"I got out to the Berkshires around supper time (Saturday, April 20). And I went for a quick swim, and I went to a local restaurant ... for supper by myself with a book. And I sat in the corner and Maggie, who runs the (restaurant), asked, 'Do you want to be near people or away from people?' I said, 'As far away as I can.' So she put in the corner, me and my book on my iPad, and she starts bringing me things. Some of them edible. In fact all the food was edible. She starts bringing me things to drink as a celebration. And by the end of the meal, I was actually quite drunk, by myself."
August 6, 2018
Deval Patrick, drinking alone.
I've been thinking Deval Patrick after his appearance on "State of the Union" — which I blogged about yesterday — in which he teased a 2020 presidential run. I had some questions about him. I won't say what they were, but in my search, I ran across this 2013 article in Slate, which quotes Patrick, describing an evening (just after the capture of the Boston Marathon bombers):
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Time to add another verse to Eleanor Rigby.
"I got out to the Berkshires around supper time (Saturday, April 20)."
April 20th is the traditional supper time in Latvia.
You want the dope on Gov. Patrick? Sharon Taxman's attorneys may have a few choice comments.
Drinking alone is bad enough. Admitting to a reporter that you do so is weird.
If Patrick gets the Dem nomination in 2020, you'll have a boozehound running against a teetotaler.
Another Obama but he failed the bar exam twice.
He doesn't have Barack's gift of looking and sounding like Denzel Washington.
mccullough said...
Time to add another verse to Eleanor Rigby.
Boom! LOL.
Did he drive to the restaurant? Or can we assume his security detail took care of all the logistics that afflict us ordinary people?
April 20.
Weed Day. And the anniversary of Hitler's birth, Napolean's birth and the Columbine High School massacre.
Which is he celebrating?
Asshole.
I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing.
"April 20th is the traditional supper time in Latvia."
You wouldn't believe how much that made me laugh.
Deval used to have wine shipped to MA from Napa when it was illegal to do so. I was in a tasting room and the woman was bragging on it. Special rules for me, he says.
So he's celebrating on Hitler's birthday? /cnn
"When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself."
I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing.
On a usual day, yes. But was that the day they caught the marathon bomber? Bostonians were dancing in the street that night.
I'd like to know what she brought that was inedible. The plate?
"I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing."
But if it is a passive experience where someone else is the active party bringing you things to eat, and then to drink, what's a feller to do but keep on consuming?
Bostonians were dancing in the street that night.
Do the Irish need an excuse to drink? Patrick is an Irish name.
I am disappointed that he failed to garner anything during that experience. Vignettes like that frequently involve the act of garnering.
He's the early leader for the Althouse vote.
"The Godfather said...
Drinking alone is bad enough. Admitting to a reporter that you do so is weird.
If Patrick gets the Dem nomination in 2020, you'll have a boozehound running against a teetotaler."
Just like in 2016.
This post brings back a crazy time. Friends in the city & suburbs. Work cancelled. The city shut down. Anyone else listen to the police dispatches on the radio via internet.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10002469/Boston-Marathon-bombs-April-20-as-it-happened.html
In fact all the food was edible
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
It's all so passive. He didn't ask for anything, he just consumed what he was given.
The lack of responsibility for being drunk is what is most noticeable to me, regardless of whether everyone else was doing the same thing or not.
Blogger John Tuffnell said...
"So, at the end of the day I am disappointed that he failed to garner anything during that experience. Vignettes like that frequently involve the act of garnering."
Fixed it for Ann.
Sounds like Deval Patrick has some playfulness to him — which is an endearing quality, especially in the era of That’s Not Funny.
Governor Patrick
Dining alone in a corner
Drink in his hand
Nobody cared
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from
So much to dislike.
1. Asking to be seated alone and away from the people while in a public restaurant. Because of the plebes and whatnot.
2. Reading an iPad, while alone, in a public restaurant at suppertime. I'm sure the other patrons in the restaurant appreciated the bright white glare from his device.
3. "Some of it was edible." What the hell did he mean by that? My first reaction was disgust that he would gratuitously insult the restaurant (and the woman he named) like that. Then I thought maybe it was a comment about booze, but that's a very awkward attempt at humor or something. I'm not sure booze isn't "edible" in the strict sense. What's the difference between eating and drinking, really?
4. Getting drunk alone is bad.
5. Doing so in public, when you're a public official, is worse.
6. Admitting all this to a reporter suggests (a) he feels invulnerable talking to a journalist and (b) he thinks readers will find his little tale charming and relatable.
I really like the guy. He is willing to play any role required for the Dems lineup. He is a utility politician. And he has human lusts, unlike the lean and hungry Pocahontus.
Yesterday we established that he learned from O, as in positing the false alternative ("I don't believe that the market always gets things just right").
Now we find out he is just like O, in that he is his own best drinking buddy.
Where is George Thorogood when you really need him?
Hey Patrick did pass this particular "bar" exam. He did not report that he got so drunk that he fell face forward on the table. So there is that.
I never drink alone. The cats are always there.
Deval Patrick was what a seamstress calls a "muslin". She buys some inexpensive fabric, makes up the garment, and then uses it to tweak the fit. Sometimes the muslin turns into a wearable garment although never as good as the final because even if the fit is perfect, she started out with poorer materials. Sometimes the muslin ends up in the recycling bin. Patrick was the muslin for Obama. While "wearable", he's not the polished product, and it's unlikely he'll ever make it further than he has. He's only almost good enough. He should count himself lucky he didn't end up in the recycling bin years ago.
And he has human lusts, unlike the lean and hungry Pocahontus.
I've just decided on the perfect Democrat ticket for 2020!
Deval and Liz!
It's Perfect!
Look at him drinking,
Downing the booze
Like there’s no tomorrow.
What does he care?
All the lonely People,
Where do they all come from?
Sounds like the governor tipped a few before his sit down. Probably afterwards, too..
For Ann:
I ain't gonna drink at Maggie's pub no more.
No, I ain't gonna drink at Maggie's pub no more.
Well, I try my best
To get drunk like I am
But everybody wants you
To get drunk like them.
They sing while you drink and I just get stoned.
I ain't gonna drink at Maggie's pub no more.
Sleight edit that scans better:
Look at him drinking
Downing the booze
When there’s nobody there.
What does he care?
All the lonely People
Where do they all belong?
Poor Deval.
Ann Althouse said...I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing.
Thank God someone said it.
I travel full-time alone (at an estimate I only have girlfriend breaks about 50-60 days a year), eat alone, get on with the day alone, and I like 2 beers after a day's riding in some weird fucking country, and 2 glasses of wine with dinner. That makes 4. Plus, if there's a kid smoking a joint close, I'll have a hit off that too, say once a month. Doesn't feel tragic.
He should choose better drinking companions.
Wow althousian commenters, you are really digging in against Patrick.
Deval Patrick had probably been up for damn near 4 days straight, surrounded by people, keeping calm and trying to convey command presence.
On the night of their success, which he shared in, he chose to be by himself in a restaurant.The owner, celebrating, kept bringing him food and drinks. And by the end of the night he was quite drunk.
The guy was probably finally letting his guard down and his exhaustion crept in, had a few drinks, and that was enough to keep it going.
We are all humans. You've got to put yourself in his shoes when you evaluate getting drunk in a restaurant as some sort of significant flaw.
Meh. Just another of those required anecdotes from the dog-eared leftie playbook. It's supposed demonstrate how much he cares for us but at the end of the day he isn't a deity but just a very compassionate superhuman.
Drinkers have demons and some are fated to not shake them. Not drinking for some is a worse hell, legitimately, since the dark won't go away by reasoning, ever. The survivors, the delayers, are on the walls of galleries, in the pages of books. And other stuff they do best.
Via Instapundit -
“The original term for [päntsdrunk] is ‘kalsarikännit’, a tongue-in-cheek expression of a Finnish feeling, basically meaning ‘that feeling when you are going to get drunk at home, alone, in your underwear — with no intention of going out,’” says Heikki Väänänen, CEO and founder of the Finnish startup HappyOrNot.
Obama, Booker, Patrick... The pooty butt Oreo black friend that makes caucasoid progs feel good about themselves.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/pop-culture/embracing-p-ntsdrunk-finnish-way-drinking-alone-your-underwear-ncna896516
"You wouldn't believe how much that made me laugh."
I believe it! The idea of eating supper once a year reminded me of those awful Latvian jokes, which I renounce.
Reading a Mankell book the other day, I involuntarily discovered that Latvia is not actually near Bulgaria. :-(
Massachusetts has a weak governor form of state government going back to the Andros Usurpation of the late 17th century. We have a Governor's Council elected to keep a wary eye on whoever sits in the governor's office.
Deval, like Obama, has a tin ear for people not like him. Before his inauguration he raised the concern of his supporters by appealing to big business to fund his inauguration ball. More concerns when he redecorated the governor's office at great expense, in the state house, and finally more concerns when he discarded the state police unmarked car, a Ford Pursuit vehicle, used to shuttle him around, for a Cadillac, prompting local radio talk show host, Howie Carr, to anoint him Coupe Deval.
He slso abused the Constitution after the Boston Marathon Bombing, by allowing police in Watertown, Mass. to go from door to door, searching homes, without a warrant, for the second suspect.
He was, before winning the governor's job a successful pest, suing companies he worked for, for discrimination or reasons...
Yes, please let him mount the national stage, in this age of, "That's not funny," the country could use a good laugh.
@TreeJoe, how old were you when you learned that one or two beers was enough to make you good and drunk when you are physically exhausted? Deval Patrick should have known better than to drink alone, not at home, with no designated driver, if he was that exhausted. Very poor judgement.
Lucky for me I learned my lesson on an army base where I didn’t have to walk far from the NCO Club to my barracks. And lucky too that I am a happy drunk, not a mean one.
"On a usual day, yes. But was that the day they caught the marathon bomber? Bostonians were dancing in the street that night."
Doesn't seem smart that someone at that level of authority and responsibility would EVER get drunk, due to the potential for having to make short-notice, critical decisions. And at this point, there was a greater than normal likelihood that there would be a need to make those types of decisions.
TreeJoe: good points, but Deval is a Public Person. He asked for, and was elected to, a position that is 24/7 subject to withering inspection, not only by his most credulous and sycophantic supporters but by his most implacable and hard-bitten foe. And what did he do? He did not go home and get quietly snoozed with no witnesses. He went to a public establishment and relied upon the (in)discretion of "friends" with their own agendas to feed him and ply him with strong waters until by his own admission, freely given at some later date to a reporter who might not be his friend at all, he stated he was "quite drunk."
Hey, it can happen. I understand how it can happen especially after your thousands of scurrying minions have finally arrested the one whom, it turns out, is the rest of the Pressure Cooker Jihad. You need, and deserve, a booze break.
But? Don't complain if others, later, dispute the wisdom of your public display. Leadership never sleeps.
Maggies pub. The food is edible, the drinks contain alcohol. Sullen politician in the corner, wanting nothing to do with The People.
I think I'll move on to Alice's Restaurant.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing.
So who would be embarrassed? Certainly not the drunk and no one else gives a damn about drunkards any more but this story reminds me of Billy Joel's monster hit:
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone
@Big Mike, "how old were you when you learned that one or two beers was enough to make you good and drunk when you are physically exhausted? Deval Patrick should have known better than to drink alone, not at home, with no designated driver, if he was that exhausted. Very poor judgement.
Lucky for me I learned my lesson on an army base where I didn’t have to walk far from the NCO Club to my barracks. And lucky too that I am a happy drunk, not a mean one."
I don't know how old I was when I first went through a ~4 day ordeal where I shut down one of the largest cities in America, operated a massive manhunt, and had the world's eyes on me.
But I can tell you today that after 4 days of such, I'm someone who would absolutely want the peace and solace found in a nice meal and a good book. And a drink or 2. And I would hope others wouldn't judge me if I made the mistake that evening of having a few more drinks than I should have...
Let's remember this is Patrick admitting he was "Quite drunk" rather than someone else witnessing his drunkenness. His "Quite Drunk" may have been another person's "He had quite the buzz on" comment without any negative stories coming out.
@Owen who said, "TreeJoe: good points, but Deval is a Public Person. He asked for, and was elected to, a position that is 24/7 subject to withering inspection, not only by his most credulous and sycophantic supporters but by his most implacable and hard-bitten foe. And what did he do? He did not go home and get quietly snoozed with no witnesses. He went to a public establishment and relied upon the (in)discretion of "friends" with their own agendas to feed him and ply him with strong waters until by his own admission, freely given at some later date to a reporter who might not be his friend at all, he stated he was "quite drunk."
Hey, it can happen. I understand how it can happen especially after your thousands of scurrying minions have finally arrested the one whom, it turns out, is the rest of the Pressure Cooker Jihad. You need, and deserve, a booze break.
But? Don't complain if others, later, dispute the wisdom of your public display. Leadership never sleeps."
Agreed on your last points. But I'm not giving to give the man harsh judgement for later on describing himself as "Quite Drunk" when as far as we know nothing bad happened - he made no bad decisions nor made a fool of himself in public.
He is retrospectively admitting to drinking too much that evening. Which sounds like he recognizes he drank too much.
My point is not to excuse this or say a leader should do that. My point is to those who judge him and don't actually look at the broader situation.
I'm not going to vote for Patrick in 2020. But I'm not going to ding him for this either.
He went for a swim in the Bershires in April?? Had to be an indoor pool.
https://westernmassweather.com/western-mass-weather-for-april-20-2018/
Do the Irish need an excuse to drink? Patrick is an Irish name.
The Black Irish especially like drinking alone.
In fairness to coupe deville;he wasn't drinking alone, he was drinking with maggie; who was TRYING to get him drunk. oh, and he HAD a designated driver; who was a cop
I don't have strong opinions about what he may or may not have drunk the night the bomber was caught in 2013. I talked to friends in Boston on the phone & I was grateful to all the people involved in catching the terrorist. The city was shut down, work was shut down, it was a stressful week.
Maggie Merelle, co-owner of the restaurant Rouge in West Stockbridge, said Patrick had a "glass of chardonnay or two" with dinner but she doesn't remember him being drunk.
"He wasn't tipsy. I never would have known," Merelle said.
He should have had delicious WHOLE MILK with dinner.
The Boston Herald thought it was a scandal in 2013. But possible a scandal because he did not drink enough.
Herald Exposé: What Did Deval Patrick Drink and When Did He Drink It? by Eric Randall
The Boston Herald had a—dare we say it—great story today about the way Gov. Deval Patrick let his hair down after the Boston Marathon manhunt ended. Specifically, Patrick got sloshed on Chardonnay while drinking alone and reading on his iPad… or did he?
Patrick’s account of his day after the manhunt came during a talk he gave at Hubspot, a Cambridge-based company, where he spoke candidly about some of the decisions and difficulties that surrounded the Friday lockdown. Talking about his activities the following Saturday, he told the audience, that he went out to the Berkshires, had a swim, went to a local restaurant and sat in a corner with an ebook on his iPad.
Maggie, who runs the [restaurant] … put me in the corner, me and my book on my iPad, and she starts bringing me things. Some of them edible. In fact all the food was edible. She starts bringing me things to drink as a celebration. And by the end of the meal, I was actually quite drunk, by myself.
The best part of this is that Herald reporter Matt Stout didn’t take the Governor’s word for it, and followed up with the restauranteur herself to confirm the story. But she didn’t! Maggie Merelle, co-owner of the West Stockbridge bistro Rouge, told the Herald that she didn’t think the Governor got that drunk, but she did tell the paper what he was eating and drinking.
“He wasn’t tipsy. I never would have known,” Merelle said, recalling Patrick had duck confit, french fries, soup, salad and a “glass of chardonnay or two.”
Scandal! What did the Governor drink and when did he drink it? Is the Governor lying about imbibing chardonnay alone in the Berkshires while reading his iPad and eating duck confit in order to boost his … wait, actually what politician would invent that story? Patrick’s just lucky he’s an incumbent in the reasonable state of Massachusetts. Imagine the national conservative press if they got wind that President Obama unwinds by drinking chardonnay with his duck confit alone while reading his iPad. Regular drink-aloner Mitch McConnell would probably try to taunt him into another dinner date. At any rate, great scoop, Boston Herald.
ok, now I'm going to a BBQ, where the drinks will be lemonade and soda.
So, his response to the Boston Marathon bombing was to go get drunk, alone, in a Restaurant?
As Trump would say: "Low Energy".
"Deval" is another one of those weird black names, I assume based on a headline his mom saw on the day he was born: Chinese Devalue Yen.
"Deval" is another one of those weird black names, I assume based on a headline his mom saw on the day he was born: Chinese Devalue Yen.
According to the interwebs, Deval is a Hindu name that means “Divine one.” Patrick’s father was a reasonably accomplished jazz musician.
Mini Me™, as Howie Carr called Ex-Governor Deval Patrick, was/is a total Rump-Swab. A native of Chicago and the most racist, incompetent, phony even to occupy the corner office. As a measure of how much of a loser Mini Me™ is, he asked Øbummer for a position, any position, in the White House and was turned down flat.
I wholeheartedly support Patrick's efforts to drink alone. https://youtu.be/4E9ydw_aDMg
To me he's a nonentity, another dirty product of the D machine. The only thing truly contemptible / surprising here, is his chilly reception of Maggie's hospitality. Where's "great?" Where's "delicious?" In all likelihood she was coming him, and the best he can do for her, for a place he chose to go and I presume regularly goes, is "edible?"
Jerk. It speaks to something deeper in him. Something that isn't good.
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