Note: This page is being mirrored on Webring Webspace. If this page loaded slowly, suggesting that Freewebspace might be experiencing an unusually heavy server load, and you plan to wander around the homepage for my group, you might want to use that link I just gave you to switch over to the other server. Yes, the two sites link together, and there's a clear path back to the ring.

Where drinking is concerned, drunks will be found, so I'm going to start out by laying down the law, before we get to the part where you meet the other members (62 of them, not counting myself, as I'm writing this), see the photos (128 of them in the pool, at this point) and are invited to submit your own. Yes, yes, yes, I'm being very mean, I'm an awful person, but how judgemental of some to be so judgemental about my judgementalness? Hard won experience - when dealing with people who are inclined to be difficult, one can start strict and work one's way toward loosening up, but the reverse won't work, at least not very well, and not without doing real damage along the way.






Question: "What is the subject matter of this group? I see pictures of bars, of drinks, of drinks being made - and did I just see a picture of somebody's tattoo? Was somebody using a liqueur as the ink? What was that doing in a group about ... whatever this is about?"




Answer: The tattoo? Possibly. "Somebody" I invited to the group turned out to be a false front for a small vodka maker, and once "he" was in the group, in came the ads, including one of a tattooed model. I banned the offending membership immediately, not because of the tattoo, but because of the commercial intent.

The group, at least at the beginning, was mainly about a few subjects which interconnect, some of which you can probably guess just by looking at the first pictures in the pool, because most of those were photographs that I invited people to submit. You'll find a lot of pictures of mixed drinks, many of them with recipes or at least outlines of recipes, generally sweet or semi-sweet drinks made using one or more liqueurs. You'll find pictures of bars and other places where such drinks might be consumed, and if somebody had a picture of such a drink in a bar, that got my attention. Drinks of a particular type, then, and the experience of enjoying them. Stories, both true and fictional, about the experience of visiting drinking establishments, or restaurants in which drinking takes place, are welcome - this is a writing group as well as a photography one. Recipes for drinks and reviews of drinking establishments should fit into the developing theme, as well, but there are some contributions I'll welcome more than others.

A good example of something that I don't want to see is a "recipe" for a screwdriver - orange juice diluted with vodka. That's all it is. There's no depth, no complexity, nothing much of anything that the orange juice wasn't giving on its own, naturally, and in a far healthier way. The only purpose this drink serves is that of something one drinks to get drunk, and so if I see an image of one of those in the pool, or a "recipe" for it in the discussion section, I am going to engage in a little "censorship". There will be, as I will say, some give and take, but there are some directions I'm absolutely determined to see the group not go in, and the promotion of alcohol abuse is one of those directions. Can you seriously picture somebody slowly sipping and savoring a cup of bottled orange juice, even before it's been diluted out? Or do you picture somebody drinking this relatively mild flavored beverage as most people would milk? The screwdriver is going to get consumed in much the same way, and I think we all know that, even those of us who choose to be more nonjudgemental than thou.

There's a very particular kind of drinking I have in mind, as I go looking for people to invite, and it's not the kind usually associated with dive bars. One sips slowly, taking the liquor in no more quickly than one can metabolize it, ideally on a full stomach that is getting fuller, because one is consuming food with the liquor. This is the ideal, and one approaches it at least reasonably closely, with company, at least one of whom will stay cold stone sober, if a ride home is needed. One drinks for flavor, and maybe a little relaxation - maybe - but not to lose control, and find an excuse to behave poorly. Some people will say that sounds like a "yuppie bar" experience. On hearing that, I'd maybe start to ask if one didn't have to be rich to be a yuppie, but catch myself, because that's not just a silly question, it's the wrong question. What I've just described is a very Southern European, very Mediterranean sort of drinking - one coming from countries that are, for the most part, much poorer than those to the north - but if this was a specifically Yuppie behavior, then I'd say "good for the yuppies, and let's learn something from them".

If you want the beer mug smashing, brain cell obliterating, dive bar experience, then out of the many groups on Flickr that are devoted to drinking, I'm sure you'll find one that meets your needs - a great many, probably. This just won't be one of them.





Question: "Mixed Drinks and Decent Company? Is that a slam against anybody we need to hear about, before we start hooking up for the evening?"




Answer: Not really, no, not even if you were coming to Chicago, and most of the membership probably won't be, unless they're connecting to another flight through O'Hare. It's more a matter of operating philosophy, in managing a group. There are certain things that people are just going to do. One can try prohibiting them outright, and end up in an eternal headbutting match, or one can put limitations on them, and avoid the headbutting match, because those engaging in it will have something to lose through their lack of cooperation. This is not to say that all demands or desires should be met with compromises and concessions. On some points, I will stand firm, either because they really are matters of principle, or because there are some things I really don't care to see, but not everything needs to be settled through a frontal assault, especially in that which is more a matter of taste than principle.

The main group, the one you'll be headed to after you get done reading these words of wisdom, is safe for what some would call "general audiences". This is not to say that it will be child safe, unless the "children" of which you speak are already in high school - at least, not by Midwestern standards - but it might be safe for work. If you're working at job at which goofing off on company time is considered acceptable, and you want to spend that paid goofing off time talking about your drinking habits. OK, maybe it's not safe for work, either. Think in terms of a movie theater, for a second, instead of the Internet, and this becomes easier to explain - think of what would be acceptable in a PG rated movie. That's what is acceptable in the main group, and I have to fairly well insist on that, because otherwise I'll be in violation of Flickr's terms of service, and the group will be in danger of deletion. No nudity. Maybe mild profanity in the stories posted to the discussion section, as staff members at Flickr say that they don't care about that, but no sexually explicit content, either in text form, or in the images you share. Note the careful phrasing - embedding photos into text is an option, and I have no objection to a decision on your part to exercise that option, but don't stick any adult images into your text.

There is a companion group called Mixed Drinks and Company, with no claims of decency written into the title. I've been to bars, before. I know that some of the stories coming out of them will tend to be a little blue. They aren't stories you'll probably ever see me tell in group, but this is where I give some of that ground I was talking about - I provide a place where people can post some of those stories. One can also post tastefully done, artistic nudes, as long as they have some connection to the topic of the group. I'm not going to give you a full definition of "tastefully done", because that's impossible, but in broad terms, one can think of the difference between an R rated film and an X rated film, and see where I take some of that ground, back. I won't accept X rated material into the group, and anybody who posts it will be banned without warning, not just from the companion group, but from any other group I run, in which that person shows up. On other sites, I've seen people post macro shots of their own genitalia as "artistic nude self-portraits". They are no such thing, and I'm not even going to listen to somebody, if he tries to argue to the contrary, much less waste my time rebutting such foolishness. The law might be a donkey, but this is not a court and I am not a judge.

I get to use my common sense, and know when I'm being trolled. But if one really needs some sort of definition, think of the difference between what Renoir did and what Penthouse does. The former is art, the latter is porn. Where is the eye drawn to? Is the emphasis on the beauty of the form of the model, or the degradation of the model, even should the model be consenting? While even the sight of the right woman in a parka can be sexually arousing, in some sense, is the image specifically about sex - as those macros obviously are - or are such feelings something that tells one more about the viewer than the image? Does the model seem respected by the artist, and by the model, herself? Or himself? Ask these questions - questions that, as an administrator, I will be asking, myself - and the answer to the question "is it art or is it porn" should become obvious, and really, though some will try to deny this, it almost certainly won't be very controversial, among those who are doing something other than arguing for effect.

Explaining what porn (or its analog) would be, in literary terms, is a little more difficult, but in broad terms - if the couple is coupling, and you've just given me one of the graphic details, I would ask just how necessary that detail was to the plot. The closer you get to that which modesty would compel most of us to conceal, the less plausible the claim of plot necessity will tend to become. So don't post any Penthouse letters.





Question: "What's with all of the liqueur?"




Why all of the sweet drinks and so few salty? See above comments about depth and complexity. There are bitter spirits that are very complex - one of them is even manufactured, here in Chicago - but they aren't at all popular in the US, out of which I'm operating as I run this group, and from which most of its members will probably end up coming. If you have something that is not liqueur based, not in fact sweet, at all, which is something more than a vodka spiked juice, then go for it. Post away. But I never seem to see such recipes, and wonder if very many of them exist.

Also ... with a liqueur, the alcohol isn't something there so that people can get drunk. It's a solvent that picks up the flavor of that which would be reluctant to go into water. It's a preservative that allows us to enjoy the flavors of summer, year round. The alcohol becomes a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Also, one might note that this group has a few companion groups focused on the making and use of liqueurs, so I decided that rather than make this group a generic mixed drink group, I'd start by nudging it in one direction, in the hope that in what was to be found in the pool, it would develop more of a character of its own, one that would fit in the culture of moderation and relative sobriety I would try to encourage.




Let's continue to the group.