Dear Mr. Decker, as a working bartender, I feel you are the perfect person to ask this question. I really like this girl but she’s sort of standoffish to me. Except when she gets drunk. Then she’s all over me. I’m really tempted to get her drunk so we can get wild. Is this wrong? Does it make me a creep?

—Dave M., North Park

Dear Dave, So, you want to know if getting a girl drunk so that she might have sex with you makes you a creep? The fact that you have to ask that question tells me that you’ve got a lot to learn about women and booze.

Getting girls drunk to loosen them up for a little jungle sex is one of the reasons Jesus invented alcohol and to not use it in such a manner would be disrespectful to The Lord, so my advice is to start ordering those shots. (more…)

“The Prohibitionist must always be a person of no moral character; for he cannot even conceive of the possibility of a man capable of resisting temptation.”

–Aleister Crowley
I’ve been waiting for this moment. My long anticipated date with the Green Goddess is tonight. But will I live to tell about it? Or will she make me cut off my ear and wrap it in newspaper like Van Gogh?

The Green Goddess I speak of is absinthe–the notorious, mysterious, allegedly hallucinogenic, herbal, highly alcoholic, bitter, translucent green beverage that is barred in the United States possibly because it supposedly causes in its users episodes of madness, violence and epilepsy.

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My head hurts. It really really hurts. My turnip is throbbing so badly I had to beg my editor for an extension on this deadline cuz I can’t hardly write no good like this. And the reason I hurt so badly is because I just returned from Las Vegas – Land of the Bloody Liver Infections. Not that I’m a Las Vegas rookie or anything. It’s just that, this particular trip to Las Vegas was different than the others. This time it was for a convention. And not just any convention. This was a convention to top all conventions: a convention for a magazine called Modern Drunkard Magazine and one can only imagine, with sphincter-clenching terror, what a Modern Drunkard Magazine convention held in the Land of the Bloodshot Moon might be like.

Modern Drunkard Magazine (MDM) is pretty much what you think it is: a 50 page glossy monthly with neo-pulp artwork (think rat pack meets Church of the SubGenius) and heroically written tales about, for and by drunkards. It’s got articles like, “Booze is My Copilot – How heavy drinking cured my fear of flying and made me a better person,” and “40 Things Every Drunk Should Do before He Dies.” It’s got columns, like “Wino Wisdom,” a poetry section called, “Postcards from Skid Row,” and cartoons called “Comics for Alcoholics.” MDM also features my old column from the SLAMM days, “Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat,” which explains my affiliation with them.

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It was 1:50 a.m. — closing time after a busy Saturday night at the bar. I had already made the final announcement to the happy peppy party people: “We’re closed, please finish your drinks.” I had even made the final, final announcement: “Time to go. Drink ‘em or lose ‘em.” And now it was time to make the final, final, final absolutely last final announcement:

“Get out now you bastards– out out out — Jesus holy Christ, don’t you people have lives!”

Most everyone had left, except for this little rude drunk prick fuck jerkwad ass blower who was holding a pitcher as though it were and oversized mug and nursing it alone. I put my hand on the lip of the pitcher, and said, “I have to take this now.”

“Slow down dude – what’s your hurry?” he snorted.

“What’s my hurry?? Do I really have to explain this to you — dude?” I asked.

“Look, I paid for the pitcher and I’m going to finish it,” he said, refusing to release his grip on the handle.

So there we were, the two of us, tug-of-warring over a half-full pitcher of blonde beer, the clock clicking dangerously close to the 2 o’clock mark, my patience completely and utterly drained, and him glaring at me – red-eyed and glassy, like a demon emerging from an overly chlorinated swimming pool.

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Well, it just keeps getting harder and harder to rock out in this town. It breaks my heart. As you know, Rob Hagey and his people over at San Diego Street Scene made some drastic changes to their event this year: 1) They changed location. 2) They went from three days down to two. 3) And most notably, Street Scene became an all ages event.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear the phrase, “All ages event,” I develop a rash on my eyeballs. Because it means those of us who are old enough to enjoy a little beer with our rock ‘n’ roll will have to watch the concert from the beer garden. And beer gardens blow big time.

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