From: Robert Eikel <reikel@inventa.com>
well, it looks like it has fallen to me to invoke the muse and
appropriately chronicle the daring undertakings of our brave young heroes
as they carried on the holy tradition known locally as "the 40th of july".
the epic truly begins the night before, when hagan, bill, and i carried
out small-scale commando operations in order to "soften up" the city's
defenses before the main invasion. you'll have to hear about bill's and
rob's adventures in their own words, but as i understand it the
centerpiece of the evening was a 6'2" righteous babe who happened to be a
Canadian Mountie. i heartily approve of these cross-border cultural
exchanges, since we really do need to get those Canadians out of denial
about the fact that they're just Americans with higher taxes and shittier
weather.
for my part, after paratrooping in from san francisco for the occasion, i
secured the city of somerville for the cause, armed only with a bottle of
jim beam that i procured from some friendly natives.
having completed these preparatory raids, the morning of the 40th dawned
sunny and hung over. clearing out the cobwebs, our two raiding parties
quickly established contact and moved to link up with our "fifth column"
operative, cullen, who had been living undercover and carrying out
underground resistance operations behind enemy lines in brighton.
i in fact became the first casualty of the 40th before the main event even
got started, booting out the door of a cab onto the streets of allston
while advancing toward brighton. this little setback was quickly shaken
off, however, and in fact could probably be best described as
"auspicious".
so our motley crew completed preparations to clear the landing zone for
the main force: six cases of 40s, 90 pounds of ice, about 20 pounds of
burgers, and some chips and other miscellany. we set up base camp in the
back yard of the lake street men's club, where i puked some more as the
stress of the previous night's operations took its toll. in fact, as
H-hour approached it was looking pretty grim whether i'd be able to be
part of the main assault force or not.
however, the fates evidently smiled upon us, for i made a quick recovery
(with the aid of a few pills from cullen's drug stash) just in time for
the hero of the day, the irrepressible donny morris, to arrive at 3:00
sharp to begin the festivities.
well, with donny's help we got going right into the first 40s and
cheeseburgers of the day, and things proceeded apace from there. by 6:00
or so, we had about twenty troops on our side and the platoon leaders were
heading into their third and fourth 40s of the day. around this time we
also suffered our first casualty, who nevertheless served the cause well
by mooning a bunch of passing cars before falling victim to sniper fire
and making a bit of a mess of one of the upstairs bedrooms before passing
out. she was quickly replaced, however, by a new recruit, marty hickey,
whose legendary partying abilities were immediately put to good use.
also about this time, we started bolstering our forces by forming a
foreign alliance, namely, with some japanese exchange students that bill
lured in off the street. they'd only been in the country for two weeks, so
we did our part to introduce them to some american culture that was
probably being sadly neglected in their academic studies. it pains me to
think that these girls might have returned to japan never having tasted
the freedom that lives at the bottom of a 40.
by sunset the party was in full swing, with about 40 people drinking,
eating, and just generally having a good time. we managed to avoid any
more casualties, even as some of the platoon's soldiers (donny morris and
hagan and maybe some other of the hard core) built up to their fifth and
sixth 40s of the day.
there was still one more hurdle to overcome, namely, our supplies began to
run low. we sent out a raiding party who were able to secure sixty more
beers (though of the 12-ounce rather than 40-ounce variety, in good
american widemouth cans), and then hagan and i went down the street for
more beef and charcoal and ended up bringing in a new recruit who lived
somewhere down the block. now securely provisioned, the party continued
uninterrupted.
but at about 10:30, the platoon suffered an almost unrecoverable blow --
our spiritual leader and battlefield general, bill evans, became a
casualty of war as he had to head off to welcome his woman home from
europe. although troop morale sagged, a volunteer squad consisting of
myself, marty, and hagan's roommate joel took matters into our own hands
by making a naked assault upon the unsuspecting denizens of lake street. i
think this was also the point at which a lot of watermelon rind got thrown
back and forth, but thankfully this little "friendly fire" exchange didn't
result in any serious casualties.
well, by midnight the party was winding down and the final scores were
being tabulated... i think we had a couple of soldiers make it up to six
40s, with a hardy second string contingent at five. i myself had a slow
day, due to the fatigue from the previous night's operations, and only put
away three (though i added a budweiser at the end to make it an even
gallon of beer for the day).
needless to say, a good time was had by all, and i don't think we even
caused too much damage to lake street. and as is traditional, we poured a
malt liquor libation "for the homies who ain't here".
so until next year, everyone, keep the faith, and be ready when the draft
board comes a-callin' next 40th.
-----
From: tim <cullen@rowersworld.com>
Further Ruminations:
I remember trying to get some more burgers for myself at several points
though the night. I don't remember getting and, and being to drunk to
really give a rat's ass. I paid for it the morning after, introducing
our kitchen sink to what's known in the trade as 'bile'. Eating is
good. And I can now do it again.
One of the exchange students claimed to be a 'bad girl'. She was the
first to crack the 40 of Colt45, and was over halfway done when she
conned me into playing a Pizzicato 5 cd.cross-cultural my ass. this was
manipulation.
Eikel made his 4am cab and his 6am flight. Two diverging conclusions
can be drawn form this. Either we didn't drink enough to get impaired
to the point where none of us were functional at 4am, or we performed
our duties in spite of our state of impairment. I know I felt better at
4am than i did at 10am. Funny that.
There were two 40s remaining. Now there are none: An old girlfriend of
Alex's, aged 36 or so, came over to take Haakon (our great dane) for a
few days. She saw the leftover beerand exclaimed, "40s! Goddammit, I
want'em. Can I have?"
I smiled the smile of a father who's last degenerate son had
miraculously been accepted college, and said, "Yes, take and enjoy."
tim
-----
From: Robert Eikel <reikel@inventa.com>
tim wrote:
> Eikel made his 4am cab and his 6am flight. Two diverging conclusions
> can be drawn form this. Either we didn't drink enough to get impaired
> to the point where none of us were functional at 4am, or we performed
> our duties in spite of our state of impairment. I know I felt better at
> 4am than i did at 10am. Funny that.
i must say that this was the case for me as well. i expected to be able to
continue the battle in the skies over the midwest, and a totally
incoherent conversation with my russian cabbie on the way to the airport
prepared me to take on all the red communists i could shake a stick at.
but upon arriving at logan i basically passed out in the welcoming arms of
a TWA MD-80 and didn't get up until st. louis, where i was able to stumble
to my connection.
i do remember that the gate agent as i checked in saw me swigging
pepto-bismol (how i acquired it i'm not sure) and asked if i had an upset
stomach already, and i told him "i'm drunk, and that's the long and the
short of it". he must have tipped off the flight attendants, because i
recall them occasionally "checking up" on me while muttering quietly to
each other about "alcohol impaired". i tried to tell them that it's
liberation, not impairment, but the mouth and brain just weren't
well-connected.
and i didn't even have to use the airsickness bags.
-----
From: whitey bulger defense fund <rhagan@MIT.EDU>
this year's 40th can be reduced to a single, simple image. a young
man named tom was walking down a street in brighton mass on a saturday
afternoon just minding his own business. what that business is, we still
don't know. at some point he passed in front of a house. a person came
out of the house and said, "come in." tom, having no idea what was going
on, went in. someone put a durger in one of his hands and 40 ounces of
malt liquor in the other. a few minutes later, they did it again. then
they did it again. then they put a woman in one (ok, maybe both) of his
hands. then he went home with her. he was happy, and he still had no
idea what the fuck was going on.
we still have no idea who or where tom is.
rob