DRINKERS WITH A RUNNING PROBLEM

I hate blogs. Let’s just get that straight from the start. I understand why people do them, but I think, for the most part, that they’re self-serving, egotistical, uninteresting and unfunny accounts of boring peoples’ humdrum everyday monotonous existence. So, why am I writing one? Well, in addition to being a drunken reprobate, I am also a steadfast hypocrite. Pull up a seat, and I’ll tell you the beginning of my story, the immortal tale of how I ended up writing this godforsaken blog. It’s a little slow and dry at the start, but I promise some rollicking good times as things progress.

I drink. A lot. There’s a bar in the West Village on Bleecker St. called the Blind Tiger. I go there. A lot. Louise is the cook there. She drinks, too. A lot. And she, too, goes to the Blind Tiger. A lot. Of course, that’s because she works there.

Louise is a scratchy-voiced, two-fisted gal who would be right at home in a Howard Hawks film. She looks like Drew Barrymore but talks a blue streak like Jack Nicholson in THE LAST DETAIL. She’s a real card. A pisser with a hollow leg—two of them, in fact. Anyway, it’s a Sunday morning in early September, and I’m hungover and on the L train and heading home after crashing at a friend’s place. Then the train gets stuck. That’s when I see Louise, who is hungover as well, and heading to a New York Road Runner’s race in Central Park.

We had been bullshitting of late about how much time we spend drinking and not doing anything healthy—like exercise, sports, extreme fighting, King Crab fishing in Alaska—and Louise had been talking about forming a running club at the Blind Tiger. But we wanted the club to be run OUR style: No health nuts or running zealots. We wanted our club members to be beer-drinking, out of shape, overweight, fun-loving folks. No Prefontaines in THIS group.

So Louise and I get stuck on the friggin’ L for like an hour, and it’s during that time we come up with TEAM TIGER: DRINKERS WITH A RUNNING PROBLEM. The team would meet at the Blind Tiger every Monday at 7:30 (now 7) and go for a 40-minute run on the West Side Highway. Afterward, we would reward our noble effort with copious amounts of alcohol. The idea was brilliant—not quite as groundbreaking as the discovery of fire, but definitely more revolutionary than the invention of the wheel and the sports bra.

And so the legend began…

As for why I’m writing this crap down, I’ll get to that in my next entry. Origin stories suck. That’s why SPIDER-MAN 2 is better than the first movie. And why I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is far superior to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. Ugh! I hate all this exposition. I’m quitting now while I’m behind. But, trust me, things will get better—and funnier—I hope. In fact, after writing my first entry, I have to say I kinda…

Nah. I STILL hate blogs.