Read an Excerpt

"Lowballing"  

Created by Dale Degroff  

"First off, let me say that it's a real pleasure to offer up a special drink that Dan Dunn and the readers of this deliciously twisted tome can call their own.   

"I've always thought Dan was a smart kid...could've been a bank president or chairman of a big insurance company if he were so inclined. But I think he made the right choice with drinking his way around the world, doing as much highballing and lowballing as he can along the way. Hell, it's a lot more fun than finance anyway, and Dan has somehow managed to stay out of jail so far...which is more than I can say for a lot of guys on Wall Street.   

"So mix yourself a drink, find a cozy place to hunker down, and enjoy Living Loaded. Salud!" —Dale Degroff

1 oz. Alize Red Passion
1 oz. cognac
1 oz. fresh pineapple juice or Dole unsweetened pineapple juice
A dash of Angostura bitters  

Shake all ingredients well with ice and strain into a rocks or lowball glass. A nice foam will result from a well-shaken drink, and that is garnish enough.  

ONE  

Fuck Your Fucking Job  

It was the last day of Summer.  

"Fuck your fucking job," is what she told me. Summer, that is. The woman I was living with.  

"Who the fuck has a fucking job like yours anyway, you fuck?"  

I'm pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, but at thatpoint it didn't matter much. She was gone. Walked out the door for good after two tumultuous, if not completely sex-lacking, months. The delicious irony that it happened around Labor Day was the only bit of pleasure I could wring from this otherwise wholly unpalatable set of circumstances.   Granted, I'd signed on for this crazy experiment in monogamous cohabitation despite the preponderance of evidence that such an arrangement simply cannot work. At least, not for me. I know this. I've always known this. Yet, inexplicably, I ignored that little voice in my head reminding me of that inescapable fact. Again. Because I thought Summer and I would be different. Turns out every couple believes they'll be different when it comes to bucking the overwhelming odds stacked against lasting romantic bliss. It's the enduring delusion that such a thing exists that lines the pockets of everyone from wedding planners to couples' counselors to hitmen—further proof that nothing in this world generates more wealth than pure stupidity. (Just ask Goldman Sachs.) As it turns out, nine couples out of ten are no different at all. That's right, just 10 percent of couples have the good fortune to die together in a fiery car crash or double suicide before they ever get around to realizing how much they can't stand the fucking sight of each other anymore.  

It may have been the drinking that finally sent Summer over the edge. Or my relentless travel schedule to exotic women-filled ports of call the world over (to be clear, the point is that the women—not necessarilythe locations—are beautiful and exotic). She was within her rights to take issue with the womanizing, I guess. But what was I supposed to do about it? Seriously. I mean, when you have a job like mine—nightlife columnist for Playboy—flying, drinking, and screwing come with the territory. Hell, it's right there in the job description. Literally.  

Crapulous, she called me. A goddamn crapulous jerk.  

I looked it up after she left. It means "given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking."  

I'll give her points for honesty. Along with an A+ invocabulary.  

Look, I get paid to crisscross the globe covering the adult beverage beat for what is arguably the world's most notorious and iconic magazine. And for that, I make no apologies to anyone. I'll admit I go overboard with the partying from time to time, but for chrissakes, that's not a crime in these United States. At least, not yet. Besides, I have a hard time justifying moderation when there are so many children going to sleep sober every night in Africa. The poor little bastards.  

Still, a high-profile job predicated on excessive alcohol consumption does not come without its perils. Here's an example of how such an existence can yield nightmarish results.  

Once, while touring Ireland with a small group of spirits journalists, I was very nearly beaten to death in a pub just outside of Dublin.  

One of the members of our group was a fresh-out-of-the-frat douche-nozzle from New York on assignment for some atrocious laddie magazine that doesn't even exist anymore. Guy looked like Billy Zabka, the dude who played Johnny the smirking bad guy in the first Karate Kid movie. He acted like him too. Indeed, on more than one occasion during the course of that trip I wanted to rear up on one leg like a crane and kick him in the teeth. A maneuver, I might add, that if executed properly is unstoppable.  

So we're in this pub and I go up to the bar to get a drink. Place is packed, there's a soccer game on TV—St. Patrick's Athletic versus Galway United. Premier division. Lots at stake. The score is tied 2-2 late in the second half, and everyone in the pub—St. Patrick's fans, all—is totally blotto. Wait, sorry, I didn't mean to be redundant; I already established that they were Irish and in a pub. Anyhow, just as I grok all this, Billy Zabka sidles up next to me. Him and that fucking smirk of his.  

He points at the TV. "Soccer game, eh?" he says.  

Observant kid. Without looking over at him, I nod.  

"You like soccer?" he continues.  

"They call it football over here," I reply flatly.  

He snorts. "Yeah, I know. So fucking stupid!"  

I let that one go and wave to the bartender. I need strong drink. Badly.  

"I'll get this one," he says.  

"Um, OK," I say warily. "I'll have a Redbreast Irish Whiskey. Neat."  

He looks at me and smiles. A stupid Billy Zabka smile.  

"No, no, no, bro-ha." He clucks. "I got abetter idea."  

It wasn't. A better idea, that is. In fact, it was a breathtakingly stupid idea. The kind of shit-brained stratagem that makes you feel not so much angry as sorry for the guy. But also very angry.  

"Two Irish Car Bombs!" he shouts.  

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with this particular concoction and the reasons why ordering it in a pub in Ireland is such a sterling example of poor judgment, here is some background: To make an Irish Car Bomb, you combine half a shot of Jameson with half a shot of Bailey's in a shotglass, then drop the shotglass into a pint of Guinness and chug it. This little abomination was invented by a man named Charles Burke Cronin Oat at Wilson's Saloon in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1979. Norwich, Connecticut, being, of course, in America. So, to recap, an American bartender invented a drink that appropriates three of Ireland's most beloved adult beverages as ingredients and named it after an act of terrorism that has caused catastrophic social and political upheaval—not to mention countless deaths—for generations of Irish citizens.  

To fully appreciate the import of this, imagine that in the wake of 9/11, a cheeky Irish pub owner dreamed up a drink that combined America's native spirit, bourbon, with sweet vermouth (a Manhattan) in a shot dropped into its most popular beer, Budweiser, and called it a Manhattan Ground Zero because, as he explained, drinking it "left a big fat hole in your gut." Now imagine you're sitting in a pub down around Wall Street in what was once the shadow of those fallen towers, and a group of Irishmen on holiday storm in and order a round of Manhattan Ground Zeros. Now just imagine all those Irishmen were rowdy and obnoxious (sorry, there I go, being redundant again) and looked just like Billy Zabka.  

So Zabka shouts "Two Irish Car Bombs!" in this very packed pub, and all activity comes to a record needle-screeching halt. Everyone—and I mean every single person—stares daggers at us. It's the silent death stare—the worst kind. Then, in what ranks in the top five bad-to-worse moments of my life, Galway scores the go-ahead goal in the final minute of play. Game over. Match Galway.  

The first thought that crosses my mind is I'm going to die in Ireland and I didn't even get to meet the Blarney Stone or kiss Bono. I'm expecting my life to flash before my eyes, like people say happens when you reach the pearly gates (OK, so I'm an optimist; sue me), but instead something Martin Luther King Jr. once said pops into my head: "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."  

There are myriad things I'd like to think I'd be man enough to die for—my family, dear friends, a roll in the hay with Rachel McAdams—but defending some Neanderthal I'd quite frankly like to pummel myself from a mob of angry Irish soccer hooligans is not even worth being eighty-sixed from the pub, let alone beaten to death. (And for the record, yes, I did just invoke Martin Luther King Jr. to illustrate a barroom tale. I have no defense. My brain is my brain.)  

With no time to waste I spring into action, going "crane" on Zabka before anyone has a chance to realize I'm with him. Of course, I don't actually have the space, coordination, training, or discipline to properly execute the crane move, so I do the next best thing: deliver a wicked elbow to Zabka's jaw while bellowing "What the feck is wrong with you, you dumb fecking yank!" I'm suddenly feeling emboldened, fierce. Like I'm going to pull this off. Yet despite being in possession of what I'd thought was a solid Irish brogue, a face that I thought made me appear quite the Irishman, and a common Irish surname, it's immediately discerned by each and every local in that pub that I am, in fact, a dumb fecking yank as well.  

The reason dawns on me immediately: I'd recently had my teeth whitened. A dead giveaway in that part of the world. Curses.  

But just as the mob begins to close in on us we catch a break. Turns out the pub owner, a burly ex-cop who commands the respect of all who enter his joint, had been tipped off by the publicist who'd arranged our junket that we were journalists, wielders of the almighty pen. There's no question this guy would have liked nothing more than to see that angry mob scatter our teeth all over the pub floor, yet he recognized the potential fallout of letting two American booze scribes get brutally assaulted and left for dead in his establishment.  

So instead of suffering deep, perhaps permanent, bodily harm, all that happened was we got thrown out of that pub with a wholly unnecessary warning never to return again. Still, close call.  

Zabka never did broach the subject of me elbowing him in the kisser, by the way. I expected as much. In my experience, brawny blowhards who wear prep school sweatshirts and strut around acting like they own the joint invariably fold like a French prizefighter once you show them you're capable of real street violence. That's one of the many valuable lessons I learned from my grandma back in our hardscrabble area of Philadelphia. She also taught me a few other things, like never trust rich people, empty cardboard refrigerator boxes are the greatest toys ever invented, and a penny saved is still just a fucking penny.  

But, so listen, my job is alternately wonderful, brutal, glamorous, reprehensible, dangerous, hangoverific, toxic, deadly, a gift from the lipid solvent gods, and the best excuse for pretty much any horriblebe havior you can think of. The pages that follow are littered with examples of all of these. But you should know going in that most of the book is also about consequences, good and bad. It's an unsparing look at the complexities and contradictions, the shortcomings and strengths of men like myself, and the many ways alcohol—to paraphrase Homer Simpson—really is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. As a professional booze scribe who's seen countless drunks from all walks of life at the highest of highs and lowest of lows (a particular bar in Gary, Indiana, comes to mind), I'm all too familiar with this. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, along the way I'll stumble upon—perhaps even literally—some wisdom about why men like me drink so copiously, and find us some other outlet for coping with our deficiencies.  

Of course we'll be closely examining my own personal failings as a human being, and the very real possibility that many of them might be related to my boozing. We'll take an unflinchingly honest look at whether the things Summer repeatedly pointed out in the waning days of our doomed dalliance might actually not have all been complete bullshit. And while I certainly don't agree with most of what she had to say, I will admit in these pages that I am not the great man Young Me once imagined I'd turn out to be.  

I'd be lying if I claimed there isn't some small part of me that occasionally wonders if Summer might have had a point. It's this little lingering thought that I've gotten really good at ignoring but haven't quite been able to shake for good—kind of like a pebble stuck in the sole of my cross-trainers. At forty years old, can I justifiably explain away all manner of what polite society calls "bad behavior" as merely a professional obligation, or is it time to start entertaining the notion that I could just be a developmentally arrested lush?  

From one perspective—let's say, the grown-up female one—my lifestyle choices might be construed as reckless, even pitiable; a desperate cry for help from my wounded inner brat. Peter Pan Syndrome writ large. Or, well, OK, writ medium-sized. But I digress.  

The wife of one of my oldest friends subscribes to this point of view. We'll call him Bob—and her, Andi. Bob and Andi got married at twenty-four after a four-year courtship, and then promptly squeezed out three seemingly well-adjusted children together. Perfect family and all that. For years Andi chided me for carousing and bedding young women, insisting such behavior was merely my way of avoiding meeting life's adult challenges head-on. I'd defend myself by saying I was simply having a good time, at which time she'd point to the fact that I'm unmarried and childless and have business cards with bunny ears on them that list my title as "Public Menace" as proof that in actuality I'm dreadfully unhappy and destined to die alone of herpes or liver failure or some hideous combination of the two.