Mark Judge’s oeuvre, “Wasted: Tales Of A GenX Drunk” is fetching up to $2,000 a copy on Amazon. It describes the high school experience of the author and of his buddy “Bart O’Kavanaugh” among others, as an alcohol soaked hellscape, Buffy’s Lost Weekend, as it were. Rolling Stone:
Judge writes that as the boys’ senior year progressed, the keg challenge was heartily embraced: “It was Sunday morning, and the night before we had polished off keg number sixty-two. For the past four months, we had thrown parties every weekend as well as after school, and had even snuck a keg into the parking lot during a basketball game.” For Judge, his drinking had gone off the rails: “I had reached the point where once I had the first beer, I found it impossible to stop until I was completely annihilated…. Once I felt the first lilting rise of a buzz, I had to keep drinking until I could hardly walk. Many of the other guys were the same way; while some got sick after just a few beers, the hard-core drinkers could go all night, and often did.”
Judge writes that his blackout drinking continued — and worsened — in the years after graduating from Georgetown Prep. He recalls one night at his favorite bar: “We bought each other several rounds of drinks, and when I looked at the clock it was after midnight. Then, in what seemed like an instant, it was suddenly the next morning…. I had blacked out. I awoke lying on my back. I looked around quickly and determined that I was in my room; then I examined myself. I was fully clothed. I started to panic, terrified of what I could have done during the blackout. I could have done anything and not know it. I could have murdered somebody.”
In one of the final blackouts he recounts, Judge describes his behavior at a rehearsal dinner for one of his high school friend’s weddings. He recalls the dialogue, beginning with a friend:
“You put on quite a show. After doing all those shots, you tried to get up on the table and started taking your clothes off, but Shane and I pulled you down. You also tried to make it with one of the bridesmaids.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “I tried to make out with a bridesmaid? Please tell me I didn’t hurt her.”
“No, in the shape you were in, I don’t think you could have if you had tried, and we would have stopped you. You made a serious lunge at her, then started kissing her toes. We finally just pulled you off and out of the bar.”
Judge has reportedly been cooperating with the FBI in its renewed background investigation of the nominee.
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