The other day, when I was driving to work, I had You Am I just blasting. For those of you unfamiliar with this band, they're a great rock band. Someone on a mailing list described them as "ACDC fronted by Live at Leeds-era Pete Townsend," which I guess is as good as any description. A friend of mine just called them "the quintessential Mike band."
I hope that was a compliment.
Anyway, I realized that they were singing an awful lot about beer, bars, and drinking in general. I then thought about this (because that's the kind of person that I am), and I realized that a large chunk of the bands/artists I like also sing a lot about getting drunk. Ryan Adams, Slobberbone, Drive-By Truckers, ACDC, the list goes on.
I am, for the record, self-aware enough to know that there are good reasons why I like these bands. And I do have enough personal control that this realization does not scare me.
But I wonder why there's been little other art (of the high culture variety). Yeah, there's Bukowski, but is there anyone who's less of a jerk about it? There were too many writers who were drunks for me to blank out on drunk art like this.
And on a related note, who do I have to strangle to get Barfly released on dvd?
1 comment:
I've got an old PJ O'Rourke book with a long essay he wrote for National Lampoon in it called "So Drunk." I've always wanted to turn that into a performance piece - along with some other stuff that glorifies drinking - and call it "The Most Irresponsible Piece of Theatre Ever." You know it would be huge on college campuses.
Maybe when I get tenure...
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