The Moose in the Closet: Holiday Wishes and Alcohol Will Destroy You: Dad, College. College, Dad.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking me about the Speakeasy thing, for those unfamiliar the always impressive Mark Fossen has a nice recap. Whereas I do have a couple of things to say, I don’t have them prepared yet. I’d expect a mammoth Here’s the Thing… by Friday at the latest and I don’t think it’s going to be what anyone is expecting. But for now, Holiday Cheer, following the love I’ve given to Larry Young, David Lapham, Sam Kieth (who has a righteous looking Batman mini coming out, thank you GOD) and Joshua Hale Fialkov I have some love to give to a man who’s editorial vision I have nothing but respect for.

I wanted to thank Rich Koslowski for The King, my favorite OGN of the past year. I wanted to thank Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele (who has a blog now) for The Surrogates, an entertaining read so far. I wanted to thank James Kochalka for Superf*ckers, a lighthearted, entertaining romp that tickles the part of my funny bone that hasn’t grown up yet. I wanted to thank Alex Robinson for Box Office Poison which I read this time for the first year, Andy Runton for Owly and Kolchalka, Brown and Thompson for their Conversation books. And after trying to sort out who I was going to thank over these twelve posting days to Christmas I realized I should be thanking Chris Staros.

Chris Staros is in a difficult position; he’s the publisher for what can arguably be called the largest American comic company that has significant indie-cred. Which means he’s expected to take a chance and break new ground with every book he puts out while at the same time not going completely broke. In a market dominated by superheroes, Hollywoodization and dumbed-down plotlines that play with the fact that people don’t want a good story – they want something they themselves can do, Chris Staros continues to publish stories that people need to work for – that don’t come easy – that don’t necessarily have a movie coming down the line.

Happy Holidays to Chris Staros, for being an innovator, a risk taker and a tireless promoter of comics that take full advantage of what the medium can be instead of trying to figure out what other markets want the medium to be. It’s a tough industry yet Chris Staros has found his niche in it, despite putting himself at a disadvantage from the start.

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My dad didn’t go to college. He entered the Navy at 18, did his four years, came out and married my mom who also didn’t go to college. Now, he has some Navy stories – the man went all around the world and partied like, well, a sailor should. But despite trips to Amsterdam and Germany and being stationed in Hawaii and living what would be considered an ideal 4 years of life if it wasn’t for the whole “on a ship with a bunch of dudes” thing – my father wasn’t ready for a night as a college student.

Freshman year he drove up to Boston by himself and spent an evening hanging with me before taking my back to Brooklyn, presumably for one of the breaks – I’m not sure which one. He just wanted to have a night out without the rest of the family – father and son stuff. He even stayed in the dorm, first time he ever did that.

He gets to Boston and we just spend some time around town, get some dinner, and see some sights. On the way back to the dorm we stop off at the liquor store because my pops wants some beer to bring back to the room. Seeing this as an opportunity to restock the microfridge I tell him to get a case and we’ll have a couple of beers together. We have to sneak the case into the building because, you know, I’m not allowed to have beer in the dorm at this point but we put it in my trusty bookbag I carry everywhere and the guard doesn’t think twice about the Jansport on my back shaped exactly like a case of Bud Light.

We get to the dorm and have a couple of beers. Then a couple more. Some of my friends come by and the case is polished off in no time. My pops and I are both feeling a bit drunk so we decide to get out for a bit instead of hanging out in the dorm all night.

I take him to Lansdowne Street which, as anyone from Boston will know, is the street right next to Fenway Park packed with nothing but clubs and bar – it’s where everyone goes out on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. We’re going to Jillian’s which is the bar I used to work at. Jillian’s was three stories, nightclub on the first floor, arcade on the second and pool hall on the third. We figured we’d play some pool, have a couple of more beers (I needed to bust out the ‘ole fake ID), play a little skee ball and head in for the night.

On the way to Jillian’s, on crowded-ass Lansdowne Street, my pops and I are walking along; I’m talking about something or other when he just drops out. Seriously, he was in my peripheral one moment and then he was gone. I look back behind me and he’s sprawled out on the floor – he was taken out by a fucking parking meter. Everyone walking by is laughing and my father is on the floor, cracking up, his gut and balls hurting because he slammed into a chunk of metal.

I help him up and he can hardly walk and I’m just ragging on him. I mean, seriously, how do you walk into a parking meter? It’s like walking into a wall. You grow up in New York City, every street is lined with parking meters, you think you’d learn to look out for them.

After making a spectacle of himself we get to Jillian’s, play some pool and have a few more beers. We don’t spend too long there – he’s starting to get tired – so we go back to the dorm after an hour or so.

At the dorm we start drinking again. There were a couple of dudes in the lobby having some cocktails so we join up and tip back. We’re all telling funny stories, my father is telling us tales from his Navy days and those are always fun to listen to, all the while putting down beers and vodka shots.

After an hour or so of that my father says he has to go to bed, something about getting up early the next day to drive my ass back to Brooklyn but it was pretty obvious he was feeling more than a bit tipsy. I roll-out the flip-flop and he crashes – KO’d in like two minutes. My friend Max asks me if I want to step outside with him and dope-up and I, obviously, agree. We continue partying while my father slept, his crotch bruised and swollen from taking a parking meter to the nuts, likely dreaming about all the fun he missed by not going to college while we all talked about how cool it would be to go into the Navy.

Alcohol Will Destroy You, despite how hard you were in your past.

Labels: mitc

Holiday Wishes and Alcohol Will Destroy You: Dad, College. College, Dad.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

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