Two guys walk into a bar. Bartender says, "So, what'll it be?"
First guy says, "I'll have a martini." Second guy says, "Make it
two, please." Bartender comes back with the drinks, sets them down,
"That's five dollars," he says. "And?"
First guy says, "And what?" Bartender says, "You know, and ..."
Second guy says, "What the hell are you talking about?" Bartender
says, "Well, it's a joke, right? I mean, 'two guys walk into a bar'
is a joke, isn't it? A setup? The first guy turns to the second
guy and says, "Let's get outta here."
Bartender runs to the door, shouts after them, "Next time bring
along a duck or something!"
My father's a drunk. He started drinking to overcome his natural
reticence and his social inhibitions. For a long time he was
unwilling to vomit in the street or piss in your fireplace.
But he's very outgoing now!
Duck walks into a bar. Bartender says, "So, what'll it be?"
Duck pulls a picture out of his wallet. Says, "Have you seen
these two guys?"
In 1976 some college friends and I went to see the famous stripper
Blaze Starr at a nightclub in Minnesota. By then she was pretty old.
It was widely rumored that she'd had an affair with Jack Kennedy
when he was president. The night we saw her, Blaze Starr looked like
your maiden aunt, only with a red feathered fan and a big, naked ass.
One of my friends said, loud enough for her to hear from the runway,
"Kennedy must have been drunk." Blaze Starr turned and looked down
at him and the expression on her face made me sorry he said it.
My mother's a drunk too. She started drinking because none of her
dreams came true. Then she drank to keep from dreaming. Now she
drinks so she won't cast a shadow.
Lots of people ask me how good a writer William Faulkner might
have been if he hadn't been a drunk his whole life. They think
it's a shame that so many writers and artists and musicians are
alcoholics and speculate about the body of work that might exist
if they'd been sober all that time. You might as well ask what the
world would be like if lawyers and doctors and those seedy Mexican
presidentes weren't all moneygrubbing weasels. Am I right?
My grandparents, both sets, were drunks. I know this because all
the old eight-millimeter films boxed up in our attic have at least
one scene where they take turns with a silver cocktail shaker.
Then they mambo. Even at Christmas. I gotta say, though,
there's something sweet about it; all those slender highballs and
those Technicolor sweaters and the unfiltered cigarettes and the
FDR smiles. I'm in some of them, too. Round and fleshy pink as
a peach, I see my face peeking over the edge of a big cardboard
box; or maybe I'm getting my birthday ride on Grandpa's shoulders.
Drunk back then looked like fun.
I read the other day that fasting can be a sound part of your
personal health regimen. Researchers recommend a twenty-four-hour
"juice fast" as a safe, wholesome process for detoxifying the body's
important organs, like the brain. I do too, but wherever the word
"juice" appears, I substitute the phrase "malt liquor."
When The Godmother of Soul, Mrs. James Brown, died after going to
visit her plastic surgeon for routine liposuction, the toxicology
report showed that she had Demerol, PCP, Valium, Vicodin, and
morphine in her bloodstream. Thank God she wasn't drunk when she
drove there.
I interviewed a famous writer last year who was also a famous drunk.
I bought him four gin and tonics for lunch, and a bowl of soup.
He didn't eat the soup. I asked a lot of stupid questions and he
answered them very politely and softly and when he got up to go to
the men's room, I tried to imagine what the noise in his head must
be like. A couple months later he was dead. I wrote about that,
too, but my editor made me take out the line, "He was a drunk."
So I put in, "He was a hard-liver."
Bartender walks into a bar. Bartender asks, "So, what'll it be?"
Bartender says, "I can see where this is going to be more confusing
than it is funny." He leaves.
Anybody's who's ever said, "I'd rather have a free bottle in front of
me than a prefontal lobotomy," is really missing the whole goddamn
point, don't you think?
"The Egyptians invented beer. Americans invented Beer Nuts."
The next time you're drawn into some bone-dry discussion about the
rise and fall of great civilizations at a cocktail party, just go
ahead and say that. Then smile a little Mona Lisa smile and take
a sip of your drink. People will think you really know your shit.
When you fall down a flight of stairs, you better hope you're awfully,
awfully drunk. That way you won't get hurt. At least that's the way
it always worked best for Mom and Dad and me.
