New York Times

A Serious Business for a Humorous Drunkard
By DINITIA SMITH

Published: October 30, 2004

We're the new oppressed majority," says Frank Kelly Rich, editor and publisher of Modern Drunkard magazine. "We're demonized."

Modern Drunkard, which Mr. Rich founded in Denver in 1996, is a humor magazine dedicated to the art and culture of drinking and to its defense against what Mr. Rich calls "neoprohibitionists from the left and right."

Regular columns advise readers how to tell if they are alcoholics: "You know you're a drunkard when your liver is in the federal Witness Protection Program." Or "when you think Beethoven's Fifth is a bottle of schnapps." Or "when you've been cut off during Communion." The Booze News column frequently reports on the health benefits of alcohol. There are also service articles, like "How to Survive an A.A. Meeting": "Do not make eye contact," "Do not surrender your will" and "Avoid getting drawn into the prayer circle at the end of the meeting."

In August, Modern Drunkard gained national attention when Mr. Rich wrote an editorial protesting the reduced alcohol content of Jack Daniel's Black Label whiskey throughout the United States, to 80 proof from 86. After the editorial, Mr. Rich said, he gained nearly 500 subscribers. Circulation is between 30,000 and 50,000, with 6,000 paid, Mr. Rich said. (The magazine, which usually comes out bimonthly, is $4.50 on newsstands, free in bars and liquor stores, and online: www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com.) Typical articles include "Seven Habits of Effective Drunks," "The Wino Lifestyle: Is It for You?" and "Boozing With the Bible," about drinking in the Book. There are also profiles of famous heavy drinkers like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Drinking's a very powerful, creative tool," Mr. Rich, 40, said in an interview from Denver. "All the great writers were alcoholics."

"Stephen King used to drink a case of beer a day," he said. "Now that he quit, they're terrible books."

Another cultural touch: poems written by people when they are drunk. A sample: "Last night/ the booze monkeys crept into my room/ reaching for my bottle," etc., etc.

"Every drunk thinks he's a poet," Mr. Rich observed.

Modeled on 1950's-style men's adventure magazines like Argosy, Modern Drunkard is printed on glossy paper and illustrated in pulp-fiction style - scantily clad babes with dark lipstick, steely-eyed guys with lantern jaws.

Mr. Rich said that he supported the magazine from subscriptions and advertising revenue from bars in places like Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. "The liquor companies won't touch us," he said, "because of our name and the nature of our articles."

Clint Johns, a former director of the newsstand division of Tower Records, where the publication is sold, calls Modern Drunkard "a smart magazine."

"Anybody can make a magazine with a bunch of drunk jokes,'' Mr. Johns said. "There are actually serious articles, like a two-part biography of Jackie Gleason and a fairly investigative piece on MADD."

There seem to be no sacred cows at Modern Drunkard. MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is a favorite target. "It exposes all the hypocrisy," Mr. Rich said, adding that he is opposed to drunk driving. But: "They're not so much interested in drinking and driving. They want to stop drinking completely."

Wendy J. Hamilton, national president of MADD, said: "We can understand why people would find this humorous. But to the hundreds of thousands of families impacted by alcoholic driving in traffic crashes and under-age drinking, it's not fun." Meanwhile, Ms. Hamilton said, MADD is not unilaterally against drinking. "That's the myth that the alcohol industry perpetuates."

One of seven children of a Las Vegas cabdriver, Mr. Rich said his father poured him his first Jack Daniel's when he was 10. He joined the Army Rangers at 17, and said he was parachuted into Grenada in the 1983 invasion. In the Army, Mr. Rich said, he "learned about the camaraderie of drinking,'' adding, "It certainly got me on the way to being an alcoholic." After the Army he went to Europe. "I was trying to be like the young Hemingway abroad," he said. He wrote science-fiction detective novels, the Jake Strait Bogeyman series, published by Gold Eagle.

In 2003 he married Christa Wiley, a bartender. She now helps in the magazine's office.

He moved to Denver ("I thought it was a great drinking town") and supported himself partly by writing television advertisements for a local car company. With $550 in book royalties, he financed the first issue of Modern Drunkard.

These days Mr. Rich is adding pages to his magazine, which now averages about 64 an issue. He is also bringing in new advertising salespeople and improving distribution. "We want to reach a point where there's a separate edition for every city in America," he said. Moreover, Mr. Rich said, success is allowing him to pay his writers for the first time, about $300 an article.

In May the magazine had its first convention, in Las Vegas, with drink-offs, burlesque and films about drinking. He is writing the Modern Drunkard Handbook for Riverhead Books.

The inevitable question: Is Mr. Rich himself an alcoholic? Yes, he says, although one with a high tolerance. On an average day, he said, he has "8 to 10 drinks."

"On the crazy days it's 30-plus drinks.''

He elaborated: "I generally have a bloody mary when I wake up. Through the day, I switch to gin and tonic. I try a new drink every day. There are all these drinks from the 20's and 30's that have been forgotten, and I'm trying to resurrect them." He said he had never been arrested for drunken driving.

He recently had a checkup, he said, and his triglycerides were fine. (Alcoholism can be associated with uncontrolled triglycerides.) "I work out and I run and I eat fairly well," he said. "To be a good drunk you have to stay in shape. You can't just let yourself go."

Meanwhile, he has no fears about running out of material. "Alcohol is so embedded in human history and culture,'' Mr. Rich said, "it's a really deep well."