all tomorrow’s parties or there are no more bottles

you know when we started this i didn’t expect half of the shit we would have to go through. we apparently broke two liquor stores throughout the process of their inventory. we tried to get other bottles in the home stretch but there were none to be had. i think that if there is a lesson for the fighting cock distillery it’s that they need better distribution. still though, simply by numbers.

• 1 fifth is 750ml or approximately 1/5 of a gallon. so we technically drank a little over four gallons of fighting cock.

• since fighting cock is 51.5% alcohol then that means that a little over 375ml of it per bottle was pure alcohol.

• i think that in the pure alcohol sense that equals about 30-35 12 ounce beers a bottle (my math might be off on that because math is dumb)

• we drank 15750ml of fighting cock and a little over 7875ml of it was pure alcohol

• you can do the math on how much money we spent. in determining the number myself i was reminded that life is very cheap, living is very expensive.

• if you low balled (which i am) the amount of hours spent with each bottle which i will say is 3 then it equals 63 hours or almost 3 continuous days if you stack them all up.
• i counted nine lessons. some pointless, some priceless. take your pick.

at the very end of the fighting cock summer i was talking to some folks and expressed that i was sort of disappointed that we only made it to 21. they thought 21 was actually a pretty good run. it just goes to show that success is often in the eye of the beholder.

it’s sort of like how some people get a 50 dollar bill and think they’re rich and then some people wipe their ass with it. i guess it all depends on where you are coming from and what shape you are actually in. maybe you’re only as successful or un-successful as you think that you are. maybe you should measure your own success instead of letting some assholes do it for you.

i struggled to finish this. i wanted it to be something so much more grand, some epiphany that blows everyone’s mind and changes lives. in the end it was what it was; some funny stories, a legitimate (although delusional) reason to get drunk a lot with my friends, and to try to make sense out of something for a change. when looking at it that way it was a success. i hope you all find your own fighting cock summer and i hope you give it pure hell.

bottle 21 or the jump street is gonna stab you in the mouth

its amazing how a fifth of fighting cock can turn your day around. well it’s not exactly that it turns your day around as much as it lowers your standards for a good day. hell, sometimes we’re too serious about the success of our daily actions. sometimes we should just realize there are days where we dont do jackshit outside of accomplishing something minor. or even just treading through the bullshit.

hell, sometimes i feel like if i get through a day without some of the small things we take for granted then i’m fine. for example: i havent seen an entire commercial all day. i have no stress in the pitch for spending dollars. i havent looked at too much concrete. i wish i could say that i havent seen a cop but the fucking state troopers decided that our driveway was the perfect place to meet drug informants and or undercover cops for some reason. either way, today hasnt been awful.

maybe we should stop being so negative and save the real awful days for the ones that actually are. makes more sense than worrying over petty bullshit that doesn’t matter anyways.

patrick swayze is dead and it could happen a million more times and in ten years it wont mean shit. what the fuck are we worrying about?

fuck lessons that dont result in us realizing we’re not as big as we want to think we are. someone could travel back in time and step on us and it wouldn’t change shit.

bottle 21. i fucking hate you. i didnt mean that. i really didnt.

we’re a week away. i dont know how to feel.

bottle 18, 19, & 20 or man did i ever let this shit hang out there for too long.

blah blah blah. at first i wanted bottle 18 to be a picture essay but it just didnt work out that way.  it’s hard to capture the feeling of fighting cock summer in picture form. i was a fool for even thinking it could work, the good lord seen to that. while i was waiting on that to pan out we kept drinking. the next thing i know i’m deep in to bottle 20 and wondering where the time went. it happens that way. like sand in the hourglass.

i could tell many a funny stories but none had lessons. it was more about destructive behavior in the physical and collateral. damage is damage. sometimes a sense of restraint would do wonders to make life ultra fucking boring. i bet i wouldnt wake up with half the party scars.

sometimes it’s good to not learn any lessons. then you’re just fucking up for the sake of the story or due to a lack of common sense. maybe both. find me in real life and i’ll tell you both kinds, mostly about lack of common sense though.

we are 13 days away from the end of this experiment. i think the goal is to at least get to bottle 25. goddamn not having a liquor store in the town we live in. it made us under-achievers. well that and drinking beer which is more easily accessible.

bottle 17 parts one and two or whiskey weekend!

what in the fuck is this two part nonsense i bet you’re asking yourself. confused, angry, irrational, waiting for something that will help you make sense of it all. well it’s fairly simple.

beginning on thursday we went in to whiskey weekend. yes i know that thursday doesn’t start the weekend but you really need to stop busting my balls, i’m trying to explain what happened. this was when bottle 16 came in to play. whiskey weekend continued on to the next day only a friend brought a bottle of makers mark so we went that route.

fast forward through blood, urine, people falling off moving cars while trying to car surf crybaby style, as well as other random shenanigans you could guess that saturday set heavy on everyone’s soul. people’s stomachs and injuries from prior days of whiskey drinking limited the amount of alcohol they wanted anything to do with. so, given that:

part one was me drinking fighting cock by myself bored as all fuck. no lesson really was learned and the remainder of the bottle went in to sunday nowhere near as drained as the rest of us were. i guess the lesson is that fighting cock will always come out on top. the difference being that you will stand proudly by it’s side or under it’s talons as a broken individual.

part two came on the final day of whiskey weekend and was quite enjoyable. a part of that being because it was the first time throughout the whole experiment that we decided to mix fighting cock in to something else. at this point i’m sure some of you are building the gallows at news of such blasphemy. i throw myself at your mercy but remind you that there was no such rule prohibiting us from doing so. besides, high balls are awesome.

wanna make one at home? here’s what you do. you will need:

• fighting cock of course

• ale 8 or another ginger flavored soft drink

• lemon juice

• ice

depending on how you like it will determine how much of each ingredient sans the lemon juice cause you just need a splash and the ice. most people either do a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 mix.

this highball doesn’t have a name and we were way too drunk to even be thinking about giving it one. these things are great though. i would pack a glass all day everyday if not for holding down a job and the many dui and pi charges that would most certainly occur.

so no lesson from part two really. other than just suggestions on how to stay classy.

bottle 16 or sweet sixteen

the embrace of an old friend has that sense of joy and lifted spirit. the reunion with fighting cock after a good amount of time, i can say, carried no such sensations. well maybe the joy. it was still pretty good though.

i woke up with the random party scars that i dont remember and of course slept with my lights on. i did manage to get my shoes off, which is a good sign. i knew the flogging was going to be a good one though. it had been a good long while. september isn’t too far away but it doesnt seem that close either.

todays lesson is that once you learn how to ride a bicycle you never forget. you’ll simply remember it with contempt and disappointment unless it was a good time. my bet is no. good times are few and far between. and most involve alcohol and an ability to run things according to plan, to the t.

we need a get rich quick scheme. perhaps the cock will give us guidance. poor, misguided, tasty guidance.

bottle 15 or where in the fuck is bottle 15 or excuses excuses

bottle 15 actually happened during the 4th of july.  i missed it. which is sad because it involved hallucinogens and people getting hit with watermelon in the face. ask around, you’ll hear about it.

we haven’t been lazy or stalled as some people would like to think. i went to maryland which didn’t sell fighting cock for some dumb goddamn reason and other than that we’ve been drinking beer more than anything. not sure why, it just happened that way. probably because we have to drive to a different county to get alcohol and beer seems closer than the liquor store for some reason(they’re in opposite directions).

we went to the liquor store the other day and they were out. can you believe that? i wanted to burn the liquor store down. but no one would have cared in a couple of years. you catch that?

the fury is coming. i give you my word.

bottle 14 or the silence is broken

i guess you felt like we were awful quiet there for a minute. in all honesty we were, more to circumstance than whiskey. sometimes  you have to be a business, man. this was my theoretical intro. i wrote it drunk, but not on fighting cock. it was a note to myself. to be picked apart and re-examined at a different stage.

now i’m not exactly sure. we kind of stumbled off to our other devices, jaded from bottle 13, busy with a life without fighting cock. how shocking is that? we actually got there, early in my opinion. it was not as much a conscious decision as it was more a whim towards self preservation. or at least holding down employment.

so what was in this silence? this fighting cock-less world? well, to be quite honest, a good amount. life moves way too fast sometimes. it gets beyond your control.with or without the fighting cock.

thomas jefferson’s idea on public education was that you got to a certain point and you either learned a trade or moved on to another level. the other level was one in which you were supposed to become a better citizen, an asset to your community and country.

i would argue that i am neither (for community nor country), and that no one of the collegiate system could debate their stature in those regards either. well maybe some could. i don’t have that experience so there is no need for me to assume, which is a slippery slope.

when you assume you make an asshole out of “me” and “you”, even though the “you” doesn’t really fit. what a dumb goddamn saying. unless you count it as when “you assume.” i guess that’s what it means but that’s bullshit though. man up and realize we are no where near as smart as we think and when we become honest with ourselves and each other it only complicates matters. that is today’s lesson.

flogging with vengeance. we have catching up to do.

bottle 13 or back to back or how the ship sank before it set sail

even considering all the people who have little faith, we are some superstitious critters. even if we don’t want to be. it doesn’t have to be a feeling, a faith, or even getting duped. that we acknowledge it is almost as destructive as believing. the landmine is primed.

thirteen is a famous number. opinions however, vary.

in sikhism, thirteen is a very special number. april thirteenth is normally vaisakhi, the sikh new year. in italy it’s a lucky number. wilt the stilt chamberlain carried the number thirteen through a great deal of points and women.

it was interesting to piece the good luck end of the number to my thoughts this morning as i woke up. i had never thought of a chance that the number could be positive. apparently a lot of people feel the same way because it even has it’s own phobia (triskaidekaphoia). bad luck thirteen. friday the thirteenth. etc.

you know it. you may not believe in it, but you know it.

as a non believer and a person who doesnt think about luck much in any direction i will say this though.  the lesson from the trainwreck that was bottle thirteen is that i had already doomed it before it even began. don’t ask me how in the fuck i did it, i personally feel like it was a collective mental effort.

we foolishly worried about the significance of a fucking number and it obliged. big time.

bottle 12 or bottle twelve, guest starring matt carter

matt carter argued that my statement of fighting cock not being the poor man’s version of wild turkey wasn’t exactly right and he was valid in some senses, if only that drunks can argue taste. feeling however, will be argued.

none the less, cash rules everything around me lest we forgo a common reality that chases us all. i had a serious point but goddamn if the cock didn’t stop me in that phase. the counter productive smashing style. rope and dope. flogged beyond comprehension. after. after my…

what is today’s lesson? aside from listening to “enter the 36 chambers” by the wutang clan i have no idea. well maybe listen to “ironman” because there is no need to let someone think you’re not serious as a motherfucking heartattack. if they think that you’re not you’ll get sold short. which, for the record, can be sweet and/or turn on you like an example that makes you understand the violent nature of living.

know when to hold em and know when to fold em, aint it funny.

bottle 11 or i hate bottle eleven

restraint, even when attempted, doesn’t seem to play out. best intentions are fine and all until the rubber hits the road and your 8 shots deep,  confused and bumbling. with the sweet taste of whiskey caught in your throat you thrust deeper into the bottle. this even after you tried to tell yourself that it wouldn’t go down this way. it’s all smiles and loud talking.

you make an error that makes you appear drunker than you are and get disappointed. worried even. most people are cops. or freemasons. or both. then something or another happens and you apparently go to bed. you wake up and your mouth tastes like an ashtray that someone poured fighting cock in to. and a new day begins.

the lesson is that going up against social anxiety with a fifth of liquor is one method. but it will not afford the restraint you want, if that’s your kind of deal.