I has a sad

If you haven't heard by now that Old College Inn will be moving closer to the center of Cumberland Avenue, then please consider reading other blogs. Thanks.

We don't offer a lot of negative comments here regarding old favorites, particularly on The Strip since it is a markedly different place than when I fell in love with it. If I might become the proverbial old fart, I remember when the old location was revered and honored. The new home of OCI was an old house with brush all around it. Creepy at first, but you got used to it.

I'm not sure I can get used to the idea of OCI moving to the old Chilis. I understand the rationale of the owner, particularly regarding kitchen space. However, it's a risk in my layman's opinion to 'move' a household name. Fellow alums that visit Mackey and me all request -at length- to make OCI part of the visit, and it's a bar that I still frequented when I got down to Cumberland. It's a tie for many of us former students to The Strip's heyday...which we all understand now was insanely out of control. Way too sentimental I grant you. I hope they know what they are doing.

Good luck guys.

Great Drunks of the Silver Screen 11.0

Er...or the small screen in this case. Hey, and look here now-it's a woman this time. I give you:



Sue Ellen Ewing, Dallas socialite and dysfunctional alkie. Glug-glug.

Strengths: Vengeful bitch, partial owner of Ewing Oil, powerful liver

Weaknesses: Pisses her pants around JR, repeatedly.

During the late 70's and through the decade of excess known as the 80's many viewing starved Americans gathered round the old teevee and vegged out on some quality primetime soap operas. First among equals, Dallas was the place to be for my parents and their age group that didn't roll into the dungheaps of local bars. I don't remember everything about this program, but my mother would whip my ass if I talked outside a commerical break.

Anyhoo, Sue Ellen (as any viewer could tell you) dealt with her abusive and straying bastard of a husband JR by drinking anything shy of paint thinner. Though purists and fans will tell you she only became an dreaded alkie during the show's run, my much more awesome recollection puts her squarely in the back of iconic Southfork:






Soused 24/7 often rolling about in a nightgown-in the grass, falling in the pool, flipping cowshit, etc. That's the gist. Numerous intriques, business fuckery, petrowarfare, and animal husbandry all seemed secondary to Sue Ellen's emotional minefield of suspicion and abuse. Mark well this exchange in the famous who-shot-Jr arc:

Yes, quite the reasonable response indeed. These two have more horns on their heads than irradiated cattle and it makes for great tension. Continuing in this vein, JR uses his parents(who must have sinned terribly in their previous lives) to kick her ass.


Classic. High fucking drama for 1981. Or 1982. Those days tend to blur. JR goes on to tell our stoic and sauced heroine something along the lines of her being a terrible mother and a drunk. Everything else goes nuclear when he further threatens to send her to the booby hatch. If you look closely, JR does this scene with piece of bacon in his hand.

The fact that Sue Ellen was not in fact JR's assailant is a bona fide miracle. We can only point out that her self-destructive boozing prevented a coherent premeditated murder, which in and of itself is pretty odd on this program. Dallas was sorta confusing.

From the "Holy Fucking Shit" Files

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you this thing:

Behold: The Silver God

I am grateful and disturbed that someone actually had the foresight during the 70's, 80's, or 90's to take a picture of Knoxville's most horrifying shitter this side of Neyland Stadium. This...thing, resided in the gentlemen's lavatory at the now defunct The Last Lap. We've blogged on the nostalgic bygones from Cumberland Avenue's glory days, but this majestic piece of photography brings a smile to my face and a powerful desire to drink leaded Budweiser.

Sometimes less is more, and I don't feel my standard need to be garrulous here. Those of us that remember this seemingly indestructible piece of Knoxville history really do not need my bullshit perspective to reminisce.

Let's just say that it doesn't matter if the film was in color or black and white, the powerful energies emanating from The Silver God would have made it look as it did during my foggiest memories. Secondly, the amount of piss in the bowl was always less than the urine puddled in the corner, which is not surprising when you consider that just off camera to the left is the trough which made for uncomfortably close quarters(think U-Boats).

I can remember only one time ever seeing anyone sit on the damn thing. I presume that person is deceased now. Fucking bacteria and voodoo have seen to that.

New Holiday

...or at least one that should be. Go over to http://www.repealday.org/ and give some attention to this movement. I heartily endorse the efforts to celebrate the death of the 18th Amendment, one of the more odious and utterly dipshitted actions in American history.

Note to the neo-temperance movement: Prohibition never works.

Drinking Nostalgic

You know what I haven't done in a really long time? Power Hour. In fact, it's been too damn long. I'm bringing Power Hour (and also, sexy) back.

I'm predicting that Lord von Lord just rolled his eyes.

If you've never done a Power Hour before (meaning, if you never went to college), then you've missed out on an efficient and somewhat organized method for getting drunk. It's binge-drinking, but on a schedule.

For the unenlightened: Power Hour is a drinking game (and I'm using the term "game" loosely), in which the participants take a shot of beer every minute, for a solid hour. Yes, that's 60 shots of beer in 60 minutes, and if you do it right (1.5-oz. shots), you'll get through roughly 7.5 beers. (Or, if you're a lightweight like me, you can do half shots, and you'll get through almost 4. Which is still respectable, but only if you're a girl.)

As for keeping track of the minutes, you have two options. One, you can keep an eye on a digital clock, and take a drink every time it changes. This tends to be somewhat tedious, and is usually an exercise in futility after the first 20 or so shots. Two (and this is the preferred method), you can obtain one of those Power Hour Remixes, which is basically a playlist (or CD) of 60 songs, with each song playing for exactly 60 seconds before changing to the next. The participants just take a shot every time a new song starts! (Ingenious.)

Now, I have heard of folks playing Power Hour with liquor before, but I wouldn't recommend it. The idea of Power Hour is to get shitfaced, not dead. (Of course, you could always take a shot of liquor every ten minutes for an hour, but that's still a lot of booze for yours truly. The other contributors to this blog would call that "Lunch Hour.")

I've also heard of the Power Fifteen, in which you take a shot of wine every minute, for 15 minutes. Seriously though, people. Who the hell shoots wine?

I'll stick to the beer, thank you very much.

And with that, I'm off to find a good 60-minute remix. It's Power Hour time!

Novelty Nostalgia

On the heels of Lord von Lord's tirade against the mix-pack I was reminded of some other gimmicks, novelties, etc. from the past that I haven't thought of in a while. Shit like this has been going on as long as people have been drinking. Surely the ancient Sumerians had some annoying asshole going around offering the latest crazee straw made of reeds, "Gets you drunk faster" he would claim. Well, we've come a long way, baby. Check these out:


Aw yeah, test tube shots! Remember these? Who knows when these were first introduced, I'm guessing the 1980's. When first introduced they were probably the coolest thing anyone had ever seen. Someone had a cool idea, perhaps a theme party. Maybe some students finishing med school decided to throw a bash and dress as mad scientists drinking wild concoctions out of test tubes. RAD!

At about the same time another party favorite was making the rounds at college dorms, high school house parties, and even military bases. I've heard that secrecy was the catalyst behind this novelty. Anywhere alcohol was not permitted would be a great place for this one, namely high school teenagers living with their parents, underage college students living in the dorms, and yes, even military personnel denied the right to keep booze in the barracks.

The Jello shot. Oh, what better way to conceal your booze right under the authorities noses than in the innocent, kid dessert known as J-E-L-L-O? Bill Cosby never knew it was heading this way. I was first introduced to this gimmick while stationed at A-school right out of boot camp in 1988. I was only 18 and didn't have a clue about this furtive practice. We had inspections often, and sure enough one time we were quizzed about the tub of jello stowed in the mini-fridge. Either our platoon leader was cutting us pukes a break, or he had absolutely no idea, but we sailed right through inspection. We were free to go out for the weekend and do some proper, underage drinking.



You still see these type drinks out in the bars from time to time, but not very often. Which is fine with me as I've moved past the gimmicks. I drink bourbon on the rocks now. I drink strong beer. I drink rich, red wine. But every now and then it doesn't hurt to revisit the past and take one of those stupid shots. C'mon, you know you want to.