Another Solo Mission - Drinking alone? Post here!

[oettinger]

LET'S GET FUCKED UP!!!!!!!!!!!! Damb, I just sit here sipping this wine like I'm afraid to get drunk or something. Time to gulp it down like I was in front of a bunch of young and stupid friends instead of sitting alone in a mildewy apartment. And pop some allergy pills, too. And slam a gulp down to the memory of Mackerel, that stinky son of a bitch who worked for his drink.

To Merkel

[Rye and Coke]

LET'S GET FUCKED UP!!!!!!!!!!!! Damb, I just sit here sipping this wine like I'm afraid to get drunk or something. Time to gulp it down like I was in front of a bunch of young and stupid friends instead of sitting alone in a mildewy apartment. And pop some allergy pills, too. And slam a gulp down to the memory of Mackerel, that stinky son of a bitch who worked for his drink.

Already there...goddamnit...I'm alone...it's midnight where I am, I got to go to work tomorrow...and I... I don't care.

Fuck it.

I got a full bar and strong beers... I agree Hugh

Let's get fucked up

[RIPT2.0]

Dive bars were the only ones I lived close enough to walk to. It was great. We had one guy that worked nights, occasionally, unloading fish at the local fish market. He'd get out of work at 8 am and he'd stink like fish so fucking bad he'd have stray cats following him. I'm not kidding. I started calling him Mackerel because of that. He didn't like that. There was a bar down the street from me called Skippers that was open at 8 am to accommodate 3rd shifters like Mackerel, so he'd head there after work. He'd order a blue margarita and a cheese burger. He could never afford a place to live because he drank all his money and only worked when he needed more money to drink. I even let him crash at my place once. He had a girlfriend, amazingly, and I let her crash at my place once too. Real weird situation. I slept with her but I didn't have sex with her because she asked me not to. She was fucked up on TJD and couldn't walk home and I was too drunk to drive her home. I may be a drunk but I am a Gentleman. No means no, even if she was cute, which she was. I actually had to work that next day for a few hours, so I got up and left her in my apartment and just told her just to lock up when she was ready to go. A few months later Mackerel tells me that his girlfriend told him about what happened and was really appreciative of the fact that I did not try to screw her.

But poor Mackerel did not last long. I heard he drank himself to death. Good guy but I used to see him sleeping on park benches when I was on my way to work, so I knew he would self destruct. Some people are just geared like that. Funny thing is I've always liked those people better than the "normal" ones. We understand each other.

But yeah, living next to a real dive is cool. You get to see generations of drunks all together in the same place just getting fucked up. And the real regulars protect each other. That's how you know you're really a regular. If somebody fucks with you, and then five other people step up to defend you, then you're a "regular' . I haven't felt that level of protection in a long time.

Jesus, that was an epic tale. Long live the memory of Mackerel!

If you don't mind me asking, how'd you find out that he had passed to the Great Open Bar in the sky?

His best friend Bill told me. Bill and I used to live in the same apartment building. That's how I met Mackerel, or Mike Gordon (his real name), although most people called him Gordie. Bill and his crew were all hard core drunks and every weekend they'd jam in the basement where Bill had a makeshift stage set up. Mackerel would play the drums. He wasn't a bad drummer until he got too wasted. Then he was like Animal from the Muppets. Nobody cared though. We all just enjoyed hanging out, drinking, and pretending we were rock stars, even though we sucked. I can't really play any instrument but I tried like hell. Good times.

[Hugh]

Usually, the Franzia selections are all one dollar cheaper than the Vella selections. But I've been noticing a shift lately where some of the Vellas were one dollar cheaper than the Franzia. And today, all of the Vellas are one dollar cheaper, and they've flipped shelf areas. The Vella is where the Franzia used to be. I wonder what it all means? But I just lugged two boxes of Vella home tonight. These fucking things don't last as long as they used to.

Just when I think my behavior at the bars can't get any worse, it does. Last week, after dancing around with multiple patrons at my favorite dive bar, I allowed one to come home with me. Going home after last call with someone from the bar may have had some appeal in my youth, but now it almost makes me physically ill.

Maybe I'm acting out some subconscious desire to make them 86 me so I can't go back even if I wanted to. Kind of like trying to find a way to make my laptop block me from watching music videos.

Tonight the blinds are down, the door is locked. It's just me, the wine, and a new book from the library.

[Rye and Coke]

Usually, the Franzia selections are all one dollar cheaper than the Vella selections. But I've been noticing a shift lately where some of the Vellas were one dollar cheaper than the Franzia. And today, all of the Vellas are one dollar cheaper, and they've flipped shelf areas. The Vella is where the Franzia used to be. I wonder what it all means? But I just lugged two boxes of Vella home tonight. These fucking things don't last as long as they used to.

Just when I think my behavior at the bars can't get any worse, it does. Last week, after dancing around with multiple patrons at my favorite dive bar, I allowed one to come home with me. Going home after last call with someone from the bar may have had some appeal in my youth, but now it almost makes me physically ill.

Maybe I'm acting out some subconscious desire to make them 86 me so I can't go back even if I wanted to. Kind of like trying to find a way to make my laptop block me from watching music videos.

Tonight the blinds are down, the door is locked. It's just me, the wine, and a new book from the library.

Just DM'd you my kind sir

[Hugh]

Nothing in my inbox or email, at least I don't think. The only thing I see is a message from December from Oett about being on Skype.

[oettinger]

I have stories about bringing people home after hours. Always strange always fun.

[Hugh]

I have stories about bringing people home after hours. Always strange always fun.

Maybe if it's someone you know, someone you've drank with a few times. But for me it's usually someone I've just met that night. Or, on two occasions, someone who picked me up in their car as I walked home.

[Hugh]

I checked out a book from the library that had to be brought up out of central storage and delivered to my branch library. It had been in storage so long it still has the card and pocket in the cover. (Nowadays, at least in my city, books are checked out by a scanner instead of stamping a card.) It used to be fun to look at that card to see how often a book had been checked out. Since this one still had the card in it, I could see how often it had been checked out. Zero times. The mark inside the book indicates that it was purchased by the San Diego library on July 28, 1964.

The book is The Bourgeois Poet by Karl Shapiro. He was a Pulitzer winner, he was the USA Poet Laureate. So why didn't anybody in this city check out his book? Bukowski's poetry is so in demand you have to place a hold to check out his books. Why not Shapiro? Because it sucks, that's why. He was an academic at elite universities who wrote in the elite style that poetry is "supposed" to be written in, and nobody reads him, at least outside of academia.

That's not all. I also purchased a Shapiro book, The Old Horsefly, on the internet. It was shipped to me from a bookstore in Maine. The Old Horsefly was published back in 1992 by a now defunct publisher, so you would assume there are only used copies of the book floating around out there. But it wasn't used, it was new, apparently going from remainder table to remainder table all these years until I happened upon it in an internet search. Another example of no one wanting to read this supposed leading poet. (The reason I bought it was because I had come across a letter written by Bukowski to someone who had given the book to him as a gift when it was first published. Buk said he liked it. I like what little I've read of it so far.)

There's got to be some advantage to reading these books by an "elite" writer that almost no one else has ever read. Maybe I can decipher what his elite ass was trying to say before he muddled it up in order to get published.

It's a Vella Delicious Red night. Which means tomorrow my tongue will be black and my lips/teeth will be blue. Since I don't have to go to work tomorrow, I might pop a couple of allergy pills, too. The drugs and alcohol might enlighten me to what this goddamb Poet Laureate was trying to say.

[Rye and Coke]

Nothing in my inbox or email, at least I don't think. The only thing I see is a message from December from Oett about being on Skype.

The fuck....


I sent something to someone...Christ, I was out of it. I guess.

I thought I was fine, but I guess that's the beautiful morose reality of drinking. Whatever the case.

[oettinger]

Maybe if it's someone you know, someone you've drank with a few times. But for me it's usually someone I've just met that night. Or, on two occasions, someone who picked me up in their car as I walked home.

Friend of mine once tried to hitchhyke home at 4 a.m. and the guy that picked him up tried to rape him. My friend is 6'3 and 260 pounds. That didn`t work out well lol

[Rye and Coke]

Maybe if it's someone you know, someone you've drank with a few times. But for me it's usually someone I've just met that night. Or, on two occasions, someone who picked me up in their car as I walked home.

Friend of mine once tried to hitchhyke home at 4 a.m. and the guy that picked him up tried to rape him. My friend is 6'3 and 260 pounds. That didn`t work out well lol

LOL, imagine the amount of crazy you have to possess to look at Andre the Giant and go, "I'ma make him my bitch."

[oettinger]

^^^ that made me laugh so hard.

I`ll make your big harry ass my personal comfort-zone*

*edit: Andre`s, not yours

[Hugh]

Picked up dinner and drinks from the liquor store. Dinner - Slim Jim meat stick and a bag of Doritos. Drinks - two six-packs of Hamm's and a half pint of Ancient Age. The Hamm's are 16 ounce cans, not the standard-issue 12 ounce cans from most beer brewers. It costs the same as a six-pack of Budweiser, but bigger cans.

Do you people purchase movies from on-line places (Amazon, Netflix, so on) and store them on your computer? I have a few movies I've bought from Amazon that I like to re-watch. One of them is a movie called Finding Forrester. It's about a reclusive writer who no longer publishes any work after he had a highly-regarded novel many years ago. (Sort of like JD Salinger and his novel Catcher in the Rye.) He lives in a New York City apartment and is discovered by a young guy who lives in the neighborhood, but the writer swears the young guy to secrecy in exchange for mentoring. At one point in the movie, during the "blow up" scene (do all movies have a blow-up scene? I think they do), the kid screams at the writer, "Why do you write all this stuff anyway just to let it sit in filing cabinets unread?" It was one of the things in the movie that make it unbelievable - really, nobody would write a bunch of stuff just to let it sit unread by anybody. And then recently, I realized that's exactly what I'm doing, I have hundreds, if not thousands by now, poems and stories that I just write and jam into manila folders and forget them. I started submitting some of the shit a couple of years ago, but I still have tons of shit still just sitting in those fucking folders. I just don't like doing it, because it's too much like work. By work, I mean rewriting and submitting. I hate doing it. But this weekend I vowed to get off my ass and rewrite and submit like a motherfucker. As it stands right now, I've got 30 poems and 1 story out on submission. But how many poems and stories am I "required" to have out on submission? I don't know. But tonight, the last night of my three-day weekend, I've decided I've done enough "work." I just want to go back to drinking and writing. The fun stuff. Maybe if I had a mentor like that Foresster character, he would slap me on the back of my head and tell me to get to work. But it's just too unpleasant. I've had all I can stand for now.

Hey, that Slim Jim and Doritos don't do much to block the absorption of the Hamm's. I've only made it halfway through beer number two and I've already got a buzz. Malnutrition and drunkenness are my middle name.

BTW, those movies aren't stored on my computer, they are on the Amazon site so that I can see them even on someone else's computer if I just log into my account. A big improvement over a shelf of dust-gathering DVD's. I think you can do the same on YouTube, too.

Where the fook are you guys? Are you all Skyping again?

[Hugh]

BTW, that character I mentioned, Forrester, would have been the ultimate solo drinker. He never left his apartment for ANYTHING. He had his literary agent bring him his groceries, clothes, etc. He would drink himself into a stupor with hard liquor while the city outside hustled and bustled. He didn't need them, he didn't want them.