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BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history...
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Subject: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River Date: 16 Apr 06 - 12:20 AM Okay, so the number one has gotta be...and I am flippin' PROUD to say this! John A McDonald!!! The first flippin' Prime Minaster of Canada, eh? And the flippin' guy was tanked most of the time! There's a flippin' roal moddle for yer kids, eh? Totally decent, man. So, like, who esle we got who was a ntoerios and majerly famuos boozer in histry? - Shane |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Peace Date: 16 Apr 06 - 12:24 AM Macdonald. Fields. Churchill. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 16 Apr 06 - 12:45 AM I say that some of Spaw's associates as detailed in his stories would be pretty close to first place. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,Keith Moon [RIP] Date: 16 Apr 06 - 12:47 AM Oliver Reed I win .. no point in continuing.. clones, you can close this thread now |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:07 AM Wait on! Peter O'Toole! Dean Martin! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Gurney Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:28 AM Winston Churchill. And he was world famous. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Apr 06 - 02:02 AM Ulysses S. Grant. He was a drunken failure before the war. He was a drunken president after the war. He seems to have been pretty much sober during it, however... ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: alanabit Date: 16 Apr 06 - 04:28 AM After all the painstaking hours they put in at the bar, don't Richard Burton, Joe Cocker, Harry Nilsson and John Lennon all deserve an inebriate mention? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Big Al Whittle Date: 16 Apr 06 - 04:29 AM Dylan Thomas Brendan Behan That bloke out of the Pogues F Scott Fitzgerald (how do you become an F Scott - wear a kilt, eat short breads, and drink whisky; I suppose) Sebastian Dangerfield |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: DMcG Date: 16 Apr 06 - 04:29 AM Noah. After all he started it (so they say) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Date: 16 Apr 06 - 10:19 AM Winston Churchill abhorred drunkenness, he was a social drinker and was in the habit of drinking Champagne at meal times, and whiskey and soda with an occasional brandy. His speech impediment often led people to believe he had a drinking problem, but in fact he was not a real boozer as most people like to think. This is well documented in biography and in interviews with people who knew him (not all of them friendly towards him) Yours, Aye. Dave |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Brass Monkey Date: 16 Apr 06 - 10:38 AM I think I'll become an alcoholic. I always wanted to make as much sense as Dylan Thomas and John Lennon, I could wax lyrical about different types of intoxication and its effects on me and my mates quite happily. This could be a wonderful start for a whole new career! If the artisitic side didn't work out, I could always become a pilot! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 16 Apr 06 - 10:42 AM Ulysses S. Grant. He may be a drunk but he wins battles - I wish I had more drunk generals like him - allegedly attributed to President Lincoln. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Bob the Postman Date: 16 Apr 06 - 10:45 AM Evelyn Waugh's doctor asked him how much he drank. "Four bottles of whisky, three of gin, two of brandy, a case or so of claret, the occasional bottle of hock, and ale ad libitum," replied the great man. "Good lord, you get through as much as that in a month? It's a wonder you're not dead." "Not in a month, old boy. Those are my requirments for a week." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 16 Apr 06 - 11:07 AM Frank SinatraI feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra 1915 - 1998
Grant's Brand of Whiskey.
Lincoln was not a man of impulse, and did nothing upon the spur of the moment; action with him was the result of deliberation and study. He took nothing for granted; he judged men by their performances and not their speech.
If a general lost battles, Lincoln lost confidence in him; if a commander was successful, Lincoln put him where he would be of the most service to the country.
"Grant is a drunkard," asserted powerful and influential politicians to the President at the White House time after time; "he is not himself half the time; he can't be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army."
"So Grant gets drunk, does he?" queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.
"Yes, he does, and I can prove it," was the reply.
"Well," returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, "you needn't waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals." That ended the crusade against Grant, so far as the question of drinking was concerned.
Winston ChurchillMy rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. Winston Churchill 1874 - 1965
Peter O TooleHaving caught a wonderful London performance of My Favorite Year I thought, as he stumbled over floor-stand-ash-tray, ..."the guy is drunk." Then catching a cab after the show, it became apparent that they were comic prat-falls when the cabby said, "Mr. O'Toole - was probably drunk again as usual - last night's customers say he couldn't keep from running into the ash-tray."Gargoyle
"I wouldn't have missed one drop of alcohol that I drank," he told Us magazine in 1989. He quit long ago but it's still what everybody wants to know about him. Still drinking? He played a fabulous drunken movie idol in "My Favorite Year" in 1982, and then last year a drunken magazine columnist on the London stage in "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell," but he's been dry now for more than a decade, he says, taking only countless glasses of water or little green Tic Tacs to keep his mouth wet. Peter O'Toole to the Last DropThe Actor on His Life, Half Empty or Totally Full Martha Sherrill. Washington Post, April 24, 1993; D: 1, 7
Sincerely, |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 16 Apr 06 - 11:22 AM Nikita Kruschev Boris Yeltsin Mikhail Gorbachev Oh. hell! Let's just say anybody who's ever been the head honcho in Russia or the old USSR. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: pdq Date: 16 Apr 06 - 11:41 AM Ernest Hemingway was alleged to finish a fifth of wiskey a day. Everyday. He was probably outdone by W. C. Fields. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Apr 06 - 11:55 AM Dean Martin actually wasn't that much of a drinker. It was an act. The actress in The Uninvited, Gail Russell, was 37 when she died. The host on a recent cable presentation of the movie said she drank her self to death. She wanted to be an artist but somehow found herself coralled into the acting. SRs |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: pdq Date: 16 Apr 06 - 12:22 PM The Grateful Dead's blues singer "Pigpen" (Ron McKernan) started drinking in junior high school. He was expelled from high school for taking the "high" part too seriously. Although his official cause of death was 'bleeding ulcer', he had little time left do to cirrhosis of the liver. He died at 26. Now that is some drinking! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:05 PM I have to mention Julian in "Trailer Park Boys". Never seen without a rum and coke in his hand, Julian once rolled a car without spilling his glass of rum and coke. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Don Firth Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:25 PM Margaret Barry (Songs of an Irish Tinker Lady on Riverside, and others). Theodore Bikel's description of her: "She had an attack on the banjo like a flamenco guitarist, she was toothless, and she reeked of gin. She was beautiful!" The story is told that an argument came up as to who was the most capacious drinker, Brendan Behan or Margaret Barry. Each had vociferous advocates. Finally, a drinking-bout was set up between the two. They sat across a table from each other and drank stout for stout. The report says that when they reached about thirty, Behan's eyes rolled back and he slid under the table. It's also reported that afterward, Margaret Barry said, "'Twasn't really fair. I'm afraid I cheated a bit. I drank a tot o' the whiskey between pints–just to keep me spirits up!" Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:35 PM Wow. I never knew about her before. THAT's oldtime folk music. Thanks for that info, Don. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: ard mhacha Date: 16 Apr 06 - 01:48 PM Don, I seen Margaret Barry being interviewed by a famous BBC compere Cliff Michelmore on a TO-Night Programme in 1957, she told Cliff that she was looking for a man who could drink 57 bottles of Guinness a day, Cliff asked her why, and Magaret replied, " I drink 56". Margaret last days were spent in the village of Laurencetown in Co Down, a friend of mine looked in on her daily as she suffered from cancer, he told me despite her suffering she always had a kind word for him, and greatly appreciated his visits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Don Firth Date: 16 Apr 06 - 02:12 PM In 1962, I had a chance to meet and talk with Theodore Bikel, and he said he had met Magaret Barry and learned several songs from her in person, including "She Moved Through the Fair" The story of the drinking bout came from a writer friend of mine, a fellow named Elmar Lanczos (pronounced "LAHN-chôss"—the name is Hungarian) who spent a couple of years in Dublin trying to pick up a little essence of writers and poets like Joyce and Yeats—and Behan—by osmosis, or at least walking the same streets they had walked. And drinking in the same pubs He couldn't sing for sour apples and didn't try, but he had a huge collection of folk records (about 600, I think), and he would loan them to people such as me (as long as he knew we would take good care of them) so we could learn songs from them. He also threw his house open almost every weekend, so if folkies wanted to drop by and have a songfest, feel free. He died a little over twenty years ago of bone cancer. One of nature's true noblemen. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: ard mhacha Date: 16 Apr 06 - 05:05 PM I would have to believe that Theodore checked out the songs from another source before committing Margarets versions to print, I heard her singing quite a few songs and there was quite a bit of ad-libbing, for all that, she was a legend in Ireland. For years Margaret would be seen singing away outside the big Gaelic football grounds and she was always well received and rewarded by the followers of the game. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: ard mhacha Date: 16 Apr 06 - 05:07 PM I may also add that there was nothing notoriotous about Margaret. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Big Al Whittle Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:17 PM how much is a fifth of whisky? is that an american expression - or was I drinking the stuff all those years and never knowing when I'd gone past what even Hemingway drunk? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:27 PM W.C Fields once commented, after a trip to the jungle (real or apocryphal, I don't know) that he'd had to survive for five days on food and water! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: melodeonboy Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:29 PM That was me again above (not GUEST). What's happening to my cookies these days? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: pdq Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:30 PM A US gallon of liquor is divided into five parts rather than the usual four parts (=quart). One fifth of whiskey is 0.757 liter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 16 Apr 06 - 08:29 PM For the metric impared: http://www.onlineconversion.com/ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 16 Apr 06 - 08:32 PM Yes, Mr. W. C. Fields who has been attributed to have replied, when asked, "Would you care for a glass of water, Sir?"
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: melodeonboy Date: 16 Apr 06 - 08:49 PM Thanks, guest. I knew an Irishman - a keen whisky drinker - many years ago, who was fond of saying that he didn't touch water because "little boys pee in it, fishes fornicate in it and it rusts the bottom of boats". I now realise that he probably got some, if not all of that, from W.C Fields. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 16 Apr 06 - 09:18 PM AFAIK, only a few species of fish get their eggs fertilized internally. The New Yorker, reproducing the headline "Study of Alcoholism under U.S. Grant", remarked, "They couldn't have picked a better man". I have heard tell that Dylan Thomas, drunk at a dinner party, burst into a lull in the conversation with "I wish we were all hermaphrodites". His hostess asked, as politely as possible, "Why do you wish that, Mr Thomas?" to which he replied "So we could all go fuck ourselves". --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: If one hair cannot make the difference between a beard & no beard, then no-one has a beard. :|| |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 16 Apr 06 - 10:10 PM I'd go with Bix Beiderbecke. I'd go with drummer Jim Gordon although he had a multitude of problems not the least of them being killing his mum cuz voices in his head told him to. Now he sits in a prison cell which he rarely leaves, rarely if ever bathes, and spends his time making sculpture out of prison food. Jaco Pastorius deserves a mention. Like Gordon, though, he had other problems such as manic depression which he couldn't take his medication for because he couldn't play bass while he was on it. Janis Joplin is another. while a smack OD officially killed her, it was really more years and years of slamming down Southern Comfort, tequila, vodka, etc. "When I first read about the evils of drink, I immediately gave up reading." --Henny Youngman |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Folkiedave Date: 17 Apr 06 - 03:31 AM Stickingto folky drinkers, I can remember Maggie Barry coming to the folk club at Hull. Her fee was probably less than we spent on Guinness for her. She also bought some of her own. And she drank pint bottles which were available in those days. In other words I suspect the stories about her are true. Alex Campbell, who once supped a bottle of whiskey with Barry Dransfield on a train from (I think it was London to Leeds). Except Barry didn´t drink any of it!! Tony Capstick - who once legend has it - threw up on stage during a live broadcast by Radio Sheffield and looking down on it all said.... " I don´t remember eating carrots". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: alanabit Date: 17 Apr 06 - 07:45 AM I was just about to speculate on heroic feats of alcohol consumption in the folk scene. I have seen Noel Murphy, Johnny Silvo and Hamish Immlach all put the stuff away. I am not going to suggest that any or all of them were habitually heavy drinkers, but I was certainly impressed! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Alba Date: 17 Apr 06 - 07:53 AM Ah Hamish, rest his Soul, could put a fair bit away. I think He did make some of the most Notorious Curries in History..**smile** I suggest Oscar Wilde be added to the list. Jude |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 08:15 AM The Queen Mum comes to mind. And Dorothy Parker. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 08:36 AM Babe Ruth Charles Bukowski Hank Williams That is Shane McGowan, BTW Socrates |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 08:51 AM Oh and don't forget those Eight Mile High guys, the astronauts. Buzz Aldrin. Though he quit drinking while in space, apparently. Then resumed upon his return to Earth. And don't forget Sir Winston's infamous daughter, actress Sarah Churchill. Eugene O'Neill (for tortured alcoholic with no sense of humor). My favorite US politician/drunk of my lifetime: Wilbur Mills. His political career came to a tawdry end when his Argentine firecracker leapt out of the limo and into the Tidal Basin. You have to love a kiss and tell bio called "The Stripper and the Congressman" (written by said Argentine firecracker). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:05 AM Kerouac and Cassady. Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Lewis, London--the list of egomaniacal alcoholic writers is nearly endless, isn't it? Speaking of lists of notorious boozers, anyone ever read the 'Secret History of Alcoholism'? Or 'Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament'? A lot of the people listed here had more problems than just alcohol though. Many of them were driven to the drink by bi-polar disorder/manic depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses with egomaniacal tendencies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: alanabit Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:08 AM What was politely referred to as a "Kiss and tell" book in the old days. I think that nowadays, one has to do a little more than just kiss the subject to make them saleable to a salacious public... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST,Gillian Brookbourgh Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:13 AM It has to be Margaret Thatcher. Well known in social circles for her outburst of foul language and desires of young men when drunk. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:53 AM I would dispute the Steinbeck designation. He drank, but I don't think he was an alcoholic. Here is an interesting article: Writers and Alcohol from the Washington Post in 1989 about some American 20th century writers. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 10:26 AM As to Steinbeck, and others like him, I would say if the look lik a duck, quack like a duck, waddle like a duck, and drink like a duck, I call them a duck. And that ancient article from the Post reminds me why I hold social scientists in such low regard. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 10:36 AM And odd isn't it, that in a folk and blues music forum, no one is making any lists of folkies and blues musicians, despite a VERY long list of alcoholics among them. That's why social scientists can't really "study" the link between creativity and substance abuse or creativity and mental illness. The behavior is often covered up, glossed over, glamorized, that sort of thing. Anything to keep it secret. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: alanabit Date: 17 Apr 06 - 11:31 AM Like your name/psuedonym guest? In fact, I think that very often the media has got a lot of column inches out of the alcohol/drug abuse of the well known. They don't write stories about bakers with a drink problem. I have no doubt that some drug abuse is kept secret. I am not going to get my knickers in a twist about it though. It is not really any of my business anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 06 - 11:36 AM Ooooh, must be my comments hit too close to home for you, alanabit. Testy this morning, aren't you. Posting to a thread is not the same thing as getting one's knickers in a knot. It is merely ruminating in public. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Most notoriotous boozers in history... From: number 6 Date: 17 Apr 06 - 11:39 AM Maybe she wasn't notorious, or a blues singer ... but the Queen Mother certainly liked her gin. sIx |
