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[Legacy]: Boxing Cat's 12 Beer Challenge

Pints of Lunacy - By Christopher St Cavish, Dec 08, 09

Legacy is an ongoing column about ways for the very average person to find immortality in Shanghai. It is about facing challenges, and, hopefully, having your picture hang on a restaurant or bar's wall for all the world to see, forever.

"I'm gonna go out in a flame of glory, dump the last two beers over myself, light myself on fire, and start puking everywhere... Success isn't an option. Write that down."

Morgan Short is an hour and eight minutes into the Boxing Cat Brewery's two-hour Twelve Round Challenge. He is drinking backup for a friend he's put up to the challenge. Three beers and thirty-six minutes into it, the friend turned to me, casually said "Oh… I'm not feeling too good", and vomited on his shoes, his sweatshirt, the floor – everywhere except the bucket at his side. He tried to staunch the tide with a closed fist in front of his mouth, as if playing a horn. The cleaning lady rushed out. A dinner customer caught sight and started to dry-heave. Morgan chastised his friend knowingly. "The bugle! The bugle never works, man."

Morgan is now alone in the fight. Lee Tseng, the managing partner, sketched out successful pacing beforehand: eight beers in the first hour, four in the second. If you finish them all, they're free.

Hope is dwindling. Morgan has just finished beer Number Four. It is a critical moment. Twenty ounces ago, he declared "a resurgence of confidence" after being humbled by Number Three. He declared the fourth beer "full of AIDS" and hatched a plan to sneak off for a quick puke in the bathroom before a triumphant return. "Let’s go B*TCHESSS!!!" rings out across the bar. He offers to place his genitals on the table.

Morgan has gone from sober to drunkest-guy-at-the-party in twenty minutes.

Morgan: "I just wanna kill myself right now."

Failed Friend: "I feel pretty good."

Morgan: "I can't drink any more. This is LUDICROUS."

Failed Friend: "Golden Boy is driving me crazy."

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The Boxing Cat's Twelve Round Challenge is formidable. To date, only nine people have finished successfully, and they live in perpetuity on a wall near the staircase. Golden Boy is one of them, a wiry middle-aged guy dressed in a gold suit who showed up to party after some kind of chintzy costume ball. His garish get-up, metallic and shiny, screams out from behind his cluster of twelve empty glasses. He can't dress, but he can drink.

Eight of the Immortals completed the stunt at The Cat's far-flung Minhang location. One finished eight beers and gave up, but upon getting the check, realized he didn't have enough money for a cab home, and drank his way to the end. Another drank six beers downtown, headed out to Minhang, drank twelve more, and then another two for good measure. The other seven look like everyday superheroes, though a little red in the face.

"Full of chodes."

Morgan is on his sixth Pumpkin Ale. By now, the wall is taunting him. The end of the fifth brought with it the beginnings of a crushing realization. "We walked in here like big men. This is a humbling, humbling wake-up call."

After six beers, there's a consolation prize, a little league ringer T-shirt with a manly slogan: I Got Knocked The F*ck Out. It is the only thing keeping Morgan going.

"I'm gonna email my mom. She'll be proud. Real proud"

By now, things have descended into a lot of winks and indiscriminate slurs. It is painful to watch. There are less than twenty minutes left.

"Halfway to immortality."

"It's like drinking your insides. Write that down."

"AAAaargh."

"I think I'm gonna die, man."

Failed Friend is slowly sipping on a new beer. Morgan tries to set it on fire with a cigarette lighter before settling into despair.

It's not funny anymore. He senses this and is silent for a moment. He quietly mutters, "I can't believe how bad I did."

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Beer Seven is getting warm. Morgan has been ordering beers two at a time, drinking one and letting the other come up to room temperature for ease of ingestion. But Number Seven is looming large. "I ordered this in a fit of enthusiasm," he says, eyeing it up. The bucket is on the table now, next to the bell he’s been tapping every round. There are four minutes left.

Number Seven goes down in three big gulps. Morgan rushes up the stairs, and Number Seven comes up in three tidal waves.

The manager rushes after him. Challengers are allowed to use the bathroom, but they have to be chaperoned, and they have to sing the whole time, to prevent any puking on the sly. Morgan beats him to the bathroom, and snaps at my camera peering over the door. "I see your little Devil Eye, mister. I see it! ARGhurghlfff....."

After two hours of laying his manhood out for all to see, I let him come to terms with the results in private. Walking down the stairs, I bump into the concerned manager.

"Is he finished?" he asks.

"Yea. He's finished. Very finished."



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The Boxing Cat Brewery, 82 Fuxing Xi Lu, near Yongfu Lu. More details and a map here.

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