*NEW* Shop the Drunky But Funky store!

Last Five Hangovers...
The Ten Thousand Dollar Choking Hazard - 2004-12-09
Mixing Advice - 2004-10-24
A Grave Injustice - 2004-09-27
A Short History of the Bloody Mary (in My Life) - 2004-07-31
If You Build It, We Will Come - 2004-07-19

BE A FRIEND OF THE MOVEMENT!

Last weekend, we here at Drunky But Funky kissed summer goodbye.

Some did it literally, some spiced it up with liberal use of tongue, and others were content to figuratively romance a cool glass of booze, but it all embodied exactly the kind of excessive consumption and inappropriate activity we’ve championed since the dawn of time. (So, May.)

The hangovers were intense, the amount of alcohol consumed impressive. And now, a recap of the nights we lost our innocence… again.

Friday night began in promising fashion when, at 10:30 p.m. in his time zone – so, 7:30 for us -- Dan phoned with a Miller in hand, announcing that he and Casey were chugging something as requested. Then he shredded his street cred a tad by asking, "Which one’s the champagne of beers, again?" As Heather responded incredulously, she heard an equally stunned Casey shout, "HIGH LIFE, of course!" Dan was embarrassed. He’d grabbed the wrong Miller from the fridge. But Heather quickly assured him that the toast itself was more important, and it proceeded without a hitch.

Buoyed by this sense of national unity toward a common goal – getting trashed – the Drunky But Funky crew met up at O’Brien’s as scheduled to do some debauched drinking of our own.

The first faux-pas was Lauren’s. Entering and spotting a tall, unfamiliar person hovering near Dr. No, Jessica, and Slip, she brightly stuck out her hand and said, "Are you with us?" The goof chortled and replied, "I guess I am now!"

Small tactical error – he’d never heard of site -- but an understandable one when you consider we’d sent an open invitation to join us out to people we don’t know and haven’t seen before. We learned in a quick, whispered confab by the door that Happy Jack was just a hanger-on who’d been trying to latch onto the ladies of the group by eavesdropping and standing right over their shoulders. He had nothing to say, wore an ill-advised print shirt and a vacant grin, and constantly repositioned himself next to us no matter where we migrated. When we simply stopped addressing his existence, he finally wandered off, right as we were wondering if he’d try to follow us home and beg for some kibble. Still, we merrily chalked up his devotion as one point for our collective breasts, and moved on with the night.

At 10:30, Michael sailed in the door for the first car bomb. We ordered ten, tipped the hot bartender generously, got a thank-you, contemplated jumping his bones (well, Heather did, anyway) and drained them.

This was to the intense amusement of a familiar-looking guy sitting near our corner of the bar. He watched us with recognition, and when we put the empty glasses on the bar, he tapped Jessica on the arm and quietly asked if we’ve ever been to Sonny McLean’s; as it happens, we frequent that darts-friendly bar. Long story short: We have a new bartender buddy at Sonny’s, and we spent much of Friday night chatting with this intensely nice and smart 28-year old UCLA student while delighting in the fact that Jason at the bar is truly a friend of ours.

By the time our first -- and only -- Drunky But Funky reader showed up, we were either tipping-over tipsy (Dr. No) or setting up camp in Buzz City for a few hours before continuing on to Drunkytown.

We were universally delighted to see an unfamiliar face – in this case, a reader we’ll call Pete. He sidled in quietly and recognized Jessica and Carrie, both of whom he’d actually met once at a TWoP event, and once everyone else realized this was The Pete Who RSVP’d That He Needed To Get Drunk Because Work Was Rough, the entire crew gathered near him and introduced itself.

Pete seemed like a very nice guy. A very nice, very polite, yet totally frightened guy. Either Pete hasn’t actually read the Web site, or Pete did not actually expect us to be as boisterous or as drunky as we are in writing. Our astronomical levels of funky plain smacked him upside the head.

"I think I’m a little scared right now," Pete said. Then, later: "You all kind of scare me a little."

We responded by bringing Pete into the fold with his first-ever Irish Car Bomb. Toasting him uproariously, we pounded the drinks and slapped him on the back, declaring our intense pride. Then we explained various things to him, such as why the Lemmiwinks portions of South Park’s "The Death Camp of Tolerance" episode are at first frightening yet then brilliantly hilarious, and Pete’s eyes began to glaze. Then we got boozily busy singing along to the excellent Friday night music at O’Brien’s, which included "9 to 5," "Pour Some Sugar On Me," and "The Gambler." Finally, Michael decided to take a page from Dr. No’s How To Score With Straight Girls handbook, laying one on Jessica, Carrie, Lauren, and Heather, in roughly that order.

We didn’t see much of poor Pete the rest of the night.

However, our spot-on savvy about when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em did pique the interest of more than a few young gentlemen, two of whom bought us drinks because our rendition of "9 to 5" so impressed him. A third gent hit on Carrie all night, and a fourth whispered to me that I looked "resplendent."

All this pales in comparison to Lauren’s score. Moments after her brief smooch from Michael, she found an O’Briens regular – we call him Harvey Weinstein, for reasons too long to narrate, but which, rest assured, could not have less to do with any kind of resemblance -- serenading her with "Tiny Dancer" while dancing with her. Somehow she ended up with her tongue down his throat.

Well played, Lauren. Well played. (Hey, it is her signature party trick, after all.)

"Wanna go outside and make out some more?" he asked her. "Hmm… Okay!" Lauren answered.

She then found herself swapping spit in front of Earth, Wind and Flour, while Harvey groped at her back. Somewhere, a light went on in his head. "You’re not wearing a bra?" he gulped. "No, no I’m not," she shrugged. "That’s SEXY!" he shouted. And then… "Can I see them? Please? I won’t even touch, I just want to see!" he begged. This was all the eighth-grade encouragement Lauren needed to put her tongue back where it temporarily belonged – in her own mouth – and head back inside to drink more with her friends. Good try, though, Harvey.

Saturday night started out so innocently. We were going to visit Jason at Sonny’s, drink some beer there with old co-workers, but not get so trashed that we ruined Sunday with a hangover.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans: They often go down the hatch with the first pint of sweet, tender cider.

Lauren, though, was on a mission. Fresh from her tongue-lashing, she got an unexpected phone call from the ex she’d instructed not to contact her again. After hearing in his sad puppy-dog voice mail message that he "just wanted to say hi, because he hadn’t heard from her in a while," Lauren hung up the phone and announced, "I’m going to get really, really fucking drunk off my ass tonight."

Enter the chorus: Well played, Lauren. Well played.

True to her word, Lauren guzzled cider while we commandeered the jukebox. She hurled darts, she danced to the dulcet tones of The Lynch Mob, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams (what’s an evening without "Summer of ’69"?) and of course our heroic role models Mötley Crüe. Between that and her lack of actual dinner, five pints hit her with a quickness.

She drunk-dialed people. She wobbled. She breathed deeply and slowly to avoid messing up anyone’s car. And finally, when she got home, she earned her very first Bucket.

That’s right: Lauren broke a five-year streak of not puking after a night of drinking. It’s a bucket well-earned and long in coming, and she chased it with gusto. Congratulations, Lauren, on the kind of weekend that embodies everything we here at Drunky But Funky stand for – provided we are sober enough to stand.

In addition, Jessica smoked up a storm, Heather joined her and additionally flashed her breast – albeit still bra-clad -- at her pool opponent in order to distract him from making a shot (it worked), and Jason the bartender endeared himself to us fully by buying each of us a drink.

And so concludes The Summer of Excessive Drinking and Inappropriate Behavior. Until next May, that is; in the meantime, we’ll slowly update our stats cards and warm ourselves in the loving cloak of The Autumn of Alcoholism and Promiscuity, continuing to frighten both readers and strangers alike with our rapacious chugging and all-around adoration of everything boozy.