Tuesday 21st March 2006

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It looks like I might have to get my affairs in order and say goodbye to my friends and loved ones before the end of June because there are no concrete guarantees I’ll live to see July. I’ve not been diagnosed with anything fatal, but I might as well have been. For June the 23rd to 25th sees the 3rd Annual Modern Drunkard convention take place in Las Vegas.

It looks like I’m set for a return to the event that I filmed last year for my documentary Things To Do In Denver When You’re Drunk. There’s no stopping the inevitability of this. No way out and no excuses.

It would in theory be perfectly possible for me not to go, but the event is organised by Modern Drunkard Magazine, and I am now friends with those responcible for the publication. To not show my face would be very poor form. AND, it now looks like I’ll be doing some stand-up at the event, therefore meaning I have a professional responsibility to be there. IT'S ALL FOR MY CAREER, DAD. Dash it all – it looks like the madness is going to happen all over again.

I’ve probably not mentioned the Modern Drunkard as much as I should since starting this Blog. It’s a beautiful, funny and revolutionary magazine that comes out of Denver, Colorado. It stands up for the recreational drinker in a world that's becomming more and more wary, judgemental and prohibitionist. It's the brave last stand against the killjoys.

I was made aware of it about this time last year when my American friend Jennifer informed me not just of it’s existence, but the fact they were hosting a convention advertised as ‘The best three days you’ll never remember’. I was intrigued, travelled out to Atlanta to meet up with Jen and then together we headed for Denver. It was full-bore insanity all the way and I had just about the best weekend of my life. Longer term readers will know that I revisited last November and upped the ante by getting through an abundance of beautiful cocktails at a bar called Tiki Boyd’s, a week long endurance test that got reported in the latest issue of the magazine. Which is good going.

And so now I’m faced with June… Hell, it’s hardly a Herculean task. Get on a plane. Get drunk. Get back on the plane. But it never seems to run quite a smoothly as that. Nothing does when you don’t know which direction is up and which is down. And then there’s the added joy of doing stand-up to perhaps the drunkest collection of international boozeheads to have ever congregated in one place. How can I turn this down? I owe this to myself. And the book will be completely done. The stand-up work's going fine. This will be my summer holiday. But unlike Cliff, I'm going where the bars shine brightly. To hell with the sea.

This mother of all wingdings is organised chiefly by Frank Kelly Rich, the founder, editor and publisher or the Modern Drunkard (as well as the author of this great book), and then kept, I imagine, from falling into ten million tiny pieces by his charming wife Christa. Well I’ve been in contact with them both over the past couple of days and it’s been suggested I fly to Denver and then drive with them to Vegas in their RV – (one of the great American inventions and something we’ve never really understood here. In Britain we’ve stuck with the caravan.) Apparently the drive’s spectacular.

There’s the other option of flying to New York because it’s cheaper, staying with friends, and then heading on to Vegas. Perhaps even on the train? Wow. There's an idea. I’ll have to look into it.

But the reason I bring this up is I’ve told several people about last year’s convention, several more have seen the film I made, and most have wanted to know when are where the next one will be. So now you know. The details are here.

You owe it to yourself to go to this. It won’t cost any more than a week in Spain and you’ll not remember it for the rest of your lives. Can you imagine one of those Roman feasts where nothing was off limits and excess was the only rule? It’s like that. But with bands. And drinking contests. And dancing. And cocktails. And new friends. And films (they’re going to show mine too, I believe) And debauchery. And the ‘Liquor Olympics’. And to top it all, it’s in Vegas, baby! Vegas!

A few hundred drunkards will descend upon Vegas for this. It's not just some bar crawl. It's an event. A happening. And you want to miss out on that? It's what credit cards were invented for.

So give it some thought will you? No, scrap that, don’t give it a moment’s thought. You must attend this convention and help fly the flag for a world where people worry more about the quality of their martini than a rise in the price of gas. Where boardroom corperate-speak is replaced with bar room banter. Where all that matters is who’s round it is next and “are we doing a shot with this? Hell yeah.�

Can I take it I’ll see you all there?

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