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Drinkin’ again.
By briantologist | December 17, 2004
I inordinately enjoy films, books, songs, and the occasional TV show about perennially drunk people. Not just drunks, but serious drunks, people for whom drinking isn’t a pastime so much as a calling, for whom the sauce is an end unto itself. Dookie recently needed some work done on his house, and hired a guy who works for his mom’s painting company. The guy spent most of his time standing around talking at Dookie about what happens when “the whiskey gets me.” “Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Dookie. “It’s always a good time when you get your friends together and get plastered–”
“Nah, it ain’t really the people,” the guy interrupted. “It’s just the whiskey.”
Stories about drunks warm my heart, and jokes or filmic gags hinging on drunkenness? Among the best. This is doubly true in cases where there’s a palpable sense of despair mixed in with the humor, as in my experience, it’s not really, really funny unless it hurts a little too. (Spicy food and rough sex work along the same lines.)
“Bad Santa” springs most immediately to mind, and is probably about the purest example of this syndrome I can think of. Billy Bob Thorton is a fucking genius in this role, not just because he nails not just the drunkenness itself, but because he paints such a beautiful, honest portrait of why anybody could possibly be such a disreputable sot to begin with. It’s not just that he can’t stand himself, though that’s an integral part of it. As he’s shambling around squinting at the world around him, the doughy suburban moms, the chain restaurants, the idiot security guards, you get the unmistakable feeling that the only thing that horrifies him more than the person staring back at him in the mirror is every other person he meets. (Yes, I’m projecting a bit here, but seeing as how one of art’s most basic functions is as an alternate filter for our own experiences, what’s the fucking problem with that?)
My friend John, with whom I wasn’t close, but with whom I felt a unique, deep-seated kinship, hung himself about a year and a half ago. I know he had other shit going on in the deep black pits of his brain, but part of me has always felt that these were the things that drove him up that ladder to the tree limb in his parents’ back yard: Not the big hulking life problems that everybody has to deal with, but the daily shit, the gradual sandblasting of the soul that happens as we shuffle through our days faced with streams of obese suburban evangelicals halfheartedly scolding little Kayden over a cell phone, burning 8 miles per gallon while idling in the Krispy Kreme drive-thru. When John wasn’t spending his time decomposing, I’d run into him around town from time to time, and almost invariably, when I’d spot him, I’d find myself stifling a laugh, not because of any specific joke of his I’d remember, but because seeing him reminded me of the fucking freak show I saw playing out before me day after day after day. Talking with John, I knew I wasn’t the only one who saw these monstrosities for what they were, and so, more to the point, seeing him reminded me that this shit was funny. You have to see them as funny, or else they’ll just kill you that much quicker.
John was one of the good ones, as my living friend Jon and I have said many times, and in addition he was great to get drunk with, for mostly the same reasons. Ultimately I feel deep down that what makes a deep friendship, as much as liking the same sorts of movies and books and jokes and bars, is a shared sense of dread at the same things. I dunno. Maybe your friendships aren’t built on existential horror. But then again, I’ll bet they are.
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P.S. — Speaking of career drunks, here’s the kitty picture of the day.
“Just a motherfuckin’ p-i-m-p.”
Topics: Reflections From the Bottom Rung | 9 Comments »
December 17th, 2004 at 7:32 am
Great post.
I used to be a lot more cynical. My friends and I would laugh about the adsurdity of the world around us. We were the type of funny, jaded, chain-smoking, drunk assholes that litter college towns across the country.
When everyone eventually moved on and moved away, I was struck by how incompatible I was with the rest of society. I realized that it would be extremely difficult to ever make new friends because noone would ever stack up. Or at least I’d never let them get close enough to try. This situation over the years left me rather humorless and lonely.
Lately though I’ve decided that life’s too short to try to fit in. There’s not much real reward in it anyway. I will try to laugh at the world again as in olden days. Cynical is who I am. Fuck you all. Fuck you all so much.
I’d love to get piss drunk with you, Brian.
December 17th, 2004 at 8:24 am
Excellent Post. Excellent.
December 17th, 2004 at 9:15 am
Brilliant post, mate. And I love you even more deeply for it as further confirmation of why you and I should not be allowed to drive/ride in an automobile alone together for more than 15 minutes at a stretch. Seriously mortally dangerous; for us and others.
Oh, and Severely Black Eye:’Lucky’… I rest my case.
December 17th, 2004 at 11:23 am
Hee hee hee hee!!! “Lucky.” Of all the moments I needed a camera at hand …
Anybody’s welcome for drinking, folks. As long as you haven’t named a child Kayden in the last 48 months.
December 17th, 2004 at 1:23 pm
I know I’m just saying the same old shit, but this is a really, really, great post.
The little stuff has such a way of wearing people down…
December 17th, 2004 at 1:27 pm
I’ve recently had a few epiphanies about existential horror and drinking, and I agree whole-heartedly.
I saw “Bad Santa” on an airplane two weeks ago while I was coming home from the drinkingest place on earth, Prague. It should be noted that my last night out was a cracker, and an all-nighter, so I was in a transitional state between drunk and hungover that usually takes place while you sleep, but in my case, took place while I watched Billy Bob Thornton drink JD from the bottle. I have to admit, it made me a feel a little bit barfy. It’s that good.
I’ll pour a little out for your homie next time.
December 17th, 2004 at 1:37 pm
Crazy Jane and I share a friendship which is perched precisely on the locus of our mutual existential dread. Am I right Jane?
December 17th, 2004 at 1:41 pm
I’d have to say that’s exactly the locus, yes. That, and the fact that I love the BEJESUS out of you, Matty.
December 18th, 2004 at 12:29 pm
Kudos to you for articulating your feelings about J.G., Brianbyrne. I’ve tried so many times and still can’t.