Weekend Fun

One of the unwavering characteristics of all Poor Bastards is their willingness to sacrifice just about anything in the interest of having a good time. Weekends are therefore a big deal in the lives of most Poor Bastards as this is the time when, if you organize your schedule properly, it is possible to waste every bit of 48 straight hours doing absolutely nothing any more useful than drinking beer and cooking animal parts over an open fire.

And while this may seem like an under-achievers dream come true, the fact is that over the years many a Poor Bastard has become pretty damned good at whipping up a tasty fricassee, a mouth-watering barbecued pig carcass or even just a nice steaming hot bowl of Wolf Brand Chili! Of course a Poor Bastard wouldn't be a Poor Bastard if they didn't have an ice chest full of cheap, swill beer at the ready; overflowing with a combination of wine coolers (for the Old Lady) and whatever light beer happened to be on sale when they last visited the store.

Now this isn't to say that you can't be a Poor Bastard if you don't drink cheap beer, as there have been an untold number of landmark Poor Bastard stories emerge from the fallout of an all night bender with a bottle of tequila or a refrigerator full of Cook's Sparking Wine, which most Poor Bastard's think is champagne. The point is that when the weekend rolls around (about 3:00pm on Friday afternoon) the Poor Bastard is at the ready; half rack in hand, ice chest loaded, pig parts poised to hit the grill!

Another inherent trait of the Poor Bastard is their eagerness to share such outlandishly good times with other Poor Bastards who seem to have equally little ambition or other life adventures to pursue. This combination of simple good times, an innate sense of camaraderie and an undying love of beer and BBQ is at the very core of the Poor Bastard Social Order.

One of the things which separates the Garden-Variety Poor Bastard from the True Poor Bastard is that the True Poor Bastard does not necessarily possess these inherent qualities. The True Poor Bastard may look forward to the weekend, and all the fun and good times which may follow, but it is just as likely that the True Poor Bastard may have already reached the zenith of fun earlier in the week; and therefore the weekend is just another 48 hours in the never ending cycle of under-achievement and wasted opportunity.

Let's face it, when you are a True Poor Bastard like Charlie Sheen and you have already been caught in the bathroom of your favorite New York City discotheque on a Thursday night, with your pants down around your ankles and your face buried in pile of cocaine you have dumped out all over the lavatory counter, how much more fun can you possibly have?....And the weekend isn't even here yet!

Not to single out Charlie for any particular reason, but every farmer knows that you have to plant the seeds where the sun shines.

So for this weekend the fun and games begins about now. If you are on the East Coast it is almost 10:00am and the BBQ should be about ready to fire up.

If you are in the mid-western U.S. - home to the highest per-capita concentration of Poor Bastards in the world - it is approaching 9:00am; time to ice down the beer and hose out the BBQ.

If you are heading to The Lake today (a place near and dear to the hearts of many Poor Bastards), then you should already have the boat hitched to the pickup with all the provisions for a Poor Bastard weekend piled into the back of the boat.

If you are on the West Coast, it is 7:00am; time for an espresso and a bowl of granola with soy milk. The wood-fired BBQ smoker is out of the question, since it isn't the "green" thing to do to burn a wood fire anywhere west of the Rockies, but the stainless steel propane gas grill is at the ready....after all burning fossil fuels is the American way!

The good news is that those organic, free-range baby backs you picked up at the Whole Foods Market (referred to by Garden-Variety Poor Bastards as Whole Paycheck) were only $6.79 a lb so you were able to grab a few racks and it only set you back $200.

Your favorite micro brew was on sale for only $8 a six pack and that triple cream brie the Old Lady asked you to pick up is actually pretty tasty...

But in the end, you are still just a Poor Bastard!