A long Time Ago, In a Bar Not So Far Away

There was a time and a place when drinking held a special place in my heart. I supposed it still does, but the times it lives up to expectations have become few and far between. There's many times now, when I simply choose to take the teetotaler path and just not drink when I go out. One of the many things CrossFit has taught me, is how to have fun out at bars with a water in my hand.

I suppose I've matured (somewhat) and now being a drunk moron just isn't as appealing. At least most of the time, of course I have my moments. I've often wondered what happened to bring me here. Granted, waking up foggy and/or hungover is miserable when you're training the next day, so that's surely part of it. It definitely doesn't improve fitness that's for sure. One of the worst days of my life involved an attempt at a 10-9-8....1 ladder of Powercleans, burpees, and ring dips after an all night bender. Never again. But, I suspect there's more to it than that.

I mean a REAL Irish pub with a bartender named Seamus, very dark wood, little to no lights, and girls you probably wouldn't take home in the back of a pick up truck

The overall willingness of circles of friends to drink and make merriment has declined with age. That's just part of life, though. I've come to realize that I'm not going to miss anything I haven't seen or experienced before by abstaining from imbibing the amber fluid of the gods. I do love beer, believe me...but unlike in my youth I love BEER, not drunk. Once in a great while being drunk is super fun, but often I just get tired now. Maybe I'm just an old man who's too obsessed with pretending to be an athlete.


A great barroom sing-along tune.

The fall down laughing, singing at the top of your lungs, ecstatic joyful drunkenness that once took place on the regular at Eddie Coyle's Road House Tavern back home, has been replaced with needing a nap. The time honored tradition of heavily inebriated men belting out folk songs at inappropriate volume with arms on shoulders has been largely lost. Is it age? Is it society? Is it just this region? I'm not sure but I'd like to bring it back.

THIS is a pub - The Ruck, Troy NY.

Those were some of the best nights of my life. Sitting in the rafters of a rustic lake house drunker than Gary Busey, doing my best Axl Rose impression with 35 close friends as accompaniment. That's an experience I'd like to have more of. Sitting around a camp fire and telling old ghost stories, or singing Woody Guthrie songs with a pint or a glass of scotch is an important part of male bonding. We've superseded much of this with CrossFit, and that's alright. However, it would be a goddamn Greek tragedy if we were to forget about it entirely.

Drinking and singing (badly) somehow brings feelings of warmth and kinship that are seldom duplicated by other means. It's high time we found our way back into an Irish pub someplace - and I mean a REAL Irish pub with a bartender named Seamus, very dark wood, little to no lights, and girls you probably wouldn't take home in the back of a pick up truck - settled in and sang a chorus of Charlie Mopps, cued up Don't Stop Believing on the juke box, and raised our glasses in salute of all who've done so before us.