Password

You have to be of a certain age to appreciate this post, but then again, soon you’re going to have to be of a certain age to remember the Titanic.

But I was watching the game “Password” on the oldies channel, don’t remember which one. Don’t matter nohow anyways.

The thing I immediately realised was: these people are drunk. The host is three sheets to the wind. The celebs (Richard Dawson, Peter Lawford and Barbara Eden) are on either a list of drugs or smashed out of their skulls. You can sometimes see that Richard Dawson is barely holding it together. Let alone Peter Lawford, who’s coughing in the middle of his sentences, not once, but throughout.

All of them, and I mean ALL OF THEM, celebrities and guests, smoked.

It’s quite bizarre to witness this and MINDSHIFT to the reality that they very much didn’t want you to know, and what has now almost become an anachronistic anomaly. Sure, Amy Weinstein medicates, but then again, who is Amy Weinstein?

Peter Lawford? He had the ear of John F. Kennedy.

To watch this stuff, double-take and remember watching it WHEN IT WAS ACTUALLY BROADCAST is an exercise in opening one’s eyes.

Nawwww, Richard Dawson can’t have been half in the bag. But when you watch it, you see your parents, you see all those people around you when you were a child. They were adults, but they were half in the bag half of the time. Drunk as fucking skunks, most of them. Hollywood legends, producers, starlets, actors, grip dudes, they were all semi-shitfaced the WHOLE OF THEIR CAREERS.

Oh, okay, they weren’t drunk. No, they were on prescription drugs.

Think: John Wayne: hopeless drunk. William Holden: tragedy on two feet. Laurence Olivier: terminally sauced. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Liza Minelli, Judy Garland Julie Andrews Rodstewarteltonjohnbillyjoelkeithrichardspaulmccartneyringostarrqueenelizabethprincessdigeralddurrellcarlsaganjesuschrist. . . need I go on?

What does this say to society? Just what does it say when we praise the fuck out of these people yet castigate them for their dependencies?

I’m no fucking shrinking violet. What worked for them works for me. I’m going to pour another and join the club.

It's great that I don't need a password. I've always been a member.