Home Prohibitionists Boozer Madness!

Boozer Madness!

By
Frank Kelly Rich
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antiposters4The mouse who roared

Well . . . maybe he is a twit. He certainly looks like an asshole. That’s the beauty of alcohol, giving the downtrodden the nerve to speak truth to the powers who oppress them. And besides, if he didn’t do anything about it last night, he probably ain’t gonna do anything about it now. Twit! Twit!

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Loose lips sink, uh . . .

Yeah, so? So I laid one on a strange woman with a bad hairdo. I probably enjoyed it at the time. And what’s the worse that can happen? Cooties? And she ain’t that unattractive. Maybe she has a sparkling personality. If it wasn’t for alcohol 90 percent of the population would be single. If I run into her again I’ll buy her a drink, say, “Geez, I was loaded that night, I have to use the loo,” then slip off to the next bar to kiss some other terrible creature. Woo-hoo!

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Beware of hopsheads

Yeah, right. Beer, heroin—same deal. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go break into my neighbor’s house so I can score a sixer of Coors Light. And these motherfuckers want us to take them seriously.

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It’s right next to the cigarette bush

Yeah, I fucking wish. I don’t mind most of the anti-drink lobby’s lies, but this sort of misinformation is just plain cruel. I’ll bet the booze tree is right next to the cigarette bush that grows beside the beer pond where the pretzel fish swim. In a better world, chum, in a better world.

Later, we’ll go square dancing!

Well, no, not if you count the Christian Youth League’s Team Spirit finalists in the picture. But would you really want to hang out with them? C’mon, they should have put at least put one cool person in the photo. Maybe a biker guy with perfectly feathered hair, or a punky girl who’d much rather dance to an Amy Grant jam than swill some nasty wine-cooler, or perhaps a street-wise hip-hop enthusiast with a forty of milk in his hand, or a. . . ah, fuck it. Who’d believe it?

Future looks bright, cheap

I’m looking, and it looks to me like I have four bottles of half-finished hooch, which is a red-letter day in my household. Not top shelf, I’ll grant you, what with names like Rott Gutt, Chateau Morning-After and Brew Hoo, but who’s complaining? This heavy-handed commandment is the work of a Quebec organization which claims to be interested only in moderating drinking, not stopping it. And one way of moderating intake, apparently, is drinking the good stuff. Because, you know, the better it tastes, the less you’re going to drink! Right?

Call PETA! I smell a cross-over deal!

Say again? Designated dog? I guess the logic here is: Dogs don’t drink, so let’s let them drive us home. Just duct tape his paws to the wheel and gas pedal and hope he doesn’t see any squirrels on the way. I don’t know about you, but I’d have Ray Charles with belly full of bourbon take the wheel before the soberest canine in the world. I can’t trust my dog to bring me my slippers, let alone parallel park my Chevy.

Mother of God, make it stop

“No, son, I’m having a beer. And what did I tell you about talking to weirdos?” Most insidious of all, this poster attempts to turn our kids against us. And the guy doesn’t even appear drunk, he’s having a freaking can of beer, which even the government admits is a healthy habit in moderation. Next thing you know, Daddy will be hooked on the carrot juice.

Gee willikers, if this doesn’t work, nothing will!

In case you were wondering, that’s cherry fucking soda being poured into that cup. That’s how we’re going to lure the kids away from the hard stuff, by gosh! Cherry soda! Tell you what, you show me a human being who gets pumped with community spirit after downing a half dozen of those and I’ll show you a psycho-killer waiting to explode.

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You bad drunk, comrade! Bad!

Oh, they read it. The sign is probably what they’re snickering about. This translated Soviet anti-drinking poster from the Gorbachev era proves that speaking down to those they purportedly wish to help isn’t unique to the U.S. anti-drinking machine. Choosing, of course, to ignore the fact history’s greatest intellectuals and artists where full-bore drunks. I believe their thrust is something along these lines: “You drink. So you must be big dummy. Me Mr. Smart Man. Me help you. Drink bad! Mr. Bottle bad! Bad! Bad!”

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Pants are for suckers

No, but it looks like I had one hell of a good time. This is a perfect example of PR wonks completely out of touch with their target audience. So the hooch made a geek get a little wild. Why in the hell do you think the uptight bastard drinks it? Would you steal this man’s reason for living? Hell, put a super model on his arm and you got yourself a Miller Light ad.

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Say it ain’t so!

Really? Is it true? What they seem to be forgetting is drunks are not only very aware of what’s in store the following morning, they’ve come to accept it as part of the Yin and Yang of the experience. And you’ll notice they left out the Bloody Bary in the the second frame, making it wholly unbelievable.

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Love on the rocks

No, I don’t remember, but so what? It’s not like we got hitched and there are legal documents involved. So my heart was filled with love, so the hooch allows me to see beauty in everything and everyone. Is that so wrong? And besides, who has ever seriously proposed to a hideous stranger while loaded? They must be getting their ideas about drinking from old W.C. Fields movies.

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