Bottled Up — Day 29
Genre: Social Science Fiction / Dark Comedy
Premise: Brooklyn, the year 2050. Healthy living has conquered the world, and nowhere more so than Brooklyn, NY. It's been 20 years since anyone in the borough has had a cigarette, tasted gluten, sat at a desk for more than 30 minutes straight or missed more than 2 consecutive days of yoga. The craft beer revolution is over, its victory complete, although along the way it replaced most of the alcohol content of beer with vitamins and essential minerals. Monsanto and Budweiser are distant memories, the ratio of car lanes to bike lanes is 1:6, and 90% of all energy is renewable. It is paradise for many. But not for all.
Every week a small group of eight poets in their 20s meet in the basement of a Park Slope food co-op to share their work with each other and provide moral support. After several months of anguished meetings they all agree: of the multitude of things that now grow in Brooklyn, poetry doesn't seem to one of them. Every writer present is creatively blocked, and the poetry they do produce in dribs and drabs is flat and lifeless. If one or two members of the group were blocked, it might be understandable enough. But ALL of them? And for their entire careers as young, would-be poets...? What is going on?!
Finally, one night, someone stands and proposes the unthinkable: what if all of this healthy living and mindfulness of body and spirit have somehow closed the channels to creativity? To test the hypothesis, the group list their favorite poets from the last 100 years or so: Charles Bukowski... Dylan Thomas... Dorothy Parker... Jack Kerouac. My god. Everyone's eyes widen at the realization. ...They were all DRUNKS! Is that what's missing? Does the creation of good poetry require inebriation?
Everyone in the room despairs. Alcohol is still legal, of course, and for the most part easy enough to acquire. But drinking is so unCOOL. The only people who drink these days are somewhere between the ages of 55 and 70, at which point the drinker drops dead of cirrhosis of the liver. Everyone present has at least one raspy grandparent or older aunt or uncle to remind them of why alcohol has fallen so far out of fashion. ...And yet.
They weigh their options and agree that nothing could be worse than the soulless, poetry-free lives they are currently leading. Their desperation is so complete that maybe drastic action is the only way. And so they make a pact, a solemn vow to one another, that they will become drunks—so that they might become real poets. Not casual, pinky-out cocktail sippers, or even weekend binge-drinkers... but hardcore, liquor-bottle-by-the-bedside, slurring-at-the-bank-teller, wetting-themselves-in-the-paddy-wagon, full-time alcoholics—with notepads or tape recorders at the ready to catch inspiration and advance their art, of course. It is the only way to save themselves, and maybe even poetry.
But how to do it? None of the young poets have any experience with drinking, let alone being full blown alcoholics. Where should they begin?
One of them hits upon a brilliant idea. In the past there was a popular organization called Alcoholics Anonymous that helped people trying to combat their abuse using a 12 step program. Apparently, If the steps were properly "worked" they could help lead even the most slobbering, obliterated drunkard into a life of sobriety. So what if the group of poets just took the 12 steps and ran them in REVERSE, negating every principle of AA along the way? Wouldn't that deliver them from their prison of sobriety to the blissful state of inebriation that fueled the poetry they so admire?
And so, battle plan in hand, they begin. They start with the (inverted) 12th step, spreading the word to anyone who will listen that they intend to become alcoholics, "and you can too," if you want to follow their lead. By the time they get to the ninth step of AA—making direct amends to anyone they've wronged—and invert it, they are now actively seeking to hurt or upset people with whom they are in good standing, or better yet, complete strangers.
As they progress, disregarding social norms and intentionally hurting others and themselves, their poetry does indeed begin to improve, much to their elation. But being a drunk is harder than they could have imagined, and with each descending step the moral difficulties and questions increase. Yes, the bottle is deep, and its legendary grip is real. But beyond that, most of the poets are now mainlining an even more powerful and addicting drug, as they experience creativity and praise for their work for the first time.
Some call it quits, and others press on. For those who press on, the literary world takes notice and their poetry and methods are increasingly lauded, greasing the slope of their descent. For the most hardcore of the poet-drunks, their target is clear. To reach the first step: "to admit that we are powerless over alcohol — and that our lives have become unmanageable," and then, hopefully, cross beyond the steps to the space where only the purest poetry can flow. For all of them, the journey and its lessons are vastly different than they imagined it would be, and by the end each must account for what they have gained or lost, and for the impact upon society that their experiment has had.