League of Their Own

Beerpong fest at O'Shea, not really a throwback when it comes to casinos, but more like that aged wart with hairs grown upon it that has somehow survived the mergers, acquisitions, and transitions toward a more modern strip hotel experience. For whatever reason, the casino gods of Las Vegas have not been able to put the wooden stake through the heart of this low rent vampire who continually has had the ability to carve out a niche amongst the rural middle class twenty somethings and I imagine teens with good fake identifications as their oasis in the desert. A locale of cheap beer, low waged gambling, and all the conveniences spring breakers might find at any roadside bar down in the seedier resort towns in Mexico. Beer funnels, three foot plastic drink containers full of light beer, and spontaneous puking in the corner of this hotel at any given moment feel down right normal for this establishment and from these cornerstone of frat like partying, a foundation has been built, solidified every year with a St. Patrick's Day bash that makes old school fraternity hazing look like an AA meeting.

Small groups of twenties somethings oversaturated on bad comedies and lukewarm romances have led there here tonight as oppose to something more tame like a movie, driven by what they have seen in spoof dramatizations of this concept, this idea, now called Beerpong, a game embraced by fellow college friend in Las Vegas. Being a bit older than most of my college breathern, I missed out on the transition from quarters, up the river, down the river, strip poker, 3 Man, and Thumbmaster, maybe Thumper made the cut to this new generation of binge drinkers, so by now the big thing was to drag out a ping pong table, grab ten red beer cups, fill them half full of beer, some might wonder, why not fill the entire cup, first of all you would go through about a case of beer every game and be stone cold wasted after three games, depending on your skill level, but not too worry social drinking is encouraged during the game if not mandatory, which usual ranges from tame things like Parrot Bay rum to full on shots of Jack Daniels, around my friends it usually depended on who was playing and/or losing, upping the ante on increasing the level of intoxication during the game was always facilitated by shit talking and lewd behavior conducted around the pile of beer cups, tits get taken out, asses, and other organs if the game is on the line, this form of frat play is for the more extreme types. They were enjoyable times and a surefire way to get all the hot girls drunk in the fastest amount of time, where their services would be farmed out for other more carnal like ventures, but the professional boozers, we pretty much played till all the beer, then straight alcohol ran dry.

There is a winner take all fascination with Beerpong for juvenile types like myself who get a kick out of watching two others drink there ten beers then finish off my teams remaining six or being down at the end of the game with two shots left, two cups standing, have to make both in order to go into a three cup playoff, by this time all the people in the party have gathered around so maybe fifty or sixty people close in and believe it or not, a bit of pressure can creep into the mind, drama to rival any final drive in an NFL playoff game, you make the first one, then the second, then finish the other team off in the extra round, total jock fest, but what the fuck, it is my victory, my small contribution the steady decline of american society, to strut around like Kobe Bryant after a game winning shot in the NBA finals, it might look odd to the sober person, but not too many sober types with this college crew. I would usually do more drinking on the side, then during the game which can make things all the more challenging with double vision, have to go zen and just will the ping pong ball into the cup. At the end of it all is truck loads of empties, dead bottles, and a cascade of casualties all about the party house, where a few of the harder souls, talk shit, tells stories, and recall the glory days of college life, so rapidly dwindling down as graduation grew ever closer.

No fun like that tonight here at O'Shea, my kind of fun would lead to fights, gross behavior in the bathroom stalls, and a general desire to smash then set on fire anything not screwed down with strong metal bolts, nothing but the fourth generation of waterdown overkill, looking to model their forty year old uncles and aunts who come to the family parties, do cocaine in the bathrooms, steal then take all the prescription pills out of the medicine cabinet, then dose the punch bowl with MDMA and Ritalin, those wacky Gen X kids, no parents, no rules, restraint, or supervision, this black hole generation, passed over with the steam roller, the weird, the wise, and the invisible the bridge between Leave it to Beaver and Leave it to Technology, that homogenized past has been pureed into silicone, transformed into online masterbation, virtual banking, and re-collecting all those odd musical keepsakes, tossed into the trash when your single substance dependent relationship timebomb parent gave you the boot out the house with all that you could stuff in a suitcase, wish I could have set on fire all my records, posters, concert shirts, clothing, everything, gave all my clothes to the homeless, then left.

But back at O'Shea's where to girls are giving each other the finger, while another shakes her tits trying to distract a guy throwing his ping pong ball, the guy misses, so the tit shaker has been successful, I look over at the cups, they are barely a tenth full, why even play, this all looks so amatuerish, a routine, as if these teenagers had been given orders to come down here and pose, just look like they are getting wasted, instead of spending all their time on their phones Facebooking each other pictures of them pretending to be getting wasted in other parties, that prototypical rot gut brand tequila bottle in hand or pressed against the lips, chugging away in a manner that would make Keith Richards smile, is nothing but a fucking lie, a doctor photoshop slide, tall tales now available on video, not much partying going on in front of me, this younger generation seems thrown off by everything, while in fact they have their own digital world, very content to leave my analouge world in the cosmic dust of existence, so who fucking cares if you, old man, can drink a bottle of Patron, do an eight ball of coke, then take ten hits of LSD, followed up with a hand full of IN-TER-NET, where anything is possible and can be made into reality, believe by all those of my generation who script their own life, we are infinite, boundless, and everywhere all at the same time, who the fuck needs LSD.

I would have to agree with this crowd here tonight, where a video arcade game stands over in a corner that was originally a home video game console product as turned the tables and become what I use to slam quarters into like some junked out digital freak in need of reinforcement in the act of being a winner, of being a killer, being important, reviling in total victory over these overwhelming forces of mediocrity all around me, with a desposition of being lazy and not caring. Off in another corner are pictures of winning beer pong teams from tournaments here at O'Shea's apparently there is a national beer pong tournament held in Las Vegas annually, just one more thing to make someone a adrenline like rush of self importance in a world that looks to dispense it out only through the channels of make believe media la la land. Team titles like Big, Black, and Sexy, Two Ball Jen, and Sex Panthers don this winners circle of subnormals and mental degenerates who have fallen so far as to embrace the endorphine rush of being victorious in beer pong, celebrating a shower of stale light beer that smells more like urine than alcohol, but what does it matter, take that picture, you winner, flash those gang signs, and pull up your girlfriends t shirt to show her tits if you are quick enough, but go home all the same back to the television re-runs, late night fast food, and if lucky half conscious sex to the sounds of todays latest popstars, no revision, its late, work soon, but back in the business of writing, the only real business left.