The Pitfalls of Relying on Alcohol to Inspire One's
Creative Efforts

You may have already witnessed the results of our recent decision to spin Somethingspace content out of the birthday celebrations of our regular contributors.

Specifically, you may have seen the clumsily-titled "Birthsday Colunm" by co-editor Justin, composed in a polluted stupor and annotated the following day in the interest of clarity and self-mockery.

It seemed like an interesting idea - a reflective, self-indulgent column written at the end of a night of drinking and held up to more level-headed scrutiny by the light of day.

If you've ever tried to write something, even just an e-mail, while shitfaced, you know the situation generally results in a tidal wave of rambling tangents and ridiculous spelling mistakes. You know, funny stuff. It seemed to work for Justin, anyway.

Hey, here's a story: When the birthday of our other editor, Liam, came along just a few weeks later we eagerly planned to continue the tradition. The set-up was similar the second time, but we were concerned that Liam's more substantial tolerance for booze might interfere with his reaching the appropriately disoriented state.

The obvious solution, we supposed, was to drink more; to consume enough alcohol to not only eliminate sobriety as a possibility, but to dim it considerably as a memory.

Hey, here's another story. Liam succeeded in getting sufficiently drunk that night. No doubt. He left the bar stumbling and muttering, bound for his apartment in what appeared to be a fine state for writing.

Then he got home. Then he sat down to take off his shoes. Then he woke up. No shit. 7:30 am, sun up, TV on and him sitting in his clothes on the living room floor, leaning back against the sofa trying to figure out what just happened. The planned birthday column, he was pretty sure, was not finished. And he was sober, too. A very disappointing situation, he decided, given the effort that had gone into the previous night's project.

Not wanting to disappoint, he briefly considered forging the column, but balked at the considerable difficulty involved in faking drunk. Besides, it would lack the sincerity and spontaneity that made the idea interesting to begin with. Just for a moment, he halfheartedly looked over the seven-or-so beers left in the case, but that seemed like an even worse idea. After a few minutes he went to bed, trusting that a more reasonable alternative would present itself in the morning.

In case you were wondering, this is the alternative. This editorial is, we mean. Take from that what you will.

Now, as much as we hate to impose a fairly obvious moral on what might otherwise be a somewhat interesting tale, there probably ought to be a point to all of this. And if there is one, then it might as well be, as the editorial’s title would suggest, the identification of one, or some, of the pitfalls of relying on alcohol to inspire one’s creative efforts.

The point we’ll focus on, in this case, falls along the lines of Jeff Goldblum’s climactic Jurassic Park would/should comparison. We were so concerned with whether he was drunk enough that we never stopped to consider that he might be too drunk. There is a line, after which one is sufficiently drunk to make their writing crazy in that interesting way we cherish. And there is another line, after which one is sufficiently drunk to make any sort of mildly comfortable position a likely end to the evening. Between those lines is what we have imaginatively termed "the sweet, sweet spot."

And Enis’s birthday is coming up soon.

The Editors,

Liam Eagle and Justin Anderson