Pleasure and Danger

When was the last time you did something for the sheer pleasure of it, even though it was bad for you? In fact, knowing it was bad for you added to the pleasure.

Hmmm?

Is hedonism dead?

(Yeah yeah yeah. I've read my pre-Socratics. I know that the Hedonists ranked pleasures, and spiritual pleasures were more worthy than intellectual pleasures which were more worthy than mere pleasures of the flesh.)

Here's what I'm thinking of.

Years ago, when I was still with the Ex of Seven and a Half Years, living in brownstone Brooklyn, we had a dispute with a neighbor of ours named Loren Duckman. If you live in the Greater New York City Metropolitan Area, that name might be vaguely familiar. He was a judge who was removed from the bench by Governor Pataki, with the support of then-mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. The big reason was that he was belligerent and hostile on the stand. The basis of the dispute was trivial (involving the obsessiveness of my Ex), but one day, Judge Duckman invited us over for cocktails in the hopes that we could bury the hatchet.

Cocktails.

My Ex was a non-drinking alcoholic. I had recently returned from a jaunt to Moscow, and I had a nice bottle of vodka sitting in the freezer I had brought back with me. It would probably still be in the freezer if it hadn't occurred to me to take it along as a bury-the-hatchet gift to the host of the bury-the-hatchet cocktail party.

So at the appointed time, on a glorious late-summer Sunday afternoon, we trotted around the corner to Judge Duckman's house for cocktails.

Now, I sort of assumed going into it that 'cocktails' would mean a cheese board, maybe some sandwiches, served up with white wine. No. Cocktails meant cocktails. As in, a wedge of cheddar and some crackers that nobody touched, and the question, "What are you drinking?" fired at us when we sat down.

I had a vodka with a twist of lime.

Over the course of the afternoon, the five of us, the judge, his wife, his elderly neighbor lady, the Ex, and me, proceeded to get completely noggleschlauggered. Well... except for the Ex, who didn't drink. Probably the drunkest I've been throughout my 30s. And there was no keeping up with judge, wife, and neighbor lady. They were pros. For them, Sunday afternoon meant cocktails.

Later, when my head was clear again (probably the following Thursday or so), I had the impression that I had been time traveling. That I'd been on a trip to some previous decade. I mean, we got drunk. And that was the point. We got really drunk.

Nobody does that anymore.

When I was in Ireland on vacation several years ago, I was amazed to see drunks zig-zagging down the sidewalk, tacking into the wind as it were, everywhere. When was the last time you saw someone drunk on the sidewalks of your town? Someone who wasn't evidently homeless? Since never, right?

The kids I work with get hammered every weekend. Jagermeister and marijuana seem to be the preferred intoxicants. I guess they ought to be doing something more fruitful with their time off, like going to museums or tractor pulls or something, but it seems to be all about obtaining these substances and getting as fucked up as possible. Vomiting, passing out, brushes with the Law, and physical injury are all part of the picture. I teasingly tell them to say nice things about me when they end up in 12-step program.

So where's this going?

I'm not sure.

I'm just wondering how it came to be that pleasure without a point is so deeply suspect nowadays. And that goes for sex, too, doesn't it? It's for intimacy, or for connection, or for bonding, or for exploration, or for something? How about for getting your rocks off?

Hmmm.

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