In defense of cheap bourbon

I know, this looks bad right from the start. And no amount of explanation, no amount of fear based tales about bad weeks, horrible days, cheap whiskeys and the American tradition, can cover up the fact that if you're reaching for Ten High bourbon, you're reaching for trouble.

Perhaps this is true in retrospect.

But let me start earlier.

In every professional field, be it a contractor who works physically for a living, a lawyer who finds the necessary loop holes in law, or any other profession that requires working on a project for a hefty portion of your time, there comes a time when a man gets pushed to the limit.

Now I am not talking about THE limit, but to some kind of a limit. This week was one of those weeks. It pushed the envelope, not in terms of work but in terms of stress and loathing.

That is when I reached for Ten High. Now, I don't condone drinking this, but if you feel that bravery is something to be worn on a sleeve, go right ahead. And it's not that this is a bad tasting or a low-potent whiskey. On the contrary, this thing can make a jackal crawl into a box. This is the stuff that they used to label as "XXX" on Saturday morning cartoons.

But why this? Why now? Haven't I learned this lesson before? Wasn't heaving out the insides enough the last time around?

Apparently not.

It wasn't and I'll tell you why. Not many people can understand a cheap whiskey, especially bourbon. They kick it to the side or avoid it like the plague, never even considering why. (No-the fact that you got sick is not a viable reason for this argument.)

In my opinion, a cheap whiskey is already a character all by itself in the big and bad, lets go hunting for some wild turkeys down the knob creek with our friend Jim or Jack, world of hard spirits. It's the guy who gets left behind and never makes it for the hunting trip and end up shooting off his gun in the living room.

Cheap whiskey is what it is, much like the "The Bears are who we thought they were!" as Arizona Cardinals Coach Dennis Green said. So you have to respect it, in whatever form.

Price does not make the whiskey. Ten High used to be advertised in Playboy in the mid 80s as a traditional bourbon. That didn't make it great either, but the point is, the shit will fuck you up.

And why not? Sometimes a strong kick in the groin is what you need. Just the harshness alone reminds you of the hardships that have come upon you. There is a term for this--rotgut.

Drinking rotgut bourbon means you are light years beyond drinking your sorrows away because of a woman, an insurance bill, or when your kids get into drugs. Cheap bourbon simply means you are down on your luck. Or your have no cash, because deep down nobody chooses to drink this shit. Situation forces you to battle this demon.

And it's not like you can drink Ten High by throwing caution into the wind. On the contrary, you kind of have to place caution in the fore front because those Ten High hangovers are ten times stronger, ten times harder, and ten times more memorable.

But in retrospect, here's a little play-by-play:

Monday

The shit doesn't hit the fan yet. But you know it's coming, knowing that class projects, newspaper deadlines and watching depressing news will do it to you. Bill Hicks used to say that he doesn't recommend watching the news for a lengthy period of time. "WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS, HOMELESS, RECESSION, DEPRESSION. WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS, HOMELESS" Then, you look out your window [makes cricket noises] Where's all this shit happening? Ted Turner's making this shit up!

Tuesday

You get edgy here. This is when the journalism newsroom starts to show its true face. People get cranky because their weeks aren't going that well either. There is much cussin' going on. The term "motherfucker" doesn't mean anything anymore, and "fuck" is used as a comma. Deadlines are looming and homework is kicking ass. Almost bondage.

Wednesday

You lose your shit. You have no qualms about calling your co-workers Mexicans, women in loving relationships "close-minded" and seeing the bigger picture is usually filled with the preface "It seemed like a good idea at the time." You also preface everconversationon with "Well, this Pollack thinks...," while pointing at yourself.

Thursday

It's over. You seriously reach for Ten High and chase it down with Powerade after work. In between shots, you listen to the Drifters tune, "Under the Boardwalk" like 90 times, while singing along. You say to yourself, maybe love is the answer.

Play harmonica.

Take aspirin.

Try to show for work on time.

Friday

You do your job. But you call people names, pick fights, strech the laws of obscenity, play pranks, talk dirty, and think about what it takes to be a porn photographer. You smoke two packs of cigarettes. You take a smelly shit. You argue about nothing that important. You watch Salvador with James Woods. You listen to Jimi Hendrix. You punch a couple of walls. You worry about next week. You...Just don't get it do you?

That's when the Ten High looks like Jenna Jameson, spread eagle on the bed, holding a bottle of water.

FUCK it, you say.

And fuck it is. It's over now. It doesn't matter. You've crossed the line, and ththehe only hope of coming out of this alive is by trying to eat something. The music gets louder, the harmonica sloppier. You think you could do Bozo's job.

Ten High turns you into a milder drunk. But only to a point. I bought a plastic bottle of Ten High on Monday. By being judicious, by Friday, I am able to drink the rest of 3/4 of Ten High, the smart drunk's choice.

Where is the water?

FUCK that. Where is the aspirin? And where is my mind?

"Let the eagle soar...."

13

If I would have to sum it all up, then life is a giant see saw--sometimes your sober and sometimes your over. I believe it was a Friday morning when I realized that not only will rock & roll never die, but I might die because of rock & roll.

The phone rings and I shriek like a girl who gets her first period in school during 1st period. It's Friday, and after doing that Chandler from Friends double-take, I realize that I am late for work.

Normally this isn't a problem, but it was production day. It's a process. You have to be there.

A co-worker wakes me up at 11:30 AM. He just asks how I'm doing and after a bunch of gurgling noises I later learn that apparently I said I was fine. I also was cursing a lot and sounded as if I had a furry rat in my mouth.

Must have been one of those Thursday nights again. The ones people dear to me told me to stop celebrating years ago.

But if this is a time when I am supposed to feel regret, truth be told I don't. I just wish I would have woken up on time.

However, there is a certain feeling of guilt showing up for work at 1:30 PM, knowing that most of your co-workers have been there since 9 AM. But I thread through the dreary day, drink plenty of fluids, pop a few Aspirin's, eat a couple of sugar packets, and that queasy feeling passes.

Somebody should have said:

"You look like shit," but they didn't. But I'm sure it was on their minds.

Then I realize it was Friday 13. Normally, those days are lucky for me. I find a cheap strip club, or the toast doesn't fall down on the floor butter face down. Or the relief that washes over me when I realize that I am still wearing a rubber after she says she's a working girl. That usually happens on Friday the 13th.

Not this time, however. This time things sucked. It's as if God decided to drop a collective ... on my chin.

I try not to fret about these things too much. I realize that things could have been worse. It could have look liked this:



"Tough day at the office?"

Perhaps. But things can always look better in the future.

The other cocaine

Graphic by Joshua Covarrubias/The Chronicle

Don’t blow your dough on this snow
By Cyryl Jakubowski

Once in a while there comes a story that paints a beautiful portrait of American advertising culture gone berserk. It speaks volumes about the capitalist landscape. Only in this country does a company have the balls to name an energy drink after the age-old Peruvian marching powder—cocaine.

Comedian Denis Leary once said that “the best pitch I ever heard about cocaine was back in the early ’80s when a street dealer followed me down the sidewalk going, ‘I got some great blow man. I got the stuff that killed Belushi.’”

Of course, cocaine the drug doesn’t really need a sales pitch. It sells itself. However obvious it is that energy drink companies will do anything to sell their swill, calling your product after a drug that ruined noses and lives since the ’70s is irresponsible.

Last week a Las Vegas company, Redux Beverages, announced the release of a new line of energy drinks targeted for partygoers—you know, drunks staggering in nightclubs. The energy drink, Cocaine, is 350 percent stronger than Red Bull and gives you no crash since it uses dextrose instead of cane sugar and other ingredients like vitamin B12 and other stuff found in Red Bull.

Red Bull, the benchmark to which all other energy drinks are compared, is also a key ingredient in a Jagermeister bomb. But just as you would never mix real cocaine with alcohol (because no one does that, right?), energy drinks are not intended for mixing it with booze—it just sort of happens. Call it a party favor.

“We do not technically advocate the mixing of Cocaine with alcohol, but if we did here’s what we’d try,” Drinkcocaine.com, the product’s website, wrote. Then it runs down a laundry list of possible drink mixes with names like Liquid Cocaine and Cocaine Blast.

The drink will not be marketed for health nuts or workaholics, but will be sold to partygoers at nightclubs in New York this fall. That’s exactly what the Lindsay Lohan scene needs—more excuses to stay up later and fall down harder.

Even though there is no cocaine inside, the makers of the drink argue that its effects are part chemical and part psychological.

“When a person sees the name of the drink, some psychological effect happens and the person is already experiencing the energy buzz before they even open the can,” James Kirby, inventor of the drink, said in the New York Post.

The company also said that the drink gives you a “high” within five minutes, followed by a caffeine boost 15 minutes later, according to the New York Post. The website claims that “Cocaine is not just a re-hash of existing drinks: It is a completely unique new formula - it tastes like a fireball, a carbonated atomic fireball!”

What exactly is a carbonated atomic fireball? To me it sounds like a lit up fart.

“I can think of no other product except real cocaine that could have that effect on the public,” Kirby told the Post. He also said that there is an ingredient, which is being kept secret, that was added to the drink to numb the throat and simulate the effects of actual cocaine, according to the New York Post.

But before you get excited and call your friends in New York to ship you a couple of kilos of the legal alternative Cocaine, think of this as nothing more than a feeble attempt at getting college students’ money. Obviously they are trying to get you to try to mix it with booze. Red Bull and vodka is nothing new, and Redux is trying to capitalize on that idea by sparking controversy with its namesake.

While Redux has every right to call it’s product Cocaine, it just sends the wrong message to young folks. “Well, shit, if this stuff gets me high, I wonder what the real thing will do?”

Beside, cocaine the drug already has a bad enough reputation. According to the DEA, nearly 2,600 kilograms of coke were seized last year in Illinois and 120,000 kilos in the nation. Chicago is the major transportation hub and distribution center throughout the Midwest because of its location. There’s a shitload of cocaine out there on the streets and we don’t need anymore of it even though humorist and commentator P.J. O’Rourke once said, “Drugs have taught an entire generation of Americans the metric system.”

When I think of cocaine the drug, I don’t think about Eric Clapton’s song, (however catchy), “Cocaine” which glamorized its use, but about the friends I’ve seen swallowed by their addictions. When I think of Cocaine the energy drink I think of some jackass kid overdosing because nobody told him that perhaps he shouldn’t be mixing cocaine with Cocaine. But live and let live.

Let’s get serious. Naming your product Cocaine only furthers the acceptance of the drug. Red Bull is already known as “liquid crack” in the party circuit. And while some energy drinks are often viewed as health supplements, some people might get the wrong idea with a drink like Cocaine. What’s next? Branding sleeping pills Heroin or apples with a methamphetamine sticker that says “made in rural Illinois?”

Just as I wouldn’t go out of my way to score some blow off the street, I likely won’t jump on the back of the charging red bull or a Ginseng monster to the nearest dealer in order to get my can of Cocaine—unless the first fix is free. Furthering cocaine’s appeal by calling an energy drink after it is irresponsible.