Editor’s Note: After Doublethink published his feature report on the Modern Drunkard magazine conference in the summer issue, Sean Higgins was filled with regrets about all the reporting and photographs that had to be left out of the piece so it could fit in the space available. He asked whether he could publish an extended version on the Doublethink website. This proposition, frankly, did not interest us, until we learned that Sean would be willing to published his unedited piece: the draft of the article as he filed it. For two to three people out there, we thought, the opportunity to compare a written article with an edited article might be of interest. Readers, future contributors, innocent bystanders may find it curious what happens to an article when it is edited. So we are presenting this as the “before” version. To see the “after,” click here. The “before” version has been edited only for vulgarity.

***

“[O]ur trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country — but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that.” — Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Friday. June 23, 2006, early afternoon:

Fremont Street isn’t much to look at in the daylight. It is a 6-block, closed-to-traffic thoroughfare that has gambling, bars, pizza joints, “gentlemen’s clubs” and numerous tacky trinket stores, all open to the street.

It is one of the oldest parts of Las Vegas and looks frankly rather seedy and rundown. The effect is more Tom Waits or Charles Bukowski than Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It’s certainly not much compared to the southern part of the strip where the big-time, high-rolling casinos like the MGM Grand are located.

But at night it transforms. The storefronts light up in a brilliant blaze while the street throbs with life as people drink, gamble, laugh and gawk at the sights. It is a playground for everyone. The big time casinos, by contrast, are corporate and sterile. They are places you can only truly enjoy if you have a bottomless reserve of cash — which your humble correspondent certainly did not have.

Why, hey, that’s that big neon cowboy you see in all the TV shows and movies about Vegas, right there above the tourist trap selling leather moccasins and other western knick-knacks.

It was, in short, the perfect place for Modern Drunkard Magazine to hold its third annual convention. The three-day festival was billed as weekend of punk rock, burlesque shows and general drunken debauchery: “The best time you’ll never remember.”

Word had already gotten around about the event. Even the veteran, seen-it-all types at Fremont Street new something different was afoot.

“So, you’re going to this drinking convention?” inquired Kelly, the cute bartender at Micky Finn’s, a seafood restaurant where Doublethink was killing time before the event and knocking back a few Coronas in the 105 degree heat. “What is Modern Drunkard anyway?”

The simple answer is that it is a bimonthly humor magazine by and for lovers of alcohol. Based in Denver, Colorado, the 60-page glossy has a national circulation of about 35,000. The articles are not about sipping or tasting mind you. No, this periodical is for the hard-core barroom warrior for whom blacking out is clear proof that you had a good time.

For people who can’t find it on the newsstand, it has an active website: www.drunkard.com. Several of the most popular articles have also been compiled into a book, “The Modern Drunkard: A Guide to Drinking in the 21st Century.”

The tone is raucous, funny and unapologetic. Take the June issue for example. It features the article “FDR: Portrait of a Drinking President,” a report on the renewed popularity of dive bars, a feature on finding drinks in Iran (easier than you might think for an Islamic theocracy) and a guide to being an expert “wingman,” i.e., helping your buddy pick up a girl by engaging and distracting the less attractive friends she’s bar-hopping with (The wingman is “arguably the noblest creature to ever step into a barroom.”). That’s along with the regular features like “Booze News,” “Drunkard of the Month,” “Wino Wisdom,” the poetry column “Postcards from Skid Row,” and the advice column, “The Concerned Cad.”

“Hmm, I may have to check this out myself,” Kelly said.

Friday, June 23, 2006, late afternoon:

“We have got to start fighting back!” shouted Frank Kelly Rich, the founder, editor-in-chief, and publisher of Modern Drunkard, in his opening remarks to the convention.

For Rich this event is much more than just a three-day “love affair with alcohol.” No, it was a call to arms to his fellow hard-core drinkers. The tide is against them, Rich says. Prohibition is slowly returning and the boozeheads had better recognize that or else pretty soon they’ll have to go home sober.

“Sweet mother of Jesus, these are difficult times for drunks,” wails Rich in a recent magazine column. “The way things are going in ten years our bars will resemble sterile waiting hospital waiting rooms, where they’ll serve you one 3.2 ounce beer in a Dixie cup then call the cops.”

That sounds silly, if not a little paranoid. After all, liquor is legal and widely available in the U.S. Americans certainly like it. We consume an estimated 8.5 liters of alcohol per person annually, according to the World Health Organization. That hardly sounds like a nation that’s about to go dry.

Yet Rich makes a good case that the right to drink alcohol is slowly being eroded, bit by bit, by “nanny state groups,” as he puts it. The standard for driving while impaired was a .10 blood alcohol level in most states a decade or so ago. Now the standard is .08 BAC, with some states like Maine lowering it further if you have a prior. Last year a woman in Washington D.C. was arrested and spent the night in jail for having a .03 BAC level (about one glass of wine), an action defended by D.C.’s chief of police.

Banning smoking even in bars is all the rage in states across the country, with Colorado only the latest to adopt one. Efforts to legislate away happy hours are being pushed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a powerful force in state and local legislatures. According to MADD, 22 states already regulate the afternoon drinking time in some manner. State officials in Texas recently engaged in “Operation Last Call” in which undercover agents arrested people for being drunk inside bars. According to the Houston Chronicle, 1,740 people were nabbed before public outrage caused the suspension of the program in April.

Rich’s response to this state of affairs is to publicly affirm the right not only to drink in public but to get totally hammered, without apology or shame and to create a spectacle while doing it. This year’s Modern Drunkard convention, the third annual one, would be the place. The event would mark the tenth anniversary of the magazine as well as a homecoming for Rich. He grew up in Las Vegas, where his father had been a cab driver.

“He used to have all these great stories about driving people like Sinatra and Sammy Davis around,” Rich said.

Yet even America’s own Sin City wasn’t as welcoming one might think. An effort to get the convention hosted at the Stardust Hotel, an old Rat Pack haunt due to be torn down later this year, went nowhere. Thanks but we have better offers, the hotel told the event’s organizers.

“This was a better town when the Mob ran things. There was a better quality of service then,” Rich fumed.

It’s a point Doublethink heard echoed throughout the weekend by the working stiffs — cab drivers, security guys, waitresses, bartenders and electricians, among others — who make Las Vegas function.

“Corporations all run this town now,” said CeeCee, one of the girls at Glitter Gulch, who then adds, “So, do you want a lap dance?”

***

The event was ultimately held at the Celebrity Ballroom, a venue just off Fremont, whose recent acts include Marky Ramone of the Ramones. Beat that, Stardust Hotel.

As the days counted down to the event, the tension for some readers was palpable. “This year’s convention passes are vomit proof!” excitedly announced one poster on the magazine’s message board.

The event finally got underway around 6 p.m. on Friday, June 23. Some had clearly started partying before they got there. Or to use the magazine’s lexicon, they were “pre-tarded.”

Rich kicked it off with — what else? — a toast.

“Welcome to the third annual Modern Drunkard convention! (Whoops, hollers, cheers) Everybody got a drink? (More cheers; Rich raises his drink) Here’s to a good time we can’t remember, which is still better than a bad time we can,” he said.

The crowd roars with approval.

Some 300 people eventually showed up, mostly a younger crowd, 20s and 30s, many extensively tattooed. Some grizzled barroom vets also made the trip. Many wore the official Modern Drunkard headgear, a red fez adorned with crossed swords and a martini glass.

Everyone was in a warm, fuzzy, hey-let-me-buy-you-a-shot mood. It was a convention of happy drunks. Many had become friends through posting on the magazine’s message board and were getting their first chance to meet each other. Others were just happy to get away from their routines.

“I am here because I can,” said one convention goer, who identified himself as “Noah Countability.” An Arizona lawyer, specializing in family law, he just had to get away from those damn people.

“I was sorely tempted to leave a message on my answering machine saying, ââ?¬Ë?I’m so sick of your whining that I’ve gone off to Las Vegas for a three-day bender. Leave message at the beep,’ ” Mr. Countability said. He didn’t.

“Some of them still have faith in my abilities,” he explained.

Friday, June 23, 2006, evening:

“T–sa Galore” takes the microphone. The emcee for the weekend’s event, she’s one of the magazine’s regional distributors as well as a cabaret artist who previous productions include “Beach Babes in Tiki Trouble.” It is readily apparent exactly how she got the name “T–sa Galore” too. No bra really fits her, but a 42 F cup comes closest, she says.

“Are you ready for some girls in pasties?” she shouted to the audience. Indeed they we re. The girls of the Oh-La-La Dance Troupe proceed to wow the audience with their neo-retro-postmodern approach to shaking their booty on stage. Then it’s on to the night’s musical entertainment, which included performances by the Voodoo Organist, the Unband, and, finally, the Upper Crust, a punk band that performs tunes with names like “Old Money” while wearing powdered wigs, frilly shirts and “pantaloons.”

Meanwhile the liquor flowed freely, which posed some problems for Doublethink’s Las Vegas correspondent.

“You want to interview me for what?” one convention goer slurred. He never said his name but said he is known on the magazine’s message board by the handle “Massive Drunk.”

It’s a magazine called Doublethink.

“Doublethink? What’s that? (To a friend) Hey, have you ever heard of something called Doublethink … magazine… He wants to interview me for some magazine called Doublethink…. No? … (To Doublethink) All right, whatever … go ahead,” he said.

So how long have you been drinking?

“Since 4 a.m.,” he said. It was by then 7 p.m.

That was nothing, however, compared with Doublethink’s attempt to interview Rich later that evening while the Unband performed its set. Between the volume and conditions of the interviewer and interviewee, what turned up on the recorder was this:

Doublethink: To somebody who’s never picked the magazine up, what is this weekend trying to prove?

FKR: Wow. There’s like Colin Farrell. (Inaudible) He enjoys drinking. Everyone else is such a f—ing pussy about it. They only talk about it if they’re coming out of rehab. “Oh, I made some mistakes.” Humphrey Bogart and Jackie Gleason, they said, “Yeah, drinking is an important part of my life.” It’s a sad f—ing generation right now.

The evening ends with a mosh pit forming during the end of the Upper Crust’s set. Bodies fly left and right with Rich himself in the center, sweating right through his clothes.

At about 1:30 a.m., the Celebrity Ballroom closes and what remains of the Drunkard crowd heads to a nearby bar called Sidebar. The bartender says he’s about to close, but reconsiders and announces he’ll keep the bar open. Huzzahs all around as the ten or so remaining partiers belly up. After a pair of Irish whiskeys, Doublethink’s Las Vegas correspondent notes that he appears to be falling asleep, which is severely hampering his ability to interview the girl seated next to him. He decides to make a tactical retreat and call it a night.

Saturday, June 24, early afternoon:

Antoinette Cattani, west coast promoter for Fernet-Branca, a licorice-flavored spirit, looks at Doublethink’s photos of her dancing behind members of the Upper Crust the previous night and gasps.

“I have no memory of that at all,” she said. “When I was setting up this morning, one of the guys said, ââ?¬Ë?Hey, I liked the way you were shaking your booty on stage last night.’ I was like, ââ?¬Ë?I wasn’t on stage.’ But I was, obviously.” (Laughs)

Not that this revelation bothers her much. She believes in drinking without guilt because guilt is a “useless emotion.”

“That’s what this whole convention is about,” Cattani said. “I’m a very happy drunk.”

“No matter what anybody says (liquor) is a $160 billion industry. Over the last eight years it has grown 8% annually. So no matter what some right-wing person says booze is on the rise. It always will be. In any time of doubt people still keep on drinking. I think it is a great industry,” she says. Drink all you want, just take a cab home she says with a laugh.

Oddly, she does remember jumping up on stage later that same evening at an after party at the Double Down Saloon and even taking the mike away from the band’s lead singer.

“He was talking too much. I told him to shut up and play,” she recalled.

***

Frank Kelly Rich was quite pleased with how the opening night went.

“I actually remember some of the bands, which is rare,” he said. He partied until 5:30 this morning but appeared to be not only okay, but his usual gregarious self. Perhaps this is because Rich doesn’t mind having hangovers. He says thinks they are an integral part of the drinking experience. They weed out the amateur drunkards, making space at the bars for the pros.

Or perhaps it is because he learned how to beat them. Asked what he thinks the best hangover solution is, without hesitation Rich refers back his days in the U.S. Army.

“I’d go the medics in the battalion and they’d give you an IV saline solution and that’d fix you right up. You’d automatically hydrate and you’d be back like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I learned how to do it to myself.”

***

There were a number of technical difficulties on the second day. A planned lecture on the evils of prohibition was scrapped, as were showings of a pair of documentaries, one about one of last night’s bands and the other about last year’s convention.

In its place the magazine staffers held a QnA session. One person asked, “I have a tremor that gets worse when I drink. How should I deal with that in social situations?”

A staffer who says he has a slight tremor himself replied, “Tell them, ââ?¬Ë?I’m dying, you f—!’ Make your discomfort theirs instead.”

Another asked if there is any liquor they won’t drink. MDM writer Rich English says he hasn’t touched a wine cooler since he vomited one up during his prom. Another points out that the magazine is boycotting Jack Daniels because the company has quietly lowered the whiskey’s alcohol content. That’s sacrilege as far as they are concerned.

“It used to be such a manly drink. Now it’s for pussies,” Rich said. “Jack Daniels must be turning over in his grave.”

***

The third Modern Drunkard Convention draws several merchants. For example, there’s Brewligerant, a clothing company, (Motto: “Alcoholic Wear For Everybody”). It is showing off its latest line of t-shirts, which feature the words “S—-Faced” done in the style of the Coors Light and Jack Daniels logos.

Also available is Agwa, a liquor whose ingredients include cocoa leaves (Motto: “Melts in your mouth, not in your nose”). All perfectly legal says marketer Rebecca Licu. It is strong, bitter-tasting stuff.

***

Some people, it turns out, have traveled quite a long ways to participate. Justin English may have come the furthest. He was in western Bagdad just a few days ago and is currently on leave.

For the 15 year-Army veteran, the event is exactly like an oasis in a parched desert. Because it is an Islamic country, soldiers in Iraq are not allowed to have alcohol. It’s an extremely sore point for the troops given how stressful, uncomfortable and dangerous the duty can be. Most of the morale problems there could be licked easily if only the policy could be reversed, Justin opines. For that matter most of problems in the whole Middle East could be solved if only the liquor flowed more freely, he says. For now though he’s just happy to enjoy a scotch and watch the show.

Is he ever able to get liquor in Iraq?

“It is totally (wink) against U.S. Army policy (wink, wink) to have alcoholic beverages of any kind (wink) and we abide (wink) by those rules (wink, wink, wink),” English explained.

***

Eric with the Brewligerant Clothing Co. on the previous evening:

“I had a little too much to drink at the Modern Drunkard Convention. When I got back to my hotel room my 250 lb. buddy Edgar decided to come running and give me a shove. I did a back flip over the twin beds and fell in between them. He then ran up and did a superfly on top of me. I woke up stuck to the floor in my own dried vomit. … I was all bruised and I couldn’t figure out why my ribs felt like they were cracked.”

Good times?

“It’s not a good time unless you puke AND you sleep in it.”

***

The evening’s entertainment includes Stan McHale, a British stand up comedian who demonstrates that, yes, there are dance moves to the Beatles’ “I am the Walrus.”

Okay, you had to be there.

At 9 p.m. it was back it was to the dancing girls as the convention welcomed the Oracle Dance Troupe, who used a flying trapeze in their act. The Saloon Door Slammers, a four-piece swing jazz band, accompany them. They sounded something like what Tom Waits would sound like if he died, came back as a zombie bandleader and rocked out more. Their set includes the Huey Lewis and the News song, “The Power of Love,” which literally has never sounded better.

The evening continued with more rock n’ roll as various bands took the stage. The energy remains high, especially when the band King Rat performs a hardcore, feedback-drenched version of the Kenny Rogers tune, “The Gambler.”

Sunday, June 25, 2006, early afternoon:

Greg, one of the guys at Brewligerant, gives Doublethink’s Las Vegas correspondent a bear hug and calls him “My brother,” when he enters the ballroom.

It turns out that at some point that evening the correspondent passed out on a couch near the Brewligerant guys. This was a mistake. The guys have a policy that anybody who falls asleep with his shoes still on is “fair game” and took a picture of Greg mooning the writer. Apparently he got off light. They usually devise more extreme pranks but “we didn’t know you that well.”

The guys are bought a round from the Doublethink expense account.

“The funny thing was,” Gregg added, “you popped right back up a few minutes later and started interviewing people again like you were doing before. You had no idea what happened.”

***

Romance was in the air at the convention. For some it was planned. For others it came out of nowhere.

Rich Walker, a carpenter from Denver, decided the event was the perfect time to marry his girlfriend, Shelly Humphrey, a bartender, so he brought her along and then arranged to make it official before the trip was over.

“We’ve been engaged for about a year now,” he said. “We’re going to the little white chapel after this.”

For Frank Bell, one of the writers at the magazine, a wedding chapel was what he had just avoided. The previous day he had met a childhood sweetheart — they first met in summer camp 21 years ago — that he hadn’t seen since they were both teenagers. She just happened to be in town in vacation. Sparks flew again. The two considered getting hitched that very night, but then reconsidered.

“She’s a lovely gal … We decided we should take it a little slower,” Bell explained, using breath so strong that a lit cigarette probably would have caused the air around him to spontaneously combust.

“But she’s coming to see me in Denver,” he adds. “So we’ll see.”

On the flip side was a couple that announced on the magazine’s message board that they planned to get a divorce during the convention. They were listed as “Tipsy McStagger and August West.”

“What better way to end it, than where we began it? In Las Vegas! Better yet, the date (June 23) is our actual wedding date,” read the post.

Alas, Doublethink could not find the couple to confirm their story.

***

Sunday afternoon sees the convention’s first casualty. A man lost his grip on the Celebrity Ballroom bar, fell backwards and slammed his head against the floor. He bit his tongue, cutting it in the process. Paramedics are called but the injuries turn out to be relatively minor. He got up and walked away.

Sunday, June 25, 2006, evening:

The energy level does appear to be flagging a bit on the third day. But spirits remain high. The afternoon kicks off with the Liquor Olympics, an audience participation event. In the contest, men must 1) Order and chug a beer 2) Hit on floozy and get her phone number 3) Buy her the drink of her choice 4) move four glasses from her table without spilling the contents 5) Order a shot 6) Make a toast 7) Down the shot, and Drag a drunk home. Since the drunks they must drag are other contestants, it is an interesting and physically challenging event.

This is followed by yet more burlesque dancers, including one whose act includes circus-style fire eating, as well as Polynesian beauty Ms. Kalani KoKonuts, easily the most stunningly-built dancer of the weekend. After her the weekend’s final rock n’ roll bands almost feel like an afterthought.

***

Frank Kelly Rich says he’s planning on taking a trip to Washington D.C. soon. Why? Because it now has a Tiki bar.

“I just love Tiki Bars. I’m fascinated by the whole Tiki culture,” he said. “I can’t wait to go that D.C. bar, Politiki. I hear its right on Capitol Hill!”

Rich is crushed, absolutely crushed, to learn that Politiki is no more. It has been renamed by Top of the Hill and all of the Tiki decor has been junked. Nor can Doublethink’s correspondent think of another Tiki bar in the entire metro area.

It’s just as well. Modern Drunkard’s efforts to interview Washington-based writer Christopher Hitchens have proved fruitless.

This jibes with what Hitchens himself told Doublethink’s correspondent when they bumped into each other at a bar in D.C.’s Dupont Circle the previous week. Would you be willing to be interviewed for Modern Drunkard, he was asked. A firm “no” followed.

“I don’t begrudge you asking, but I cannot do it,” Hitchens said. He has “too many enemies right now” to grant an interview to that publication. Besides while he enjoys his drink, he doesn’t consider himself a drunkard. He holds his hand up and flat to show there is no tremor in it.

“See? Solid as a rock,” Hitchens said.

***

The convention came to close late Sunday evening. Rich takes to the stage to thank everyone for coming and to encourage everyone to sign up for his Drunkard Action League, reminding them as he did at the beginning, “We have got to start fighting back.”

Then, like many drunkards late in the evening, he got sentimental and asked his wife Christa to join him on stage. He hugged her and credited her with keeping both him and his magazine going.

“Say it loud, say it plowed!” shouted T–sa Galore.

“Let’s drink bitches!” shouted another.

And on to the afterparty …

Monday, June 26, 2006, early morning:

The private suite at the Golden Nugget Hotel is pretty classy but not so large that the bar isn’t crowded.

Frank Kelly Rich gets deeply involved in a debate with Edwin Decker, who writes the magazine’s “Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat” column. The subject: What was the best Coen Brothers movie?

Decker votes for Millers Crossing. Rich says it was Barton Fink. They decide eventually to take it out to the hallway. Doublethink missed the fight. According to witnesses, it only lasted a few seconds.

“I guess Decker forgot Frank was in the Army Rangers,” one person said.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006, early afternoon:

“A little bit of this town goes a very long way. After five days in Vegas you feel like you’ve been here for five years. Some people say they like it — but then some people say the voted for Nixon too.” — Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

“So you were at the convention?” asks Toby, the chef at Micky Finns. “You should order the grilled Ahi sandwich. That’ll fix you up. It tastes good too.”

In the 105-degree heat the cold beers are practically medicinal. Meanwhile an existential horror begins to grip the writer. He only has days to finish his story but he’s lost one notepad and many of his audio recordings are little more than white noise. Worse yet, he has to make sense of the convention …

Was it, as Rich said, an event for drunkards to rise up and strike back against the powers that be and regain their freedom? Or was it merely an excuse for people to get together and get smashed? Or both? And does it matter?

As the writer goes over his remaining notes, he comes across the words of Alf Lamont, a first-time convention-goer from Los Angeles but a long-time reader of the magazine. The event exceeded his expectations. He felt like he had found a place where he belonged:

“I feel like I’ve been part of this family for years … It is a subculture at finest and most intelligent … It’s a brotherhood. It’s a community. It’s a lifestyle.”

Well said, Alf. The next drink is on you.

Sean Higgins is a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily.

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