Predictable drinker, perennial favorite
Once I directed a pub crawl version of Sean O'Casey's "The Plough And the Stars" in Boston. Plays performed in bars are an Irish tradition, and the scene from O'Casey's play about the 1916 Easter Rising was even more appropriate because it took place in a bar while the uprising commenced outside.Anyway, I cast an elderly gentleman for the role of Peter, an ineffectual loudmouth and "lemon-whiskered oul' swine". He was about 70. I don't know why he wanted to schlep all around the city doing plays in bars for not much money, but it might have had something to do with the fact that there were four or five 22-year-old women in the cast playing spirited agitators, bar wenches, and prostitutes. He must have thought, "Good odds."
One night as reheasal was breaking up he tried to get the young ladies to go home with him. They politely declined, and he said:
"I have alcohol."
...and they politely declined again. I filed the exchange away. Did he think that alcohol would tip the scales?
The other night I had my annual Los Angeles birthday dinner at the Irish bar Tom Bergin's in Los Angeles. One by one, my friends came bearing gifts of alcohol, particularly Jagermeister. I got three bottles of Jager, which is my biggest birthday haul of the substance to date.
"I thought, 'I could be original or I could get you something you'd use'," one friend said. Indeed, we killed two of the bottles right there at the table as the long-suffering waitstaff rejoiced that it would be a year before they saw me again. (We tipped the living shit out of them.)
I also had Jagermeister at my 20th birthday on Martha's Vineyard. A lot of it. I threw up most of it. But I was poorer then and I was drinking it without any food. The other night we were able to drink it with dinner, and I didn't have a hangover the next day. In this world the poor are even denied vices.
Here is my friend Gabriela with the evening's take, which included a bottle of wine in a Chinese suit. I consider myself lucky because I think my friends and family would have shown up even if there had been no alcohol.
(I could be wrong about this - I'm no longer a 22-year-old woman.)
See also: Full. Metal. Jagermeister
Labels: alcohol, boston, food, los angeles, martha'svineyard, performance, personal history
posted
by Marty Barrett at Tuesday, November 27, 2007
2 Comments:
Happy Birthday!!!
I love that drink!!! In mexico we have a cocktail called Perla Negra it has Jagermeister and an energy drink called boost its the best!!! I love it!! And it helps yo to go on partying!!
happy birthday, ye old bowsey!
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