Tuesday, 16 June 2009

• the team dynamic

  I need a new beerpong partner.

  I know, the serious discussions of my life are making you jealous right now, but it's true.

  beerpong became our favored past time about 3 years ago. I've probably averaged at least one game a week since then. I remember the simpler times when everyone would randomly team up and play random friends and random passers-through to mike holman's old apartment. those were the days.

  what must have been almost since the beginning I found my first serious beerpong partner. fat nick(who is now 60 pounds lighter and is still called fat nick for the sake of consistency). we even made a team name(or rather he made the name and I begrudgingly went along with it). we are the fat kid connection(begrudgingness!), of FKC for short. we had never really had a serious streak of more than 4 or 5 games in a row, but our average was fantastic. we made a good team. but we stopped playing partners as much and now that he's on psych drugs he can't drink anymore. so no more FKC except on the rare occasion I agree to drink all of the beers(and we usually still win).

  1 year and 6 months ago I found my greatest beerpong partner yet. it was yin and yang. it was ping and pong. it was magic. we started on new years eve and won about 6 games in a row. that was not a bad average at all. we then accompanied a new friend to her group's side of town for a kegger. no one was playing beerpong so we hopped up to show them how it was done. and we did. I forget the original counts now, but I'm pretty sure we won 16 games in a row that night. the keg was empty. I just remember(in the blur of excessive beers and the captain morgan side drinks) the point in time where the entire party was standing on the other side of the table from us talking shit, yelling, telling us we were going down, and looking over and seeing soto laughing just as hard as I was. "hey, j-rizzle, can you make that cup?" there were usually a few cups. "this one?" and I'd sink it. it was like his level of skill upped my own game. then he'd be all, "that's the one, now watch." he'd sink the same cup. that whole party hated the fact that two guys they didn't know came in and beat everyone they did know in different combinations.

  soto and I made a trip to chicago with a few other friends and won several more hotel games including one with a circle of death(it's an optional rule that we play by to make games go faster. ask me if you want to know about it). eventually, as all great things do, it ended. the streak I mean. we went from 2 different time zones, 4 or 5 different parties and who knows how much beer before we finally lost a game. I think our first loss came at a team record of 36-0. things got shaky after that. we were still good and I seen fewer teams as skilled, but we ended about 45-12. that's a lot of beer for a 4 month period of games. anywhooters, he moved to arizona after that and it hasn't been the same without my beerpong partner.

  I've developed quite a bit of skill at the game(if I do say so myself), and I can hold my own with any partner now. the only problem is that all of the heavy hitters are already teamed up with the same people they always play with hoping to one day top the glory of team soto-j-rizzle's streak. it won't happen(more grudging feelings). the only people I usually end up playing partners with now are the less experienced players or those left without permanent teammates. not that I have any problem with that, it's just I usually top out at about 3 or 4 games before getting pwned. and you lose that team dynamic when you don't have an official partner you bring to the party to just dominate with.

  I've had a few glory runs with chris johnson, but he's officially partners with medina. at kegs and eggs(oh, another blog) this year we had 2 games on the streets downtown in the middle of the crowd. I ended up playing the role of mr. clutch and saving our team by making all of the opponents cups both times we had redemption shots. legendary. and then there was another party we won by circle of death 5 times in a row. needless to say we had no more challengers.

  I guess most people don't put as much thought into their beerpong teams, but I take it very seriously. this game is one of our groups most appreciated past times, (if you hadn't seen the picture post a few weeks ago of the fancy table we built, you should.) and it's necessary to take it seriously.

  I miss soto. I miss the way the game was played once upon a time.

  j-rizzle, beerpong hall-of-famer...

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