A friend invited me to check out Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. I’d never been before, but I’ve never turned down a cemetery adventure, so off we went.

Green-Wood was founded in 1838, making it one of the oldest rural cemeteries in the United States. It is also home to some incredible grave sites. Click through for the tour.

There are a vast number of these statuesque gravestones. I feel like this is the Goldilocks approach: Not tiny and forgotten, but not too ostentatious.

On the other hand, the rolling hills of the cemetery’s 478 acres contain these tombs. They’re huge.

The sculpture work is incredible. According to the Green-Wood site, the cemetery has 50,000 residents.

This looks more like a library than a grave.

The land was previously home to the Battle of Brooklyn (also known as the Battle of Long Island) in the Revolutionary War.

Washington’s young army numbered 10,000, and was defeated by the 20,000-strong British forces. After continued fighting, Americans ended up being dispelled all the way out of New York state.

It came back to bite the Brits, however. The losses in Brooklyn are sometimes credited for steeling the resolve of the revolutionary army. We know how it all ended up, of course.

It truly is a picturesque place.

Is this the scariest thing I’ve ever seen? Yes.

So haunting.

This is unbelievable design and sculpture. Art in a park!

Lovely.

How about a jagged cross and an angel with knife wings? Bad ass.

This joint is bigger than my apartment. By far.

Another mansion. I’d love to see inside one of these things.

I love the design and motifs in these.

More of the hill-dwellers. I’m not sure I’d want to be buried in the side of a hill, but it’s also weirdly intriguing.

I can say that I wouldn’t want to be buried in a concrete bounce house. Apologies to the interred, of course.

They seem like portals.

This section was busty.

Part of a section for war veterans.

What would you rather have watching over you, a bust of yourself or a cherub?

Here’s one I didn’t get: A field of tombstones set in concentric circles. That is some seriously trippy business. My lens was too long, but you can kind of tell that there are even more circles out of frame.

Green-Wood really does make for an enjoyable walk. It’s unbelievably quiet, clean, and park-like. Plus, you always have company. Even better, it’s free! Go check it out.

As a guy with a zoology degree, I love going to the zoo. It’s just such a great chance to get stupid nerdy and talk trash about people calling the Hamadryas Baboons monkeys.

So, despite feeling like a hungover owl, I jumped with joy when my lovely girlfriend surprised me with a random trip to the Prospect Park Zoo. Why don’t you jump yourself to see what the zoo had to offer.

Prospect Park is a pretty small zoo, but it’s got a large number of species represented and doesn’t get too crowded. We showed up right during a quick sea lion show that wasn’t a pain in the ass to watch like a Shamu performance.

People forget that insects are animals too.

The black-tailed prairie dog in its natural pose: annoyed that you’re looking at it.

There were a number of waterfowl present. It’s been a long time since I’ve been birding and I can’t remember everyone’s names. So I can’t tell you who this lady is.

Nor this guy. Oh well.

I was hoping the zoo would actually have dinosaurs, but it seems John Hammond stopped donating years ago.

Here’s a turtle floating on some fronds. He was chilling hard.

Emus are scary, but they’re really rocking that Cosmo Kramer vibe.

This red panda was fluffy as hell. Dude was sweating pretty hard though.

These deer didn’t give a shit about anything. I think they were Mongolian, which explains everything.

Porcupines keep it real. They don’t actually shoot their quills though. Don’t be an idiot.

I better a trained sea otter would be a killer pickpocket. These guys looked hot as well.

I don’t know where the ‘peafowl’ thing came from, but come on. This dude’s a peacock.

Birds are basically on meth at all times. Straight twitchin’.

Piranhas are mean bastards, but they get a pass because they’re sparkly.

I don’t know anything about this damn bird. There are too many to remember.

Golden lion tamarin. One thing that really annoyed me were the number of people using their flash while taking pictures of animals indoors. THERE IS GLASS THERE PEOPLE. THE FLASH DOESN’T WORK. Plus, it’s gotta fuck with the animals. Someone needs to regulate that shit.

Saki monkey. He spotted me.

The circle of life, etc.

I’ve seen these guys in the wild down in Brazil. They dig fighting.

These geese were rocking the blowout. Barnyard style.

Speaking of barnyard style, zookeepers were getting nuts with the haircuts. Emo llama?

Emo pony?

This quadhorn is just on another level.

Sheep: dumb, yet bloodthirsty.

Goats are cool though.

Kids are writing letters to cows nowadays. Our schools really are fucked.

I’m a big fan of hornbills. Such great hairstyles.

And that’s the Prospect Park Zoo! Check it out. It’s great for kids and not-kids, it’s cheap and it’s fun. Nature rules!

A little while back we had a free weekday afternoon and stopped by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA for any non-snooty person) to try to avoid the more touristy crowds. That was, of course, not the case; the place was rightfully packed. The modern art scene is definitely my style, especially in the early half of the last century when there was a lot of focus on playing with color and geometry. I must sound gauche for saying this, but I like it because it’s weird with a purpose.

I very much regret a) not getting a better shot of this piece and b) forgetting to shoot the name card. If anyone’s got some info, I’d love it. Otherwise, a mini pterodactyl should be enough to excuse my forgetfulness.

I very much like the idea that someone woke up one day and said “I’m going to build a treasure chest for ice cubes.”

It’s enough to spawn a whole generation of pirate rappers talking about treasure and ice.

Alexander Calder, Constellation with Red Object (1943).

Calder is an American credited with inventing the mobile. Google celebrated him with its first 3D-animated doodle awhile back.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Schematic Composition, 1933. Oil and wood on composition board.

This to me looks like old-timey binary computer porn that ENIAC might have sneaked peeks at. It might be my favorite piece in the collection.

Lásló Moholy-Nagy, Q 1 Suprematistic (1923). Oil on canvas.

This is the type of experimenting with geometry that I was talking about. Simple, yet mindblowing. This could be a photo from another world.

Kazimir Malevich, Painterly Realism of a Boy with a Knapsack–Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension (1915). Oil on canvas.

What a wonderful title. That sums up why I like this period perfectly.

Gerald Murphy, Wasp and Pear (1929). Oil on canvas.

For whatever reason, Gerald woke up one morning and decided to paint a pear with an asshole.

Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind II: Those Who Go (1911). Oil on Canvas.

I guess anyone can connect with the pain and distractions of being separated by travel. I though about right before I left for college, which probably makes me sound like a ninny. But of all the times that I’ve packed up and taken off, that seemed like the toughest time to leave.

Umberto Boccioni, States of Mind III: Those Who Stay (1911). Oil on canvas.

And then everyone else is just stuck behind. It’s a truly profound piece, especially in light of World War I coming three years later.

Rousseau was a Frenchman who never left France. How’d he learn to draw the jungle then? He spent a lot of time at the zoo on, I’d presume, a lot of opium. This photo doesn’t do the painting justice. It’s mural sized.

Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy (1897). Oil on canvas.

Rousseau’s whimsy is wonderful. I can tell he inspired an artist who did a zebra running on laser grids painting I owned once.

Natalia Goncharova, Rayonism, Blue-Green Forest (1913). Oil on canvas.

Another pick for my favorite piece. Whereas we saw earlier investigations into the use of geometry, this Rayonism series was purely an exercise in color. It’s nearly impossible to get a proper photo of this because of the white balance, etc. but this is my favorite color palette and she used it swimmingly.

Morris Hirshfield, Tiger (1940). Oil on canvas.

Based on his love for chubby tigers, I believe Hirshfield and I would get along.

Marcel Broodthaers, Belgian Lion (1968). Found object in frying pan.

This has one of the most awesome list of media in the whole museum. I enjoy art in the ’60s and ’70s for its creativity, especially in the use of strange media, but I’m still more drawn to the more one-dimensional examinations of shape and hue of previous years.

Marcel Broodthaers, La signature. Série I. Tirage illimité (1969). Screenprint.

The “unlimited edition” of anything is an absolutely hilarious (and brilliant) concept. Bravo to Broodthaers for getting a loud laugh out of me, even if all the tourists thought I was being an asshole.

Frank Stella, The Marriage of reason and Squalor, II (1959). Enamel on canvas.

I’m not sure what to think of this piece. First, it’s the size of a large wall, and I was unable to shoot it properly, so poo on me. But I’ve failed in trying to interpret the title in terms of the work. I’m open to suggestion.

André Mason, The Kill (1944). Oil on canvas.

That’s a badass title for a painting. I’d very much like to own this because it invokes a sort of cheery bloodlust in me. This would be a great piece to stare at before heading on a zombie-killing expedition on a lovely sunny summer day.

This is an egg full of watches. That’s MoMA for you. In all seriousness, it’s my favorite museum in New York. It is constantly being refreshed and I hardly even touched on a bit of its offerings on one of its floors. I’m thinking about getting a membership because then I can be one of those people. It’s worth it.

In an ongoing attempt to explore every bit of New York City while having an excuse to dedicate days to wandering around residential streets with soda cans of wine in our hands, we found ourselves in a Brighton Beach shop that had magic in the name. As Brighton Beach is very Russian, I had hoped to we were wandering into some nutso old country magic shop run by a grizzled old man who’d drink vodka with us. Instead, it was a women’s fashion store filled with Korean knock-offs with a younger, very friendly proprietor. Him and I watched Phil Collins live in Soviet-era Russia on the TV while Amber tried on bathing suits covered in fireworks. We were officially members of the Boss Club by the time we left.

After saying goodbye, we started wandering through the neighborhood. I’d never seen nor expected a San Fernando Valley-style suburb in Brooklyn. Big ass houses with exclusively German cars parked haphazardly in front. I’d comment on how every single house had fences covered in fake strings of what looked like the stuff fake Christmas trees are made of, but considered the fact that every house had it, I’d rather not piss anyone off. I also never expected this street out in a quiet neighborhood, but I give it a thumbs up.

These statues were outside of a church. While they are very handsome, I’d like to draw your attention to the path you must walk to get to it. That path is less than a foot wide. It’s nearly impossible to traverse. It felt like I was rolling across a mini-golf course.

Look, here’s the beach! It was pretty packed, but generally seemed less crowded and less crappy than Coney Island’s sandy hellholes. The place was going off too, with people barbecuing and blasting Top 40 club jams out of their cars. They also sell beer, which you seemingly can drink anywhere.

Of course, the authorities will let you do anything you want as long as you’ve got such a lovely companion as this. Even if I was naked and on fire they’d let it slide because, looking at her, they’d have to assume I have my shit together somehow.

This is a fairly quaint-looking home that happened to be huge. It was also surrounded by McMansions that touched on every architectural style out there. It’s just not my style.

For a metaphorical representation of my style versus the neighborhood’s, contrast this tidy sailboat with the tourist yachts in the background.

Well this certainly is cute. That dog on the right has got some serious mole claws though.

This was in a park. More metaphor for you.

There’s nothing metaphorical about pigeons. I find them fascinating and intensely terrifying. It’s like their little brains only developed the “kill” function. Thankfully, the “create killing devices” and “strategic shitting” parts never appeared.

This is a bridge that crosses from Manhattan Beach into I guess Sheepshead Bay. We went to a kick ass old man bar and got pretty permed playing darts with a bunch of old Mets fans. That’s the right way to do Sunday.

Ditching the air conditioned shelter of the bar with a warm glow following a Corinthians win, we headed off in search of the whole reason we’d come to the neighborhood in the first place: Cafe Kashkar‘s Uyghur cuisine.

Uyghur dishes have influences from Turkey, China, Russia, Mongolia and much of the Middle East. Flavor profiles are similar from what you’d expect from the region, with an emphasis on lamb and all the good parts of the animal like the liver in the gigar above.

There’s also some serious barbecue action going on. (By the way, you can tell the dishes were amazing because I ate half of them before I remembered to take photos.) Cafe Kashkar has a wood-burning grill in the kitchen; taking a peek back there, I saw embers flying everywhere. The kebabs were excellent.

The restaurant itself isn’t much more than a room with tables and chairs, but holy hell is the food good. Plus, as evidenced by the guys next to us who plopped down and split a bottle of Ketel One, the place has got a free-for-all BYOB policy. This noodle dish called lagman (although I forget which type) had some of the greatest noodles I’ve ever had. Doughy and chewy, they alone were worth the trip.

Last weekend Amber and I made the trip down to Alexandria for a family visit and a little escape from the city. Just to get this out of the way early, fuck Amtrak.

We were in Old Town, which was the hometown of George Washington. History!

Between the brick and the cobblestone, you could almost imagine the place as it was in the 18th century. Legions of tourists and a conspicuous number of Volvos ruined the illusion.

It really did feel old though. It was pretty cool.

I mean, who has gaslights all over their towns anymore?

I suppose a major highlight of the area is the architecture.

A large number of houses had these signs on them. It means the house it’s attached to can’t be fucked with.

This is what is locally known as the smallest house in the world. It’s pretty damn tiny. That sign above the front door is for the local firefighter’s union. So even though it’s small, it will always have protection.

The fact that this is someone’s driveway hints at what you’re dealing with in Old Town.

I got the feeling that, with architectural changes strictly forbidden on the historic houses, front doors are the only place people can personalize their house.

How badly you do want to grab this and just smash the hell out of that door?

This is a new one by me. A basement window garden?

Window falcons are more my style.

Amid all the Volvos and Mercedes we came upon this lovely old Land Rover just waiting around for its next adventure.

How about the face on this guy?

Trucks apparently aren’t very common in Virginia. Not only do the license plates have to explain that the vehicle in question is indeed a “truck,” but also apparently that vanity plate was still available. In California that probably got swooped in 1948.

But hey, at least they’re bike friendly! Bad ass!

A couple weeks back Amber and I went off in search of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a walkway near the river that Abe Lincoln himself once described by saying “There may be finer views than this in the world, but I don’t believe it.” Unfortunately, I had the bright (and manly!) idea to walk across the borough to get there. It was only three miles or so. We managed to get where I thought it was (Joralemon and the BQE) and promptly got stuck walking a road next to the docks.

It was also raining, super hazy and hot. Shitty weather for taking photos, so I went for a little old-timey wash on these puppies. Sue me if you think they look contrived.

Wandering next to the river and not sure how to get up in the Heights were the rich people live, we popped out upon the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Well, actually, we were talking shit about some middle aged dude running with an upside down visor on like an extra from the first season of The Real World when we noticed he’d somehow transported himself through the barbed-wire fence we were hemmed in by and had found a nice little path to scurry on. We were obviously pissed off that he had found a cooler place than us, so we kept tracking him to try and conspicuously show him up when we found the park. What luck!

Apparently the park regularly hosts free concerts, and looked like a kick ass venue. It appeared brand-new, with lots of nice paths and plenty of waterfront space. Cool place to watch the tourist boats go by. We even saw a floating wedding in progress.

Leave poochie at home though. Who’s ever heard of a dog-free lawn?

When we’d had enough of the soggy, dog-hating park, we took off to make another attempt at joining the upper crust. Along the way I found this slightly-rusty ’57 hanging out at a mechanic’s shop.

It’s kinda nice to see a single-tone model with some age on it. Real respectable-like.

After soggily stumbling up some hills into the land of Brooklyn’s wealthy, we finally found our path. Oh, excuse me. Promenade!

I was really expecting this piece to spin.

I mean, it looked like a clock!

I’ve always been a little bit embarrassed to be associated with crabs just because of my birthday. Why not a giraffe or a duck?

This is the view Lincoln got all worked up about. Even on a day with the worst possible viewing conditions it was pretty stellar, and the Promenade seems like one of those awesome secret places to keep in your back pocket to impress people. Still, as you can see, the Brooklyn Bridge Park just is so much more inviting to lounge about. Unless you’re a dog.

Yesterday was the Fourth of July, which, if you haven’t heard of it, is kind of important considering it’s the day we declared independence from those evil Brits. Apparently, a whole lot of young people have no idea what I’m talking about.

Shocking, ain’t it?

Of course, I don’t associate with that particular brand of un-American asshole.

Instead, I made sure to enjoy the holiday with people well-versed in those most American of necessities: booze, barbecue and bunting.

We even had a Canadian in our midst! Guess which one.

Here’s a visual metaphor to help you decide.

Proof that the terrorists are losing.

He must always wear sunglasses for he is the male Medusa.

If you guessed “air-tuning an air guitar” you’d actually be right.

A Brooklyn rooftop, Trader Joe’s beer, and a plethora of jorts are all important ingredients for hipster production, but could those jerkasses put together ‘cue like this?

Well, maybe, but only if they sold it for $15 out of a ratty truck.

It really doesn’t get much better than this.

Good vibes for miles.

And with perfect weather, it was surprising there weren’t more people on the surrounding roofs.

I never ended up talking to any of this crowd of aggressive thigh-barers.

Although this sentiment might be a bit much.

People who hate on High Life are clowns. Understated class is all it is.

This man? Not a High Lifer.

Oh, yep. There’s your problem.

But come on man, no need to get arrogant about it.

This is my soon-to-be roommate. She’s awesome, especially when she notices I’m trying to sneak a photo and snaps into a pose.

There are good odds that they are discussing either zebras or Corgi hybrids.

You could literally see her being crushed under the weight of trying to be cool.

For some folks, it’s just innate.

No joke, he just posed like this for three minutes.

This is a much better look. My current life goal is to replace the hand over the heart during the national anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, etc. with flexed guns.

I assure you that the serenity of this photo is not at all reflective of the Springsteen and Skynyrd-fueled environment.

See! Miles of smiles.

Giggle City!

This is my lovely girlfriend. She does model poses whenever she wants.

This.

Impromptu dance party? Yes please!

I pretended to be the Site Safety Officer, whom those of you familiar with The Embassy may remember as Juan (and Juan’s slick-back). No one fell off the roof, so I’m still batting 1.000!

A beautiful day transitioned into a gorgeous evening.

People seemed pretty darn content.

Although we were all waiting excitedly for some fireworks.

Luckily, the show went for an hour.

We unfortunately didn’t catch too many of the Manhattan fireworks, but it didn’t matter. We had a light show all night long.

Lately I’ve been trying to round people up to check out new parts of the city. Because most of my friends are transplants anyway, it doesn’t take much more than talk of filling up empty soda cans with wine to get them out the door. Recently we checked out Coney Island. First thing we did off the trade was hit up Nathan’s. Chili dog heaven (and as far as internet reviewers are concerned, yes, the dog casing did have a lot of snap).

Leaving the massive hot dog stand behind, we wandered into some sort of street bazaar. It was pretty funny seeing all of the signs proclaiming GUCCI! with a tiny parenthetical “(style)” next to them. Honesty in advertising, right?

I’m a sucker for toy transportation.

This is the reason I’m glad I never carry cash. Where would I have put all of these?

I had been recently talking about how massive Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi’s knives were, then I found these giant blades. Three dollars was not a confidence-inspiring price.

Hats? They got hats. Eternal saviors? How about two for five bucks?

We made it to the boardwalk without too many absurd purchases (illegal parrots from a dude actually smoking a hookah?). This is the original Nathan’s. We were a little disappointed to have eaten at the big, commercial, sell-out Nathan’s. What a trick.

This little baldy made me want to eat some goddamned burgers. Look at how stoked he is to shuttle you overpriced fast food for minimum wage.

Statues aside, this is an absolutely absurd name for a restaurant. Not even “Paul’s Daughter’s Burgers”. They just serve his daughter.

All of the trash cans on the boardwalk were painted by children. One of the best parts about being a kid is how much time you’re allowed to spend on self-promotion.

Litter Angel is the next Sandra Bullock movie about how she found a mentally-challenged minority dumpster baby and, through a loving home and church, raises her and sends her to Harvard.

This was outside an aquarium.  Pretty extreme imagery for a fish prison, right?

Just three people, having a sit and some fruit.

This is the kid you hate having over because he always “drops” the scoop ball off his ice cream so he can get to the good part.

This old guy, with his baby powder crop circles, was getting his motherfucking dance on in the middle of four PA speakers all aimed right at him.

Well, okay, maybe I’m childish too.

Coney has three different fair areas, which is kind of confusing. I’m not sure why they aren’t all open to each other.

Also confusing is whether or not this smiley-ass couple was looking at me.

Presented without commentary.

It’s pretty apparent that Coney’s heyday is long past. There were a lot of old structures that had already ground to a rusted halt years ago.

The Cyclone was still rocking, even if it looked a bit more rickety than I’d expected.

Here in all its glory is the most generic Coney shot of all time.

Now, this isn’t exactly a great photo, but I was pretty amused at this little beach oasis. As a side note, LA shits on NYC in terms of beaches. I’ve never seen so much broken glass in the sand before. It’s like somebody cropdusted broken bottles over the whole thing just for grins.

More abandoned holdovers from UFO landings past.

So here’s something I’d consider pretty Coney (click to make it bigger): a woman with a gold FUPA adjusting her boob menacingly at a shirtless old man creeping along.

Abandoned crap aside, some of the architecture was pretty cool.

I really like these lights at the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball stadium.

We ended up on a pier that was a hodgepodge of black market liquor sales and entire families fishing for dinner. Boomboxes abounded.

I’m not sure I’d want to eat something from those particular waters.

Although the sustenance on land was probably just as questionable.

And that, my friends, is Coney.

I recently heard a story about a late 19^th century hunting cottage deep in rural Northern California that doubled as an upscale brothel for the adventurous rich of Sacramento and San Francisco. According to my storyteller, many of the staff were young Native American women who, upon succumbing to the generally untimely deaths of prostitutes in that time period, were interred in a small cemetery in the town of Newville. According to the internet, Newville’s post office shut its doors in 1918 and just about everything else followed suit soon thereafter. Really, anytime someone mentions a hooker cemetery I’m going to have to check it out.

After driving deeper and deeper into country resembling less the working ranches I’d grown up around and more a forgotten set from Deliverance, my friend Matt (whose immediate decision to join me might raise a red flag for a normal person) and I found the cemetery a mile down the road from a ramshackle old house with a cluttered, stained set of stables straight out of a horror movie. The cemetery itself was a tiny fenced-in portion of a massive plot of grazing land, but it seemed relatively well-groomed for being more than a century old.

There couldn’t have been more than 100 graves in the whole place, and 15 or so of them were marked as “unknown”. In a small town with maybe 25 families (just guessing from the headstones) that’s a huge number of random folks dying. That is unless they didn’t want people knowin’ they had a bunch of dead prostitutes in their lovely little hamlet.

Other graves were marked with these little stamped steel signs that seemed to be lacking signs or much of any information. The rusted one was off on its own in a forgotten, unkempt area.

Unknown or not, a large number of the headstones had flowers laid recently. I just couldn’t believe how old everything was.

These were recent additions relative to most of the other sites. It was an odd feeling being in small fenced patch of a massive piece of grazing land.

There were a lot of children buried. Healthcare must have been unbelievably basic in 19th century rural California.

A lot of the headstones were in amazing shape for their age. I wonder if someone was keeping them up.

Then things got really fucking strange. This entire family, buried 70+ years ago, had been recently dug up and reburied. Reburied poorly.

It’s rare that I visit a cemetery recreationally, so this could be normal, but the sheer number of 70-100 year old graves that had been recently dug up and left with flowers was astoundingly creepy. It’s hard to explain just how backwoods the locale was because I was too frightened to take any photos of the houses, but this place seriously could have some family reunion skeleton hoedowns and no one would be the wiser.

It wasn’t just families either. The zombie effect was given to couples and singles as well. I seriously don’t have a clue who’d think of doing this, because I doubt graverobbers leave flowers and not every family in the area could be so completely batshit insane. I wish they’d at least done a better job of digging deeper holes.

I’ll never look at a whiskey label again after reading “Aged 1 Day” on a 114 year old tombstone.

I’m sure you could find some poignancy in a tree growing out of someone’s torso, but zombie graves and bone fragments lying around are fucking creepy. About that point we called it a day.

As far as the story of the dead hookers? Who knows, maybe they were there. With so many unknown graves they could have been anywhere. Hell, with the way things looked, maybe I’ll go back in a month and they’ll have dug themselves out like the rest.

Five years ago, a friend’s roommate started the Bigfoot Challenge, a celebration of Chico brewery Sierra Nevada during which participants have an hour to drink a six-pack of Bigfoot Ale, which is simply the heaviest, spiciest, downright most dastardly beers I’ve ever projectile vomited. Made only in the winter, the 2011 batch of Bigfoot came out at 9.6% a.b.v., which really isn’t too extreme in the world of extreme beers. But it is fucking aggressive. As a barleywine, it’s got a massive amount of hops that attacks the palate with a severe bitterness that just hangs around in your mouth for hours. A six-pack in an hour seems simple to most, but I’d hazard a guess that over 90% of contestants fail. The large majority end up barfing.

It was my first go-round with the challenge due to the forces of chances keeping me out of town every year past, but most of the hundred or so there had faced it before. Nearly everyone was frightened. A few had started drinking heavily beforehand, whether to quell their fear or acclimate their body to the coming onslaught I don’t know, which seemed like a pretty disastrous idea. The anticipation had whipped the crowd crammed into a garage into a fair fervor, but after the opening speech and the starting of the timer, things settled down into little pockets of people chatting like any other house party, just with slightly more bitching about the beer than normal.

The first bottle I had was exactly as I’d remembered it: explosive, dominant, but enjoyable. Truly. Despite having the viscosity of motor oil, it went down quick. I knocked back the first one with a strategy of frequent small drinks in three minutes. It looked like I was at a slightly faster than average pace.

Then I tried to burp, and nearly threw up. The real difficulty of the challenge lies in the fact that the head of Bigfoot lasts forever. The carbonation just swells inside you until it’s bursting out and it doesn’t ever go away. It’s unfathomably persistent. Every single moment Bigfoot is in your body you can feel the foam trying to claw its way out. It’s agony, especially early on in the challenge when you know that throwing it all up is the only path to relief and yet you still think you’ll manage to power through it. It took me 25 minutes to finish bottle #2.

Saucy cocktail dresses and nice heels are a great way to show off your sticks, but in 40 degree weather with a fairly worn Fergie face for a high school girl, I have to wonder what kind of trim I’d be dealing with if I had gotten involved with meth at 19.

Two freaks of nature finished their sixers within 25 minutes, but only one held it down for the required 30 minute post-finish no-puke-period. A hell of a lot of people, girls included, were puking all over the part of the yard designated for such activities. A few enterprising – and non-drinking – individuals got it all in HD slo-mo with some fancy video cameras for, I’m assuming, some sort of fetish sites. I avoided that whole mess as best I could. Inside the house the battered and defeated tossed the rest of the Bigfoot and started getting loose. I finished the third bottle as time expired and slammed the fourth out of frustration. That ended with me hiding in the yard like a dying dog, ejecting the heinous contents squatting my stomach. I was joined by the gentleman above, who I believe is having his mouth checked for burrito.

Preach, brother, preach.

People tend to waggle their fingers more and more the farther cross-eyed they get. It’s this evolution of an innate shame defense that separates us from those shit-throwing, publicly-masturbating apes.

Three or four energy drinks is enough to cause any joke make you feel like you ate a case of stupid pills.

But really, in the end, sitting around with a bunch of yelling people with puke on their shoes isn’t the greatest. We took off for greener pastures where the drinks went in your mouth and down the toilet, not the other way round.

In terms of being one of the most difficult drinking contests I’ve ever encountered outside of rural Russia, the Bigfoot Challenge was a bang. But I’ll never try it again. What a waste of a $10 six pack.