Much has been made of Gen Z’s aversion to drinking, partying, and generally any desire to “just kick it”. Men spend their days obsessing over their looks in their mirror, smashing their jaws with tiny hammers and staying away from the spirits their fathers and grandfathers abused. Women practice the “clean lifestyle” and take up anti-inflammatory diets to look eighteen again. Everyone joins a run club.
The solution as I see it is simply to do the opposite. Drink, eat, and be merry. Do not play the fool’s game of attempting to prolong your youth; enjoy your youth as it is, right this moment. Or—go out and drink, young man.
Week 1
I arrive in Athens already tipsy amidst a five-day taxi driver strike. Somehow I stagger off to the Metro station and take the M3 down to Pagrati where I would be staying. My girlfriend Yani, who I have come to visit, is on a field trip with her study abroad program. For a few days, I have no company but the bottle.
I am well on my way to becoming a regular at Ziggy’s Cocktail Bar when I am rescued by Yani and her family, also here to visit. With them I switch tracks, work on the ancient American art of drinking before potentially awkward gatherings.
Event that can be pregamed: dinner and drinks at a cocktail bar. I go home early after visiting a tourist site, stop at the local pub for a few shots, then walk back to meet them for dinner already buzzed. This puts me on my A-Game—witty commentaries on the state of US-Asia relations, sheepish grins shared with the sister when the mom and Yani clash, merry discussions of whiskey with the father. I’m there!
Event that cannot be pregamed: long bus ride to the ruins of Delphi, way up in the mountains. I know nothing about Delphi save for a mention of the Oracle—snakes are involved, I think—and hate myself more after the bus driver reminds us that we will be driving three hours one-way. I stare intensely at my phone for three hours head perfectly still to make it through the ride. Upon arrival I wonder blithely if ancient fortune-seekers ever ate the sacrifices they brought for the Oracle on the weeks-long journey.
Yani asks me if I have been drinking before these events. I ignore this, deeming spirit-phobic questions unworthy of answer.
We pass a vineyard on our way down and I point, smile.
Al Hirschfeld
Week Two
One night Yani invites a friend over to my little rental to make dinner. Planning ahead, I buy a great big jug of wine from the local OK Market. One lesson—applicable to Athens—the huge plastic jugs cost considerably less than proper bottles and contain a lot more wine. By the time the two arrive I am a third of the way through the jug and the thoughts have seeped out of my brain.
Naturally her friend loved me. I did make a mistake—unforced error, talked about my attraction to tall women—which came back to haunt me that night, but other than that I was a success “wow, your boyfriend is actually pretty cool.” Women are always surprised when someone’s boyfriend is alright. I get it, I’m always surprised when a buddy’s girlfriend is chill. We all assume the worst.
The days flow by. I listen to David Allan Coe and cosplay the outlaw, buying a pack of cigarettes “Lucky Strikes, I guess?” and an electric lighter because I can’t use the BIC on windy mornings. My landlord teaches me to use an ashtray after surprising me at home with a six-pack of Nymphi (for good luck!). Ian from Notre Dame breaks down his Thomist beliefs over a carafe of Ouzo and pork gyros.
I nearly skip a day out of prudence—flight to Venice early the next morning—but I hear “Evil Ways” playing in a dive on my way back from the corner store. Santana’s gentle voice radiating through my mind I decide to continue the good fight, stop in for a chat with whoever might be around. Oye cómo va, they say
Al Hirschfeld
Week 3
Somehow, drinking on a day-to-day basis feels wrong. Even after two weeks of drinking consistently I still feel I am contributing to the slow destruction of my soul—to say nothing of my liver. Of course, this feeling typically manifests itself the morning after, often when still nauseous. All reactions are delayed but I wonder if mine comes from the psychic disapproval of my teetotaler parents.
Yani and I nearly reach Nirvana drinking four-euro Aperol spritzes by a canal, Ca D’Oro stop. The sun is shining bright on beautiful Venetian day, tourist families gathered in every little nook and cranny drinking bright orange nectar out of plastic takeaway cups. We wonder about the economics of the little shop selling them, an elderly Chinese couple at the helm. Filled with childlike wonder, we sit around wishing we could live as they do—selling joy and taking twenty-minute smoke breaks whenever they please.
I learn what Aperol is—news to me—on the same day I learn that the calamari I love so much is squid, not shrimp as I had thought. I know “not so many things” according to Yani. Still I am merry, drink anything that is put in front of me and gently ask for more.
This week I also get hammered at a jazz club, learning that sounds—and most things, really—are considerably better while intoxicated. Jazz particularly, images and shapes flowing writhing shaking with love as the guitarist leads off on “Take the Coltrane”. Unfortunately the older, paunchy German with considerably younger Thai girlfriend next to me does not see it that way, yells at me for attempting to express my love of jazz to my own girlfriend. She is only a month younger than me. Hm.
I resolve to get drunk and play my “Giant Steps” record in bed when I get back home to the States. I envision myself folding my hands behind my head, seeking Dharmic truth in the music and spirits.
Al Hirschfeld
Week 4
Yani’s friend from school is visiting this week—I really don’t like her. They invite me to go drinking with them but I tell them I need a cleanse. They believe me—does this mean I really am drinking too much?
No, not a chance. I’ll know when I’m drinking too much. My face may be puffy and I may have put on five pounds but that doesn’t really mean anything. I will forge on, and forge I do all the way to Chelsea Hotel (Athens). Someone outside tells me Sartre once came here which doesn’t make any sense, the place looks far too new. They have his picture up on the wall, tho…
I start up a conversation with two older guys at the bar. They are watching the Olympiacos match and I ask them about Giannis.
“Yes, he is Greek. He plays in Milwaukee, now” well, I know that. I want to know if you guys like him! We don’t particularly like the Greek Freak—drama queen after all— but do you? He doesn’t have much to say but invites me to sit with them. As it turns out neither are from Athens. Both are in town for work, and both are at the Chelsea Hotel to pick up girls—sorry, women. These fellas are in their late thirties.
We take turns getting each other rounds. They tell me to quit smoking as we pass around cigars one of the guys—Vasilis—bought. The other guy, Theodosis, complains about his new girlfriend—he shows me a picture, waits for my approval. “Ah, so hot but she wants me to take blood tests, man.” It turns out she wants to make sure he has no STDs. He’s not worried about the STDs but he is worried about what drinking and smoking everyday for the last twenty years has done to his body and is scared to see the results. She won’t sleep with him if he doesn’t take them tho so he eventually concludes he must do it. Godspeed.
Both are hammered, now—I am still sober-ish for what it is worth—and tell me a few things about Greek culture. For example, it is “really no big deal” to drive on the wrong side of the road sometimes and “everyone drives drunk in Athína.” I nod, agree with him, tell him about my genius idea to mandate drunk driving tests. Those who pass at incremental BACs will be allowed to drive drunk up to a point. They love this idea and tell me they wish this were the case so they could drive home safely tonight.
“You guys are driving back? Didn’t you just tell me you picked up five hundred euros worth of fines in the last two weeks?”
“Well, the bus doesn’t get me anywhere near my house and on my bike it’s a fifteen-minute ride. I’ll be fine…” The last I see him, he is wasted and dancing with a pretty Greek woman from Patras. I wonder if he’ll make it home tonight.
Al Hirschfeld
Week 5
Drinking in Vienna is different to drinking in Greece. In Greece—as my friend told me—“we may have ten euros in our pocket but we spend twenty and we are glad.” In Vienna twenty euros will get me nothing but disappointment.
Day-drinking alone has started to lose its luster but the luster is already gone and I have museum fatigue besides. The National Library in Vienna is objectively one of the most beautiful archives I have ever seen but I keep repeating to myself “this doesn’t speak to me… this doesn’t speak to me…” and eventually retreat to my hostel’s bar to drink Authentic Vienna Beer. From what I can tell it is no better than Greek beer or even a Modelo for that matter.
Eventually another young man—a drill rapper from Lithuania, I would later come to know—comes across me drinking and scrolling through Instagram reels at the bar. He convinces me to delete my account (I deactivate it) and have a vodka cran with him. He’s a nice guy, asks me if I want to listen to some of his music on SoundCloud. I tell him sure and hear… well, Lithuanian drill. I ask him what he’s rapping about.
“It doesn’t really mean anything.” He smiles sheepishly.
“Well, how would you translate what you just rapped?”
“OK, well—here I say ‘Aš pakliuvau į jo kalę ir nuvariau botagą prie gaubto’ which means ‘I fucked your bitch, drove my whip to the hood.’
“And is this legit?”
“Honestly, not really. This is just what I do on the side, I’m actually a graphic designer.” His designs aren’t half bad, mostly promotional designs for restaurants and the like. I ask what kind of food they have at these restaurants and he tells me “like here, just worse.” He does not elaborate and I do not care to ask him to.
Later he and I go to another bar, a traveler’s bar the Aussie bartender at our hostel called “shit” but “a good place to get wasted”. Five weeks of drinking has significantly increased my alcohol tolerance and I haven’t gotten properly drunk since week 3.
At the bar, a group of girls on Study Abroad approach (a pack or herd of some sort), ask me for cigarettes and cajole Dominic into buying as all shots. I am decidedly the winner here because I get to head outside into fresh, crisp air and chat about literary pursuits (one girl publishes “literary fiction for the rural audience”) while Dominic spills half his beer down his shirt in his eagerness to order.
The night ends when our large group is denied entrance to a club because none of us have eighteen euros in cash on us. Dominic is wasted and I drag him home. Should I quit?
Al Hirschfeld
Week Six
Drinking isn’t doing anything for me anymore. As an underage college student, my access was minimal and I would spend ages putting together schemes with friends to buy cheap vodka (of the Gods) from Trader Joe’s. In Europe with nearly unlimited alcohol for very cheap, there is nothing that stops me from drinking daily.
And I did, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and put down some alcohol every single night—and some days—for six weeks. Now I am sick of the whole thing and wonder how Bukowski did it everyday for fifteen years, continuing to work his mail route on three hours of sleep and with awful hangovers.
I tell Yani I will go on a cleanse (for real) when I return to the United States. This will be easy considering I would have to drive fifteen minutes to the closest bar plus I live with my parents. She says she thinks it might be for the best, still a little miffed that I felt the need to pregame dinner with her parents. And then her friends. And then her best friend from school.
I drank a few glasses of wine yesterday—felt obligated to, walked around all day on the island Naxos and then went to an actual wine tasting—but my heart wasn’t in it. Every time I raised the glass and stared at the clear, somewhat golden liquid inside I cringed. Maybe this isn’t for me.
Al Hirschfeld
Week 7
As soon as I land in Frankfurt my uncle invites me to hit the pub with him. There is no rest for the wicked, my friends. The final gift the bottle grants me is gleeful vitriol aimed at my aunt and a PSG win. I will never quit.