By Nick Altschuller ANd ANdrew rimAs | PhotograPhs by Dan Watkins

Two 

Editors 

Walk Into a Bar... 

By Nick Altschuller ANd ANdrew rimAs | PhotograPhs by Dan Watkins 

46 The Improper Bostonian

In a festIval of Iguana pIctures, 

charles Darwin’s the origin of species 

turned 150 years old last month. 

this was a bigger deal in Britain, 

where evolution isn’t controversial; 

here, we prefer our Darwinism social. 

there’s nothing more american, after 

all, than getting ahead of your neighbor 

by clobbering him over the head with 

his own femur. robust, cannibal competition 

is the basis of everything in our 

civilization, from tv commercials to 

red sox caps. 

In this season of peace and goodwill, 

it’s useful to remember those roots. for 

instance, by stomping all over someone 

else’s self-worth for the sake of a momentary 

nip of endorphins. In this spirit, 

we matched the Improper’s associate 

editor nick altschuller and managing 

editor andrew rimas in a battle royale 

of modern blood sports: bar games. 

usually, the closest these two get to 

being red in tooth and claw is when they 

order buffalo wings; they’re as aggressive 

as bunny slippers. so to focus their 

killer instincts, they asked several 

experts for guidance, and to spice 

up the competition, we decided the 

loser would have to have to mount the 

mechanical bull at the liquor store. 

the happy winner would get to stand 

at the control panel. Hail, reader! 

We who are about to chug 

salute you. 

The Improper Bostonian 47

N i c k : 

I. Beer Chug 

By some miracle of fate or folly, 

Animal House is on the TV as we 

walk into TC’s Lounge—an inviting 

dive with a veteran staff whose 

eyelids barely flicker at the sight of 

two grown men pounding pints at 

three in the afternoon. 

We’ve come to kick off our bar 

games gauntlet with beer chugging, 

and it’s the one event where I have 

genuine nerves. I’m all clammy as 

my blood retreats from my extremities 

to hold fort around my heart, 

an organ beating with more urgency 

than during its normal task of keeping 

me alive. 

It’s not that I lack confidence. 

In college I led many a boat race, 

and as someone obsessed with 

hydration—but who takes no real 

joy in drinking water—I down 16 

ounces of liquid at least five or six 

times a day. The tension stems 

from the fact that the following 

games will be based on concentration, 

coordination and patience, all 

abilities I possess, but defeat isn’t 

out of the question. Besides, chugging 

is innate and, twisted by the 

48 The Improper Bostonian 

Who doesn’t 

love a good 

bar fight? 

ethos of the modern man, primal. 

(There’s a reason the activity is 

often followed by grunting and 

the smashing of cans against our 

evolved skulls.) 

Plus, Andrew is a mysterious opponent. 

He was a rugger in school, 

and in the Northeast a rugby squad 

is really just a violent drinking 

team with snappy shirts. Also, he 

has a mustache, an advantageous 

accoutrement capable of both filtering 

the flow of beer and hiding an 

unchugged ounce. 

People will say there are strategies 

to chugging, but much like the 

practice itself, these people are 

dumb. For example, Andrew and I 

decide we’ll begin the contest with 

a traditional cheer of tapping our 

glasses against the bar, clinking 

them together, then tapping once 

more before our simultaneous 

megaquaffs. Drunks on the Internet 

big shots digital 

animals were harmed in 

the making of this article. 

say tapping your beer releases more 

carbon dioxide, thus easing your 

guzzle by making it less aerated. I 

prefer to award bonus points for 

riotous belching. 

With the only other ground 

rule of no dripping, we salute each 

other and take off with Belushiesque 

enthusiasm. Like bighorn 

sheep locked in combat, we battle 

in a few brief seconds of ferocious 

and fundamental idiocy. When the 

High Life disappears, I slam my 

vessel down and find Andrew still 

supping from his cup. Like J. Edgar 

Hoover in a pretty, new dress, 

I’m awash in a delicious combination 

of elation and shame. 

For punishment, I task Andrew 

to finish the rest of our beer straight 

from the pitcher. As he pounds the 

remaining ounces, no one at the bar 

even turns to look. 

Score: Nick: 1, ANdrew: 0. 

II. BIg BuCk hunter 

If I was nervous for the beer chug, 

I’m dangerously overconfident for 

Big Buck Hunter. Not limited by 

handicaps like a wife or children, I 

have an advantage, as this is a game 

I’ve had occasion to play. Thanks, 

crippling loneliness! 

For those unfamiliar, Big Buck 

Hunter is a video game played with 

two plastic shotguns. The goal is 

to get more points than your opponent 

by killing various forms of 

wildlife—from moose to antelope— 

with some measure of speed and 

accuracy. Having grown exceedingly 

popular, this year’s world 

championships awarded more than 

$70,000 in prizes. 

Before our Improper duel, I get 

some pre-shootout tips from Ryan 

Cravens, who works in CoinUp 

sales and promotions for the game’s 

developer, Play Mechanix. Surprisingly, 

his advice isn’t just “shoot as 

fast as possible” (although that was 

his first suggestion). 

Craven recommends that in 

shootout mode—the setting used 

for the championship, in which both 

players fire away at the same time— 

you should keep an eye on what your 

opponent is aiming for. “It’s not the 

first shot, it’s the final shot,” he says. 

“You can always cherry-pick.” 

He also reveals that the game 

has Easter eggs—nerd parlance 

for secrets. For example, next time 

you’re playing Big Buck Hunter 

Pro, choose to hunt elk. On the first 

stage, hit the log at the bottom of 

the screen. A frog will jump out, and 

if you can shoot it four times, you’ll 

score a giant bonus. Of course, the 

only Craven tip you may need is 

“use your elbows.” “Give ’em a hip 

check every once in a while,” he 

says, because who doesn’t love a 

good bar fight? 

As Andrew is a rookie, we decide 

to play Big Buck Hunter Safari 

round-robin style, so that he can 

get the hang of things without the 

distraction of me simultaneously 

blasting away like Ted Nugent. Hoping 

that Cape buffalo will be the 

slowest and dumbest computerized 

species, we make our selection and 

head off to the Sudan. 

The first round goes as well as 

I could’ve wished, with a headshot 

here and a sarcastic word of 

support there. But in the second

ound, Andrew keeps plugging 

away and narrowing my lead as 

I hit doe after doe (you can’t hit 

girls). Not until the final bonus 

game do I seal the victory. 

“You’re a great hunter,” announces 

the stereotyped African voiceover. 

And so with the buffalo down, my 

focus returns to getting Andrew up 

on the bucking bronco. 


III. eIght Ball 

In The Hustler, when Paul Newman’s 

Fast Eddie Felson arrives to 

battle Minnesota Fats, he grabs a 

cue from the rack and rolls it on 

the table, checking for warps and 

bends in the wood. Like anything 

Newman did in the ’60s, it looks 

real cool. 

“That’s a good thing to do if you 

want to look like a rube,” says Herb 

Childress. Dr. Herb is a certified 

pool instructor with the Billiard 

Congress of America, and he’s kind 

enough to teach the basics of eight 

ball to me and Andrew, two players 

that even the most ham-fisted rube 

could fleece for a paycheck. 

To start, Dr. Herb recommends 

you make sure the front of the cue 

isn’t damaged and the tip hasn’t 

flattened, otherwise you might as 

well be playing with a No. 2 pencil 

for all the control you’re going to 

have. If the top of the cue feels 

sticky, he says burnish the wood 

with a $100 bill, although that 

sounds more like a tip on how to 

get stabbed. 

A week after our tutorial, Andrew 

and I arrive at Jillian’s, pick out 

our respective weapons, and then 

promptly fall on them. The type 

of pool we play should never be 

discussed again. The photographic 

evidence should be locked away to 

rot next to copies of Jerry Lewis’ 

The Day the Clown Cried and Heidi 

Montag’s album. 

It’s not that we don’t make use 

of Dr. Herb’s lessons. I, for one, 

find the concept of the “ghost ball” 

quite handy. It’s a rule of basic 

physics that when balls collide, the 

ball that’s stationary will rocket 

away along the line connecting 

the center of the two spheres. On 

the opposite side of the reaction, 

Andrew quickly grasps the 90-degree 

rule, which dictates that after 

the collision, the ball that’s already 

moving will continue on a path 

perpendicular to the one taken by 

the stationary ball. 

With these lessons in mind, we 

manage to sink balls with alarming 

regularity. Unfortunately, it’s 

usually the cue ball. Like trick-shot 

artists unclear on the concept, we 

keep finding new, inventive ways to 

scratch. I scratch off walls. I scratch 

trying to massé. Lining up an asinine 

corner shot, Andrew bets me 

a beer chug that I’ll fail. Feeling the 

if the cue 

feels sticky, 

burnish the 

Wood With 

a $100 bill, 

although 

that sounds 

more like a 

tip on hoW to 

get stabbed. 

confidence of the clueless and seeking 

to further weaken my opponent, 

I go for it—and scratch. 

To prove our incompetence, 

I’m somehow winning, and when 

Andrew hot-potatoes victory 

back to me with a scratch of his 

own, I have ball-in-hand to seal 

the game. As I place the cue ball 

five inches behind the eight for 

a child’s-play corner shot, Andrew 

reaches for every jinx in the 

schoolyard playbook. “There’s no 

way you could possibly miss that 

shot,” he taunts. And I don’t—but 

I do scratch. 

In my haste I’ve forgotten one of 

the only billiards basics I knew from 

the start. If I had put just a touch of 

backspin on the cue ball, she would 

have reeled her way to safety. But 

instead, she sank, as did my chance 

at a commanding lead. I’d blame 

Andrew, but he was only doing his 

job. I’d blame the beer, but then who 

would console me? Like Fast Eddie, 

I’m going to need righteous motivation 

to beat Andrew in a rematch. I 

just have to find a way to trick him 

into sleeping with my girlfriend. 


a N d r e w : 

IV. FoosBall 

Nick is an honorable man, but I 

relish seeing him choke on the ashes 

of his own pride. We leave our pool 

cues and walk toward the back of 

the enormous hall, to a foosball 

table by the windows overlooking 

the Mass. Pike. A charcoal gloom 

has settled over the afternoon, 

turning the Friday rush hour into 

a phosphorescent stream in the 

darkness. Despite its impressive 

size, Jillian’s feels clubby and snug 

against the oily weather, and I beam 

with cheery thoughts of smashing 

Nick’s ego into little, crying pieces. 

Except I’m terrible at bar games. 

Although I’ve spent many years 

polishing the brass rail, I’ve never 

had much tolerance for distractions 

from the actual drinking. Flirting, 

breaking balls 

the duo practices 

synchronized 

scratching. 


watching sports, fiddling with 

joysticks—they all seem unserious 

in the face of a foaming pitcher. 

That, and I have the hand-eye 

coordination of a noodle. 

Foosball, then, has always felt 

alien and mysterious to me. But 

despite its association with soccer 

and its whiffy European name, 

foosball is a great American sport. 

Powerhouses like Belgium and 

Luxembourg may strut and crow on 

the tournament stage, but lots of 

50 The Improper Bostonian 

International Table Soccer Federation 

winners have been Yanks. One 

of the all-time great players, Billy 

Pappas, is a Bostonian. But, then, 

so is Tom Brady ostensibly, and I’ve 

yet to absorb any of his athleticism 

or charisma. 

According to the ITSF’s rulebook, 

“The serve shall begin with the 

ball stopped at the middle player 

figure of the five-man rod.” Ignoring 

this, Nick bounces the ball onto 

the table, and we angrily crank our 

foos line is it 

anyway? in europe, 

they call it table soccer. 

handles. Like most other bar games, 

foosball is an exercise in applied 

physics. It’s about transferring 

force between a wooden peg that 

resembles David Beckham and a 

plastic ball that resembles Rush 

Limbaugh’s head. Indeed, it’s very 

similar to pool, except there’s more 

speed and less sangfroid. Suavity 

has a tendency to evaporate when 

you’re whacking the side of a 

wooden box while making a noise 

like a howler monkey. 

“A good player is one that has 

two essential skills,” says Larry 

Davis, president of the United 

States Table Soccer Federation. 

“Excellent ball control and accurate 

passing.” I have neither, nor do 

I have enough quarters to practice. 

The unholy angles at which foosball 

professionals pass and rocket 

the ball proves that table tennis, 

at least, ought to be worried for its 

status as top “I Can’t Believe It’s an 

Olympic Sport.” Indeed, Davis says 

that the ITSF is meeting with the 

International Olympic Committee 

next year to discuss the prospect. 

I’d recommend Nick for the 

roster. Instead of my raw, animal 

flailing, he controls his men, and 

soon leads 6-2, then 8-2. Practice, 

it seems, is the primary rule 

of bar games. 

I drain my penalty beer, although 

it tastes a little sour. I’ll have my 

revenge at Cornwall’s Tavern. 


V. Darts 

My favorite late-20th-century novel 

is London Fields by Martin Amis, 

without question the finest book 

ever written that’s largely about 

darts. What game, after all, could 

be less strategic, less subject to 

calculated agency, less intelligent? 

A perfect metaphor for the human 

condition. Like shooting free throws, 

there’s no trick to darts. You either 

make the shot, or you don’t. 

“The most important thing is 

the repetition of throwing mechanics,” 

says Gregg Tong, marketing 

and communications director for 

the local Minute Man Dart League, 

the world’s largest steel-tip darts 

league. “Practice.” Obviously so, 

but I need to crush my opponent 

right now. 

“Follow-through is very important,” 

Tong suggests. “As you throw 

the dart, point your finger toward 

where you’re throwing it.” Also, he 

advises against moving your head or 

body, trying to limit all the action to 

the elbow and hand. “If you think of 

a catapult or trebuchet, that’s what 

you’re trying to do with your arm.” 

I’m not much skilled with trebuchets, 

as far as I know. But I am good 

at wiping my mind of intelligent 

thought (those years of polishing 

the brass rail, again). “Zen in the 

Art of Archery,” says Tong. “It’s a lot 

like that.” 

Nick and I step up to the oche 

at Cornwall’s Tavern in Kenmore 

Square, a bright and noisy bar that 

seems wholly collegiate and American, 

except for a smattering of English 

draughts and three dartboards. 

Braced with pints of Fuller’s, we 

begin a game of 301, a simple scoring 

race like the standard competition

in international play. At once, Nick 

moves into the lead, which he keeps. 

It’s only when he’s comfortably 

past the 200-point threshold that 

my rival reveals his secret. “I aim 

for the triple 14,” he says, a trick he 

learned from chatting with Nicole 

Watson, president of Minute Man 

Dart League. That way, even when 

he misses, he’s liable to hit the 

adjacent 11 or 9. I’ve been eyeing 

the treble 20, which is sandwiched 

between a lot of pointless 5s and 1s. 

So when I miss, my score wallows in 

the single digits. 

I apply the trick and catch up 

fast, then close the game on a 

double 7. Darts, it seems, isn’t all 

mindless tossing. 


VI. Photo hunt 

We push past the scrum of Friday 

drinkers toward a small, neglectedlooking 

console near the window. 

Here, in the reflected light of Kenmore 

Square’s taco shops, is my last 

chance to even the score. 

Photo Hunt is a bar game 

version of the activity books in 

which kids circle the differences 

between two similar images. Like 

most children’s games, it’s a joyless 

evil, and since it’s played on a 

timer, the tension makes me want 

the tension 

makes me 

Want to bite 

through 

a piece of 

sheet iron. 

to bite through a piece of sheet 

iron. Photo Hunt champions are 

reputed to be able to cross their 

eyes like geckos, so that the two 

images on screen overlap, making 

the differences easy to spot. 

This sounds not only gross, but 

anatomically dangerous. I have no 

wish to sprain an optic nerve and 

end up wall-eyed and drooling like 

an American Idol hopeful. 

Nick and I battle it out the 

traditional way, meaning we squint 

at photographs—and not even the 

pornographic ones where you get 

to waggle your fingers over naked 

models. Cornwall’s game is regrettably 

wholesome, all kittens and 

sunrises, with nary a pixilated 

nipple. Nick goes first and racks up 

a respectable four screens. I follow, 

and am defeated on the third by a 

hateful image of Mr. Potato Head 

sitting in an armchair. 

Score: Nick: 4, ANdrew: 2. Nick 

wiNS. To lashings of shame, I must 

now add… 

VII. the 

MeChanICal Bull 

The Bronze Age Minoans liked 

to paint frescoes of naked bulljumpers: 

limber, curly-haired 

youths with eyeliner and supple 

ligaments. Today’s equivalent 

is the video clip of the plastered 

sorority girl straddled across a 

robotic farm animal. Since I’m 

neither limber nor a topless 

18-year-old, what I’m about to 

do is an affront to 3,500 years of 

aesthetic judgment. 

The Liquor Store is downstairs 

from Gypsy Bar, and it flaunts 

its populism with three stripper 

poles and occasional visits from 

the Kardashians. There’s also an 

inflated plastic pit, in the center 

of which, and bearing the heft and 

charm of an oil derrick, stands 

a mechanical bull. In Spain, I’ve 

climbed into arenas overrun 

by little bullocks with ingrown 

horns, but this clunking devil is no 

jittery bovine. It’s got a malicious 

intelligence behind it. 

ready for launch 

nick mans the control 

panels. andrew suffers. 

Nick stands at the control pad, 

grinning. He laughs as I haul myself 

onto the hard, leather back. As it 

shudders to life, Nick looks like a 

Goldman Sachs executive who’s 

been given the keys to the Treasury. 

[Nick: I actually felt more like Dr. 

Frankenstein bringing his creation 

to life, so it could maul Igor.] 

The machine starts to spin, tolerably 

at first. Carmelo Bari, the manager 

of the Liquor Store, looks on 

with an expression of baffled politeness. 

He explains that it’s usually 

the girls who stay in the saddle the 

longest. Naturally, any bull operator 

in his right mind would waste 

no time in unseating a heavy-set, 

36-year-old magazine editor—the 

jiggles come in all the wrong places. 

Nick, however, wants to savor the 

torment. [Nick: Work it, girl!] 

The bull spins faster. Then it 

starts to bump. Muscles that have 

lain buried for 15 years are now 

straining to hold me upright. My 

undercarriage feels like it’s beginning 

to fracture, and in a few 

moments I slide gently to the side, 

then land with the elegance of a bag 

of wet cement. 

The problem with competitions, 

of course, is that someone always 

has to lose. Perhaps it’s time to give 

peace and love a chance. CCC

By Nick Altschuller ANd ANdrew rimAs | PhotograPhs by Dan Watkins

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