new bar crawl: The New York City Gentlemen’s Drinking Tour. Unlike DUYS, this is a smaller, more intimate bar crawl whose objective is to harken back to the glory days of the 1950’s New York City, when men were men, women were broads, and no one – and I mean, no one – wore condoms. There are few set rules, but tour participants are required to:
- Wear tuxedos
- Get fresh haircuts and shaves, after which not a small amount of aftershave will be applied
- Join in renting a limo (depending upon how many of us there will be)
- Barhop around NYC in said tuxedos and get bombed on Manhattans, Scotch, mint juleps, and, I don’t know, whatever else guys in tuxedos drink.
Do not think that I miss the irony: After creating a bar crawl in which at least one participant per year actually defecates in his pants, David and I have set our sights on the higher end and look to celebrate class and sophistication. Really, the aim of the tour is to get back to what being a gentleman is all about: drinking, womanizing, and general carousing. And since not everyone can be a true gentleman, whereas everyone can truly shit himself, this bar crawl is by invite-only, unlike DUYS. Being a gentlemen means being superior to other mortal men, so we’re looking to invite only our close buddies. We’re not sure how this night will end, and there’s a greater than 55% chance that at the end of the night there will be some mildly- to pretty-much-totally-homosexual orgy. So as I work to prepare the guess list, the question I ask myself as I look through my Outlook contacts is: Would I feel comfortable watching this man kiss a woman’s private parts? What about a man’s private parts? What about my private parts? If the answers are yes, yes and oh god more than you’ll ever know, then he’s invited.
Though the planning for this tour (like the planning for my cross-country drive) is only in its infancy, we at least have a date, Saturday, April 19. Spring in NYC is a lovely place to be, and besides that, it’s pretty much the only date that David and I have available (Passover be damned!).
More details will become available as they become finalized, but I have been so flush with pride and so in need of a goddamn drink that I had to share this tremendous news with someone. And since most of my friends are no longer speaking to me and my co-workers have moved beyond silence to open and random acts of violence, I turn to you. It is time to add to my legacy, and I am about ready to sing of this from the rooftops.
