Drinking Games

Birthday/Memorial Drinkalong: Grease

/ essjay / 6 Comments

Of all the books that have changed my life, the two series that have brought the most joy in the form of forever friends have to be Harry Potter and Stephen King’s Dark Tower.  Y’all know most of my HP friends cos they’re semi-regulars (shoutout to my DA folks <3), but DT brought me Will and Herc and so many others that I’m not going to name them all cos I don’t want to leave anyone out.  You see Will and Herc a lot of weeks, so their names are easily recognizable.

Someone most drinkalongers don’t know, one of my earliest DT friends, was Tiger.  There was this dumb (now) thing on the forum where people had signature banners depicting them as Rider of [x attribute].  Tiger was Rider of Strength, and when I think of her, it’s always like that.  Tiger, Rider of Strength.

She’s the reason why I tell people who ask for prayers or thoughts that I’m putting them in my pocket.  Countless people have picked this up from me, and from others who got it from her.  You want to make sure you’re sending out good thoughts and prayers?  Write their name down on a slip of paper and put it in your pocket.  Every time you touch that slip of paper, you’re reminded of why and the thoughts and prayers just kind of happen cos you’re thinking of them.  I carry so many of you in my pockets, and I know that I’m in many of yours.  And it’s a really fucking great feeling.

Tiger immensely loved the idea of the drinkalong.  She constantly wanted to make them, but could never figure out IRC.  I always laughed and shook my head and offered to walk her through it again.  Last Spring she messaged me on fb, asking if I could write rules for her for Grease.  She had some friends coming over and they were going to do a drinkalong IRL to the LIVE performance, and she wanted me to write it out so it was like I was there with her.

Tiger reached the clearing at the end of the path last September.  She would have been 50 on the 23rd of this month.  I wrote these rules for her last year, not dreaming we’d be having this drinkalong today without her.

She re-wrote them and added notes. I love this.

She was kind.  She was strong.  She was my friend.  I miss her PMs asking me to explain stupid shit like clearing her caches.  I miss her asking me what I was writing and if she could please read it, because “if anyone should be doing something with it, it should be [me].”  I miss her posting the same Big Lebowski articles on my wall every few weeks.  I just miss her.

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The Sandlot Drinkalong

/ essjay / 2 Comments

I am terrible at remembering names or associating them with faces.  The best fail that turned into a win happened almost 20 years ago when I was trying to remember the name of the kid who plays Ham in this movie.  I’m actually not sure if I ever knew his name, but I was talking to husband and my friend K and getting super frustrated at my inability to remember even the CHARACTER’S name.  Finally, I said “Ugh, YOU KNOW WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT! From The Sandlot?!  The fat headed red kid?!” And they both started laughing immediately, and it took a minute before I even realized what I’d said.

And since then he’s been the fat headed red kid to us.  I don’t see that changing any time soon.

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Double Birthday Drinkalong: Purple Rain

/ essjay / 4 Comments

This is the first time anyone has shared a birthday drinkalong, but I think it’s pretty cool.  I asked a bunch of people what they were thinking of choosing for their birthday movies, and both Kim and Ceridwen wanted Purple Rain AND were both available the same weekend.  And that it’s this weekend, just a little past the anniversary of his death seems like it must mean…something.

Anyway, I asked them both if they wanted to write a little something or come up with some rules.  Ceridwen was happy to let Kim take the reins on the rulemaking, but they both wrote cool little stories about why they love this movie and/or Prince.

Check it out and wish them both a happy belated birthday.

Kim

It was late summer, 1984. I was fourteen.

When the movie came out, my friend and I knew we had to see it. We had two problems. One, her parents were crazy hella strict. Scary strict. They never ever would have let her go. Two, I spent weekends with my grandparents. They wouldn’t let me go either because it was a Rated R movie so there was no point in asking.

But.

It was playing at the theater in town with a Steve Martin movie called All of Me. I was an established superfan of Steve Martin. So he became my alibi. All we had to do is gather enough intelligence about the movie we were going to claim to have seen and get tickets. So we employed our first two unwitting accomplices: Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

Siskel and Ebert was on every Saturday afternoon. We watched their review of All of Me so we could glean enough details about the movie to have a convincing conversation about it once we got picked up.

sj gave them all animal faces since she doesn’t know KIm’s high school crew and doesn’t have their permission to post their pictures on her blog.

Saturday night, we popped into the music store in the same strip mall as the theater. I took guitar lessons there. The friendly burnout at the counter went to the box office and bought our tickets for us, being twentysomething and Allowed. At this point, this was the most elaborate bit of rule breaking I’d engineered in my entire life. We were in! And we got away with it, though I always thought my grandmother had a vague suspicion of us that she never pursued.

It was darker and meaner than I expected. I guess I figured it’d be a Prince infused Xanadu.

Wendy and Lisa became my hairdo muses for several years.

Ceridwen

I’ve already gotten good and sloppy about Prince’s death more than once, so rather than do that again, I’m going to tell a funny Prince story.

So, I’ve lived in Minneapolis most of my life, and because Minneapolis people tend not to move much, lots of folks I know are lifers too. I learned pretty quick after his death that anyone who has lived here has a story about Prince – if not more than one. I know the woman who did fabric dyeing for him (such as the infamous assless pants, which actually have a panel of sheer fabric dyed his skin tone – I never learned if she actually got to see his butt). I know the guy who was his driver forever. I’ve met roadies and gone to high school with people who ended up in the NPG. He was very committed to this city.

Maybe two days after he died, me and my neighbor and her sister ended up holding a wake of sorts in her kitchen. There was booze and storytelling. Both of them are a little older than me, just enough to be in prime Prince story age. One told this story that is solidly friend of a friend at this point, but for sure it’s 100% true. One of Katherine’s friends met Prince at a club – I think Glam Slam (his club here downtown in the mid-90s), but I’d have to ask her. She was there with a couple girlfriends, and Prince invited them back behind the velvet rope and bought them drinks and all that.

Everyone hung out having a smashing time until bar close, when Prince basically invited himself back to her house using the slick “I’ll give you a ride home” macking technique. She and her roommate were game, so Prince came back to their incredibly shitty apartment. For whatever reason, she wasn’t going to sleep with him (I mean, I guess that’s a choice you could make), so she and her roommate made him tea and gave him the grand tour of their garden level apartment. Prince was horribly offended that she only had some crap futon lying on the floor, like how do you even sleep on that. So they chatted for a while, Prince got tired and went home, end of story.

Until a couple days later when dudes show up with a mattress, box spring, and bed frame, courtesy of Prince. He totally bought some rando who wouldn’t even put out a bed because he thought it was terrible that she didn’t have one. There was a nice note and no strings attached. She slept on the bed that Prince bought her for years and years. I know! I just love that man to pieces.

So that’s (one of) my Prince stories. Onward to Purple Rain!

 

💜💜💜💜💜

 

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Lilo and Stitch Drinkalong

/ essjay / 1 Comment

 

I’ve told this story before, but about ten years ago we lived five miles away from Disneyland and had annual passes. When we first got them, we thought we’d be over it at the end of the year, but even though we went at least 150 times, it was still amazing every time.

Our now 17y/o’s favourite Disney movie has always been Lilo and Stitch. I can recite all of the dialogue from the next room if it’s on, that’s how many times we’ve watched it.

Along with his Lilo and Stitch obsession came a deep appreciation for the music of Elvis Presley (when we had a car with satellite radio, he frequently requested the Elvis station).

Anyway, they had this attraction in Tomorrowland that was always fucking deserted, cos no one really knew about it. You’d walk into this little tiki hut with a giant screen, push a button which would cause a phone to ring, and after some cute animations, you’d be connected to Stitch via video satellite.

Obviously, all of Stitch’s movements were prerecorded, but there was an actual cast member manning the voice. We went in there to “call” Stitch often enough that the cast members doing the voice recognized us.

“Hey, [son’s name]! How’re you and your brothers doing today?”

I think he knew it wasn’t really Stitch, but goddamn, it made him happy.

It got to the point where we’d let him make trips in there on his own while I played Viva Piñata and husband played Guitar Hero. We could still hear the conversations, and he liked thinking he was just kicking it with Stitch.

One night, I’m sitting outside the hut feeding the littlies some snacks, and can hear the kid asking something in a soopersrs tone, hear Stitch reply and then it goes a little quiet.

The next I know, I hear him and Stitch shoutsinging “but I got WIIIIIIIIIIIISE!” and they did ALL of “Devil in Disguise” together.

He still brings it up every time we hear this song.

See you guys tonight!

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Rex Manning Day: Empire Records Drinkalong

/ essjay / 2 Comments

 

This is…idk, our fourth or fifth Rex Manning Day drinkalong?  I know this is only the third record of it here on this blog, but we definitely did it a time or two on twitter.

Happy Rex Manning Day, y’all.  Here are some bingo cards I made a few years ago (you can just click to mark the square and refresh once you have a bingo, though these are pretty dangerous IIRC).  Also, I wrote this post about the soundtrack last year.

❤ you all, see you tonight!

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