First Round

One Stage Missing

y

ears ago, a "Ten Stages of
Drunkenness" T-shirt briefly
made the rounds based on
an excerpt from the Dan Jenkins 1981
novel, Baja Oklahoma:
O. Sober
1.Witty and Charming, Part I
2.Rich and Powerful
3.Benevolent
4. Clairvoyant
5.#(%* Dinner
6.Patriotic
7.Crank Up the Enola Gay
8.Witty and Charming, Part II
9.Invisible
10.Bulletproof
I never bought a T-shirt — I just
wrote the list on a piece of paper and
placed it by the cash register at the bar.
It helped me judge the condition of my
patrons.
After many years spent serving
drinks, the one thing I've learned is
that alcohol only removes that filter we
all have in our brains that prevents us
from doing a shoulder roll in the aisle

incident: "What
were you think-
ing?"
There
would be less
laughter this
time, because
a drunken
movie star get-
ting caught in
a car with a
cheap hooker
is funny. A
drunken movie star ranting anti-
Semitic statements at a police officer
isn't.
Well, I missed the deadline by six
weeks, I got the venue wrong and,
after reading excerpts of the "two-
day-because-we-need-ratings" Good
Morning America interview with
Diane Sawyer on Oct. 12 and 13, I may
have gotten the contrition part wrong,
too.
"What I need to do to heal myself
and to be assuring and allay the fears
of others, and to heal
them if they had any
heart wounds from
something I may have
said:' Gibson said. "So,
this is the last thing I
want to be is that kind
of monster."
He also called the anti-Semitic
statements he made"just the stupid
rambling of a drunkard."
Once, when I showed up a loud-
mouth at the pool table by beating
him in front of his equally loud-
mouthed buddies, he didn't call me
a "#%#A &•@%" because that would
have been "the stupid rambling of a
drunkard."
He called me a "#%#A &@')/6 Jew,"
which isn't stupid.It's just being an
anti-Semite without that filter.
When he and his buddies were
escorted from the bar, he waltzed
into the middle of the street, started
screaming at the passing cars and
gave the finger to a Chicago Police
Department paddy wagon.
Now that was stupid.

Gibson called his anti-Semitic
statements "just the stupid
rambling of a drunkard."

of a busy restaurant, pouring a heap of
sugar into gazpacho soup thinking it's
parmesan cheese, or standing on a bar
stool impersonating Harry Caray sing-
ing Take Me Out to the Ball Game
at a Cubs game.
But alcohol doesn't make a person
a racist.
I was willing to give Mel Gibson
the benefit of the doubt. I backed him
when I felt the protests of his Jesus
movie were unwarranted, at least until
the movie came out.
And I reserved judgment when
he was arrested for drunk driving in
Malibu on July 28 and told the arrest-
ing officer, "The Jews are responsible
for all the wars in the world." Then he
asked him, "Are you a Jew?"
Outrage and condemnation was
heaped upon Mel as he went into
rehab.
I thought that within two months
Jay Leno would have another contrite
movie star on his show, and Jay would
ask Mel the same question he asked
Hugh Grant after the Divine Brown

nfl

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Fri y October 2
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Saturday October 21st
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J111

October 9 - 2006

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