Making Love (to his tonic & gin)
“He says, ‘Son, can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad, and it’s sweet, and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes’.”
“Piano Man” was one of the first songs I remember actually loving. I was too young to grasp the raw emotion and pain embedded in the lyrics to understand why the businessmen were getting “stoned” or why “drinking alone” was so preferable to sharing a drink called “loneliness.” I actually didn’t even know what a “tonic and gin” was as a sixth grader, as I wore out the Piano Man album in my brand new compact disc player.
“Piano Man” has provided more meaning to me as I’ve gotten older, as most things have tended to do. I think people like to look at that song with so much hope and gusto, swinging their arms to the Irish beat and belting the ends of the verses, like “toniiiiiight” and “all riiiiiiight” (being the great “close-down-the-bar” song that it is, when people get sick of “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Livin’ on a Prayer”).
How about John the bartender — whose pretense is filled with telling jokes and lighting cigarettes, but it’s clear that he has an untapped, almost hopeless dream of being an actor? Or what about Paul, perpetually single, who writes about real estate for a living? He’s conversing with Davy (who’s still in the navy), so maybe there’s a little hope there, but nah — Davy will probably be enlisted for the rest of his life.
The servers like to get political, the businessmen… well, you know the rest. I think people view this as a “feel-good” song because of the lighthearted glimmers of hope manufactured by the live performer and the spirits being slung behind the bar. The drinks themselves are called “loneliness,” so were they not being shared in reverie among all the patrons, it would be a much sadder story. At least for the moment, the live musician has got them “feeling all right.”
So, what’s making me write about one of my favorite childhood songs about drinking? It probably has to do with the fact that I missed yesterday’s blog exercise due to a moderate hangover. The Doctor, a dear friend and I explored the city on Sunday afternoon and hopped around to five or six places, in celebration of the Doctor’s last Sunday before the last Sunday before he starts working. (Yes, that’s two “last Sundays” in there, because there shan’t be any such celebrating the night before his first day of work, because we’re old and we know better.)
The concept of knowing better is rather new to me, as I sit pretty at 34 1/2 years young, but I’m starting to get a grasp on it. For many years, I didn’t really have to “know better” when it came to having a good time. Ever since I had my first drink — I don’t know, maybe half-my-life ago — I found that I was good at it.
Sure, I enjoyed it. But I was actually GOOD at it. As in, I could drink pretty much whatever I wanted, in whatever order I wanted, and I would be a happy, playful drunk. The next morning, at worst I might have a minor headache, but nothing that an Excedrin, a cup of coffee or a little hair of the dog wouldn’t fix.
Such days are long, long, LONG gone. Now, if I decide I’m going to have alcohol — even a light beer — I have to brace for what my body is going to do to me the following morning. Or the following day. Or, in the rare instance that I’m tying one on, the following two days.
I realize I’m not alone in this sentiment. There’s something magical — or diabolical — about age 30, when your body decides to throw in the towel on mitigating the consequences of your consumption. That pizza? It might’ve gone right through you when you were in your early-20s, but now? You better believe that digestive system of yours is going to cling on to at least half of it for its ongoing midsection-and-thigh renovation project. That questionable Jameson shot you agreed to do with your younger friend? Yeah, it’s sticking around for at least 24 hours, giving you a dry mouth and a pounding headache the next morning, just for starters.
Not to get too serious about it, but I don’t feel right glamorizing pre-midlife alcoholism without being real for a second. As “good” as I am at the whole drinking thing, I have had a few episodes since college when I leaned a little too heavily on it as a crutch, and a couple of these episodes have been rather recent. Genetically speaking, I’ve likely inherited a strong proclivity to consume it — hence my so-called “talent” in this area — but in practicing constant awareness of the potential issue, I feel I’ve got a stable grip on it. Any issues I have with it always follow a tidal wave of depression, so I’m focused on keeping that under control. As long as the sad times are kept at bay, I really don’t have a burning urge to consume things that are unequivocally bad for my physical health.
Ignoring this inevitable truth for a second, the thought of completely stopping drinking is a little hard to swallow. It seems that in most social situations, millennials and Gen-Xers alike tend to flock to booze-filled settings. If you abstain from alcohol without explanation, you get weird looks. (As Chelsea Handler once said, “I don’t trust people who don’t drink.”) If you abstain and explain that you’ve had a problem with it in the past, you get pity looks. And, if you abstain and claim that you’ve never had a drop of it in your life, you get the weird/pity combo looks.
Thankfully, the weird/pity combo look doesn’t pertain to me, unless I’m giving it to someone else. Sorry, but even if your grandfather was an alcoholic (as mine was), meaning you might have the gene, I don’t see how you can go through life without at least trying it out. And there are so many varieties of it, you have to try it at least 10 times to get an idea of all that alcohol has to offer. Maybe you’re devoutly religious and don’t care that Jesus allegedly turned water into wine, but in my mind, that opens up yet another Pandora’s box.
This is not to say that I can’t fathom what it’s like to NOT drink and still have a good time. At my age, I’ve gotten especially good at that. I’m currently down to drinking just once or twice a week, and I still find ways to enjoy myself almost all the time. What I don’t quite understand is when you’re habitually sober in social situations where everyone else is drinking. I could do it a few times and be just fine, assuming I like the people I’m hanging out with. But after a few weekends of it, I think I would start to resent them and loathe whatever reasons I had for deciding not to drink.
It sounds silly when I write it down, but then again, most things have a tendency to lose their mystique when stripped down to black-and-white labels. I think it’s because rather than the truth eluding me, I’m subconsciously eluding the truth. When I go long periods without drinking, I lose weight, and my A1C (the reading that tells you how good of a diabetic you’ve been over the past three months) is well within acceptable levels. Any weird looks I get are either just embedded in my paranoia or in the context of, “Wait, Jordan’s not drinking? Is this a joke? Am I being punk’d? Where’s the camera?”
I have a lot more to say about the devil’s elixir, but I think I’ll save it for the memoir I’ll write whenever I do end up stopping for good. Tentative title: “Man, What are You Doing Here?” Release date: TBD.
But on this Valentine’s Day, I’ll plan on splitting a bottle of wine with the Doctor while we celebrate our fifth lovers’ day together. It really is a frivolous, at times annoying, fabricated holiday, but isn’t that characteristic of most holidays? Choose love over disgust or jadedness, and bestow it upon your loved one, an unsuspecting colleague or just a glass of tonic & gin. Regardless of what you choose, hopefully it will spawn a smile or two, make you contemplate being grateful and avoid causing you so much pain in the morning that you’re unable to write your blog.
Cheers.
