Goon


This site celebrates rather than condems vice!
 Spark up. Crack open another brew. Read on!

It's just a ride! Sound advice from the legendary Bill Hicks.

Hedonism Lasting pleasure(the ultimate aim in life)can only be achieved through moderation and control.This is of course easier said than done.

Beware of "self help" gurus "Self help" books are as bad as ANY addiction.This website does not condem any addiction but it does look with scorn on ill-conceived self righteousness.

The gargle dims me brain "Drink is good for you." Yes you did read correctly.There are many different ways to live your life. Drink is a way.

The philosophy behind it all Communicating a philosophical idea is like trying to spear a darting fish in a stream. Half the fish are shadows.

VAL's Learn the art of the drinking experience.

Send your drinking stories to brianoflynn2001@yahoo.co.uk

Bill Hicks:

"The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun -for a while. "Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say,

'Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride...'

Click here to be taken
to a Bill Hicks web-site

"And we... kill those people. Ha ha! " ' Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.' "Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because: It's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want."
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Hedonism

The philosopher Aristippus (born c. 435 BC, Cyrene, Libya - died 366 BC, Athens), was one of the disciples of Socrates. He was the founder of the Cyrenaic school of hedonism, the ethic of pleasure. Aristippus believed that the good life rests upon the belief that among human values pleasure is the highest and pain the lowest - and one that should be avoided. He also warned his students to avoid inflicting, as well as suffering, pain. Like Socrates, Aristippus took great interest in practical ethics. While he believed that men should dedicate their lives to the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasure, he also believed that they should use good judgment and exercise self-control to temper powerful human desires. His motto was,

"I possess, I am not possessed."

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Beware of "self help" gurus...

It all starts one quiet afternoon at the "Gate-Way" bar, Barrack Street. I'm sitting with one of the local tramps, Jimmy, enjoying a pint of Beamish, when Stephen Covey (author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People") suddenly appears on the bar television. I can't quite describe the level of annoyance that the bald business guru brings to a room of gentle drinkers, trying to enjoy themselves while the rest of the populace is at work, but a sudden wail from a man in the far corner, similar to that of a small dog yanked forcefully by the tail, alerts everyone that something is terribly wrong. In a matter of moments all eyes are fixed in distress upon the television.
Soon customers with clenched fists start to share horror stories of managers who force-fed Covey's book to them. And of group leaders who scurried around the office pasting up signs like: "Synergy!" or "Be Proactive!" or "What would Covey do in your situation?" Rage and desperation had finally forced our fellow drinkers to leave their professions and find solace in the thick, rich stout fermented by the good people at Beamish and Crawford.
Jimmy and I are amazed. How could we have been so oblivious to the rising tide of worker despair. I remember seeing a Covey infomercial several months back; it seemed harmless enough. Watching employees become automatons spouting Covey's catch phrases at every opportunity was the funniest thing I had seen on television in quite a while. But now, as the man in the corner begins weeping, Jimmy and I realize that larger issues are at hand.

Covey is no business guru, but rather the result of a world gone awry -- the world of work made worthless.
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The gargle dims me brain

Winston Churchill a great fan of the martini, once said that it must always be remembered that he has taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of him. For Churchill, like many other great drinkers, alcohol was a tool used to feed creativity and social discourse. For others, like Ernest Hemingway, alcohol was a way to place the mind on a different plane after writing all day at a desk. This is what old Papa had to say:

I have drunk since I was 15 and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work all day with your head and know you must again work the next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?

Some people might say that this is to use alcohol as a crutch, but that's always been the case. Mark Twain, who drank from morning until night, would periodically abstain from drink and smoke just to silence the critics who said he was a slave to his vices. And on his feistier days, he would give them a severe tongue-lashing. "You can't get to old age by another man's road!" he'd scream.

"My vices protect me but they would assassinate you!"

black out To be a drinker means, of course, to be social. Sure, it's all right to drink by oneself on occasion. But because the highly creative live so often in the private world of ideas, they also need to mingle with their friends at a good party. That's why F. Scott Fitzgerald threw his fantastic "Gatsbyesque" parties on Long Island, inviting such other besotted artists as Gloria Swanson, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos and Dorothy Parker. Remember, though, that when entertaining the highly creative some ground rules need to be set. Fitzgerald's were posted at the entrance to his home in Great Neck:

Visitors are requested not to break down doors in search of liquor, even when authorized to do so by the host and hostess ... Weekend guests are respectfully notified that the invitation to stay over Monday issued by the host-hostess during the small hours of Sunday morning must not be taken seriously.

It's always good to think ahead.

Henry James once wrote,

"Sobriety diminishes, discriminates and says no, while drunkenness expands, unites and says yes!"

Take the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, an ardent lover of tobacco and life's pleasures. He elevated cigarettes to the level of poetry:

If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul. People smoke to celebrate a happy moment or hide a bitter regret. I love to touch the pack in my pocket, open it, savor the feel of the cigarette between my fingers, the paper on my lips, the taste of tobacco on my tongue. I love to watch the flame spurt up, love to watch it come closer and closer, filling me with its warmth.

In comparison to Bukowski, Paul Durcan seems to be tame and mild mannered but we must remember that everybody seems this way in comparison to Hank. Durcan is a lover of life. He loves women and he loves a pint of plain. Durcan is our inner voice and spirit, read the man!

Here's a link to an interesting scientific article about how alcohol in moderation is good for you.

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The philosophy behind it all

Drugs tweak our pineal gland (often reffered to as our third eye). The tweaking adjusts our perception, shifts us from our inherited moulds of thought.

There are many different ways to view the world. I'm right in my mind, you're right in yours.

There are no yes or no solutions because there are a million shades of grey in between.

The battle of making sense of it all continues every night in our dreams, when a hurricane of sensory input spins in our minds. In the waking hours we find it easier to evade comprehension of the world through the use of drugs. Religion, all types of fanaticism including soccer, chess, marla with non-toxic glitter glue (carefull with the scissors), and even kites are means of escape.

(Unnnecessary?) guilt looms over us. When we over indulge we have the self esteem of a binge eater. To help my finger point to an idea more effectively I quote Rev Maynard James Keenan.

A person like Alistair Crowley can be seen as this negative, ugly, sick person, but the true essence of his quest was to go so far into this ugliness that you come out the other side with no judgment on anything. You accept all action as one gesture and one movement. It's like breaking through the cocoon and embryonic layer between a bipolar existence and a more unified one. It's a long process and eventually the goal is to go finger first, then knuckle, then body deep through the barrier to a place where there's full acceptance.

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