Drunken Dispatches

This is a Shirley Temple. It has ginger ale and grenadine and...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:48:49 +0800

This is a Shirley Temple.

It has ginger ale and grenadine and the sad aftertaste of inauthenticity.

There’s a reason it’s named after a child star and that’s all you’ll be drinking if you don’t stock up before the five-day liquor ban starts.

Be an adult and do your panic buying ahead of time.

IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS, FILIPINOS:

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:44:46 +0800

The liquor ban is from May 9, Thursday, to May 13, Monday.

That’s all, carry on, go vote, be good.

Photo

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:43:34 +0800

Photo

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:22:52 +0800

Bear with us.

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:10:41 +0800

Bear with us.

“Tell me about the blues,” she said as we drank...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:19:00 +0800

“Tell me about the blues,” she said as we drank draft beers at a blues bar on Manila Bay.

I rambled on a bit about how the blues is about being alone and being hopeless and poor and unemployed. Of being alienated and unwanted. Of how one can never really get drunk listening to the blues because that is not the point of it. Of how the point of the blues is not oblivion, but of the faint hope that you are not alone after all.

And then, because a frown crossed her face just so, we walked out of the bar to learn all about the blues.

Thought Catalog: The Overthinking Person's Drinking Game

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:54:48 +0800

Thought Catalog: The Overthinking Person's Drinking Game:

We around these parts are usually allergic to Thought Catalog, but — come on. If anyone’s overthinking and drinking, das us. Das me.

We told ourselves that at some point we will have to moderate...

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:55:46 +0800

We told ourselves that at some point we will have to moderate our drinking. This is probably that point.

Everyone should have a hobby.

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:18:41 +0800

Everyone should have a hobby.

Bad Girl's Drunk Song

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:39:17 +0800

I like it when things are complicated

I relish these moments when everything’s spinning

I drink and drink (but never feel quite sated).

Methinks that prudence is overrated

I’ll maximize my fun while I am living.

(I like it when things are complicated.)

The boys I’ve been with were all randomly dated

They never stayed, but out of all our sinning

I drank some more (but was not at all sated).

Though I am neither upset nor agitated

Only nonplussed with their leaving.

I like it when things are complicated,

When what you get is never what you anticipated.

I just go with the flow, even if it means careening

I drink and drink (though I never feel quite sated).

If my biography were to be annotated

Let it be said I was really just a girl filled with longing

Who liked it when things got complicated

Who drank a lot, but still never was sated.

(FC, 2006)

Thanks, Apple Dictionary, for telling me something I already...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:21:12 +0800

Thanks, Apple Dictionary, for telling me something I already know.

Here, though, is something that people — much less built-in digital dictionaries — don’t tell you about guilt: you get used to it. You get used to looking for it, and you get used to its weight.

Back when I used to drink a lot, the main side effect (other than puking and crying at the same time) was guilt. I familiarized myself deeply with the Morning After and all its ugly nuances: the in-the-shower wince as you remember who you bitched at last night, the tiny gasp of horror when you recall the kind of secrets you let slip, the great apprehension that greets you as you fire up your cellphone’s Sent messages, the examination of bruises and possible hickeys, and, in worst case scenarios, the person in your bed that you have to kindly but forcefully shake awake and eject.

When I got over that shitfest, however, and started drinking (kind of) moderately and safely, i.e. in a controlled environment with people (sorry, one person) I could trust, I discovered a whole new brand of guilt, a rattling kind of meta-guilt.

I wake up in the morning, hungover, possibly still a little drunk, and everything is all right. My Sent box is innocent. I had sent a grand total of two drunk tweets, both non-offensive, and they were entertaining enough to RT, it seems. The boy breathing deeply beside me is my boyfriend, thank god. No one is blowing up my phone with angry screaming or, worse, gentle inquiries: “Are you all right? Did you get home safe?” No horrible tagged photos on Facebook, no sly comments, nothing.

I should feel relief, really, but what washes over me is a sickening blood-boiling bewilderment: why wasn’t I weirder? Why do I feel so bad about having nothing to feel bad about?

Oh, okay. Thanks again, Apple Dictionary. But I’m no longer obliged to beat myself up, much less beat myself up for being innocent.

Innocence, I have learned, takes longer to re-learn than guilt. If I had known this earlier, maybe I wouldn’t be drinking so much in the first place.

Drunken Dispatch Drinx Lab 01: The Addler

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:10:00 +0800

A restaurant at the Collective in Makati sells sausages and Radlers, a refreshing beer-based German drink that does not get you drunk so much as happy.

It is a good drink and goes well with honey bread and all sorts of other wholesome food and activities. We had one tall mug each and ended up high-fiving each other all night. That is not even code for sex at all.

It is a bit expensive, though, since it has to be made from German beer, to stereotypically German precision, preferably by actual Germans.

Through rigorous experimentation and a disturbing disregard for our health, we at Drunken Dispatches have found a cheap alternative: The Addler.

Take a bottle of Boracay Coconut Flavoured Rum, and a Grande bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen.

In a glass, mix the beer and rum in this ratio: Basta mas marami ang beer kesa sa rum, and you have a close approximation of the Radler.

Was it good? Yes, it was. And strong, too. Within minutes, we were talking in fake German accents. Half an hour in, things were as chaotic as the Sacking of Rome.

Within an hour, it was All Quiet on the Western Front except for the occasional snoring.

Here’s a cheerful thought for a Monday afternoon on the...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:46:55 +0800

Here’s a cheerful thought for a Monday afternoon on the week before Christmas: “Being sober is such a drag…”.

Fortunately, this being the week before Christmas, you might not have to be sober for much longer.

"Alam mo, jologs ako, pero na-o-offend ako sa paraan ng pag-inom mo ng wine."

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:04:49 +0800

“Alam mo, jologs ako, pero na-o-offend ako sa paraan ng pag-inom mo ng wine.”

- my boss

"Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares, if you want to know about a..."

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:22:11 +0800

““Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares, if you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars.””

- Hemingway, supposedly.

"We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine."

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:11:18 +0800

“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.”

- Eduardo Galeano

Beer 101: A Definition of Terms

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:18:53 +0800

Beer 101: A Definition of Terms

misterdesantos: Thanks, @thysz!

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:22:49 +0800

misterdesantos:

Thanks, @thysz!

A vocabulary and history lesson, all in one:

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:26:20 +0800

Ma-oy is a Bisaya adjective that describes a state of drunkenness that is somewhere between disgustingly obnoxious and downright dangerous. People who are ma-oy, my mother said to me over a late-night dessert run, are scary to be with when they’re drunk. “Also,” she said, fixing me with a stare that was altogether sympathetic and stern (a quality of mothers, I’ve found) “it runs in our family.”

Fuck yes finally! I thought to myself, a word that can explain away my failings. Kaya pala. I’m ma-oy. That’s why I can send gross drunk texts. That’s why I can shove my way through a gig crowd with zero remorse. That’s why I can accost total strangers and turn them into best friends. That’s why my mornings-after always feature new bruises and (not always [only if I’m {un}lucky]) new beds. I’m hella ma-oy and now I can explain my drunken antics away because, well, it runs in the family.

I had stumbled upon something totally liberating: a solid excuse. I could wave away all post-booze remorse with one dismissive word: ma-oy. My silent triumph was short-lived, however, as my mother’s next memory turned the word into something much darker than teenage blackouts.

“Yeah,” my mum said, “I remember how my brother once smashed all the plates in the house. All my mother’s hand-cut crystal from her wedding. And the windows.” She refocused on her slice of cake, muttering, “Ma-oy gid.“

The Pains of Being Alone at Heart:

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:54:12 +0800

My life has significantly improved since I cut down on drinking with people. I still drink, of course, but recently, only while safely contained in my apartment. Last night I drank chu-hai while reading, and though the boyfriend was there, sipping on his own drink while perusing Granta, in my head I was alone. Drinking on my own has reduced embarrassing morning-afters and those Sentbox-fueled cringe sessions that last for weeks. Probably because the damage is contained: four walls without WiFi, me in my reading chair with a homemade Radler and a book or two. When I’m sufficiently smashed, I hit the lights and put on stupdi music, or I just go to sleep.

The last time I went out to drink with a big bunch of people, I ended up fucking things up big time in my second home (the Internet [don’t ask {my smartphone is a dumbphone as long as I’m drunk}]) and wandering the ghetto streets of Cubao looking for a place to crash.

I used to be better at drinking one-on-one, and I’ve long preferred it to large groups of people. Individuals are much better at understanding you when you’re sloshed and slurring, at holding you off when you try to make out with them, or making out with you anyway but no hard feelings, and then bundling you into a cab at the end of the night that you singlehandedly destroyed. It’s also easier to apologize to just one person, obviously a tolerant long-suffering friend by now, than a group of people who amusedly watched you stumble into the same glass door thrice in a row.

There’s also the deep pleasure of being both invincible and invisible. Ha, I can blast my Carly Rae without your judgment, and I can dance to it as ungracefully as possible, and ha, I can write angry emails without ever sending them because in the light of the hangover dawn, they’ll be hilarious instead.

What I mean is that I no longer feel the pressure to badger anyone to drink with me, because I do just fine on my own, and besides, it’s probably going to be a terrible night. The book I’m reading, set in a science fictional universe, mentioned something about drinking-buddy bots. I wouldn’t even pay for those at this point. Unless I could beat them up.

Is company-at-large beginning to suck? Or does it just mean I’m getting worse at being good company, especially when loaded? Maybe it means I’m crabby and disgusting. That sure is how it feels.

If anybody needs me, I’ll be in my room, drunk and not-needing you.