ain’t nothin’ to me / johnny winter
Drinking … Canadian Style
Much of my ’70’s is kinda hazy. We drank and doped without moderation. For whatever reasons, I felt compelled to run that gauntlet. Some of the people I did this with aren’t around anymore. And although I don’t advocate or recommend such an experience, I have no regrets. And I know that some of the survivors are still practicing that lifestyle. Sometimes a deathstyle.
In Canada, Booze, in the ’70s, was legal, very available, and cheap. I could go into any local bar with just $5 in my pocket and drink all night – and still often have enough money left to take a taxi home. Draft beer was only 10 cents a glass. 10 glasses of beer for a dollar! Insane.
I eventually got over all this and stopped drinking (and doping). Along with the substances most of my so-called friends also disappeared. Our whole relationship revolved around drinking and substance abuse. So when I stopped it all, I didn’t fit there anymore.
I walked away. Without regret.
Glass of Canadian Draft Beer 1970 / 1980
Glass of Canadian Draft Beer 1970 / 1980
One minute later.
________________________________________________________________________________
“I never trust a man that doesn’t drink.”
– John Wayne
John Wayne and Booze
John Wayne’s general movie image is that of a man who liked a drink and it’s generally believed that in his real life he was a fairly heavy drinker – part of the the Manly Arts – along with guns, fighting and smoking. Yet it appears he was a man who could hold his booze and who was not a drunk or an alcoholic. His sons, Patrick and Ethan say that his hard drinking image was exaggerated and not a problem – and that he didn’t drink every day and could do without it. Yet in another article son Michael says “He liked to drink. I once saw him drink a bottle of tequila before a meal, and a bottle of brandy after a meal. ???
I figure John was a guy who liked and appreciated a good drink, but could handle it.
And there is at least one telltale movie scene that attests to this – in his last Western The Shootist. It’s the final shootout scene – which takes place in a saloon no less – John strides up the bar and announces: “This is my birthday. Give me the best in the house.” In the movie, it was also his death day. ‘One for the road’.
________________________________________________________________________________
John Wayne IMBD Trivia
- Produced and starred in a 1940s radio show about an alcoholic detective titled “Three Sheets to the Wind“.
- His favorite drink was Sauza Commemorativo Tequila, and he often served it with ice that he had chipped from an iceberg during one of his voyages on his yacht, “The Wild Goose“.
- He once made a cameo appearance on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962). In episode, The Beverly Hillbillies: The Indians Are Coming (1967). And when asked how he wanted to be paid, his answer, in return, was “Give me a fifth of bourbon – that’ll square it.”.
- His image appeared on a wide variety of products including: 1950 popcorn trading cards given at theaters, 1951 Camel cigarettes, 1956 playing cards, Whitman’s Chocolates and – posthumously – Coors beer. The money collected on the Coors beer cans with his image went to the John Wayne Cancer Institute.
Next:
The Selling of John Wayne, Part 3 …
“Leave the bottle”
Share this:
