if drinkin’ don’t kill me (her memory will): a saturday night in the life of jason mulgrew
24 July 2006
My Saturday started like most of my recent Saturdays have started (with a hangover, a random blonde in my bed, and a pile of eggs benedict calling me from a few blocks away), after a Friday night that was, simply put, glorious; many friends and I closing down Burp Castle (in what is becoming a Friday night ritual) and heading to a nearby bar where at 3:15 in the morning I was – gasp! – dancing (bless those strong Belgian beers). Lovely, lovely, lovely.
But this Saturday would prove different. I spent the day wandering around the city buying various alcohol and alcohol-related sundries. Ever since Brian moved out last month, I’ve been obsessed with creating a bar in my apartment. Well, not a full “bar” but a little booze area. I ordered something called a wine table from Crate & Barrell, which looks like a wine rack on steroids. On top of rack where the wine goes is a little, um, table, on which I intend to put some of my booze things: my decanters, my snazzy ice bucket and matching shaker, and, of course, bottles of booze.As I mentioned last week, I drank a bunch of Manhattans on my birthday and feel almost immediately in love. Any drink that is strong, makes me warm, and was good enough for my grandpop to drink every day of his adult life is good enough for me. (Never mind that my grandpop had a fatal heart attack at 53. Let’s focus on the positives.) So in my travels on Saturday afternoon I picked up a bottle of Maker’s Mark, two bottles of vermouth, some bitters, and, of course, a jar of cherries.
I did not, however, pick up my wine table. This, I blame, on logistics. The Crate & Barrell that has my wine table is at Houston & Broadway, one of the top five most congested intersections in New York City. And though I am undoubtedly strong, I was very hungover on Saturday afternoon and didn’t feel like carrying a heavy and cumbersome wine table through the packed streets of Soho back to my apartment. So for tonight, the kitchen counter would do.My friends’ plan for Saturday night consisted of going to a loft party and then figuring things out. I was very, very against this. I HATE loft parties (notice the caps, so you know I’m serious). One of the top twenty rules about life in NYC goes something like this:
Rule 17: If you live in a loft, you are a more than likely a douche. As are your friends.
I was not about to go to this party. Standing around in a stranger’s place, hiding in a corner, rifling beers while deflecting the dirty/pitying looks, was not how I wanted to spend the first part of my Saturday night. I would stay at home by myself and fix myself some drinks, like a real gentleman. Like a real goddamn gentleman.So around 8, I broke open the Maker’s Mark, dropped some vermouth into the shaker, added a dash of bitters, and we had it: my first homemade Manhattan, looking pretty with two cherries in my glass (one for each teste). I sat down on my couch, turned on the TV, and it was love at first sip. It was going to be a good night. [And I'll save you assholes the email: I know you're supposed to stir, not shake Manhattans. But how fun is it to shake cocktails?]After the first one went down, I made a second and headed to my bedroom. You probably can’t tell, since I’m not really sharing it on here, but I’m riding a wave of creativity that comes along with about the frequency of the solstices. I thought: “This is perfect. I’ll sit at the computer, write a little bit, and have some fancy drinks. Then in a couple hours I’ll go out and show my penis to a stranger. This is going to be a great night.” And so write I did. I sat there, banging around on the old computer, plowing through the Manhattans. My face was flush by now and I was rocking out, having a grand old time, pounding away on the pc. And then I made a discovery that changed everything. From that moment forward, my night, and quite possibly my life, would never be the same. I discovered the music of George Jones.For those of you who don’t know, George Jones is a country singer who writes songs about women, booze, and, well, that’s about it. I believe that a reader had recommended his music to me awhile ago, but I never got around to checking it out. But here I was, drinking whiskey by myself, and George Jones seemed a good fit. I read a little about him while some of his songs were downloading and saw something about how “his career was marked by heroic periods of substance abuse.” Heroic substance abuse? That’s almost an oxymoron, but if it is, it’s awesome. This got me excited and I drank faster. I kept reading about Jones and was fascinated; here are two excerpts from his Wikipedia entry: The decrease in hits accurately reflects the downward spiral in Jones’ health in the late ’70s, when he became addicted not only to alcohol, but to cocaine as well. Jones became notorious for his drunken, intoxicated rampages, often involving both drugs and shotguns. Jones would disappear for days at a time. He began missing a substantial amount of concerts — in 1979 alone, he missed 54 shows — which earned him the nickname “No-Show Jones.”
andThroughout 1981 and 1983, [Jones] had eight Top Ten hits. Although he was having hits again, he hadn’t kicked his addictions. Jones was still going on crazed, intoxicated rampages, which culminated with a televised police chase of Jones, who was driving drunk, through the streets of Nashville. Before I had even heard a note, I decided that George Jones was one of my top five favorite musicians of all time.When I did hear a note, I was not disappointed. The first offering was a little ditty called “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will).” By the end of the first minute, George had covered drunk driving, suicide by alcohol, and using his own blood to start a whiskey still. Ladies and gentlemen, it was on.Over the next five hours, I got drunk off my ass. Blind, filthy, stinking drunk in my apartment by myself, listening to country music. I finished the bottle of Maker’s Mark, pounding those fucking Manhattans like they were iced tea. When I started drinking, I was using a jigger to measure four jiggers of bourbon, two of vermouth, and drinking the Manhattans out of a highball glass. Once I discovered George Jones however, I was using eight-ten jiggers of bourbon, four-five of vermouth, and drinking out of a pint glass. I downloaded dozens of George Jones songs, songs with titles like “She Thinks I Still Care”, “Just One More”, and “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” After I got the hang of them, I started singing along and ultimately grabbed my guitar to play along. Then I decided, for whatever reason, to put on a suit. I can’t really explain this except to say that I really look good in suits, and, I guess I wanted to look good. So there I was in my apartment, in a suit, alone, drinking Manhattans out of a pint glass, playing guitar and singing lines like “I’ll keep drinking, it won’t matter/I’ll just remember that I once had her.” I realize that this may sound depressing (horribly, horribly depressing), but I had a fucking ball. An absolute blast. Just because the songs were sad doesn’t mean I was; indeed, I’ve gotten a lot sadder by being out at bars, looking at attractive unapproachable women and the douchebags they were with. The songs didn’t inspire sadness in me, but rather a profound awe. I couldn’t believe that a) people wrote songs like these; and b) I hadn’t heard them in my 27 years. Bottom line, there is a lot to be said for getting blackout drunk by yourself (on bourbon, no less), listening to country music. And if you can’t appreciate that, well, then I don’t think you should keep reading this. By now it was about 2:45 in the morning and I realized that if I didn’t leave the apartment I was going to put myself in the hospital. Although I was just about out of whiskey, I had an almost full bottle of vodka, two bottles of wine, and about a half a case of beer. I was prepared for war. I called Brian to see what the status was with the partygoers, but he had been elusive all night. I really wanted to meet Brian out tonight because his new roommate was out with him, who is supposedly very attractive. I say supposedly because Brian is doing everything is his power to keep his roommate and I apart and I have yet to meet her. Unlike me, Brian is not a scumbag. Whereas I would view a new, young attractive roommate as a potential victim, Brian has established an almost older brother-younger sister relationship with her. And Brian knows just how dangerous I can be, especially now that I’m all thin, fast, and drunker. Brian remained elusive and I never met him or the roommate that night. Instead, I got in touch with a friend who invited me over to smoke a bowl, because, you know, that’s what I really needed at that point. I headed over and brought a can of Chef Boyardee as a gift and spent about an hour hanging out, getting high, and sitting on a couch in front of the coldest air conditioning vent in all of lower Manhattan (I was out of the suit by this point, thankfully). Eventually it was time for bed and I left their place a little high and a lot more sober, certain that I wasn’t going to drink anymore when I got home. So it actually worked out pretty well for me, at least in terms of the whole “drinking myself to death” part. When I got home, I did have one last vice to cross off the list. After a bottle of whiskey and a couple of bowls, I couldn’t stick to my diet and ate almost an entire bag of Tostitos, the equivalent of about two days worth of calories on my diet. I tried putting on the George Jones while this chip orgy was going on, but it didn’t feel right – like our moment had passed, like waking up next to the stranger you brought home from the bar the night before. So I switched it off and went back to feeding. I don’t regret it because fuck it – I was very, very messed up – but the next day when I weighed myself I had gained 2.5 pounds in a day. God I love binging and starving. I don’t remember going to sleep, but when I woke up the next day (at 1:30), it was the nicest day of the summer in NYC and I felt spectacular. I had not a hangover to speak of and nary a headache, but a desire to get out and enjoy the day. I showered, dressed, and then went for a walk that took me over seven miles away in the Upper West Side. Just a great afternoon. And another spectacular weekend in the books. I have two new loves, Mr. Whiskey and Mr. Jones, and I think we’re going to be in the honeymoon period for a long, long time. This could be the start of something very beautiful – as long as I only keep one bottle of Maker’s Mark at a time. Any more than that and it might get ugly. Or awesome. Whichever.
I was not about to go to this party. Standing around in a stranger’s place, hiding in a corner, rifling beers while deflecting the dirty/pitying looks, was not how I wanted to spend the first part of my Saturday night. I would stay at home by myself and fix myself some drinks, like a real gentleman. Like a real goddamn gentleman.So around 8, I broke open the Maker’s Mark, dropped some vermouth into the shaker, added a dash of bitters, and we had it: my first homemade Manhattan, looking pretty with two cherries in my glass (one for each teste). I sat down on my couch, turned on the TV, and it was love at first sip. It was going to be a good night. [And I'll save you assholes the email: I know you're supposed to stir, not shake Manhattans. But how fun is it to shake cocktails?]After the first one went down, I made a second and headed to my bedroom. You probably can’t tell, since I’m not really sharing it on here, but I’m riding a wave of creativity that comes along with about the frequency of the solstices. I thought: “This is perfect. I’ll sit at the computer, write a little bit, and have some fancy drinks. Then in a couple hours I’ll go out and show my penis to a stranger. This is going to be a great night.” And so write I did. I sat there, banging around on the old computer, plowing through the Manhattans. My face was flush by now and I was rocking out, having a grand old time, pounding away on the pc. And then I made a discovery that changed everything. From that moment forward, my night, and quite possibly my life, would never be the same. I discovered the music of George Jones.For those of you who don’t know, George Jones is a country singer who writes songs about women, booze, and, well, that’s about it. I believe that a reader had recommended his music to me awhile ago, but I never got around to checking it out. But here I was, drinking whiskey by myself, and George Jones seemed a good fit. I read a little about him while some of his songs were downloading and saw something about how “his career was marked by heroic periods of substance abuse.” Heroic substance abuse? That’s almost an oxymoron, but if it is, it’s awesome. This got me excited and I drank faster. I kept reading about Jones and was fascinated; here are two excerpts from his Wikipedia entry: The decrease in hits accurately reflects the downward spiral in Jones’ health in the late ’70s, when he became addicted not only to alcohol, but to cocaine as well. Jones became notorious for his drunken, intoxicated rampages, often involving both drugs and shotguns. Jones would disappear for days at a time. He began missing a substantial amount of concerts — in 1979 alone, he missed 54 shows — which earned him the nickname “No-Show Jones.”
andThroughout 1981 and 1983, [Jones] had eight Top Ten hits. Although he was having hits again, he hadn’t kicked his addictions. Jones was still going on crazed, intoxicated rampages, which culminated with a televised police chase of Jones, who was driving drunk, through the streets of Nashville. Before I had even heard a note, I decided that George Jones was one of my top five favorite musicians of all time.When I did hear a note, I was not disappointed. The first offering was a little ditty called “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will).” By the end of the first minute, George had covered drunk driving, suicide by alcohol, and using his own blood to start a whiskey still. Ladies and gentlemen, it was on.Over the next five hours, I got drunk off my ass. Blind, filthy, stinking drunk in my apartment by myself, listening to country music. I finished the bottle of Maker’s Mark, pounding those fucking Manhattans like they were iced tea. When I started drinking, I was using a jigger to measure four jiggers of bourbon, two of vermouth, and drinking the Manhattans out of a highball glass. Once I discovered George Jones however, I was using eight-ten jiggers of bourbon, four-five of vermouth, and drinking out of a pint glass. I downloaded dozens of George Jones songs, songs with titles like “She Thinks I Still Care”, “Just One More”, and “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” After I got the hang of them, I started singing along and ultimately grabbed my guitar to play along. Then I decided, for whatever reason, to put on a suit. I can’t really explain this except to say that I really look good in suits, and, I guess I wanted to look good. So there I was in my apartment, in a suit, alone, drinking Manhattans out of a pint glass, playing guitar and singing lines like “I’ll keep drinking, it won’t matter/I’ll just remember that I once had her.” I realize that this may sound depressing (horribly, horribly depressing), but I had a fucking ball. An absolute blast. Just because the songs were sad doesn’t mean I was; indeed, I’ve gotten a lot sadder by being out at bars, looking at attractive unapproachable women and the douchebags they were with. The songs didn’t inspire sadness in me, but rather a profound awe. I couldn’t believe that a) people wrote songs like these; and b) I hadn’t heard them in my 27 years. Bottom line, there is a lot to be said for getting blackout drunk by yourself (on bourbon, no less), listening to country music. And if you can’t appreciate that, well, then I don’t think you should keep reading this. By now it was about 2:45 in the morning and I realized that if I didn’t leave the apartment I was going to put myself in the hospital. Although I was just about out of whiskey, I had an almost full bottle of vodka, two bottles of wine, and about a half a case of beer. I was prepared for war. I called Brian to see what the status was with the partygoers, but he had been elusive all night. I really wanted to meet Brian out tonight because his new roommate was out with him, who is supposedly very attractive. I say supposedly because Brian is doing everything is his power to keep his roommate and I apart and I have yet to meet her. Unlike me, Brian is not a scumbag. Whereas I would view a new, young attractive roommate as a potential victim, Brian has established an almost older brother-younger sister relationship with her. And Brian knows just how dangerous I can be, especially now that I’m all thin, fast, and drunker. Brian remained elusive and I never met him or the roommate that night. Instead, I got in touch with a friend who invited me over to smoke a bowl, because, you know, that’s what I really needed at that point. I headed over and brought a can of Chef Boyardee as a gift and spent about an hour hanging out, getting high, and sitting on a couch in front of the coldest air conditioning vent in all of lower Manhattan (I was out of the suit by this point, thankfully). Eventually it was time for bed and I left their place a little high and a lot more sober, certain that I wasn’t going to drink anymore when I got home. So it actually worked out pretty well for me, at least in terms of the whole “drinking myself to death” part. When I got home, I did have one last vice to cross off the list. After a bottle of whiskey and a couple of bowls, I couldn’t stick to my diet and ate almost an entire bag of Tostitos, the equivalent of about two days worth of calories on my diet. I tried putting on the George Jones while this chip orgy was going on, but it didn’t feel right – like our moment had passed, like waking up next to the stranger you brought home from the bar the night before. So I switched it off and went back to feeding. I don’t regret it because fuck it – I was very, very messed up – but the next day when I weighed myself I had gained 2.5 pounds in a day. God I love binging and starving. I don’t remember going to sleep, but when I woke up the next day (at 1:30), it was the nicest day of the summer in NYC and I felt spectacular. I had not a hangover to speak of and nary a headache, but a desire to get out and enjoy the day. I showered, dressed, and then went for a walk that took me over seven miles away in the Upper West Side. Just a great afternoon. And another spectacular weekend in the books. I have two new loves, Mr. Whiskey and Mr. Jones, and I think we’re going to be in the honeymoon period for a long, long time. This could be the start of something very beautiful – as long as I only keep one bottle of Maker’s Mark at a time. Any more than that and it might get ugly. Or awesome. Whichever.
