Yes, I was drunk. Verily drunk-- on wine. Whereas I never really was a fan of wine, I felt that I should drink wine due to all the carbs in regular beer. As recently discovering I was a Type-1 diabetic (finally) I did research about having diabetes concerning alcohol consumption and long-story short, dry-red wine was better than the rest... Actually, the higher the volume of alcohol, the less carbs it or any other adult beverage has. So whiskey is really the ideal alcoholic beverage when yer talking bang for your carbohydrate buck, but on this night, that wasn't in the options column. It was wine or beer... Let me rephrase that... It was FREE wine or FREE beer! A rare win/win situation. Shit yeah!
We, two cohorts and myself, were at a fundraiser for a art group in Cincinnati that helps people with mental disabilities called Visionaries & Voices (V+V). It's a really good program and I had the chance to talk to a few of the artist that night, which was totally a bonus.
Many different artist were asked to donate their works for the silent and non-silent auctions, which included one of my my cohorts' work. As it would figure, my artistic cohort was riding a manic high, so things were interesting to say the least. We had fun, and our friendship blossomed into a sub-group of a larger group. Our sub-group focused into recapturing public spaces in the name of art. As most 'art movements' go, I don't think many people 'got it'. I explained the group as "It's like a Fight Club, except with art.". But, with every high, there's a low. Not much can be done during the low so soon after it's founding, I resigned. 'Nuff said.
I drank plastic glass after plastic glass of wine, losing count at eight glasses, but I kept drinking because I'm a binge drinker and that's what binge drinkers do. The harder I worked, the harder Zi play. The drunker I got, the more art-bullshit I talked. I talked about my friends art and others. I hobbled around the facility in a wine-drunk stagger. I was drinking wine the way I drank beer. Fast, in large quantities. As the nn-silent suction began, I found myself standing alone. I figured as much that I was embarrassing my cohorts. In hindsight, I'm verily certain I was embarrassing them... Their attempts to control my artistic output and who I was and what I did would later arise... But before all of that they eventually caught up with me and took to my side. As soon as they acknowledged me I asked them to do me a 'solid' and get me a plastic glass of wine.
The non-silent auction was a bore. A real bore. Wine helped, but barely. Interesting and non-interesting art were both victims of 'maybe later' but when my friends piece came up I asked If I could say a few words about it. So I did.
I can't even paraphrase what I said, but that's not important. What is important is my friends piece was bought for $300 for V+V. From then on, sales and interest peaked. The spirit of the benefit started to shine. Each piece sold was for more money than expected, and then a gigantic picture of Pete Rose standing on first base in a Reds uniform, autographed in the top corner (as not to deface his spot in the picture), came up and no one was bidding. So I stepped up again and told the crowd about how Pete Rose, when autographing pictures, ALWAYS signed his name overtop his 'junk' when possible. If not then a corner or someplace else would do. Then I pointed out that this particular picture Pete DID NOT have his autograph over his junk. His bulge was scribble-free and as I went on, I explained that I never seen a full-body picture of Pete without him scribbling on his junk. This picture was a rarity!
I made that up. I can't remember if it sold or not, but that's ok... It was a good story. A lot of money was brought-in for charity... What I did, I did for Art. Machiavelli himself would have been proud. When a screen printed poster of The Gossip came up I explained who the band was and their history including the rise of Beth Ditto to famedom in the UK... This wasn't a lie.
The organizers awaited me afterwards and thanked me which I felt validated my actions. Taking control of the event as I did, I think embarrassed my cohorts even more. Soon they would even say, in a feeble attempt to subdue me, that my alcohol consumption and dagger carrying were liabilities to our art group.
My dagger was called a Smoky Mountain Toothpick which was was actually a helpful from time to time. I took to wearing it around the house, even when I never left the house. The dagger was a double-edged decorative blade made to be tucked in my boot. When my cohorts questioned me about why I carried the blade, I told them I 'expected an ambush' at anytime. They falsely blamed the wine on this night which had nothing to do with that level of faux-paranoia that I exhibited. My views on paranoia aren't that incredibly ugly. This is a mad world we live in. We need to stay on-top of every possible situation. I was riding a full wine-drunk and I was (at least) enjoying it. The night didn't end there but all I will say further is ithe night later involved visits to The Comet and White-Castle before it ended.
Re-telling the story, and getting help calculating the amount of wine I drank, it was deducted that I probably drank two whole bottles worth of wine, one plastic cup by plastic cup. "I didn't do it for me..." I said "I did it for art!"
V+V
