Once again, the Times’ joyless new alcohol blog, Proof, has pissed us off. In today’s entry by Susan Cheever — a woman who doesn’t drink and who wrote a book about AA — hypothesizes that it’s no longer cool to get drunk in the city. Writes Cheever:
The New York apartments and lofts which were once the scenes of old-fashioned drunken carnage — slurred speech, broken crockery, broken legs and arms, broken marriages and broken dreams — are now the scene of parties where both friendships and glassware survive intact. Everyone comes on time, behaves well, drinks a little wine, eats a few tiny canapés, and leaves on time. They all still drink, but no one gets drunk anymore. Neither do they smoke. What on earth has happened?
We’ll let that sink in: Getting drunk = not cool. In New York.
Gawker rightly observes that Cheever is getting older (she’s in her mid 60s) so it’s very likely that the parties she attends are probably a little less raucous than they used to be. But really, that’s no excuse. Anybody who is allowed to stay up after 10 p.m. in this city knows that people are still getting drunk. Whether or not people judge you for it, well, that’s a different matter.
We’ll let that sink in: Getting drunk = not cool. In New York.
Gawker rightly observes that Cheever is getting older (she’s in her mid 60s) so it’s very likely that the parties she attends are probably a little less raucous than they used to be. But really, that’s no excuse. Anybody who is allowed to stay up after 10 p.m. in this city knows that people are still getting drunk. Whether or not people judge you for it, well, that’s a different matter.
We imagine Cheever didn’t venture far enough downtown this weekend to catch any of Santacon, the annual party where hundreds of people dress up as Saint Nick (well, sometimes it’s Pirate Santa and frequently also Slutty Santa) and stumble around until they don’t care that it’s 30 degrees and they’re only wearing a hat and big black boots. And she probably didn’t attend any of the holiday parties which inevitably end with frenzied dances to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (seriously, best Christmas song ever).
It’s in fact safe to say that almost the entire Daily Intel masthead was drunk six out of seven nights last week. And you know what? It was awesome. The problem with the Times blog about drinking, which we have griped before, is that it’s sober. What is that?
Commenters, we know you have opinions about this. Is it no longer cool to be drunk? If you tell us your stories about just how cool you are when you are tanked, we promise, we’ll tell you ours.
Drunkenfreude [Proof/NYT]
Related: Gender Bender
