I went to London a bunch
Ten or eleven times in the absolute throes of drinking way too much
So roughly from 2011 through 2019
The best/cheapest fares were from Monday night to Sunday morning and if you don’t care too much about the hotel, you could do it for around a grand
I felt bad about going because … well … I just did
At the same time, I couldn’t wait
As soon as I booked the trip, there was something to look forward to, something to anticipate
Something to live for
Just to drink, just to drink myself into a sort of stupor
I have a drinking buddy who calls it “auto-pilot” and that’s pretty much exactly what it feels like
When the booze takes over and it’s just basically muscle- or sense-memory that gets you through
From eleven in the morning until whenever, for five days. Six if you count the return back, which you definitely count if your flight isn’t until like dinnertime
I had my favorite pubs (Harp, Ye Olde Mitre, Southampton Arms, King’s Head, Hereford Arms, Tom Cribb, The Dove, to name only a very few) and many a lovely day was spent leisurely strolling with fuck-all to do, other than get pints in me
Actually, half-pints. I drank half pints there, just cos I thought (still think) it’s lovely and I wondered (still wonder) why it’s not a standard offering here
But yes, half pints all day
Maybe a museum? Maybe a park? Maybe a play?
I saw some Pinter at one point, and Mark Rylance did a thing I won’t soon forget (Pinter’s Nobel speech)
And also saw Waiting for Godot, which was not a great production but you still know it’s one of the best plays ever written
I wasn’t drunk through those - just a little past tipsy was all - so I can safely stand behind these opinions haha
Over there, before the show starts you can order booze to be ready at intermission/interval, and if we don’t have that particular practice here, we definitely should, cos it’s fucking amazing and it makes you like the play more, especially the second act, which is the harder act to pull off, so
We might actually do that here, what the fuck do I know, I don’t see plays so much anymore even though I know I should
I got lost on purpose a few times, just to see if I could find my way back
Once was terrifying (lost in the wrong part of town for sure); the others were a hoot and at least one pub joined the rotation purely cos I was lost as lost can be
After five days of it, time came to go home, and … whatever urge or compulsion or itch was scratched, for another few months
One of the trips, before I passed out for the night, I called my mom back home but I have no recollection of what was said
A letter was waiting for me when I got back
From my mom, and she’s not what you’d call a letter writer
The gist of it was her dad drank himself to death and she didn’t really much feel like watching her son do it (meaning me, because my brother Glen drinks but overly so), and if I insisted on continuing down that particular path, please don’t call her in the middle of an obvious jag
There was more to it (her uncles, my uncles, a grandparent, etc, and also some suicide on her side of the family, which was news to me) and by the end of the letter, the ink was blurry, presumably from her tears
I read it, read it again, and a third time, then tore it up and we never really talked too much about it, other than I called her to let her know I got it
Why am I telling you this? I dunno. I just am
My mom’s another one that’s kinda tricky to talk about, because I can’t untangle the alcoholism and its roots or sources without … tackling the whole mom thing, so …
But I went down to visit her in Florida, a few months before the pandemic hit
Her community has a pool and a cafe with a bar and I sat there as often as I could (four dollar Sapphire and tonics, with a 2-for-1 happy hour (!!), and a decent local beer selection), since there’s not a whole lot to do down there, and outdoor booze is never a bad idea, weather permitting
She asked if I still went to London and I said YEP
“Do you really just drink the whole time?”
YEP
“Is it … fun?”
YEP
There were probably some more questions bandying about in her brain. Thank God she didn’t ask them
She has photo albums that she breaks out every now and again and she broke ‘em out that night
I was pretty well schnockered and I’m sure she knew
We looked through ‘em and there was a bunch from Milwaukee from when I was a kid
Shorewood and Whitefish Bay and Milwaukee
All those dives and joints where I spent probably way too much of my childhood haha
And in the pictures, the men all have beers going and then there’s me and Glen with our pilsner glasses of orange pop and the cocktail straws that made us think we were grown up haha
All the men just straight up glassy-eyed, big shit-eating grins, sloppy, falling all over, with the bartenders behind them
Polish, German, Irish
And then me, probably ten or eleven, and Glen, probably eight or nine
There’s one at the bar of a place called Jack Pandl’s, and it was after a wedding, and I’m in it, with my Uncle Tommy, we have our arms around each other and we’re both halfway through our High Lifes and I couldn’t have been more than eleven
If it’s the wedding I think it was (Bucky, a second cousin), I woulda been eleven, yeah
That marriage didn’t last long, cos if you think I’m a drunk, you should see Bucky
Haha
Love that one John. And I've had a few with you in London. And so true about the good ol' guys. I loved them too. And so few left. You're a gem
I know adults who taught kids to drink too, have known them since I was a kid. I hate them.