Dan Dunn - Nobody Likes a Quitter (and Other Reasons to Avoid Rehab)

In political circles, they say if you are the one explaining then you are the one losing. So I guess this is a concession speech of sortsbecause Thunder's Mouth Press and I want you to know something going in: a few of the events recounted in these pages are what overzealous litterateurs and the Smoking Gun Web site might call not historically accurate or subject to debate or remembered clearly, but may have been a dream. Hell, looking back, portions of this tome leave me sounding like one of the less lawyered-up members of the Bush administration. I guess some of the material has been either significantly embellished or wholly invented, and many of the characters herein are what the Washington Post would no doubt call composites. What you're holding in your hands, dear reader, is a mosh pit of fact and fiction, with yours truly doing a bit of body surfing. But let me also add that to the best of my knowledge, everything I've written pertaining to the history, production, promotion, and enjoyment of alcohol is on the level. Drinking is the part of my life where Truth reigns supreme. Unfortunately, there are parts of my life where drinking reigns supreme and parts of my Truth where life and drinking become one, a huge seven-headed beast and wait, I'm sounding like the Bush administration again. Let me be blunt: I am, after all, in the employ of a large and reputable media conglomerate as one of the world's preeminent wine and spirits writers. As I lead you down the path to enlightenment about adult beverages, however, I am desperate that you somehow grasp just how brain-rattlingly inebriated I've kept myself throughout most of the past decade. I drink for a living, folks, and as a result my memory is foggier than a San Francisco morning after a Grateful Dead show; one of the early shows before the cops caught on. Plus, having grown up in a highly dysfunctional environment, as a coping mechanism I developed a vivid imagination that I now have a hell of a time keeping in check. For instance, I'm not entirely sure that I have, as reported in Step 9, partied with Chaka Khan. Then again, I'm not sure I haven't. The truth depends largely on the tenacity of her legal representation. Same goes for David Faustino and Polly Holliday. In fact, the same goes for anyone in this book, including those in the acknowledgments. Especially those people, because I always fear I'll end up drunk and homeless babbling to imaginary friendsoh, the people will actually exist, I'll just imagine they're my friends.

So perhaps it's best that you look upon the time spent reading this book as you would a visit to Mr. Rogers's Neighborhoodsometimes we'll be kicking it real in my house, only instead of sneakers and cardigan sweaters my closet will be full of liquor and skeletons. And whenever we need to spice things up a bit, we can always head to the Land of Make Believe there's even a trolley to take us to and fro so we don't have to worry about getting another DUI.

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day. Since we're together, we might as well say: Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my reader?

Cheers!

Dan Dunn

Los Angeles

April 9, 2007