Beach Bummin'

I've been in New Jersey two of the past three weekends. The combined powers of Jesus, Mother Teresa, and Morgan Freeman wouldn't be able to save my soul from this fact.

The first of these two trips was to Wildwood Beach in South Jersey for a beach frisbee tournament. Me and a few of my buddies from school rode down that night stopping in Atlantic City at 1 AM to gamble. Well, two of the guys played 21 while me and another looked on. All of the the people in the casino looked like the kind of people who buy Teenies for their pre-schoolers lunch boxes instead of 100% fruit juice. I understand that many of the people who work at these casinos are Native American, but they all looked like awkwardly-shaped, inbred Asians. This sounds extremely offensive (in fact, it is) but I can think of no better way to describe it. The whole thing depressed me.

At this point I was getting tired and bored (blackjack is probably the most boring game ever invented besides NFL Quarterback Club '98) so I went to the parking garage to sleep. The car being about 90 degrees, I rolled down the windows and got maybe half an hour of ungratifying sleep while drunken thugs and trisomy-inflicted pseudo-Asians howled through the halls of late-night garage. Not my life's brightest moment.

After getting in the motel (this is Jersey, people) at about 4:30 that morning, I crashed on the floor and pass out quick for a refreshing and deserved rest. It was also short-lived because just hours later I was woken up to a rousing rendition of "B-Double E-Double R-U-N" by a few fellow BC chums who had arrived earlier that night. The two had woken up ready to start drinking. I covered my ears and tried to get back to sleep, only to have my nutsack trampled in a loutish attempt to reach the kitchen by the main culprit, who I will refer to as Jay. This is the one who had been blackout drunk, offending every women in his site the night before, and was passed out beyond revival by the time we rolled in earlier that morning. A typical night for Jay.

I should mention that Jay is a great, genuinely good guy and a legend on my frisbee team for the standard he set on the team in terms of drinking and throwing parties. But that weekend, he wasn't just off the wagon. He fell off the wagon, got hit by Kia Sedona and knocked onto some train tracks where the 6:50 to Newark hit him and derailed killing a family of woodland critters.

Jay, though still drunk from the night before, started drinking by the time we got to the beach at 10 that morning and by 2 PM was chugging vodka from a bottle. He was seen shotgunning at random times throughout that afternoon, which he still did impressively (he is a world-class shotgunner). By the time we left the fields at 5, he was so far gone, you couldn't find him with a Hubble telescope. He was passed out in a chair, not moving hardly breathing. I've seen a lot of passed out, belligerent kids in my life, but never had I seen anyone with such blatant disregard for his own body through such a prodigious amount of drinking.

Being a big dude, no one could move him, so a few good men stayed with him to wait it out. At one point, a police officer approach the group. Noticing that the kid passed out was hopelessly obliterated, the officer asked if he wanted medical help. After being woken up by one of his friends, Jay saw the cop and immediately called the man in blue a faggot. Ignoring the insult, the officer offered Jay a ride to the hospital, which he angrily refused and even signed a medical release waiving the officer's liability in the case of serious harm done by the drinking. Telling them that they needed to get off the beach, the cop helped drive the group back to the motel.

I've witnessed and heard of some terrible things related to drinking, but never had I seen anyone as drunk as this sad fellow. At one point he started peeing his pants and needed the help of a friend to bring him to a toilet and undo his pants. He crashed hard in one of the rooms and slept for the next 14 hours. He slept on the floor during all of this because whenever he tried to get on the bed, he kept rolling off and onto the floor. The manager of the motel kept a vigil on the room, coming in hourly to make sure that his surly tenant was alive. I think Jay had a headache that morning.

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Two other quick things:
1. Seeing Radiohead and Animal Collective play at the All Points West Festival last weekend may have been the single best live musical experience of my life. I came into the concert thinking that Radiohead was the best band in the world, and left in awe of the fact that they sound better live than on their records. Animal Collective's new songs sound incredible, their next record is gonna be huge.

2. I posted my own Muxtape. If you haven't heard of Muxtape, you can set up an account to post a playlist of mp3's from your computer to this website. The playlist is open for streaming to the public. I'll probably update it periodically.