RIP Winos

I'm sitting on my parents porch, right now revisiting Sa-Ra's Hollywood Recordings. When I listen to music for more than backdrop, I usually have some "taste" with me. "Taste" is what older black men call alchohol. I happen to be drinking Wild Irish Rose out of a plastic cup. It's the product of what was a bit of an evening journey.

Earlier in the afternoon, my father, while doing the lawn, approached the porch to hit me with what was, to him, a bittersweet anecdote.

"Yo, Vince. Check this: Man, the other day, I just had a jones for some 'white'" (Wild Irish Rose -- known as the drink of choice for jitterbug lushes low on funds-- comes in red and white. But in the hood, it's simply refered to by its color. You don't ask for Rose, you simply ask for a "white" or a "red". In fact you don't ask for a pint of white, you as for a "long neck white" they're called "long necks" because the bottles are long, slim cylinders that resemble Will Ferrell's character in the Oblong cartoon)

He continued: "So I went to my spot to kop and they said they had one more long neck left."

Then he dropped this revelation on me that made me practically spit out my coffee onto my Esquire.

"And the dude behind the counter said that's the last one he'll ever sell."

Huh? WhatchutalkinboutPops?

"Man, Vince, them suckaz at Richards (the manufacturer/ghetto vineyard) are discontinuing all the long necks, baby!! Can you believe that, man?!

I couldn't. So Pops and I decided that over the next few days, we're gonna travel to all the local liq-stores and buy out the last of the long-necks, so, as Pops said with a straight-face, somber-tone and heavy-heart, "So we can give them a proper home and proper goodbye."

Pops is not a wino or lush, but when he was a teen, he cut his drinking teeth on Rose. Before he found Jah, his claims to fame where being able to shoot 30-foot jumpers, "out-cuss a nigga" and, as he's said often, "drink a lame under the table." He first started with red then moved to white. Although he suscribes to ridiculous urban-myths like "drinkin that red puts freckles on a nigga's nose", he said that his crew chose Rose because it was "better" than the other lush liquid back then, namely Rose' chief competitor, Thunderbird. So if/when he cracks a long neck white (always in the paper bag) and takes that first sip, he's trippin down memory lane. He might as well be listening to Bitches Brew.

Anyways, all the Buff liq stores are selling out. I went to a spot in a poor white neighborhood called Black Rock. Nothing. Then I went to a new spot that opened on Main Street. The girl looked at me and said, "they aint makin them no mo. We been out since Fursday."

So I went to an old trusty, Pernell's on Fillmore. (I know the actual names of liquor stores in the cities I've lived in.) He was out whites too, but he had three long neck reds left. So I kopped to fifths of the white and the three long neck reds.

Mr. Pernell was sittin in the back with his arms folded over his liquir-n-ribs gut and said, "you got the last of 'em, youngster."

Then the jitterbug workin the counter, a mid-40s aged kat, rockin a wife-beater, talking on a cell phone with fake-diamond bedazzlers, dropped the bottles on the counter and in the most eery James Brown voice said "Uh! 11.50!" Not "eleven fifty", but "elemem fiddym" Then he winked. He knew it was a moment.

Rose has always been a stalwart of hood liq-stores, specifically the long necks. If a wino has about 2 bucks, he's going to the medicine shop and koppin a long neck white or red.

When I got back to the crib I asked Pops why on earth they would discontinue a wino staple. He swigged his red and then hit me with one of the most heavy generation-gap observations in a while.

"I don't know, baby. I mean, I'm sure they did their consumer studies and what not, but probably the gist of of it is that you young boys just don't really drink wine no mo. I mean, when yall wanna go get some taste, yall aint koppin no wine."

I was like, "Yeah, I dig. I guess it aint no winos anymore, huh, Pops?"

I mean, my dude Rek said when he would pick up an occassional long neck, the counterman would usually ask, "dis for your grandfather?"

Think about that. There are plenty of Gen X drunks and lushes, but no winos. What 20-40 year old says, "Man, I got a couple singles on me...hmmm...let me go kop some wine"? Probably like, .056%.

Don't get me wrong, like I said, there are plenty of Gen X drunks, just not winos. I mean, even take my crew (not my CHS crew, my other crew) for instance. Our tastes run the gamut. We like to $120 bottles of single malt scotch, but we also kop malt liquor -- our generation's Rose. When Rite Aid was selling Hurricane's for 99 cent last summer, me and Rek would just look at each other and say things like, "It's Katrina Time" or "Let's get Huey'd". But wine? Na.

We call one of our boys "Vino", but not because he drinks cheap wine, just because he "looks" like a wino.

When we were young and broke, we didn't buy wine, we bought cheap brandy and nicknamed them after jazz musicians and athletes based on their initials. E&J became Elvin Jones, Christian Brothers became Charles Barkley.

Me? I can spend close to $200 at specialty beer stores and do so in every city I live in. But I also made habit of buying Puerto Rican rum when I lived in tampa. That used to be a typical satirday or sunday for me. I'd try to recreate some dish I saw on Food Network or throw some meat on the grill and drink rum with names like Ron Rico or Juan Carlos. The thing is, they cost like $8 for a full fifth, $10 for a whole liter. If that's your official poison, itd probably put freckles on your nose like the red.

Still, Ron Rico was cheap go-to, not wine.

I have no idea when this shift occurred. But, by the 90s, Wu-Tang was pitching St. Ides, everyone in John Singleton flicks was drinkin OE, Spike Lee was parodying malt-liquor with his atomic-bomb bottles and young men were choosing cheap brandies over wine. (Maybe my fav song of 2008 is Dwele's metaphoric ode to cheap brandy)

It's sad that Rose is getting discontinued (long necks at least). I personally attach a very romantic tag to the wino-archetype. What isn't quaint about some old dude with a lil dough, drinking drinking cheap, ghetto vine? A jitterbug-sophisticado is Americana to me. My generation swigging on big 40 bottles or mixing juan carlos with RC Cola is just no where near as deviantly distinguished as a snaggle-tooth old timer sippin a long neck white.

RIP Rose and RIP winos.

For what its worth my father has vacilated between extreme ways of euologizing the death of long necks. He toggles between directives like, "Vince put those in the back of the fridge, some peoples' eyes aint even worthy of looking at the majesty of a long neck" to the other end "Man, Vince, I think I'm gonna start drinkin Rose at dinner parties."

That's nosalgia speaking, but let's be clear: somwhere in Cleveland or Detroit or DC or Dallas or Compton, there are winos mourning. They just lost the medicine for their cough.