A Change of the Season

The days are getting longer. The relentless rains of Portland are subsiding to yield cherry blossoms.  Denizens of the Pacific Northwest are beginning to emerge from the 7 months of torrential rain but this is nothing really new. After living in Buffalo, I was changing out the precipitation type, but it almost seemed worth it. Springtime anywhere signifies a stark change from the winter of our discontent.

Yesterday I received an email in my inbox. The domain name, A Drunken Production, is up for renewal. This is the second rendition of A Drunken Production. The first was hosted by SquareSpace at http://adrunk.squarespace.com and I used Facebook to promote it. It was almost monthly where I would put out my drunk thought du mois. Rarely did I provide my takes on the drinks I drank nor the places I visited. It was a pure stream-of-conscious writing. Have a couple of pops and pour my heart out about my thoughts on drinking culture. I even designed a logo and made t-shirts. I've handed them out to friends and family.

I was laying it all out there for the world to see. Friends and family met the page with praise and concern. Many lauded it. Not to toot my own horn, but I would put it out there for the world to see. Despite the words I used to paint a picture, many people saw things that may or not have been there. It all depends on our relationship with drinking. People who grew up with people who dealt with alcohol issues were concerned about my writing. They may have seen the early workings of their own loved ones devolving into an alcoholic stupor. During 2014 and 2015, that may have been the case. I was using Untappd a lot. Every time I checked in a beer, a badge would appear on my Facebook page and Twitter. The frequency of which may have been alarming to loved ones. Now looking back over the material, I would have been concerned for a friend who wrote that. The written form and the spoken form are two different animals. If the person reading the article who did not partake in the event may not understand the situations that led up to that point and the circumstance itself. Perhaps the onus was on me to further develop my idea. To let the reader know that I may have dove down to the depths of the sea but I had a scuba tank and a harpoon.

The second iteration of A Drunken Production was born from the ashes of the SquareSpace domain. I already had t-shirts for the love of Christ! But, if you're following the chronology, A Drunken Production v.1 went from March 2014 to March 2015. It wasn't until May 2016 where I decided to put the fingers to keys and pen A Drunken Production v2.0. What happened? Well, there plenty of writing but not the financial backing to pay for a domain. When I first came to Portland, I was staying on a friend's couch. I spent about 3 weeks on that couch and a lot of it was spent traveling around Portland drinking then coming back and punching out some words. But the one-time payment of $12.99 meant a six pack of craft beer or a 12 pack of cheap domestic. Either way, I felt those funds were better allocated to the pickled pursuit of exploration. I've explored southwest Portland, every hop and barley.

After a 7 month stint at a call center, I decided to throw caution in the air to apply to a software company as a temporary employee. Normally, I was used to making impulsive and rash decisions. I was used to eating a daily ration of 2 hot dogs from 7-Eleven and drinking a 6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching Netflix or some other sad pursuit. However, that was under the auspices of a stable 40 hour per week job. Dating was a thing but when you don't have living room furniture, it's hard to connote stability. Without a car or normal benchmarks of a stable human being, I embraced my situation. I gained resolve through the debauchery. Every day I woke up hung over from drinking more and more PBR and playing video games until the last possible moment before legitimately performing my job became a game. Even more so during the summer time. Thus my blog.

Creativity is one of those odd things that never be explained. It was through my drunken, debaucherous capers where I could draw upon to tell interesting tales. May 2016 marked the beginning of a stable period for me. I gained meaningful employment in March 2016 and I was able to think of things beyond things like where the next meal was coming from. Through March and May of 2016, I was able to have a monthly surplus. A friend of mine needed a place to crash and there was an additional $200 coming into my bottom line. A savings account sprouted from that and I was able to save for a car. Things kicked off from there.

So throughout 2016, I tried to regale the masses with drunken stories but the thing was...things have changed. I was able to eat regular meals. I was able to go to the Cheerful Bullpen or any other local bar and drink a night's worth of beer and not worry if bills were going to be paid. Maybe that's where I lost my edge. By no means had I given up the fight, but I lost my punch. I wasn't raging from Friday until Monday morning.

So here we are in 2017. Stability has set in and my domain renewal is due. I'm truly wondering what the next step is. Is there a third stanza to this song? Perhaps the next iteration of A Drunken Production will shine the light of someone drinking in his 30s? I'm also working on another project, Redefining Form, where I spit my hot takes on soccer, rugby and the world of fitness.

As I write this, I don't know how to proceed. I want to be the purveyor of soccer knowledge. I have been following the game for so long. Also, I want to maintain the DrunkenProduction life. So you tell me. Perhaps if A Drunken Production had more of a flow...a raison d'etre. I don't know what my readers want.  Please email me at adrunkenproduction.com and tell me your thoughts. What do you want to see? More raw beats or my thoughts about the actual beer?