Root Beer Kegger: The Beer was Fake, the Breathalysers were real.

This past weekend undoubtedly saw its share of keg parties in residential neighborhoods throughout North America. Someone's parents nip off to somewhere tropical to forget for one all-inclusive week the burdens of home, and return to wrecked furniture, raised insurance premiums and a permanently shaken faith in young squire Johnny's sense of responsibility.

On any other day, we'd be chronicling the unholy aftermath of one of those parties (which mostly ends up on Facebook), or at least lending our support to the move to see drinking ages lowered and thus spare Ma Suburbs from having to discover a pile of forgotten a few months after the last foam has been sucked out of a keg.

Today, however, we'd like to salute the actions of some Wisconsin teens (not the ones pictured here, who would indeed be arriving on a very short bus indeed if still attending high school at their ages) who threw a keg party on Saturday -- one in which 1919 Classic American Draft Root Beer was on tap. Before your midday cocktail shoots out your nose at the very thought that we would pay tribute to a non-alcoholic event (which, with the possible exception of forced parole hearings one day, we will always do our best to avoid), let us make a couple of things clear. First, this was not a gathering of the school's society for the ostracized and the "Obvious Targets for Bullying" gang, nor did this have anything to do with some sort of youthful religious-based jamboree where kids get together and don't do all the fun things proscribed in their holy book. We're saluting the root-beer kegger as it was a prank staged at the expense of the local constabulary and school officials.

The kids were miffed that fellow students had been suspended from sports because pictures had turned up showing them drinking out of red cups. Such cups are the stuff of booze parties as anyone who has ever seen an advertisement for Beer Pong will know (FYI: "Bing Bong Beer Pong" official brass has made it known that said cups are not included with the individual units). The story doesn't actually say that the school was wrong in assuming that this first group of kids was drinking beer out of these cups -- they probably were -- but regardless, the kids came up with a creative way to stick it to 'em and also keeps the cops busy so the college kids can punch one another up without any police hassle.

They gathered together in large number, cranked the tunes and parked their cars in the neighborhood in a way that would send a soccer mom peeping out her window into a frenzy, and indeed it did -- shortly thereafter police were summoned and had every reason to believe that fun of an underaged boozing variety was taking place. They went in the house, noticed that a good time was being had and quite reasonably assumed that everybody was plastered. After giving breath tests to 90 (that's right -- the first 67, say, couldn't have counted as a representative sample) they found that nobody at the party was even the slightest bit drunk, but rather that they were all coasting on that natural high one gets with pissing off the fuzz.

We would indeed have joined that, not enough to stand a night full of root beer -- that red-headed stepchild of American soft drinks that tellingly enjoyed its hey-day during the prohibition era (telling, because people without access to speakeasies back then were all mad).

Here, for extra credit, is the video these students produced detailing their root-beer escapade:



And here is why root beer has about 3% of the total soft-drink market and will never do better than that:

Drunk Elvis Impersonator 'All Shook Up' in court

A few years back, we found a rental car company that didn’t charge extra for mileage and proceeded to make them rethink that policy by striking out on an impromptu 1300 mile trip from Toronto to New Orleans with a couple of buddies. En route, we took in the best of what the southern US has to offer: happily clogging arteries with their delicious early-grave food, spending more than one late night boozing it up on Nashville’s main strip, and also doing the tourist guidebook stuff that involved sites near and dear to our hearts like the Jack Daniels distillery and Johnny Cash’s house in Hendersonville Tennessee.

We were disappointed to see that the latter was closed to the public upon our arrival, but heartened when we saw a sign across the street for something called “Trinity Music City, USA”. Alas, this enthusiasm was premature. “Trinity Music City, USA” is what Conway Twitty's Xanadu-like compound “Twitty City” was renamed when the Christian Trinity Broadcasting Company overtook it following the death of the great man – known for southern Lolita favorites like “I can tell you’ve never been this far before” – on a tour bus in 1993.

The resulting renovations to the compound are the stuff that nightmares are made of with Christian movies like "The Omega Code" ("Not just a movie, a miracle") playing on a continual loop, giant statues of winged angels throughout and souvenirs available at a place called the “Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh Bible Book Store”. (We confess to having purchased multiple “Bible Bars”, chocolate-bar shaped concoctions with the dubious claim of having been based on a recipe from the bible). Conway Twitty’s legacy is not lost here; cardboard cutouts of him and the missus smiling at intervals throughout his mansion are sure to give you the creeps long after you’ve sped out of the parking lot.

Leaving there and with the Dollywood Pigeon Forge city limits too far away, we decided to further indulge our appetites for all things garish and unsettling east of Las Vegas with a stop at Graceland, where on the back-end of a 2600 mile sojourn we found the idea of coughing up an extra $20 to see Elvis’s collection of cars anticlimactic to say the least after having literally breathed in the 1970s thanks to the shag carpet dust from the walls of his “Jungle Room”. The conclusion to the tour, with a stop at the King’s grave, was worth the price of admission though; giving us as it did the chance to quote from “This is Spinal Tap” by humming a few bars of “Heartbreak Hotel” and saying that this “Puts it all into perspective… Too much f*cking perspective!”

Alas, the King’s legend lives on in places outside of Graceland with his impersonators keeping the dream alive around the world. Just across the border in Kentucky, a 64-year-old Elvis impersonator, sadly not the one pictured here, was recently in court on pretrial motions regarding misdemeanor charges of stalking and violating a protective order (Editor’s Note: One hopes the judge keeps in mind the sheer creep-out factor of being stalked by an Elvis impersonator when deciding on this one).

“Elvis” showed up in court drunk wearing sunglasses and decked out in a rhinestone-studded shirt and scarf, the kind of fashion decision that should be grounds for arrest regardless of the circumstance, but which the judge found particularly unacceptable given the circumstances. The judge had the man tested for alcohol, and the result was nearly twice the .08 level at which a person is considered legally drunk in Kentucky, which should be twice that given the state's predilection for high-powered whiskey. This pretender to the throne’s excuse that he had a few drinks the night before didn’t fly with the suspiciously-minded judge who sent him to the clink for three days.

Drunk Driver Calls 911 on Self: Hello Wisconsin!

As we've noted in previous posts, to the point of smacking our heads repeatedly against the steering wheel in frustration, we unequivocally, in no way whatsoever endorse impaired driving---our Top Ten Greatest Drinking & Driving Anthems of All Time referring solely to the soundtrack of a drunken, Grand Theft Auto game in the confines of one's moldy basement.

That being said, we've taken great pleasure here in pointing out the folly of those who do get behind the wheel blotto and while this may not garner any favor with those who fly red ribbons from their antennae, we'd be hypocrites if we claimed otherwise---as authors of a sizable chapter in our book entitled, Contents May Shift in Transit: Drunk and on the Move.

In a subsection of the above, Chariots of Firewater no less, we noted a drunk driver in Germany who got sidetracked with a flat, and in a breach of male etiquette dictating that you change your own damn tire drunk or otherwise, decided to phone for help. In his compromised state, he unwittingly called police instead of roadside assistance, presumably missing the 'Hello---police', on the other end and then blurting out that a mechanic should be dispatched post-haste as he was very drunk and things would turn ugly for him if the cops arrived. Which they did.

In Wisconsin, a woman decided to call 911 dispatch while driving home drunk from a local watering hole. The following is a transcript of the conversation.

Caller: I just want to know if somebody can follow me home because somebody seems to think I can't drive home straight.

911 Operator: OK, why is that?

Caller: He seems to think I am too intoxicated to drive.

911 Operator: OK, and so you called 911, or he called 911?

Caller: Well, he wanted me to call 911 because he thinks I'm too drunk to drive.

The 'he' in this case was a boyfriend who'd consumed a 12-pack by himself, yet still had the wherewithal to point out the driver, who'd knocked back 6, should not be getting behind the wheel (and yet no foresight or judgment whatsoever to pass up a ride home).

The woman failed the Breathalyzer and was ticketed in her own garage, but not before earning the unlikely kudos from a county sheriff (possibly, a distant relation):

"I think a judge will look at her and say, 'You know what? You stepped up to the plate. You did the right thing. I think it's commendable."

Astronauts NOT drunk, says NASA: No 'Ground Control to Major Bombed'

Apparently that 'one small step for man', and all subsequent steps, (and we're guessing space walks too) have been taken in a straight line.

According to no less esteemed a publication than the New York Times (of 'all the news that'll fit between 13 inches of broadsheet' fame), there is "no evidence of crew members’ going on space missions drunk or impaired by alcohol".

This NASA decree, based on an anonymous online survey of 31 flight surgeons and 87 current astronauts done in the wake of the Lisa Nowak debacle, will finally put to bed any rumors of pie-eyed shenanigans where 'nobody can hear you scream', i.e, 'space' to the pop culture-averse. It's highly unlikely this, or any other announcement by NASA will phase conspiracy theorists though, who believe "astronauts" landed on a Hollywood sound stage and for all they know, might've been drunker than ushers at a monster truck rally while pulling their elaborate ruse.

Airline pilots are much more used to such scrutiny, to the point that many passengers would rather test the physical limits of their bowels on a long-haul bus or risk hitchhiking with a taxidermy enthusiast rather than hop on a commercial flight and risk their flyboys having indulged in too many 'Whoopie Wednesday' cocktails.

Recently, a Virgin Airways jumbo jet pilot was arrested at Heathrow seconds before takeoff on suspicion of boozing---and led away in handcuffs in front of 266 gape-mouthed passengers (including several who'd fallen asleep while the plane was still on the tarmac and had begun drooling) before investigators determined that it was only a severe case of halitosis.

As this was the second incident of asbestos-singeing breath in the span of a few months, Virgin is now, according to a spokesman, "seriously considering ordering our pilots to freshen up in the cockpit in terms of their hygiene. We might even be forced to include mints as part of our compulsory uniform."

Using breath mints to foil roadside spot checks is a well-known bit of subterfuge for the diagonal driving set, and in terms of effectiveness, a notch above checking if you share the same Alma Mater as the arresting officer (or more likely offering sexual favors upon finding out they went to police academy straight from highschool).

In other, 'he was supposedly wasted but might not be' news, it seems the driver of Princess Di's doomed ride didn't appear drunk that night, at least if you believe the account of the bodyguard who survived the fatal wreck. Trevor Rees, the sole survivor of the crash that killed Princess Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, said he would have stopped the driver from getting behind the wheel if he had thought he was drunk, thereby preventing Di from getting 'car pole tunnel syndrome'.
Next week, faithful readers, rest assured we'll resume showcasing the who’s who of the world’s worst-behaved drunks, rather than simply those that were mistankenly thought to be.

Low Rider: Man Arrested for drunk driving a lawn mower

Hustler, the company that makes lawnmowers, not the magazine known for more beaver shots than Canadian tourism literature, claims its 'Super Z' riding mower is the fastest production zero turn mower on the market.

Given that our subscription to Popular Mechanics has expired, we're going to have to take their word for it, not to mention the fact that we both live in high rise apartment buildings and require binoculars to see actual grass.

We imagine that you wouldn't necessarily want to go off roadin' with the missus on one of these bad boys, but for a mower it can certainly scorch rubber with nearly 30 horsepower. And with a top speed of 15 miles an hour, it's just powerful enough so that you can drag race a Segway scooter and leave it in the dust too, provided there is a mighty tail wind kicking up.

Riding mowers may be getting faster, but manufacturers may want to think twice about making cup holders standard, following the wasted antics of a New Zealander, who was stopped by police for generating not exactly G-forces at a whopping 5 miles an hour.

The man, who'd already had his real license suspended, had been using his riding mower to get around---which he won't any longer, as police impounded it for a month.

The blade runner defended himself, saying even bicycles went faster than his unorthodox chariot: "I've watched them go past me."

On a somewhat related note, Memphis-based Tiger Time Lawn care has been doing booming business with their low-cut bikini clad maintenance service since its inception last year.

For a 'slightly higher fee than a normal grass cut' the company will send over a woman hopefully not unlike those pictured in their promotional material so you can enjoy a beverage in the comfort of your lawn-chair, and not risk becoming another tragic, one man statistic.

Eat Shit! Book archives

As we mentioned in our initial blog, certain stories that we collected for "The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death (and other true tales of drunken debauchery)" did not make the final cut due to length concerns, or, in the case of this particular story, because of an overall consensus between the writers and the publisher that it was just too disgusting.

However, in the interests of completeness -- the star of this one deserves a spot among the world's most notable drunks, even if his story is far more nauseating than the others -- we have decided to post the unpublished parts of the book here on occasion.

We included many stories of drunks trying to beat the law, however few of our protagonists took matters as far as the gentleman in this following story, and hopefully very few have since.

Coprophagia, the consumption of faeces, from the Greek copro (faeces) and phagy (eat) is practiced by several animals due to limitations of their digestive systems or diets. The makers of Binaca breathspray however have yet to engineer a product potent enough to quell the mouth odour brought on by such a diet and as such eating one’s own merde is something of a societal taboo.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the re-ingestion of soft faeces captures vitamins that would otherwise be wasted in certain animals. Perhaps then the 57-year-old man who stuffed his mouth full of his own excrement was doing so not to beat a breathalyser test, as was the assumption of police at the time, but rather in hopes of replenishing vital nutrients after a night of heavy drinking.

Found driving erratically on a lonely stretch of Ontario road, the man was shoved into a patrol car and, in what would assume was a nightmare the next day for a car cleaner, he went on to vomit, urinate and defecate in the backseat. Once at the cop shop the man scooped up some of what he had recently expelled and put it in his mouth before he had to submit to a breathalyser test.

A police inspector speculating as to the motivations behind the man’s spur of the moment feast said he did not think that the man’s level of intoxication could have been solely responsible for making him do something as “disgusting as that”.

The man, alas, had nary a “shit-eating grin” to crack as sadly, he was unsuccessful in this innovative bid at cheating medical science. The breathalyser clocked him at twice the legal alcohol limit, and no doubt, he did not receive an offer that night to share the cellblock’s communal string of dental floss. (Source: The Toronto Sun, November 2005)