Happy New Year from the Shark Guys! Tips on First Night Boozing from everybody's favorite Festive Boozing Consultants

Chris and Noel (or Noel and Chris if you're reading right to left) , AKA "The Shark Guys" as we're known in better bars and neighbourhood pubs, would like to wish you and yours a Happy New Year. Thanks for being with us so far and we look forward to bringing you the best in booze-a-tainment in the New Year.

Huzzah!

In case any of our loyal readership question our 'festive boozing consultant' credentials, we've decided to cobble together a few helpful quotes at the last minute to meet our blogging deadline, while at the same time honor our steadfast commitment to service journalism, AKA 'news you can use', or as is the case this evening, 'news you can use the next day as you open an otherwise empty fridge and consider downing a can of questionable looking tomato juice'.

Courtesy of The National Post
According to online analysts, the number of Internet videos of inebriated people embarrassing themselves has tripled in the last year. Viralvideochart.com reports that more than 150,600 clips of drunken debauchery were uploaded to the top 10 video-sharing websites in 2006, with Google searches and blog posts on the subject doubling.

"It's oddly comforting to know that regardless of what you may have done, or how bad a night you've had, you didn't do what these people did," says Noel Boivin, a Canadian expert on alcohol-fueled misbehavior.
"Before all this [online video] stuff happened, you could have a crazy night and the worst that could happen was having your friends recount it forever," says Boivin. "But with YouTube, [the incident] could appear online that same night, with thousands of people seeing it. It increases the threshold of shame."

Slice Magazine
While Lombardo and Boivin point out that abstaining is the only guaranteed method of preventing a hangover, they’re still crossing their fingers for a cure. “Though we're not doctors, we imagine (and strongly hope) that our good friends at Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and company are putting their best minds to work in finding a hangover cure that is not some sort of patent medicine scam.”
"If you find yourself on the verge of kneeling before the porcelain throne, Lombardo and Boivin have only one suggestion: “Clutching your pillow and praying to the nearest and most sympathetic god (or, if you're an atheist, a general cry for pity sent out to the cosmos—or your spouse—will do) is really the only course of action. Lie horizontally for as long as the human bladder will allow.”

Advice in the Toronto Star (Lombardo)
Some people call New Year's "amateur night" because people who don't do it regularly are more apt to publicly shame themselves. Definitely, a big greasy meal at the end of the night is good, at one of the downtown establishments that are open all night. Maybe a handful of multivitamins before bed and some ibuprofen and some V8. That works.

Beer prices up! German consumption falls! Stay calm folks

In our spare time, the odd hour of sobriety as well as professionally, we're not only "festive boozing consultants" (with carefully hand-crafted-in-the-garage business cards to prove it) but self appointed industry analysts taking the sector's pulse and checking for slow, shallow breathing of the type the gentlemen pictured here might experience if they kept up this activity for a protracted period.

With the buzz from 2007 wearing off and the promise of a brighter and more prosperous 08 (our jobs have yet to be outsourced to humorists in India) we Shark Guys were ready to stagger into the New Year without tripping and falling on the panic button. However we’ve just smashed the protective glass case and wrapped a towel around a hand to stop the bleeding. This is the same hand that would’ve ordinarily been extended— palm out, to demand a traffic cop-like halt to a disturbing trend post haste, or slapped down in a Jeopardy-style buzz-in: "What is beer?: the correct response to the clue: ‘hops and barley prices have risen sharply over the last year, affecting the cost of this vital, lifeblood if you will, consumer staple.’

Our pulses quickened, and we experienced lightheadedness that could not be explained as the result of too many push ups when we confirmed that beer prices were indeed on the rise. This recently caused one of the biggest manufacturers, Anheuser-Busch, a sector benchmark, to raise prices of its mass-market undrinkable swill, Budweiser, to counteract the rising cost of ingredients. This will affect our bottom line, in terms of housewarming gifts, but also because of the trickle down effect to the makers of the high end stuff we ourselves consume.

Speaking of which, in another disturbing trend per-capita beer consumption in Germany, once the world's largest consumer of the drink (and home to a world record, 1284 breweries), fell yet again—the eighth decline in the last nine years. This is of special concern to us, not only because their beer is tops in our book, figuratively speaking, but because its country folk figure so prominently in our actual book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery. The country's Brewery Association managing director predicted the decline would begin to have a negative impact as Germans are inexplicably turning to more non-alcoholic beverages, which does not bode well for us in terms of amassing as wide-ranging a compendium of stories for a sequel.

And what's the situation in Canada you ask? (as writer's block and a spontaneous bout of delirium tremens is preventing a proper segue). Well, AOL Canada recently purchased a limited edition Stella Artois for $15,000 in what the Financial Post reported was "the most expensive six-pack in the world", and across our great land, per capita consumption of our fave legal drug has increased more than 11 per cent over the past decade so perhaps things aren't as worrisome as they appear. Knock on that wooden bar top...A toast to a heavy beer swillin' 08 with this Irish proverb!

"It is better to spend money like there's no tomorrow
than to spend tonight like there's no money."

Yes Virginia, Santa is sh*t-faced

“T’was the day after Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, for fear of waking papa, the drunken louse.”

We here at TheSharkBook.com having neglected to wish you, our loyal readers, a happy holiday season would like to at least wish you a happy Boxing Day: may the bargains you meet be plentiful, and the exchange policies on some of the crappier gifts you received lenient.

For our final X-mas-related blog of this year, we wanted to touch on a trend that our book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death (and other true tales of drunken debauchery), was, to our knowledge, the first to chronicle: the seeming appeal of donning a Santa Claus outfit and making a sorry-ass drunken public nuisance of oneself. (Editor’s Note: For more on this theme we recommend the excellent Billy Bob Thornton film “Bad Santa”, one of the very best boozing comedies ever made).

We covered more than one such case in The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death – the most disgraceful of all likely being a drunken riot that broke out at the finish line of a charity marathon where the participants were dressed as ole Saint Nick himself and some of the more well-oiled elfs had to be beaten and pepper-sprayed into submission.

There seems to be something about donning the garb of Santa Claus – the best collaborative effort between Coca Cola and the Roman Catholic Church since Holy Water Soda – that appeals to drunks, and this year was no exception.

First, in Christchurch New Zealand, where a gang of about 50 drunken Santas broke into a cinema, shoving families aside, tearing down posters and kicking things over while shouting the unorthodox holiday greeting “Ho f*cking ho!”

One woman who was waiting in line to see the movie “Enchanted” with her two ankle-biters in tow was sickened by this less than enchanting display and her kids were puzzled as to why these Santas were acting like their soccer hooligan older brothers: "They asked me, 'are they Santa's helpers gone crazy?' and I said `no, they are just idiots'.

As sorry a scene as that no doubt was, it is outdone in terms of sheer vile mental imagery by the goings-on of one crocked Kris Kringle in Hollywood on Christmas Eve. The man in question parked his car in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater and was shortly thereafter stopped by police and asked to submit to a Breathalyser. What tipped off the flat feet? The 6-foot-4, 280-pound man’s chosen ensemble for the evening: a red Santa hat, blond wig, red lace camisole, purple G-string, black leg warmers (hey, it gets chilly at night!) and black shoes.

The man clocked in at slightly over the legal limit and admitted having had a couple rum and cokes before setting out to give the crowd at Grauman’s a mentally scarring holiday sight. Police impounded the man’s Chevy Impala, but later released him on $5,000 bail. The arresting officer said that “There was no Mel Gibson” treatment for him, which might mean that the man was not given the floor and asked to voice his opinions on the secret Zionist cabal that is taking over the world. "He had to sober up and find his own reindeer,” the officer said.

Prison Chocolate Ban No Laugh Riot

We were initially delighted when the phrase "Swedish prison" came across the news wires, given the vast storehouse of research material at our disposal— shop keeps who archive a Smithsonian-like collection of similarly themed films, as well as a steady inventory of single cigarettes so we could get a sense of what prison life is all about without all those communal shower come ons.

Unfortunately, without a working knowledge of the Nordic language, and the Ikea warehouse not returning our harassing phone calls (not to mention being indisposed to Googling the phrase “Swedish prison” for fear of incurring some librarian's bifocaled stink-eye) we were unable to figure out exactly what kind of penal institution ‘Brinkebergsanstalten’ is, the mouthful of a prison at the center of the following story. So, with no English language reports specifying the gender of those incarcerated, we decided to eschew modern crime statistics and 200 years' worth of temple-probing criminology and assume it’s a massive minimum security facility for women with daily sheer tube top workouts for the prison volleyball team and unscheduled conjugal visitations for inquisitive bloggers.

According to reports, Swedish inmates have been banned from putting their kitchen detail/extortion savings (that would otherwise be put toward shanking the least popular guard), toward the purchase of holiday boxed chocolates amid concerns over alcohol content. This measure resulted in the warden-undermining spokesperson for Kraft Foods, the provider of the crowbar motel confectionery to note, “In order to consume the equivalent of one shot of schnapps, you have to eat some 32 pieces of confectionery. Gosh, what effort." No less effort than what cell block 2D's finest distiller of Ziploc hooch has to expend, who could certainly make good use of such a sweetener to take the toxic edge off the soggy bread and rotten fruit whiff of ‘Orange Jack.’

In related news, a California school district suspended a 12-year-old for having a piece of chocolate candy filled with a half-ounce of booze. The 7th grade scofflaw received a suspension notice that would not look out of place in the type of institution mentioned above, for having "possession, used, sold, furnished or been under the influence of any controlled substance, alcohol or intoxicant."

Drunk 'Grim Reaper' Arrested: Death Warmed Over Slightly

Unfortunately, the online Christmas shopping season has come and gone so you might be forced to defer your philanthropy in the form of some promissory gift note indicating that "the George Foreman grill is on its way, I swear". Sadly, at this late juncture, no warp-speed-porn downloading internet service provider or benevolent FedEx guy is going to save your yuletide bacon and ensure your gift arrives in its intended hands by the 25th. At best, you’re resigned to rummaging through the garage for a suitable gift that hasn't been soiled by raccoons or packing a can of bear repellent for a last ditch trip to a big box outlet.

Of course, there are those people for whom a holiday gift is a priority hovering slightly above poinsettias for an off-hours plumber, and for whom you can shop worry-free as your paths aren’t likely to cross until well after the Christmas eggnog spills have been mopped up. For these folk and loved ones alike--whose stockings once hung by the chimney with care, and by February are likely to be in a moldy basement in a box alongside defective Christmas lights---may we suggest the delightful compendium, The Man who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, available for the first time in the lower 49 states and possibly Alaska.

In The Shark Book and in previous posts, we've warned of the dangers of drinking while in costume, not recommended either for lay-folk or those taking part in dog park productions of The Tempest, as while it would appear they would make your drunken exploits less conspicuous by virtue of anonymity, it does just the opposite.

Case in point, in Lancaster, England, a man celebrating his mate's birthday and getting tighter than a pawn shop handshake on excess lager and vodka, got separated from his drinking buddies and ended up wandering around lost and nearly naked on a beach. The man, cold and wet decided to seek shelter posthaste as Northwest England is not in the Rolodex of location scouts as a suitable substitute for Malibu. He climbed through a window of a local town hall, where according to newspaper reports he "soiled his underwear and threw them into a black bin-bag. " Stark naked, he happened upon what looked to be the Grim Reaper. Not compelled to shake hands or engage in an interminable chess match, he soon realized that it was just a costume, which he put on before wandering over to a local police station, where he unsurprisingly had to wait for several hours as this isn't the type of garment that gets you top drawer customer service.

The case, which had one probation officer leaving the courtroom in a fit of laughter, and dubbed "strange but serious," by the defense counsel, resulted in a conditional discharge for burglary and trespassing.

Reindeer Games!

Every year around this time, as we celebrate the birth of Santa Claus (or was it that little blond elf who partnered up with Rudolph in the movie… hmm… too much egg nog), there are always reports of people getting drunk and taking their yuletide frustrations out on the most glaring and garish targets within their blurry sights – the holiday decorations that festoon towns.

Sometimes, these acts are as blasphemous as replacing a nativity Jesus with “Stewie” from "The Family Guy", while in other cases the vandalism takes the form of vigilante justice, such as when someone kicks out blinding holiday floodlights strong enough to have seen action during Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick in The Wall" tour. (It is also quite tempting to throw a rock on behalf of Al Gore whenever one comes across a holiday display sucking up the wattage like that in the above pic).

In Sunderland, England, city officials put up an illuminated decorative reindeer (pictured here) outside of the “Jolly Sailor” pub, possibly in an attempt to detract attention from what we’d expect, given the pub’s name, to be the themed uniforms of its staff members and accompanying motif. Within days of the reindeer’s debut on city streets, teen ruffians were already hopping up on it for a good old small town laugh – the deer having about the same entertainment possibilities as an exercise bike. (Editor’s note: No joy can ever be derived from riding an exercise bike, with the exception of neural misfiring that sometimes results in seizures or more commonly, a runner's high).

The weight of subsequent rapscallions eventually caused the legs of the £2,000 deer to buckle. A tip led to the apprehension of one 19-year-old (yes, we were talking upper-year teens here) who admitted being drunk at the time of his festive "ride" and was let off with a police caution.

Electric reindeer, warned a stern city councilor who had no candy for hooligans, are not to be trifled with and could electrocute an errant sitter. This, along with accidentally hanging yourself while stringing up your Christmas lights (that you won’t be taking down until February at the earliest, death or not), would be a contender for the most inglorious holiday death of all. Given that it looks as if it's constructed from glass it could also, according to the first doctor we reached after a random flip in the phone book (we won't say which phone book), give you a right sore arse.

Single Malt Scotch Fire-water sale: For a taste of your whiskey...the kids aren't going to college

For small-ticket items like umbrellas, polyester money-belts emptied of cash or novelty hats, bargain hunters and holiday-shopping cheapskates can save a few shekels when shopping for those who have nothing by hitting their local public transit auction.

If you’d like to get your greasy mitts on bigger-ticket items with the serial numbers filed off, you can always hit a police auction and take your pick of the repository of stuff confiscated from local riffraff—a station wagon with the tires shot out, an outboard used for immigration excursions into the Florida panhandle— before your friendly neighborhood beat cop has a chance to sell it back to them.

For bona fide high rollers who would like to squander their riches on things like a a thong that once flossed the arse of Demi Moore or a bottle of Elvis' halitosis breath, there are auction houses like Sothebey’s and Christie’s where there’s also a lucrative market for those heirlooms that mysteriously came into your family’s possession after the war.

At an auction held by Christie's in New York State recently, the paddles were flapping faster than a round of amphetamine-fueled table tennis when a bottle of 81-year-old Macallan Scotch sold for $54,000, the highest price the fire water has ever fetched at the auction house.

The whiskey was distilled in 1926 in Scotland and bottled in 1986 before being purchased by a private investor. An expensive wine of that vintage that had been exposed to air would most likely prove useful only to wilt flowers and ward off bats in an enclosed space, but, fortunately for the purchaser of the rare bottle of hooch at Christie's, whiskey suffers from no such limitations.

"You can open it up, have some, close [it] and enjoy it again at your leisure. It's not going to spoil," according ot the head of wine and spirit sales for Christie's America.

Shark-Bite Movie Review: I Am Legend -- I Make Bad Movie

The idea of one day being “the last man on earth” holds a dark and undeniable appeal. Perhaps it has something to do with the thought of all the women who would have to reconsider their declaration that they wouldn’t date you, even if you were just that – living up to that promise when all other male options have succumbed to some horrible plague, might be more difficult than they imagine (provided we’re talking about a gender-selective purging). Or maybe it’s the thought of having your surroundings open to you like some sort of giant abandoned amusement park. Throngs of sweating fellow tourists and their screaming kids would be a thing of the past, and you’d never be forced to pony up for an exorbitant park-entrance fee again (or pull out your work permit and explain to a guard that you’re due the local price). It’s here, in this realm of fancy, that “I Am Legend”, the blockbuster film that set a box-office record for ticket sales in the US in December, works best.

The film opens with Will Smith, as Dr. Robert Neville, zipping around in a sports car through a post-apocalyptic New York, so familiar to those who have been there or those who know it through films, but one that has gone to seed, with weeds breaking through the pavement, and deer running around – they are highly motivated to run, both because of the lions on the loose throughout the city and Dr. Neville, who hunts them on Park Avenue (which is a bit strange: why, with his endless supply of canned food, would he bother?).

Still, it’s fun to watch, and exhilarating too to think of the possibilities – knocking golf balls from the deck of the aircraft carrier Intrepid, while your German Shepherd stands sentry looks like a lot of fun, though Neville’s imagination has its limits: at one point it is revealed that he has devoted a significant portion of his time in solitude to memorizing the dialogue of the kid’s movie “Shrek” line-by-line. Well, nowhere is it written that the last man on earth has to be cool. The fun and imagination of the first part of the film is outdone by the rest of it. Without going into too much detail, Neville faces a crisis at one point that is resolved in a way that wholly contradicts the rules already established by the film.

Other reviews have pointed out logical faults in this one, but there is perhaps no greater one than seeing all bridges to Manhattan blown up and then having a key plot point rest on the absolute need for that not to have happened. There are hints, here and there, in the fun of the first act, of the sorry third act that is to come. The opening scene is the most revealing of all. Emma Thompson, in a cameo as a scientist, is being interviewed after the good news that she has just cured cancer. It is her cure for cancer that mutates into this terrible plague that turns humans into obvious CGI-generated monsters (film critic Roger Ebert made the very sound point “How, I always wonder, do human beings in all their infinite shapes and sizes mutate into identical pale zombies with infinite speed and strength?”) that come out only at night for psychotic violence and destruction.

Yes, this is the first movie I’ve seen where the cure for cancer is the enemy. That little tidbit and a few others provide hints of what is to come, but nothing that fully prepares the viewer for the movie’s conclusion. Again, without spoiling it (though is there fault to be found in spoiling a terrible ending?), the movie’s theme, raised by the Emma Thompson character’s careless meddling on behalf of science reaches a “faith-based” conclusion, and a closing scene that will make you cringe.

It’s a disappointment because up until it went down that road, it was a fun movie and certainly far better than the most recent attempt to bring Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend” to the big screen, Charlton Heston’s “The Omega Man”, which has aged so terribly that it can only be enjoyed as camp. That this movie was such a major draw in the US hopefully points to Will Smith’s star power – after all he did draw people in droves to see the terrible “Bad Boys” pictures – and not the public embracing its overall prehistoric, anti-science theme. Now that would be a cause for concern.

-- Noel, Bangkok

Man drinks two pints of vodka to avoid confiscation!

We live in a post 9/11 era and will continue to do so barring the apocalypse or a patent on a time machine. Ne’er-do-well terrorists with frequent-flyer miles (entry into the mile-high club being forsaken in this life for an attractive consolation prize in the next) have caused security at airports to tighten like the circle of police officers around a public demonstration for the poor. Restrictions on liquids being brought on board airplanes mean that one can no longer stroll on board with booze, cologne, hair gel and all the other accouterments a gentleman needs to have on hand to be able to properly flirt with flight attendants once in the air.

In Nuremberg Germany, a man getting ready to board a plane to his hometown of Dresden on the final leg of a return trip from a holiday in Egypt was told that he would have to either pour out the two bottles of vodka he had in tow or pay a fee to have the bag containing them checked in with the rest of his luggage.

Now, vodka is the world’s most popular distilled beverage and apparently so entrenched in popular culture that the insane think it a viable Halloween costume (pictured here) and the bathtub version is said to be so strong that copious amounts of it consumed at an ashram luau are rumored to have once resulted in swami Sai Baba being struck temporarily blind in his third eye.

We enjoy vodka as much as that demonstrative bearded fellow at the corner pub who strikes the surface of the bar loudly when ordering up the next round. It’s been described as tasteless, as has our brand of humor, and that’s why we drink it to excess when there’s an oversupply of orange juice lying around that needs to be put to good use. But as much as we enjoy a glass of the hard stuff to toast victory and curse defeat, had we been in the German man’s position, we probably would have just paid the bloody fine.

The man in question chose instead to unscrew the cap and chug the entire two pints worth right there. Now, as we’ve noted in The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death, that kind of vodka consumption is not recommended, although to be fair the downing of one litre of the stuff did, according to medical officials, limber up a Russian gentleman and help him survive a 40-foot fall from his balcony after a misstep while he was out enjoying some much needed fresh air to go along with the equivalent of the 22 ½ shots he had just downed.

The German vodka-lover in this case quickly lost the ability to walk or do much else as the alcohol ran hell over his innards. Acute alcohol poisoning nearly killed the man, however he was taken for treatment to a hospital in Nuremberg where he was expected to make a full recovery and no doubt be stuck with a hellish hangover that will serve as a more than adequate reminder to shove his booze into his suitcase next time.

Keep your Eyes on the Road Your Hands Upon the Wheel: The Top 10 Drinking & Driving Songs of All Time!

No amount of minty fresh Scope kept in your glove compartment or complaints to an arresting highway officer that you are heavily medicated and having one of your "spells" is likely to keep you from a night in the drunk tank that would not be nearly as romantic, or as free from dangerous lunatics, as it sounds in that Pogues song.

Not surprisingly, drinking and driving, like most other social vices we've chronicled here, has found its way into popular music, and, we Shark Guys, much like we did in our infamous Da Nose Knows: Top 10 Cocaine Songs of All time, have tracked 'em down for you in list form, saving you monthly investments in those Time Life infomercial hits compilations, not to mention countless hours.


The Top 10 Drinking and Driving Songs of All Time!!

Editor's Note: Disclaimer: The authors in no way condone drinking and driving—unless it’s done on a closed course while a paint-by-numbers buddy flick is being shot (and if the car did happen to careen out of control, modern cinema would benefit from it skidding right through Michael Bay—folding chair and megaphone).



10. "One for My Baby" (and One More for the Road)
The catch phrase that started it all for the asphalt slalom set, "One for the Road", as performed by the Chairman of the Board (oh that we could have co-chaired a meeting, we would've delighted in drinking ourselves under the mahogany table alongside the Rat Pack -- no doubt outlasting Sammy, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, though Mister Frank and Dino would likely have been a greater challenge).

We're drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road



9. "Have a Drink on Me" by AC/DC. Five spirits distilled into one simple rhyming scheme, from the boys Down Under: Attempt mix in the comforts of your own home or cheap motel where they didn't ask for your credit card.

"Oh! Whiskey, gin and brandy
With a glass I'm pretty handy
I'm trying to walk a straight line,
On sour mash and cheap wine"




8. From our hip hop friends, because we love puffy jackets as much as the next guys, and appreciate the urging of friends to assist in times of crisis, it’s “Get Buck”, by Young Buck

“Let's play the game I'm the quarterback, don't stop homey
I go to jail if I get sacked, so block for me…
Drunk drivin’ in my Cut dog,
I got my truck parked
Seventy Two Tennessee Titan, like what up y'all?!”

While we’re not certain exactly what this means, you can certainly tap your foot to it, and references like this will help the sagging domestic car industry and sales of Cutlass Supremes.


7. Some classic tear in your beer twang, performed by everyone from Springsteen to Acuff, "Wreck on the Highway"

"There was whiskey and blood all together
Mixed with glass where they lay
Death played her hand in destruction
But I didn't hear nobody pray."




6. A statistical argument from NOFX in "You Drink, You Drive, You Spill"

" 35% of accidents are caused by pixilated, the other 65 are not alcohol related what does this tell us about the drunk drivers? they seem to have a better record than the sober team "

5. Because they found it relaxing -- "Lovin’ Cup", by the Rolling Stones

"Yes, I'm fumbling and I know my car don't start.
Yes, I'm stumbling and I know I play a bad guitar.
Give me a little drink from your loving cup. Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk."

4. For its deep sense of loyalty, “Sugar Magnolia”, by the Grateful Dead

“She takes the wheel when I’m seein’ double, pays my ticket, when I speed.”

3. For its declaration of effortlessness and clarity, we go with "It’s So Easy" from the seminal “Appetite for Destruction” album by Guns ‘N’ Roses.
“Cars are crashin' every night, I drink ‘n' drive everything's in sight.”

2. "Roadhouse Blues", the Doors. For advanced 'orange pylon avoidance' technique:
“Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel.”









1. If Drinking Don’t Kill Me, Her Memory Will, as performed by George Jones. This melancholy ode from a guy who sings it like it is (if it "is" really, really bad) is perhaps the quintessential drinking and driving sing-along:

“I lay my head on the wheel
and the horn begins honkin’,
the whole neighborhood knows, that I’m home drunk again.”

Yuletide Cheers: How to spot a Christmas drunk – Shark style

Earlier this month, the British Home Office (the government body, not where you say you work in order to keep the tax man’s grubby paws out of your pockets) issued undercover police officers looking to fine bartenders serving the already inebriated – basically every bar patron during the holidays – a field manual telling them how to spot drunks during the holiday season.

The manual, given to 90 police teams countrywide taking part in the pre-Christmas Responsible Sales of Alcohol Campaign (Operation Killjoy by our lights), did British taxpayers proud, coming up with such startling observations as “[drunks tend to be] careless with money”, and they also cuss, bump into one another and, on a related note, engage in inappropriate sexual behavior, as well as slur their speech and have difficulty following any conversation that goes beyond: “Fancy a pint?” “Too right. Your round.”

Newspapers and pub trade publications (slur that three times fast while touching your nose with your big toe), like The Publican, mocked the Home Office’s effort, condemning it as “absolute nonsense”, and suggesting that the government would be better off focusing its efforts on the supermarkets, which are selling beer cheaper than water (a delightful trend for your bargain boozehound that we covered here).

Of course, the Home Office’s report deserved all the derision it received, and if we’ve added to that here then all the better, but being able to spot a true Christmas drunk as opposed to your average red-nosed holiday boozer is nonetheless important, and not just for police – it could save you and your loved ones from injury, or, possibly worse, having to pony up bail money for someone near and dear. In that spirit we present you with:

The Shark Guys’ Tips for Spotting a Christmas Drunk

Times when you can be sure that you are in the presence of an authentic Christmas drunk:

• Ambulances arrive early Christmas morning to attend to some drunk in a Santa suit who slid off an icy roof in an attempt to give Little Johnny an authentic Christmas experience.


• Little Johnny, earlier in the holiday season, gets a contact high from a mall Santa who has been drinking boxed wine all day (See “Mommy, Santa smells funny”, in the “Holiday Cheers” chapter of “The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death”, for a story of a mall Santa who did just that, crashed through the store’s front window, and, call it a holiday miracle if you will, still managed to keep his job).
  


• The person in question is spotted peeing Frosty The Snowman to an early grave.


• The serenity of a hymn at your Christmas Eve religious celebration is ruined by the off-key caterwauling of some drunk who’s just woken up and thinks it’s about time that “Waltzing Matilda” be given a proper airing.


• The person in question has rambled outside of your holiday party and is now on your front lawn simulating acts with your plastic reindeer that might forever corrupt poor Rudolph.


• The person in question is Kiefer Sutherland:
  
  

Beer Pong Tables Portable? Cups Runneth Over!

According to the press release, "Bing Bong Inc. has paved the way for the entire beer pong industry" (our italics) with their "beer pong" accouterments.

If you're unfamiliar with beer pong, consider this a public service announcement (or, to put it another way, one of the few instances we're ever 'pro Bono'--har, har, har).

Before shunting your son, and especially your daughter (see pictures below) off to some third-tier state college where, influenced by this game and others excuses to get college-age women drunk, the only Varsity Letter they're likely to achieve is an "F", here are the rules. (At this point we should mention that we don't think we're taking liberties with standard procedure if you substitute the eponymous 'beer' with any other alcoholic beverage or recreational drug of your choice as regional differences are likely to come into play).

Two teams take turns shooting ping-pong balls into a triangle of cups at their opponent's end of the table. When a ball lands in a cup, the contents of the cup are quickly quaffed. Each cup is systematically removed until one team sinks all of the cups on their opponent's side. The game is won by eliminating all the other team's cups and then as a clincher, if projectile vomiting and requisite stomach pumping has yet to set in, the losing team must then consume all the beer remaining in the winning team's cups. Unless you have a storehouse of ping-pong balls on hand for this one, the ball you are using will have presumably been all over the filthy floor where the game is being played, so we hope you're too blasted to give a damn when the time comes to down the losers' share of the beer.

According to Bing Bong Inc., the "largest supplier of regulation [our italics again] portable beer pong tables in the world", the product offers "the convenience of taking this game virtually anywhere," if by "virtually anywhere" they mean, the privacy of your own home -- it's probably illegal to play in a public park or beach as the women in the above publicity shot appear to be doing--then yes, it can be taken virtually anywhere.

While we appreciate this advancement as much as the next guys, having participated in such shenanigans at our book launch for the "The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death", we question how a target demographic can find plastic cups, ping pong balls and a flat surface hard to come by, unless they're serving time (although luckily in lower-security facilities and mental wards table-tennis is widely encouraged as a "no-sharp -points" way to pass the time).

Regardless, consumers can experience Bing Bong's "innovative" gear (apparently, a folding table with their logo slapped on it, with a few cups thrown in), which (again quoting from their press release literature) is getting "tremendously positive feedback."

"I just joined AA. I still drink -- I just use a different name."

Controlled drinking may seem like an oxymoron not to mention a highly theoretical construct to us Shark Guys, however it’s beginning to hold more sway with folks who didn't use Psych 101 as a place to sleep off that Sunday hangover. The concept of controlled drinking, or what we sometimes engage in at lunch, has apparently emerged as a welcome and acceptable treatment alternative to the buzz kill offered by the folks at Alcoholics Anonymous—total abstinence.

Not abstaining at all, a concept we’ve kept an adamantine grasp on like that frayed rope your sadistic gym teacher had you climb in elementary school, might just be the best method of success. And this isn't us flapping our parched lips, but that's according to Dr. Michael Levy, author of "Take Control of Your Drinking...And You May Not Need to Quit", a tome that will be a welcome gift to sling under the tree of a loved one, while chapters are read aloud with a belt of eggnog.

While the more attainable objective of being able to continue to drink once you've been dubbed a "problem drinker" may seem well within a pint’s reach of the average tippler (and just the occasion to uncork that bubbly you’ve been saving for that time you tell your boss into which orifice you'll be sticking your penny loafer), don’t march gallantly into that nearest liquor store just yet. While you might be confident they won’t break your fall from that flying leap off the wagon, drinking in moderation goes against AA's core belief that alcoholics are in denial about being in control of their drinking.

Lest your instinct is to believe this is pure preachy hogwash (which is exactly how we reacted to it), there is some evidence to suggest heavy imbibers have actually damaged the part of the brain that can help control a drinking habit, which puts the pursuit of moderation beyond the realm of mere will. Unrelated research that we've conducted on our own also suggests that heavy and continued drinking can also result in inappropriate uses of the French language in parentheses (pourquoi?).

Now, Alcoholics Anonymous is often cited as having terrific success rates, far superior to say, a nicotine patch for smoking (a method of quitting that is hampered by having to try to find a piece of surface area to slap one on yourself as if you were the side of a FedEx package). However, with various sources pegging AA’s success rate at only between 20 and 40% depending on who you ask, and whether they themselves have been drinking, it’s no wonder a large portion of the population are willing to dance with the devil and steer clear of the God two-step cited in six of the twelve famous steps and toast this wonderful Dr Levy instead. Indeed, with a success rate like AA's -- which is similar to that of the worst performing team in any given sport in any given year, only worse -- it's no wonder that the organization has come under fire and demands have been made for its federal funding to be pulled out from under it quicker than a closing-time bartender can put up the closed sign and pour out the remainder of your drink.

Those responding to advocates of abstinence claim that abstinence and moderation are equally effective, citing a 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. What remains controversial are the definitions of alcohol dependency (alcoholism) and abuse. AA covers their arses by stating that anyone who can recover by drinking moderately was never an alcoholic in the first place. Well if that isn't an invitation to bring a case of PBR to the next meeting we hear about and test the mettle of the participants, we just don't know what is.

The Grinch that stole Guinness

This, as you may have guessed, is an important time of year for us Shark Guys, as we enter the Christmas drinking season and prepare ourselves for yet more tales of drunken Santas, holiday office party chicanery (For our Holiday Office Party Tips click here), and the related reasons why i