Your Drinking Partner From The Golden Age?

[Chas]

I'd like to spend a day and an evening drinking with Ernest Hemingway. Hopefully it wouldn't degenerate into a brawl. I am sure that he would be a lot tougher than I.

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. "

 

[Spitfire]

I sure would not mind having a few drinks with Sophia

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Noel Coward!"

"Because he goes to Marvellous parties"

Verse 1

Quite for no reason
I'm here for the Season
And high as a kite,
Living in error
With Maud at Cap Ferrat
Which couldn't be right.
Everyone's here and frightfully gay,
Nobody cares what people say,
Though the Riviera
Seems really much queerer
Than Rome at it's height,
Yesterday night-

Refrain 1

I went to a marvelous party
With Nounou and Nada and Nell,
It was in the fresh air
And we went as we were
And we stayed as we were
Which was Hell.
Poor Grace started singing at midnight
And didn't stop singing till four;
We knew the excitement was bound to begin
When Laura got blind on Dubonnet and gin
And scratched her veneer with a Cartier pin,
I couldn't have liked it more.

Refrain 2

I went to a marvelous party,
I must say the fun was intense,
We all had to do
What the people we knew
Would be doing a hundred years hence.
Dear Cecil arrived wearing armour,
Some shells and a black feather boa,
Poor Millicent wore a surrealist comb
Made of bits of mosaic from St. Peter's in Rome,
But the weight was so great that she had to go home,
I couldn't have liked it more.

Verse 2

People's behaviour
Away from Belgravia
Would make you aghast,
So much variety
Watching society
Scampering past,
If you have any mind at all
Gibbon's divine Decline and Fall
Seems pretty flimsy,
No more than a whimsy,
By way of contrast
On Saturday last-

Refrain 3

I went to a marvelous party,
We didn't start dinner till ten
And young Bobbie Carr
Did a stunt at the bar
With a lot of extraordinary men;
Dear Baba arrived with a turtle
Which shattered us all to the core,
The Grand Duke was dancing a foxtrot with me
When suddenly Cyril screamed Fiddledidee
And ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea,
I couldn't have liked it more.

Refrain 4

I went to a marvelous party,
Elise made an entrance with May
You'd never have guessed
From her fisherman's vest
That her bust had been whittled away.
Poor Lulu got fried on Chianti
And talked about esprit de corps.
Maurice made a couple of passes at Gus
And Freddie, who hates any kind of a fuss,
Did half the Big Apple and twisted his truss,
I couldn't have liked it more.

Refrain 5

I went to a marvellous party.
We played the most wonderful game,
Maureen disappeared
And came back in a beard
And we all had to guess at her name!
We talked about growing old gracefully
And Elsie who's seventy-four
Said, A, it's a question of being sincere,
And B, if you're supple you've noting to fear.
Then she swung upside down from a glass chandelier,
I couldn't have liked it more.

 

[LocktownDog]

I sure would not mind having a few drinks with Sophia

I had the certainty you would go there, Spitfire. :eusa_clap

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

The Beats

I would love to spend some time with these guys:

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Hal Chase at Columbia University circa 1945.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Well, it would be interesting to settle in for a few pints of the dark stuff with James Joyce....but I, too, fear it would end in a brawl: I have always had a suspicion it would be loathing at sight (not a nice man, I think, but a genius).

I'm sure I'd have as much to talk about--and a good deal more fun--over at the next snug with John McCormack. HIM, I'm pretty sure I'll meet "in that place where he has gone"....where there's no closing hour and all the drinks are on the house. The OTHER fellow....well, who knows.

"Skeet"

 

[Fletch]

Bob Benchley. Seriously fun and the ideal wingman.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Robert Ruark would be one of my choices...but I doubt that either of us would stop at only "a few drinks".

AF

 

[dhermann1]

Winston Bloody Churchill.

 

[Tomasso]

There are many candidates but David Niven would be right up there as a wit and as a raconteur, which would be my preference in a drinking partner. And he's a war hero to boot...

 

[ScionPI2005]

I'd like to have a drink with Dashiell Hammett, and discuss his experiences as a Pinkerton Detective, as well as his writing. By that same token, I'd like to meet Raymond Chandler as well.

I'd also love to meet Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, but I assume we're talking real people in this thread, not just fictional "Golden Age" people.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Pancho Barnes.

I'dve loved to hang out at Pancho's ranch, 'The Happy Bottom Riding Club'
(ie. Rancho Oro Verde Fly-Inn Dude Ranch) near March Field (Edwards Air Force Base)
with the other pilots, getting drunk and hanger flyin'!

http://www.panchobarnes.com/

P.S. I guess I should mention - 'Pancho's' real name is Florence Barnes in case you didn't recognize the ladies name!

-dixon 'barnstormer' cannon

 

[lolly_loisides]

As the ladies are unrepresented here, I'm going to have a girls night out! Here's who I would hit the tiles with,

Jessica Mitford

Martha Gellhorn

and

Elizabeth David

I think it would be quite a night

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wouldn't mind sitting back to watch the fun with

Tallulah Bankhead

and Patsy Kelly

I wouldn't drink anything myself, I'd just stand by waiting to drive them home after Patsy got sozzled and beat up a sailor.

 

[Warbaby]

I can think of several people from the era that I'd like to do some serious drinking with, but my first choice would be H.L. Mencken.

 

[Chas]

This is a fun essay. I just about fell off my chair when I learned that Ayn Rand was a speed freak. It certainly explains "no rules! NO RULES!!! NOOO RUUUULES!"

Literary Drunks And Drug Addicts

 

[rmrdaddy]

F.A.S

 

[Diamondback]

Halsey or Patton--get 'em plastered and listen to war-stories.

MacArthur, not so much--for him, prewar "wild partying" meant half a gimlet and postwar the extent of his world outside his duties was his wife and son.

 

[Yeps]

I would say Caruso. I feel that he would be very entertaining to be around.

 

[John in Covina]

W. C. Fields would probably be my first choice.