Guy’s Guide For the Modern Gent: Whiskey 101

Childhood doesn’t last forever. Neither do video games and pornography. It is with this in mind that you open the door of your mother’s basement; intrepid left foot in the lead, gout-ridden right following fifteen minutes hence. While Sofia the Sex Doll and Luke Skywalker the Cutout look on in horizontal helplessness, you close your eyes and employ ‘drop and roll’ technique out into the heart of darkness—your backyard. As the pallid putridity of your sun-starved face smolders under the weight of elemental exposure, your linguini limbs desperately flail about trying to right the ship of a Titanic, tic-like torso. Standing at last, the first and most important step in self-reinvention is now complete…

With sepulchral womb now safely in the rearview, you tear off the parasitic colostomy bag brimming with the wretched reality of your late 20′s (a sickening stew of Call of Duty/Sasha Grey amalgamated spunk) and mosey on down to the corner, mind aflutter with thoughts of hookers and fully functioning dick machine.

The fuck did I do, you wonder, a scratch of cobwebbed balls added for innocuous emphasis.

Finding yourself standing among a handful of schoolchildren waiting for the bus, you badger one of the cherubs about the sartorial integrity of her backpack. Emblazoned with the likeness of your least favorite cartoon character, it simply cannot be ignored. Chalking up her tears to stupidity, the hands thrown up in mock surrender lead into a stretch, fat folds unfurling a decade’s worth of dated detritus: Star Wars figurines, pocket pussies, and a yellowed sock or two. As children run off screaming to the highest of heavens about the horror, their parents frantically head indoors to locate the local sex offender database. The fuck did I do, you wonder, a scratch of cobwebbed balls added for innocuous emphasis.

So it is with the cue of sirens and flashing blues that you hail the first taxi you see and leave your life long residence behind; semen stained bathrobe flapping out the open window, a naked, leviathan-like amorphousness rising and falling in adrenalized anticipation. Adulthood beckons. . .

… even the Hot Topic crowd will side-eye your ass…

Though now walking and talking (fingers crossed) amongst the living, don’t count on getting laid. Not anytime soon, anyway. Long ago was it that you gracelessly bowed out of the evolutionary contest, picking Duke Nukem and Jenna Jameson over any semblance of humanhood. Even the lowliest of lot lizards will tell you they’re “on break” or “going back to school” or “preggers” whilst stubbing out a cigarette and/or quickly removing crack pipe from mouth and stuffing into weave. As penurious prostitute after prostitute gives your inaugural public protuberance the whatevs, Darth Vader’s venereal diseased dead dick gives the “I’ll take those odds” nod to his local bookie. Not a lot of faith in your corner. . .

Also, don’t go finding friends, they’ll find you. Looking like a bloated, aging vampire, minus the sex appeal and swag, even the Hot Topic crowd will side-eye your ass, wondering aloud who the fat fuck with the ‘pederstash’ is. Basically, you’re a man sans country. Too lame for the lamest. This leaves you two options: auto-erotic asphyxiation or Whiskey. . .

Whiskey, you say. Good choice! With an untold amount of prime anatomical years atrophied in the darkest dungeon of self-imposed hairy-palmed hoosegow, you’ve got to overcompensate. Furiously. In matters of sophistication, societal expertise, et al, even your Coors Light consuming contemporaries have you beat. An anomic, anatomically challenged fat bitch with no job bears no brunt of prospects. But. . .whiskey can erase all of that. An afternoon of panhandling or sucking dick ought to suffice for the cost of a new wardrobe and a bottle at the local liquor store. Perhaps a shower thrown in to wash off the skin shavings embedded in the abdomen/shoulder regions (dandruff that is not!) as well. Once cleansed and dressed, buy a cheap whiskey to start. You want to ease yourself into this bitch, much like Usher did with that Bieber boy.

WILD TURKEY

Stumbling out of the bushes behind the mall with a half-bottle of WT in the belly you make a beeline right to the bookstore. Stephen King’s entire oeuvre; bought and sold. One week later and your drunkenly holding court in front of American Eagle. “Derry Maine is where it’s happening. Stephen King is doing things no one ever seen!!!” With once curious teens now dispersing in a mass of disinterest, you barf all over your bare feet and walk back to the bush. Wild Turkey, not so much.

JACK DANIELS

With the purchase of Jack Daniels, your luck begins to change. You’ve made a friend who, impressed by your vast knowledge on all matters Stephen King, has allowed you to crash on his kitchen floor. Now awash in the sun turd of such luminaries as Tom Clancy and Dan Brown, the ante has been upped at the local mall. While every bit as drunk as you were not two weeks prior in the Wild Turkey days, crowds seem slightly more susceptible to your advances. Eschewing the soapbox in favor of one-on-one sessions, you question many a passerby about their thoughts on the Illuminati, Mary Magdalene, and favored sexual positions. Ultimately, whatever headway made with the local populace is derailed by the act of fire hosing some poor bastard in a baby carriage while in mid coo-drunken-coo. Bad form, but nonetheless, progress. . .

MAKER’S MARK

Having spent more than six months with Jack Daniels and Dan Brown, you’ve moved on to Maker’s Mark. Rapidly moving up the literary ladder and now favoring the works of Dennis Lehane and other low brow hacks like Michael Connelly and James Lee Burke, you’ve grown accustomed to seeing all facets of life in noir-tinted glasses. Offering your services to an increasingly agitated group of mall cops on matters ranging from theft to imaginary murders you claim to have inside knowledge of, you’ve resorted to carrying around blonde wigs and referring to all women as either Gilda or Cora. While the cops start asking around about the potential pederast in the zoot-suit and fedora, the ladies have begun to take notice; intrigued by the eccentricities of the fat, oft-vomiting 30 year-old shopping mall sleuth.

JAMESON IRISH WHISKEY

A year later and you’ve amassed a large group of friends/followers, all equally horrified and fascinated by the bullshit. Having long ago washed hands of Lehane, Brown, et al, you read only the greats. Specifically any and all classics written outside of the United States. Nabokov in, Faulkner out. Eliot in, Hemingway out. Joyce in, (most especially Joyce) everybody else: out.  Consequently, Jameson is now the whiskey of choice.

Well, who’s to say chicks don’t dig outward manifestations of debilitating alcoholism?

You’ve also begun to take yourself very seriously. Black-rimmed glasses only out done by fraudulent walking cane and tweed jacket. In fairness, the cane will not altogether be unwarranted. Coupled with the gout, an especially brutal case of malnutrition–brought on by a ten year diet of mozzarella sticks replaced by whiskey and table scraps–has partially paralyzed your right side. You’ve also taken on a face full of gin blossoms. Fret not. “Chicks dig scars” is what they say, yes? Well, who’s to say chicks don’t dig outward manifestations of debilitating alcoholism? Still spending the majority of your days in the mall, you can usually be found in the food court; black out drunk, repeatedly scribbling down local sport team logos in a Moleskine notebook. This works 60% of the time in bedding a member of your female fan base.

OUTCOME

Three years have passed and you’re still staggering through the hallowed halls of the mall, mumbling non-sequiturs about Dedalus the “unappreciative twat” and Molly “the pirate hooker.” A local celebrity of sorts, life has become a high speed series of Jameson, security interrogation rooms, and whiskey dick.  May not sound like great shakes, but at least you’re giving it a shot; living the life of deranged drunk, perhaps, but still living.  And someday, when you’ve sobered up long enough to appreciate all the good that reading and drinking did you, you’ll be happy you took that monumental step out the basement door; PS3 and Fleshlight left in your wake…