In my drinking career, I have been known as “That Guy” from time to time.
You know, the guy that turns drunken smiles to beer-soaked frowns or steps on your feet and then gets all up in your grill when you politely ask him to watch where he’s going.
Or maybe he stood on the couch, waiting for unsuspecting dancers to tackle. Maybe he even tackled you (and if you’re reading this, I’m sorry). Did he kick you in the balls hard enough to make you puke, or was his unintelligible game a new fun story about some dickhead at the bar who tried to hit on you? Or was he so drunk that he hit on one lesbian after another because he didn’t realize it was a gay bar?
I’ve done all of these, and with each additional night of jackassery, I’ve foolishly felt like I had a reputation to maintain.
By the way, I made it through 17 lesbians before figuring it out.
Through it all, John Henry’s has been my bar of choice to make an ass out of myself. Between Reggae vs. Hip Hop and ’80s Night, I’ve narrowly avoided getting beaten down more times than I can remember. But with melt-your-face well drinks that cheap, how can I afford not to be a jerk?
After the debauchery of freshman year with all its newfound freedom, I had learned my limits, but something about ’80s Night makes me nostalgic for something crazy besides Michael Jackson. And it doesn’t help that my ’80s Night outfit of choice happens to be a bright red “Thriller”-reminiscent jacket that I discovered at a thrift store freshman year.
It’s not that I relish ruining the evenings of others, but doing so produces entertaining stories that I enjoy hearing while I piece together the events of a particular night.
I didn’t have that luxury when I took my act to Vegas for a friend’s wedding last Halloween. My airport shuttle was scheduled to pick me up at 5:30 a.m. the day after the wedding, so I saw no reason to sleep. By 4:00 a.m., my friends had all left me, and I set out to try and find something fun to do while dressed like the girl from “The Ring”. After an exhausting half-hour stumble around The Strip, I settled on a spot and had a drink with a burnt-out crowd of gambling addicts and off-duty strippers, which wasn’t as interesting as you might think.
After an anti-climactic last hour in Vegas, I rushed back to change out of my costume and get on that shuttle. I remember confronting the driver about some non-existent bags I had in the trunk. I hope I tipped him well.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up on the floor of the Portland airport because my cell phone’s alarm started buzzing. I panicked and lurched to a sitting position in search of my belongings. My camera bag was secured around my shoulder and the only thing I had lost was a magazine. On top of that miracle, my boarding pass was safe in my back pocket, and my alarm had left me enough time to rehydrate.
“Good job, blacked-out Kai,” I thought, and I patted myself on the back for having survived the craziest Tuesday night I’ve ever had.
This, coupled with not yet breaking under the pressure of my jerkitude, gave me a sense of invincibility usually reserved for high school boys and rock stars.
I finally faced a long-overdue consequence of my drinking a few weeks ago. After photographing an event until 1:30 a.m. I went to a friend’s going away party. Obviously, by 1:30, everybody was already blitzed and demanded that I play catch up. I polished off a half-bottle of Night Train before hitting the vodka like it had raped my sister. I lost track of the night some time after finishing some strangers’ leftover nachos at Muchas Gracias around 4:30 a.m.
Fast forward to morning and I’m curled into a ball in the back seat of a car. “Hmm. Must be Kyle’s car,” I thought, as if that were a reasonable explanation. After another hour of back-knotting sleep, I ventured out into the oh-so-bright sunshine only to face three confused people.
“What are you doing?” asked the man of the trio.
“Oh. Shit. Is this your car?” I fumbled.
Luckily he was a friend of a friend. “Hi Kai,” my friend said as if we had just bumped into each other in passing. I was a short five-minute walk from home.
I had just crawled into bed when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. “Are you missing something?” asked the woman after she butchered my name. I had assumed I left my camera at my friend’s house, but quickly discovered I had only made an ass out of myself with that assumption. After some small talk during which I stupidly told her how much it was worth, she got to the point.
“So what’s the reward on this?”
“Oh! Of course!” I said. “I’ll give you all the money in my wallet.” I explained how I was still looking for work and not in the most financially successful period in my life.
“How much is that?”
“$24.”
“Ooh. What else you got?” she asked.
After some negotiating, we reached an agreement. “Okay, $24 and a banjo,” she said before requesting that we meet at Muchas Gracias. I went there and put on some puppy dog eyes in hopes of guilting her out of taking my banjo. I even sank as low as to ask if she believed in Karma.
“Yeah,” said the woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. “I just need the money more. Tell you what. I’ll hang onto your banjo for a while and you can get it back if you come up with more money.”
“How much were you expecting?” I asked.
“Oh, I dunno; like $50?”
After telling the story to my roommates, they generously gave me the money to get my banjo back, and though I was put off by what had transpired, I still felt exceedingly lucky.
After all, I had left around $2,000 of equipment on the sidewalk near the intersection of 15th Avenue and Oak Street during prime tweaker hours, and she easily could have fenced it for much more.
I’ve been taking it easier since then, and I’ve gotten other hints about my past douchebaggery. While looking for a lighter outside John Henry’s, I saw an acquaintance and her friend smoking. I asked if they had a lighter and her friend’s response was accessorized with sassiness that only could’ve been topped with some finger snapping – a response I certainly did not deserve based on what I did that night.
“So what?” you might be thinking. “One time, I knocked a guy out for looking at me, spit in his girlfriend’s face and kicked a cop on the taint before throwing up all over the back seat of the cop car and crapping my pants. Then I swallowed my tongue and was medically dead for five minutes. I’ll drink your camera-losing punk ass under the table and kick it while it’s down there.”
Well, okay. You got me. You’re more retarded than I am. Kudos. But before you write a letter to the editor sharing your favorite drinking story (which, by the way, the Emerald is legally obligated to print), consider this: The Department of Defense spent $2 million to fund their faux-cool thatguy.com campaign to curb excessive drinking by soldiers. That’s the same amount that the president has proposed be cut from Oregon’s Head Start program in 2008!
And if you think your pants-crapping story is extreme, a group of soldiers are accused of raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family after getting tanked on locally made whiskey last year.
Kinda makes me feel like a nice guy.
Kai-Huei Yau is a University alumnus and former Emerald photographer.