My name is Ruddy, and I am an alcoholic
Ruddy Ruddy has a problem.
Welcome to a Very Special Episode of Ruddy Ruddy. The Ruddy Ruddy After-School Special. The TV Movie of the Week, starring Meredith Baxter-Birney as Ruddy Ruddy, in her most powerful dramatic role ever.
Yes, Ruddy Ruddy has a problem. So says Alcoholics Anonymous, who have staged an intervention by mail to free Ruddy Ruddy from the grip of the demon rum. Enclosed in a thick envelope marked "PERIODICAL" is a copy of their magazine, the AA Grapevine.
Could this have something to do with that blog update I did recently while I was drunk?
The letter enclosed with the magazine says that they're sending it in response to my recent website request. Funny -- I don't remember making any such website request. Then again, perhaps I did, but was too drunk to remember.
On the other hand, perhaps it's not meant for me. The letter mentions that gift subscriptions are available for sponsees, friends, or loved ones. (But not an unsponsored and unloved family member, apparently, as he or she wouldn't fit any of these cateories.) I suspect I know who this gift subscription might be for: my housemate Shanel, who drunkenly blundered into my room while my Ruddy Buddy Elizabeth and I were perusing this issue of AA Grapevine, grabbed our shoes, and flung them out my front door into the night. (Then again, perhaps this is simply what I deserve for answering Shanel's question "Who's that in your room with you?" with "a Filipino lady-boy prostitute" -- a barefoot trip out to the lawn with flashlight in hand.)
Anyway, I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me a full day after this to work out why they called the magazine AA Grapevine. See, a "grapevine" is an informal means of circulating information, and also, grapes are used to make wine, which alcoholics like to drink. I may or may not be a drunk, but my moments of clarity don't come as fast or as often as they used to.
AA Grapevine is subtitled "Our Meeting in Print" and the Statement of Purpose inside declares that the magazine is intended to function as exactly that. If this is true, a flip through the magazine indicates that a significant portion of every AA meeting is dedicated to cataloguing other publications available from the publishers of AA Grapevine. Of course, the special focus of this particular issue is to focus on AA literature. "Literature" is their word, not mine. While many of the giants of Western literature might have been raging drunks, it's obvious that none of them wrote for AA Grapevine, wherein the prose is workmanlike at best. And the rest of the AA canon is apparently no better; one writer in the magazine writes of having her sensibilities initially offended by the "poor syntax and the simplistic writing" of the Big Book, (aka Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the bible of AA, if you don't count the actual Gideon Bible, which they're also very keen on).
I don't know what to make of the whole religion angle, actually. Right there on page one of the magazine, in the AA preamble, they write, "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Yet, fully six of the Twelve Steps printed right beside this on the inside front cover make some kind of reference to God. So apparently there's at least one additional requirement for membership: a belief in some sort of higher power. It doesn't have to be the Christian god, mind you. One writer in the magazine gives thanks to the Great Spirit, while another rails against the too-common recital of the Lord's Prayer in meetings, pointing out that there are also Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shintoist members of AA. But it seems that belief in a higher power is pretty much required if you want to be in AA. Atheists need not apply. In fact, atheists are probably much better off swilling absinthe like a bunch of French existentialists while they contemplate their terrifying freedom of choice in a meaningless universe without God.
However, it's apparently not actually necessary to be an alcoholic to join AA, as evidenced by an article by Leonard Blumenthal, a Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee of the organization. I'm wondering, though, why a nonalcoholic trustee would be described as "Class A", of all things. I mean, one A in "AA" stands for "alcoholics" and the other one stands for "anonymous". Take your pick of which A applies to what, but old Leonard Blumenthal sure ain't too anonymous, writing his first and last name down like that. I'm not saying he's in denial -- I'm just saying he might want to look into the first of those Twelve Steps, the one where he admits he has a problem.
You might be offended that I appear to be making light of a serious illness. "Alcoholism isn't funny!" you might be protesting. And if you're saying this, you are dead wrong. According to Alcoholics Anonymous, it is funny, and to prove this, they've included a humour section in their periodical. It's titled "Ham on Wry". Will it be wry humour? Or will they ham it up? Well, let's look at a sample joke and see for ourselves:
Hmm. Maybe you were right after all. Alcoholism isn't funny. I don't even get that joke, in fact. Maybe you had to have been there for that one. Or maybe it's funnier if you're drunk. Well, let's try another one:
Oh my lord. That's a riddle for kids. Alcoholic kids. The only people who this kind of lame pun could possibly appeal to are eight-year-old children in the grip of a horrible, wasting addiction. That's not funny. It's heartbreaking.
No, alcoholism just isn't funny. On the other hand, there's a story in the magazine about a boozehound named Larry, whom the author describes as "a repository for every dirty limerick and song that had been written since Roman times". His exploits ranged from attempting to arrange the elaborate, gangland-style killing of a mouse in his kitchen to inserting a trombone mouthpiece into a double-barrelled shotbun and putting on an impromptu concert in the middle of a hardware store. So he sounds like a pretty funny guy. However, the author implies that Larry died of drink at the end of the story, so he's apparently also a cautionary tale. However, the actual causes of death remain a mystery, so it's really just the author's conjecture. In fact, Larry's ex-wife says that he died happy -- he'd just fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying his own bar -- so I'm really not sure what kind of cautionary tale this is. Don't follow your dreams, I guess.
So maybe it's just that the dry drunks at AA Grapevine aren't funny. Take the wacky picture of the month, which shows a street sign marked "Drinker St." Mildly amusing, I guess, until they write, "'Drinker Street?' Sounds like a good address for many of our readers!" As though anyone reading AA Grapevine needs it to be explained to him that he's a heavy drinker. Way to belabor the obvious. Haw! Geddit? "Drinker"!
Disgusted, I flip to the end of the magazine, where I see a subscription form. "Do you want what we have?" it says. "Then do what we do: Subscribe to the AA Grapevine!"
Do you want what we have? What, alcoholism? Thanks, but I'll pass. I wasn't too inclined to subscribe to AA Grapevine by now -- too much higher power, not enough humour power -- but the prospect of developing a destructive addiction just by regularly receiving this periodical makes it even less likely that I will.
As it turns out, Ruddy Ruddy does have a problem, but it's not with drink. It's just with magazines for drunks.
Welcome to a Very Special Episode of Ruddy Ruddy. The Ruddy Ruddy After-School Special. The TV Movie of the Week, starring Meredith Baxter-Birney as Ruddy Ruddy, in her most powerful dramatic role ever.
Yes, Ruddy Ruddy has a problem. So says Alcoholics Anonymous, who have staged an intervention by mail to free Ruddy Ruddy from the grip of the demon rum. Enclosed in a thick envelope marked "PERIODICAL" is a copy of their magazine, the AA Grapevine.
Could this have something to do with that blog update I did recently while I was drunk?
The letter enclosed with the magazine says that they're sending it in response to my recent website request. Funny -- I don't remember making any such website request. Then again, perhaps I did, but was too drunk to remember.
On the other hand, perhaps it's not meant for me. The letter mentions that gift subscriptions are available for sponsees, friends, or loved ones. (But not an unsponsored and unloved family member, apparently, as he or she wouldn't fit any of these cateories.) I suspect I know who this gift subscription might be for: my housemate Shanel, who drunkenly blundered into my room while my Ruddy Buddy Elizabeth and I were perusing this issue of AA Grapevine, grabbed our shoes, and flung them out my front door into the night. (Then again, perhaps this is simply what I deserve for answering Shanel's question "Who's that in your room with you?" with "a Filipino lady-boy prostitute" -- a barefoot trip out to the lawn with flashlight in hand.)
Anyway, I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me a full day after this to work out why they called the magazine AA Grapevine. See, a "grapevine" is an informal means of circulating information, and also, grapes are used to make wine, which alcoholics like to drink. I may or may not be a drunk, but my moments of clarity don't come as fast or as often as they used to.
AA Grapevine is subtitled "Our Meeting in Print" and the Statement of Purpose inside declares that the magazine is intended to function as exactly that. If this is true, a flip through the magazine indicates that a significant portion of every AA meeting is dedicated to cataloguing other publications available from the publishers of AA Grapevine. Of course, the special focus of this particular issue is to focus on AA literature. "Literature" is their word, not mine. While many of the giants of Western literature might have been raging drunks, it's obvious that none of them wrote for AA Grapevine, wherein the prose is workmanlike at best. And the rest of the AA canon is apparently no better; one writer in the magazine writes of having her sensibilities initially offended by the "poor syntax and the simplistic writing" of the Big Book, (aka Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the bible of AA, if you don't count the actual Gideon Bible, which they're also very keen on).
I don't know what to make of the whole religion angle, actually. Right there on page one of the magazine, in the AA preamble, they write, "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Yet, fully six of the Twelve Steps printed right beside this on the inside front cover make some kind of reference to God. So apparently there's at least one additional requirement for membership: a belief in some sort of higher power. It doesn't have to be the Christian god, mind you. One writer in the magazine gives thanks to the Great Spirit, while another rails against the too-common recital of the Lord's Prayer in meetings, pointing out that there are also Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shintoist members of AA. But it seems that belief in a higher power is pretty much required if you want to be in AA. Atheists need not apply. In fact, atheists are probably much better off swilling absinthe like a bunch of French existentialists while they contemplate their terrifying freedom of choice in a meaningless universe without God.
However, it's apparently not actually necessary to be an alcoholic to join AA, as evidenced by an article by Leonard Blumenthal, a Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee of the organization. I'm wondering, though, why a nonalcoholic trustee would be described as "Class A", of all things. I mean, one A in "AA" stands for "alcoholics" and the other one stands for "anonymous". Take your pick of which A applies to what, but old Leonard Blumenthal sure ain't too anonymous, writing his first and last name down like that. I'm not saying he's in denial -- I'm just saying he might want to look into the first of those Twelve Steps, the one where he admits he has a problem.
You might be offended that I appear to be making light of a serious illness. "Alcoholism isn't funny!" you might be protesting. And if you're saying this, you are dead wrong. According to Alcoholics Anonymous, it is funny, and to prove this, they've included a humour section in their periodical. It's titled "Ham on Wry". Will it be wry humour? Or will they ham it up? Well, let's look at a sample joke and see for ourselves:
Q: What did the sponsor say to the sponsee after he told his story to the group the first time?
A: Your I's are too close together.
Hmm. Maybe you were right after all. Alcoholism isn't funny. I don't even get that joke, in fact. Maybe you had to have been there for that one. Or maybe it's funnier if you're drunk. Well, let's try another one:
Q: What do you call an alcoholic ghost?
A: A boo-zer.
Oh my lord. That's a riddle for kids. Alcoholic kids. The only people who this kind of lame pun could possibly appeal to are eight-year-old children in the grip of a horrible, wasting addiction. That's not funny. It's heartbreaking.
No, alcoholism just isn't funny. On the other hand, there's a story in the magazine about a boozehound named Larry, whom the author describes as "a repository for every dirty limerick and song that had been written since Roman times". His exploits ranged from attempting to arrange the elaborate, gangland-style killing of a mouse in his kitchen to inserting a trombone mouthpiece into a double-barrelled shotbun and putting on an impromptu concert in the middle of a hardware store. So he sounds like a pretty funny guy. However, the author implies that Larry died of drink at the end of the story, so he's apparently also a cautionary tale. However, the actual causes of death remain a mystery, so it's really just the author's conjecture. In fact, Larry's ex-wife says that he died happy -- he'd just fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying his own bar -- so I'm really not sure what kind of cautionary tale this is. Don't follow your dreams, I guess.
So maybe it's just that the dry drunks at AA Grapevine aren't funny. Take the wacky picture of the month, which shows a street sign marked "Drinker St." Mildly amusing, I guess, until they write, "'Drinker Street?' Sounds like a good address for many of our readers!" As though anyone reading AA Grapevine needs it to be explained to him that he's a heavy drinker. Way to belabor the obvious. Haw! Geddit? "Drinker"!
Disgusted, I flip to the end of the magazine, where I see a subscription form. "Do you want what we have?" it says. "Then do what we do: Subscribe to the AA Grapevine!"
Do you want what we have? What, alcoholism? Thanks, but I'll pass. I wasn't too inclined to subscribe to AA Grapevine by now -- too much higher power, not enough humour power -- but the prospect of developing a destructive addiction just by regularly receiving this periodical makes it even less likely that I will.
As it turns out, Ruddy Ruddy does have a problem, but it's not with drink. It's just with magazines for drunks.
2 Comments:
You know, if I had all of the problems that Ruddy Ruddy has (gender confusion issues, debt and collection agencies, don't actually exist) I too might turn to the drink.
I miss Ruddy Ruddy.
But what's a 'shotbun'?
- Kitty
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