I should write.

But that's the thing- what to write about now? After falling under the impression that I'm less interesting than I thought I was, the wind has gone out of my sails. A friend said to me one drunken night that writers are arrogant; that folks who think their thoughts are important enough to express in a kind of public forum are full of themselves, are self-important, a bit hinkty. And that's fair. It's got me thinking, though, about what is important enough to put out there. Is it a purely aesthetic sort of thing? Something that merely piques one's interest enough to hold your gaze? Or is importance placed upon greater things, deeper meanings, heavier subjects? While I was attempting to be a student, taking creative writing classes, I was appalled by the fluffy content of a large amount of stories being written by my peers. Excessively long narratives told from a precocious dolphin's point of view; wildly abstract diatribes involving (perhaps) mental illness; young women falling into unrequited love with rock stars. I felt as though there was no attempt to elevate the words to another level, no attention to the detail I felt was necessary in order to get to the next level because, let's face it, it was a college-level writing course in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

But I'm being arrogant right there. I'm sure to the writers their stories were painstakingly manufactured, precious in every way, and that they were loathe to the thought of even slightly adhering to any aspect of my constructive criticism, almost to the extent that I was.

So what is important? What piques my interest? Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice, for certain. Honesty and humility.

I could write about my drinking and drug use, and how denial is an intensely personal experience; that to deny something about yourself is to know it's a part of you and you feel it grow with each biting swig, every chalky lozenge. As it may be, society is something of interest, and I could write about how my conscience is pricked every time I feel myself falling into step with the regimen of education leads to internship leads to career leads to adulthood and a shaky kind of independence, one that is predicated upon institutionalized credibility and the ability to conform. I could write about how I long for that same kind of yielding autonomy and the way it hushes speculation and provides me with a means to some extent live the way I'd like to.

Are you interested in how I don't sleep, and the fear that every time I shift onto my side it stirs the woman next to me and for it she loves me a little less? I could write about love and hate and how I felt the first time I had my heart broken and that the lingering hurt still gives me pause before I smile at a pretty woman in a bar.

It may be that all of this holds a certain weight in the literary world of Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey. Perhaps it's just the writing that's important, the scribbling down onto paper in the hopes that something important will come out of it, spurned on by the fear that, eventually, none of it will matter anymore.

Have you ever gone out drinking and forgotten how you got home? That's what happened to me last night.

After partaking in a moderately illegal activity in an igloo my friends made in their back yard (which is awesome) I made my way to the local pub to watch the Caps play the Senators. They lost. Again. I drowned my sorrows with the house lager and then headed home to see the ladyfriend. Since I was in an inebriated state, she was understandably put out. Now, any loving boyfriend in their right mind would consume a strong cup o' joe, take a cold shower, dunk their head in the snow and sit down to watch another compelling episode Brothers and Sisters on the love sac. This loving boyfriend, however, was not in his right mind. I ended up back out with her roommate, Sean, who insisted I go out to keep him company while he drank. He would return the favor, of course, by buying me drinks.

Several bottles of Budweiser later I... well, that's the last thing I remember. There is the vague recollection of shots of some kind of liquor, perhaps several kinds of liquor, but it may be the thick, sour taste in the back of my throat that's informing my memory, or it may be the faintest reminiscence of the anticipation of regret that one gets as they're downing strong drink after downing strong drink. I woke up in the ladyfriend's bed at nine-thirty this morning, no idea how I got there, and my car blocking her in the driveway.

Now, I like to think of myself as a responsible drinker. I gave my keys to Sean last night with the knowledge that I'd be a few sheets to the wind, and, bless his little heart, he drove us home. This led to the ladyfriend being blocked in, which led to her being upset at her hungover boyfriend, which led to this boyfriend moving Sean's car out of the driveway, which led to him realizing he didn't know where his keys were.

Apparently my friend Doug had come by to see us after I went to bed to take a coma, and people had been snowed in and cars needed to be moved, and my friends, in their unsteady state, had placed my keys in their pockets and left.

In honor of this occasion, I'm going to do a top-five, in no particular order, best songs about being drunk, or being a drunk, or being in a fight because you're a drunk.

1. "Barfly," Ray Lamontagne -- A slow strain starting out with an acoustic strum that smacks of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." Lamontagne's voice is perfectly suited for lamentation; gravely, bluesy, soulful. A haunting, understated guitar twang between the verses ties together a song who's attitude could be interpreted as devil-may-care but is revealed as desperate and afraid with the chorus. When he asks the woman to kiss him- "Kiss me before you go, I'm going nowhere-" you can tell he's not only asking, but pleading with her, begging her to legitimize him as a man.
2. "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," George Thorogood -- Unlike "Barfly," this Thorogood staple is upbeat in it's misery. This poor bastard gets kicked out on his ass, his boy's wife won't let him stay with him, and his landlady keeps breaking his balls about rent that he can't afford. His response? Fuck this shit. I'm going to go get lit and not worry about it for a while. And he does. Hasn't everyone been there at least once in their lives?
3. "Last Call," Tha Alkaholics -- I love Tha Alkaholics. They manage to produce legitimate hip-hop with catchy rhymes, great samples from R&B and soul songs, and maintain a slurring sense of humor the whole time. This song, off of 21 & Over, encapsulates the desperate need for that last drink at last call that the bartender won't give you, as well as the sense of fun that goes hand-in-hand with a night out at the bar with your friends.
4. "Roadhouse Blues," The Doors -- Dislike The Doors. Jim Morrison, like PSH says in Almost Famous, was a drunken buffoon. That being said, this is my favorite song by them. They were able to produce a really great and accessible blues song about wanting to drink. The organ can go on a little much, and it's a little one-noted and contrived, as is much of their material, but the line "Woke up this mornin', and I got myself a beer," is just, like, ugh I love it. It makes me enjoy the whole song, and The Doors, a little bit more.
5. "Re: Stacks," Bon Iver -- Justin Vernon, the man behind Bon Iver, said about this song that it was for anyone who'd ever seen their soul at a poker table. As much about gambling as it is about drinking, this shaky lullaby from the brilliant For Emma, Forever Ago features only a guitar and Vernon's eerie falsetto. He conveys his inability to stop "throwing them down two hundred at a time" with sparsity and ambiguous restraint as he wonders how he became so far gone. He asks "Whatever could it be that has brought me to this loss?" and he tells us at the end, promising whoever he's singing to that "Your love will be safe with me," when the song has shown us that it most likely will not.

Superbowl Snowday

It's a good day today. There's two feet of snow on the road, I've been drinking champagne with the ladyfriend, Ovie and the Caps just came back from three down to best Sid the Kid and the Penguins in OT, with a hat-trick and an assist for the Great Eight. We were talking about going down and trying to get some tickets outside the Verizon Center, but we can't get out of the driveway. A glass of champagne to all of those brave souls who went and packed the house!

And oh yeah. The Superbowl's tonight.

As an avid Denver Broncos fan, and a slightly less avid Redskins fan, I don't have a dog in this fight. I do, however, have friends down in the Big Easy, as well as a burning kind of hatred for the Chargers and Philip Rivers. It'd be great to see the Drew Brees take the Lombardi Trophy back to ther city that deserves it the most while former teammate Shaun Merriman watches from home with the Lights Out after a first-round exit to the Jets.

Bad blood aside, I feel as though the Saints are going to win by a little, or lose by a bunch. Yes, the Saints offense is seemingly unstoppable, and maybe God or something is on their side after pulling a win out of their asses against a Minnesota team that shot itself in the foot. Five times. It just seems like the Saints run defense is a bit too porous to contain the inconsistent yet explosive Joseph Addai and Donald Brown, which will open up the play-action passing, allowing Peyton Manning to go to work on the secondary. Perhaps the X-Factor is Darren Sharper; if he's able to read Manning the way he's proven he can on numerous other QBs this year, the D may be able to pressure Archie's boy into mistakes and force turnovers, providing N'Oleans with more opportunities to burn the Colts with their versatile passing attack.

Whew.

Until then I'm going to shovel the driveway, consume some kind of alcohol--perhaps at the same time--and make my way into the kitchen once every ten minutes to smell the chili the ladyfriend's got on the stove. Because it smells good.

And here is a video of my friend Sean and I being asses in the snow.

Who Dat?!

Snow Storm

I love it when it snows. I was born in the Blizzard of '85, I was in fourth or fifth grade for the Blizzard of '96 (I'm bad at math,) and I lived in Colorado for a year, learned how to snowboard; forgot.

The point of all this is that there's several feet of snow in the District today, and it's Saturday and it's supposed to keep snowing all damn weekend. I'm fine with that.

Snow doesn't give a soft damn white whom it touches.

Pearl Harbor

I watched Pearl Harbor last night. 

The last time I saw it was on a date freshman year of high school, and I thought it was terrible. Now, with a little more understanding of what happened, and a little more perspective, I still think it's terrible. But, while Josh Hartnett can't act his way out of a shitty movie and Michael Bay Transformed (get it?) a historical fiction movie in to Gone in Sixty Seconds, I thought that the entire bombing sequence was very well done, albeit rife with melodrama. The shot following the bomb from the bomber through the air into the aircraft carrier is admittedly cool, and the dogfighting is intense and seems like it's what the real thing would be like. 

And there are three words that make up for all of the bad dialogue and soggy pro-American cinematography:

Kate. Beckinsale. Mmm.

Scientific Progress Goes "Boink!"

I recently stumbled upon an interview with Bill Watterson, and it's said to be his first since the late Eighties. Here's the link:

http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2010/02/bill_watterson_creator_of_belo.html

Of all the things I love, Calvin & Hobbes has been in my Top Five since I was eight. That's staying power. I was devastated after it's last Sunday Comic appearance. It wasn't just the complexity of Watterson's humor, which I appreciate a little more with each accumulating year, and it wasn't his stylish, understated artwork; it was the intelligent, sophisticated portrayal of childhood that resonated on so many levels; the science behind an upturned cardboard box, or the physics involved in a red wagon hurdling at light speed down a bumpy hill, the zen of lying against a tree in the middle of a summer afternoon. I loved the depiction of parenthood as a battle between adults and children who love one another in spite of what they've gone through at the dinner table, and I was struck by the frustrations of an unconventional mind forced to deal with the constraints of a stifling education system.

However, it was the simplicity at the core of the comic strip that was the driving force in creating perhaps the most beloved characters of all time. The stories possessed a distinct emotional heart that manifested itself in the friendship between a boy and his tiger. Despite the Calvin's thinly veiled tirades against religion and politics and culture, or Hobbes' ruminations on the nature of man, the strip was at it's best when it slowed down and focused on the title characters; two best friends who fought and bitched and did everything together and who'd do anything for each other, and who proved that it was, indeed, a magical world.

Did You Auto-Tune Into the Grammys?

It began as all things begin; with doubt.

I'm a very cynical person, and every January all that misanthropy is presented with an outlet in the form of Awards Season. I dislike Awards Season. While celebrities don't tend to project any real sense of humility, this time of year their ego-stroking seems to kick into high-gear. And while the Golden Globes, the Emmys, and the Academy Awards are notorious for their self-preoccupation, there is nothing that comes close to the kind of megalomaniacal narcissism on display at the Grammys.

I'm not going to talk about the Pre-Show Red Carpet Exhibition. I have no frame-of-reference to provide insightful commentary about what Ryan Seacrest and Jay Emmanuel have to say about the "clothes" Lady Gaga is "wearing."

What the fuck?

Instead I'm going to run through some of my very favorite moments from last night.

• Jennifer Lopez referring to Green Day's American Idiot as "the beginning," as if Kerplunk, Dookie, Insomniac, Nimrod, and Warning never happened. I'm not one of the people who feel as though Green Day is a supergroup who transcend punk and pop, but the fact that JLo, who hasn't been relevant since "Maid in Manhattan," (ha) was presenting, and that the writers felt it necessary to trivialize the impressive endurance of an aesthetically pleasing group of musicians was an irritating combination.
• Taylor Swift's pitchy performance with Stevie Nicks. It was difficult to watch the adorable, media-proclaimed wunderkind squint her way through "Rhiannon." It was equally difficult to listen to the once-sultry, once-sexy, once-cabalistic Stevie tambourine her way through "You Belong With Me." I felt like I was watching Zach Braff try and keep up with Q-Tip for a rousing rendition of "Sucka Nigga." Awkward.
• MGMT not winning the Best New Artist award. This is what I love about the Grammys: it's not really about the music. It's about giving the most popular groups the love because the bible-belt gobbles it up after they're told it's country. Let's not give the award to the most promising young band to come along in perhaps the last decade because they're less accessible than fried chicken and cold beer on Friday night. Stupid.
• Katy Perry.
• Russell Brand.
• Miley Cyrus.
• Beyonce's performance and the way she tries to fit every note into the end of a line that makes her sound like Jewell yodeling in the backseat of a car doing seventy on the backroads to Siam Reap. It's a microcosm of what's happening to music and the Grammys. The emphasis is placed upon the spectacle, upon just how much you can do halfway decent, not on something poignant and simple that you can do very well. I'm not saying everything needs to be simple, I'm saying I don't need to hear a vocal exercise during a performance.
• Jon Bon Jovi? C'mon.

The most redeeming event of the night was the presentation of the Best Song Award by Mr. Stephen Colbert, when after his announcement to the audience that their industry had been saved by a crazy-cat lady (Susan Boyle,) he said, "Now let's stop congratulating each other and let's give ourselves awards!"

Indeed.