Transylvania Gentlemen

Next Meeting

2011-04-30T10:28:00.001-04:00

Watch this space - details of next week's meeting of the Old Order of Transylvania Gentlemen will be announced here shortly.

The Victorian Squares

2011-04-19T23:36:00.001-04:00

Big things are in the offing for the Old Order of Transylvanian Gentlemen - we're expanding and elevating our game to truly be that hillbilly Shriners lodge that logic and destiny dictate we must. That order of business will now be the main thrust of this URL, while you can expect the same old vapid prattle about Beat poets, bourbon, and stockings at the shiny new secret clubhouse for Cheeseburger und Fries (It's so secret, we put it on the web!) at victoriansquares.blogspot.com. There, Mssrs. Dockery and myself, Victorian squares that we are, will continue our ongoing appraisal of belgian ales, Spider-man, and other things literary. Find us.

- - JSH

Of Mice and Meetings

2011-04-18T00:27:00.011-04:00

Even as a precocious tot, I was very interested in organizations, clubs, groups, societies, and alliances. From a tender age, I was starting "secret clubs" in and out of school with various chums. Some employed codes, charters, mission statements, protocol, rules and regulations, and of course, public outreach. This usually consisted of asking the girls down the street, "you wanna join our secret club?" and then immediately contriving peculiar new initiation ceremonies on the spot.

And even when I wasn't ringmastering these elementary-school secret societies, sometimes they would come looking for me. When I was in fourth grade at Model Laboratory School, a man who was supposedly a student teacher from EKU instituted "The Pirate Club", apparently with the teacher's blessing. While the rest of the class went about their regular work, The Pirate Club were excused so we could hold meetings in a back room. The lights were turned out, and we would don our paper pirate hats and stare into a large candle while sitting in a circle. Most of the kids in the club were dumb toughs and bullies, but a couple of them - including me - were semi-brainy nerds. We would answer questions and talk about our feelings on various subjects, and were awarded pieces of that "Gold Rush" chewing gum that looked like gold nuggets and came in little drawstring bags. The man would repeatedly tell us that we were superior to everyone else although he also cautioned us that, like with Spider-man, with great power comes great responsibility - and that we should all try hard to fit in with the rest of the students because they would never truly understand "gifted" people like us.

Now, this was great fun when you're in fourth grade, but looking back, I wonder: what the hell was this all about? Who approved a secret society to tell already rowdy kids that they really are better than everybody else? Was it a ploy to use reverse psychology to defuse our rebelliousness? Or was it some sort of test to look for certain kinds of answers from certain kinds of kids, much like when a young John Locke on ABC's LOST is presented with a test from the future?

Whatever they were fishing for, they must have found it. One day, it was announced that the Pirate Club was disbanding. "We're still the Pirate Club", the guy said, "we just have to make it so secret now, that we never talk about it, never acknowledge it, but we will know, won't we?", or words to that effect. It wasn't until years later that I realized just how creepy the whole thing was. (Of course, another student teacher later confided to me that she was a Witch, and said I could join her secret Witch Club, and that probably creeps me out even more, so much so that we'll save that story for another time.)

Anyway, I continued my interest in fraternal organizations as I grew older, and the game pieces remained but the stakes got higher. I soon aligned myself with all sorts of groups ranging from the hilariously time-wasting to those seeking a higher purpose of serving mankind. And now, I've come full circle again and have started my own fraternal club all over again, the Transylvania Gentlemen. My theatre company also functions as an exclusive cliquish sort of club, with its own chain of command, meetings, bylaws, and mission purpose. Hopefully these organizations will achieve more noble goals when all is said and done.

But re-reading my surprisingly well-preserved copy of The Three Mouseketeers #26, October 1960, which I obtained used from a flea market in Irvine probably around 1969 or so, it dawns me that a large part of my procedural fascination stems from this very comic book, written and drawn by the great Sheldon Mayer in the 50s and 60s (plus a reprint revival in the 70s).

The Three Mouseketeers concerns a trio of mice who operate a secret club that holds official meetings obsessively - even when there's no pressing business at hand - inside a tin can with a leaf for a door, and a Hogan's Heroes-like secret tunnel that leads up into it from a hidden entrance. Given that tunnels, spelunking, and all things underground have also been lifelong points of interest for me, I feel re-reading this comic is nothing less than a personal satori of self. (Cheaper than a shrink, and I don't have to get pumped full of soul-draining big pharma meds.)

The Mouseketeers are led by Fatsy, who insists on strict adherence to the club's charter and Robert's Rules of Order. Demerits are handed out for all manner of failure to comply. And yet they are a loyal and close-knit group, whose main purpose seems to be twofold: to gather food for survival and to have fun. Minus is a tiny, energetic mouse whose enthusiasm constantly leads to misadventures and disciplinary action from Fatsy. Patsy, the only mouse of the three who doesn't wear clothes, is a good-natured but dimwitted fellow.

The Mouseketeers' main enemies were humans (or the "Big-Feets", as they called them), and in this issue, Fatsy and Minus actually have something of a moral argument regarding their dependency on human resources. Fatsy insists they own the land their clubhouse-can sits on, while Minus tries to remind him that no, the land belongs to the Big-Feets, and the mice are just squatting there hoping no one notices. When Fatsy further declares that they have every right to just take the land anyway, Minus proffers an opinion that Mouseketeers should not own property at all, and be above that concept. Heady stuff to read as a toddler! Probably warmed me up for Proudhon.

Sheldon Mayer's other major comic book, Sugar & Spike, was also a huge influence on me as a child. It concerned two toddlers whose baby-talk functioned as a secret language by which they could communicate perfectly between themselves as well as all other children, forming a sort of alliance against all adults. They, along with their super-genius baby friend Bernie, made their way through the world looking at the grown-ups as their adversaries even as they pillaged their snacks - just like the Three Mouseketeers, really.

- - JSH

Gloria Grahame, Hot Tamale

2011-04-17T17:23:00.003-04:00

File under: "slight return."

Yes, Miss Grahame...."I was that man."

--JTD

Test Your KISS Vocabulary

2011-04-16T20:21:00.010-04:00

You might be suffering under the popular but unfactual belief that KISS are nothing but a bunch of ineloquent louts who only sing about girls and rocknroll. Nothing could be further from the truth, my friend; KISS are very eloquent louts, and in addition to girls and rocknroll, they also sing about Gin.

Can you, without perusing your record collection and without consulting the internet, identify each KISS song in which each of these word or phrases appear?

President Reservation Gravity Conversation Ninety-Three Baltimore Noose Echo Candy Cane Streetcar Windowsill Traffic Aphrodite Granny Predicament Knight Submarine Complicating		Tempered Famine San Tropez Tin Manchild Uniform New York Times Barstool Allegiance Dripping Reconsider Market Insulation Denmark Punching Bag Headlight Amplifier Wedding

The first person to post the full list of correct answers here (or e-mail me) will win........ something. Don't cheat. We will know.

- - JSH

Ghyslain

2011-04-14T22:49:00.007-04:00

A Ghyslain restaurant opened this month in Louisville, and you have to see this place for yourself. This place is way too good for the likes of us, but let's enjoy it while we can - because we do think we're worth it, don't we?

I had a really nice French Onion Soup here, and the Espresso BBQ Pulled Pork Brioche is to die for. No really, it really is to die for - if you stuck me on Death Row and asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I'd say this. (And maybe some beer cheese.) It consists of homemade pulled pork marinated in cinnamon, brown sugar, mustard, cayenne, and cumin and is slowly braised and served on a brioche with espresso BBQ sauce and caramelized onions. If you aren't salivating already, go have your salivator examined.

But it's the desserts that people really come here for, and it's for desserts that Monsieur Ghyslain Maurais is world famous. I'm not kidding - world famous, you know, like the Iron Chefs? Ghyslain Maurais was born in Québec and studied to be an architect before switching to the culinary arts, French cuisine, and chocolate technology. Thank goodness for us that he did, although his buildings would probably have been genius also. His artisanal chocolates are hand painted and crafted in his "Ghyslain Chocolate Artisan Center" headquarters, which are currently located in Union City, Indiana.

Nobody was sitting out on the schanigarten (oh wait, this place is French, better make that terrasse de cafe) either of the times I was at Ghyslain, which surprises me because it's most pleasant out there. I'm definitely going to be camping out here and cluttering up their patio for a long time to come.

It's at 721 E. Market Street, but kinda hidden behind other buildings. Find it.

- - JSH

Later is Now

2011-04-12T23:45:00.002-04:00

All these current events sure make a man work up a pow'ful thirst. I was sittin' around Starbucks this morning thinkin', maybe those freaks was right when they said the end of the world is here and Judgment Day is upon us.

Not.

Even amid revelations that the BP oil disaster is still going on, and that more and more toxic Corexit is still being sprayed down there in the Gulf, and that Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa is well on its way to polluting the world's food supply just like its GMO corn has already done, and that growing unrest in the Middle East is threatening the world's economy, and that Earthquakes in the pacific rim indicate growing tectonic instability that has already literally altered the planet's rotation, and that the nuclear fallout from Japan's melting reactors is already turning up in limits over the maximum EPA limits, I remain bursting with optimism.

Sitting on the ol' veranda here on the JSH plantation, sippin' Veranda Cocktails and pondering the future, I know that Kentuckians ain't skeered of a little radiation. My ancestors already survived the great potato famine, harassment from British jackasses, the Little Ice Age, grueling travel to the new world of America and the responsibility of creating a new civilization, Indian attacks, rattlesnakes, frostbite, sogginess, and usurpation of our Transylvanian heritage from the state of Virginia. There's nothing we can't handle, because we're already mutants.

Like the fella said, a country boy can survive.

- - JSH

Secrets In Lace

2011-04-11T11:20:00.003-04:00

Just like it can be hard out there for a colonel to find a decent hat or a good tin of snuff or get to a good bottle of whiskey, I realize it can be hard for the ladies of discretion out there to find hosiery which isn't just the substandard cheap adornments of a dying world which has no use for luxury.

Well, ladies, you don't have to walk alone, and when you walk with me, I suggest you check out the nylon stylings of Secrets in Lace, a company that manufactures nylon stockings with an eye for quality and detail not seen since the 1940s or 50s, just like the good Lord intended. As the guy in Macao, I got stockings for sale; henceforth, any of y'all make a purchase from Secrets in Lace after following my link, old salesman of the month here gets a taste.

This isn't costume stuff, but the real deal, meant to be worn daily. They also make high quality pantyhose and other lingerie items, including but not limited to the Bettie Page and Dita Von Teese collections. The question I'm wanting to ask: why wouldn't a woman want to dress like Bettie Page?

You've got legs. Learn how to use them. Trust me.

--JTD

Notes from Space

2011-04-10T15:54:00.007-04:00

"We have just discovered an important note from Space."

"I hear a new world calling me."

"And if you see this flash of light, you and your darling, don't be afraid and run away."

"We'll meet again."

"Sun coming out in the middle of June."

"Looking for someone with sense."

"73 men sailing off into history."

"Please close your eyes and concentrate, with every thought you think, upon the recitation we're about to sing."

- - JSH

Dead Jewish Artists

2011-04-09T21:48:00.006-04:00

Albin Grau (1884-1942) was a strange cat. An artist and architect, he was an occultist back when being an occultist really meant something. A member of the Fraternitas Saturni, he founded his own film studio, Prana Film, with the idea of producing movies with occult and supernatural themes. The most famous/only fruit of his ambition was F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, which was a true collaboration with Grau handling not only all of the design but also the marketing of the movie.

Litigation with the Bram Stoker estate due to copyright infringement for Dracula put the whammy down on Grau's dream, bankrupting Prana. I like the idea of these Weimar era comrades of Grau's sitting around and getting lost in symbols and hieroglyphs, wearing funny hats at their avant-garde elk lodge meetings. The Nazis copped this style that was hanging like so much atomic fog in the Germanic atmosphere at the time, streamlined it with the darkness of fascism, slapped the SS lightning flash on it, sucking the occult dry like some kind of vampire, thusly perverting one fine hobby into something more brutal and sinister. Leave the goose stepping to the goose steppers, I'm with Grau. Unfortunately the goose steppers like to place those jack boots on the heads of their enemies. Them Nazis was no Johnsons. Grau was arrested on charges of being a Socialist and died at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Grau wasn't jewish, but I'm sure the Nazis didn't care either way.

But then Grau leads to Hugo Steiner-Prag (1880–1945), an illustrator, stage designer, and professor, famous in his day. Surely his illustrations for Gustav Meyrink’s The Golem, which was a big seller in Europe in 1915, were an influence on Grau's sketches for Nosferatu. He converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1905. Either way, when the Nazis took power in 1933, he was removed from his post at the Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Design. He made it to to the United States where prior to his death he did a beautiful set of illustrations for the poetry of Edgar Alan Poe in 1943.

Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) mostly just wanted to be left alone, to live quietly, peacefully writing and illustrating his own stories content in the provincial existence of his hometown of Drohobych. But, you see, the Nazis had other plans.

Schulz is most known for the small body of written work which was not lost or destroyed by the Nazis, such as the short story collection, The Street of Crocodiles. But ever since I saw The Drawings of Bruno Schulz it is his art, what little scraps survived down to us (this volume represents the sum total), that I admire and create the portrait of Schulz in my mind's eye. Dwarfish, fumbling men, often reduced to animal/pet-like behavior, at the feet of distant, leggy women, cradling their feet, worshipping their shoes. Bruno saw the human circus a certain way, and he stuck to it.

He was shot by the drunken rival Gestapo officer to the Nazi who was using Schulz to paint a portrait in his home out of petty jealousy. Painted over and thought lost, this restored mural was exhibited to the public for the first time in 2009.

Faulkner said the past isn't dead, it's not even past. I salute these artists for what they could have been and, more importantly, for what they both were and are. To Albin, Hugo, and Bruno. Cheers.

--JTD

TV Dinner

2011-04-08T00:17:00.001-04:00

Don't we spend enough time in front of video monitors and TV screens?

I know I do, and I'm not even exposed to them nearly as much as you are, dear reader. I haven't watched broadcast/cable television in almost a year (I only kept cable until LOST went off the air, then I had no further use for modern television.) And I spend more time tromping around in the forest than I do hunched over a hot laptop lately. Furthermore, I don't play video games. So, chances are, you probably are exposed to digital video monitors at least twice as much as me, probably much more.

Is that bad? Maybe. There are those, such as myself, who maintain that digital media can make you stupid if you don't know how to safeguard yourself against its soul-sucking powers. In the early days of CDs, Neil Young went on a tirade that lasted for years against digital music, maintaining that it could never ever be anything more than a soulless choppy approximation of the source. Sooner or later he gave in when surrounded and outgunned at every turn. "Come on Neil, you're just being stubborn. Digital music is the way of the future. Play ball with this conspiracy."

And Anton LaVey once cited a university study in which test subjects were asked to extend their arm while listening to analog music under headphones, and the examiner would push down on your extended arm and ask you to resist and keep it straight as possible. Then they'd repeat the process while the subject listened to digital music. The study showed that people were noticeably weaker while listening to digital music.

Then, too, there's the perennial conspiracy-theory concern that mere analog is insufficient for delivering flawless subliminal brainwashing signals, whereas digital is the perfect medium for it. If you were being bombarded with digital mind control frequencies while watching CNN on your snazzy flat-screen TV, how would you know? You wouldn't. That's why they call it mind control.

Even if all that is pure hogwash - and maybe it is and maybe it isn't - there's just no getting around that I find TV annoying. I hate bars that surround me with giant screens, each tuned to a different station. (That's one of the few drawbacks about my beloved Ernesto's, in fact.) And now, the growing trend in supermarkets is to have these damn talking monitors blasting commercials at you while you're shopping.

The super-Wal-Mart in Middletown now has these god-awful annoying monitors in many aisles throughout the store, and it's drivin' me crazy, it's drivin' me nuts. It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't plant them so close together. When you're standing looking at one, you can hear the chatter from two others nearby at the same time. I didn't give up watching TV only to find we're rapidly turning into a world where you have no choice but to watch TV everywhere you go.

Fortunately, I don't find myself hanging out at Wal-Mart too terribly often. But now these damn monitors are literally popping up everywhere. You start with one TV monitor in a store, where does it end?

At the Motor Vehicle Department on Westport Road, there was an entire row of TVs blasting some in-house channel with commercials and "community info", and every one of the sheep sitting there waiting with their little number in hand was staring up at those screens, mouth hanging open and eyes looking faraway.

Even at Feeder's Supply today, I was stocking up on grub for America's favorite fluffster only to find the damn screens were there too. And people were standing around watching these commercials, sucked in, as if there was anything remotely interesting about a man selling dog food who isn't Ed McMahon.

I'm starting to feel like it's John Carpenter's They Live and I'm the guy with the special sunglasses.

- - JSH

They Sure Know Something

2011-04-07T00:00:00.007-04:00

I grew up as a KISS fan starting in 1975, when my little hillbilly self walked to Britt's Department Store in Richmond and bought their Alive! album with piggy-bank money. From there, I rode along with the boys through the next three albums that represented the peak of their classic years (Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun.) And that's when things got kinda sketchy.

1977's Alive II was a great album, and I worshipped the bonus studio/soundcheck songs on side four ("Rocket Ride" actually broke the Top 40, but you never hear it on classic rock or oldies stations today). But part of me really thought, "do we need a second live album already? I would rather have had a full new studio album." As fast as the band had been cranking out material, I was certain there'd be a new solid rockin' KISS album out before I could turn around and say tequila.

But that album didn't come.

To my surprise, they followed up the expensive double live album with another expensive double album - this time a greatest hits collection, except all their hits weren't on it, and some of the songs were remixed and sounded tinny and weird. "Strutter" was completely re-recorded with a slightly disco-fied beat, of all things, as "Strutter '78". I was pissed. As a kid, every cent of my allowance was important and after I took Double Platinum home, I wanted my money back - I really didn't need my fourth version of "Deuce". But I forgave them. I knew that next new solid rockin' KISS album would be out before I could turn around and say vodka and orange juice.

I was wrong.

Instead, my allowance was completely wiped out by the simultaneous release of four KISS solo albums - in which Gene Simmons sings Walt Disney, and Peter Criss revealed himself to be a frustrated Leo Sayer. Paul and Ace's albums were pretty good, but still, all of these parts did not add up to a whole for me. I had blown every teenage cent I had on four albums yet somehow still managed to feel like I had less than one album to show for it.

By now my interest in KISS was starting to show some cracks, and I wasn't alone: many of my friends at school tried to keep a stiff upper lip but by then there were plenty of other bands who were starting to seem a lot more interesting. We had our doubts now whether the KISS we knew and loved would return to form, and we didn't hold our breath waiting to see if it ever would be cold gin time again.

Dynasty was another big disappointment. Ace's unexpected cover of an obscure Rolling Stones song, "2000 Man", showed promise that KISS was not yet totally braindead, but they were now going for an overtly disco-rock fusion. That wasn't what we wanted. The next album, Unmasked, was even worse, going full speed ahead into pure disco and pure pop like never before. Looking back, I love these albums now, of course, and it's easy now to forget exactly how annoyingly revolutionary it was for a hard rock band to try to merge their style with disco. But back then, my high school compatriots and I were completely appalled at how far our favorite band had drifted, so fast.

At this point, we all gave up on KISS and moved on to other things. By then my favorite bands were The Dead Kennedys, The Clash, The Jam, Devo, and increasingly avant-garde stuff like The Residents. My taste for pan-directional eclecticism had no room for a has-been 70's band trying to go disco after disco itself was already dead.

And then the unthinkable happened: KISS released an album that was the apex of pan-directional eclecticism.

On November 16, 1981, KISS released, out of nowhere, Music From The Elder. They'd been working on it in the studio since March 13, during which time Ace essentially gave up on the band. Everyone else around me - that is, among those who bothered to buy it or listen to it - fiercely hated it and chalked it up as yet another disappointing KISS flop. Me, I fell in love with it instantly, if at first for no other reason than the album was completely insane and was almost a surrealist art-object unto itself.

The citizenry of 2011 are savvier than those of 1981, thankfully. Thirty years after it was foisted upon an unknowing world, The Elder has become a cult classic, highly regarded among KISS fans as being way ahead of its time, and one of their finest achievements.

The "story" of the concept album is only hinted at piecemeal, and various explanations of limited authenticity can be found circulating online, but the gist of it is: a young boy joins up with an ancient and noble organization, undergoes training to become worthy of the fellowship, and somewhere in there, somehow, there's a guy named Mr. Blackwell. Oh yeah, and somebody escapes from an island, apparently.

It's actually a good thing the story wasn't delineated more clearly, because it leaves the listener to speculate for himself - and that might be a whole lot more interesting than what mssrs. Stanley and Simmons had in mind. Then again, there are plenty of nuggets of wisdom on the record that exemplify the general message - like the haunting "Only You" (with Rush-like prog-rock flanged chords and voices over, of all things, a reggae beat). Not only is it the only pop-rock song I know that uses the word "manchild", but it pompously proclaims things like:

"In every age, in every time,
A hero is born as if by a grand design!"

Definitely not the stuff of Hall & Oates. Nor do you hear medieval horn instrumentals on a Huey Lewis album. Nor do you get backing vocals that sound like choirs of Rosicrucian monks on a Loverboy record. Paul, who usually was the anchor keeping any KISS record down to Earth, actually provided the most spaced-out "WTF" moments. Consider "Just A Boy", sounding more like Queen with its falsetto vocals and synthesizers. And then there's the total ELO-ish "Odyssey":

"From a far-off galaxy
I hear you callin' me
We are on an Odyssey
Through the realms of time and space
In that enchanted place
You and I come face to face."

Was it genius? Or drivel straight out of a little girl's school notebook? Both, maybe? No one knew for sure at the time. But a lot has happened on this third rock since then, and a lot of things make more sense with the passage of time. Uh, and space.

The album wasn't a 100% disaster - "The Oath" was actually a big hit in Italy, and "A World Without Heroes" reached #56 on the U.S. charts. A far cry from the days when "Beth" hit #7 and "Calling Dr. Love" reached #16 (#2 in Canada) but hey, at least they made it onto the Billboard Top 100 charts at all, and halfway up it at that.

For my yankee dollar, however, it's "I" that marks this album as the most crucial pivotal moment in KISStory. Musically, it's like a heavy metal show tune (especially live) with an Adam Ant beat, an Elvis-like swagger in Paul's voice, and a stop-start vamp right out of Rocky Horror's "The Time Warp". Literally the last thing on Earth we ever expected from KISS.

Loaded with positive affirmations and more shibboleths than you can shake a stick at, it provides the philosophical keystone for Gene's much-remarked-on egotism:

"I was so frightened I almost ran away
I didn't know that I could do anything I needed to
And then a bolt of lightning hit me on my head
And I began to see, I just needed to believe in me

Cause I believe in me
And I believe in something more than you can understand
Yes, I believe in me."

Whether you look at the song as a sort of mystical invocation, a "law of attraction" affirmation, or a mind-over-matter psi experiment, it worked. Their next album, Creatures of the Night, finally was that hard-rocking classic KISS album the fans had been waiting on for six freakin' years, and it yielded an identity-restoring hit, "I Love It Loud". KISS subsequently played their largest show ever in Brazil, then took off the makeup to reinvent themselves as a cutting-edge hair-metal band. In the process, they racked up far more hits in this new guise than they ever had in the old one and wowed a whole 'nother generation of fans.

Amazingly, they then had a third lease on life. They returned to the makeup and the original lineup and had a great run with that, touring nonstop until Ace and Peter, whose health was fragile because of their drug use, gave out. Ace quit the band all over again, and Peter had to be let go. Gene and Paul, on the other hand, were still healthy and still going strong and gave the band a fourth incarnation - the age we are presently in - with Tommy Thayer, pro golfer and player of Ace's solos better than Ace ever played. As Gene said in Sex Money Kiss, "this strange band continues to write its own rules."

Oh yeah, and their new music is better than ever.

Ironically enough, all those albums from KISS' great "odd period" between Double Platinum and Killers are now among some of my very favorites. Time has been kind to each of their efforts, to the extent that I even love Peter Criss' solo album, for which my Judas Priest-craving adolescent mind had zero frame of reference for upon its original release.

I also think it's worth noting that some of my favorite songs from the solo albums seem to have a very Elder-ish quality to them, not only musically but thematically. I have to wonder if they weren't cooking on the concept long in advance. Take a cold hard look at Paul's "Take Me Away (Together as One)" or Gene's "Man of 1000 Faces". Even the triumphantly celtic prog-rockness of "Fractured Mirror" seems to indicate that whatever Gene and Paul had tapped into, at least some of it had rubbed off on Ace.

2011 marks the 30-year anniversary of Music from the Elder and its transcendentally off-kilter beauty. Let's make this an Elder year. The people gotta know. The band also has a new album in the works due for a summer release. We're in for some interesting times. Can you feel it coming?

- - JSH

Garden of Forking Paths

2011-04-06T12:34:00.006-04:00

I spend a lot of time walking in the woods in the wilderness of Kentucky. I also drink a lot of Zwack and Jagermeister out there, and lately have also been doing a lot of reading in those haunted forests.

I find the chaos of nature somehow conducive to reading, especially comic books, Victorian gothic literature, and Hardy Boys books. But lately I've been packing around the works of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.

In his story The Library of Babel, the narrator describes how his universe consists of an endless labyrinth of beehive-like interlocking hexagonal rooms, each of which is filled with walls of bookshelves.

Though the order and content of the books is purely random, the inhabitants have come to realize that the library is infinite, and therefore somewhere out there, its books contain every possible ordering of letters.

The majority of the books, of course, are total nonsensical gobbledygook, but the library also must contain, somewhere, every possible book that could be written. Additionally, by sheer statistics, an infinite library must also contain every possible permutation of those same books, including every conceivable variant.

From Wikipedia:

The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for many of the texts some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents.

Despite — indeed, because of — this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitions and cult-like behaviour, such as the "Purifiers", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they move through the library seeking the "Crimson Hexagon" and its illustrated, magical books. Another is the belief that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect catalog of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the "Man of the Book" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.

There was a point to all this, but I've forgotten what it is.

I'm off now to ponder on it some more whilst listening to Robert Johnson. Cheers.

- - JSH

Adventures in Bad Bartending

2011-04-04T12:53:00.012-04:00

With the economy spiralling down the toilet lately, you'd think people in the food and drink biz would redouble their efforts to please their customers and to train their help as sternly and strenuously as R. Lee Ermey. But I look around me and I see that it isn't so.

So once again, I'm here to drop some science for restauranteurs lacking in the social sciences.

This may seem overly harsh, but here's my position: any upscale bar that claims to be a true "full bar" and doesn't have a specialty cocktail list is immediately suspect, and to be avoided.

I stopped into an expensive snooty upscale place here in Louisville recently, and spotted several bottles my beloved Del Maguey on the shelf. This is my lucky day, I thought. I sat at a stool and when I finally got the bartender's attention, I pointed to the Mezcal and inquired about what varieties of Del Maguey they had. (Del Maguey offers many variations, and I could tell by the different labels on the bottles that they had an assortment of them.) The guy was like, "um... what? The what? Huh?"

"The Del Maguey Mezcal. You have five bottles of them there on your shelf."

"Oh. Whut? Where? You know, I don't think we use that much. I didn't even know we had it."

So, you're a bartender and you don't even know what you've got on your shelves at the bar you're tending? Really? Am I some sort of jerk for wanting people to know what the hell is going on at their job, and to be awake at their post? Not only did this guy not know they had five bottles of Mezcal on his shelf, he clearly didn't even know what Mezcal was. And I don't trust a man who doesn't know what Mezcal is to make me a decent drink out of the stuff.

I asked to see the drink list. He handed me a wine/beer list. No cocktails. No martinis. No house-specialty mixed drinks. And yet a honkin' huge wall of exotic booze behind him.

Seeing that there was another person also working the bar, I asked "do either of you have a specialty drink using Mezcal that you recommend? You know, something that you would consider your specialty?" By that time our table was ready for dinner, and he said "I'll ask her," meaning the other, older bartender, "and we'll come to your table and let you know." Splendid.

'Cept it wasn't. The dude finally came over to our table and said, "yeah, man, she said we can make you anything."

Sigh. Now that wasn't what I asked at all, was it?

I've never met a bartender yet who says "we can make you anything" who really could. And that's where the specialty-cocktail drink list comes in - even if I don't order anything off it, I want to see it be there. Because it proves to me that these people are really bartenders and not just randomly-assigned pourers of liquid. Having house-specialty mixed drinks shows me that, at least, someone was enough of an artisan to come up with these ideas. It also shows me that there are drinks that even a novice bartender there might have fixed often enough to be familiar with. Feel me? If you don't make mojitos very often, I don't want you fixing my mojito, capish?

Against my better judgment, I ordered a mojito.

"Okay," said the dude, "like, a straight up rum mojito, right?" Uh, yes, lad. Mojito is a rum drink, that is correct. I saw the older female bartender was the one making it, so I assumed that all would be well. Nope. I was presented a crystal-clear, overpoweringly sweet, totally weak mojito that didn't even taste like lime or rum. It tasted like hyper-sweetened tonic water with maybe a hint of some undetermined weak alcohol, too insufficient in ppm to identify as rum. I tasted zero mint.

Astonishingly, there was no lime slice on the rim, nor were there any in the drink itself. A teensy-tiny single leaf of mint resting on the ice (of which there was too much) was the only visual indicator that this might be a mojito-like object.

I know, I know, if you do a Google image search, you can find lots of crystal-clear mojitos, but I'm here to tell ya, those drinks in those pictures, whoever made them and wherever they were, they sucked. A good mojito, as with a good caipirinha, is CLOUDY by default. If it's totally clear, then you didn't put enough lime juice in and you didn't put real limes in and you sure as hell didn't muddle the lime or muddle the mint. And the lack of sugar crystals on the bottom, combined with the sickeningly intense sweetness, made me suspect some artificial sweetener could be at work here. (Which, as you must know by now, I regard as poison.)

I sent the drink back - and I swear I was absolutely meek and polite about it - and got guff from the female bartender who rudely snapped, "what's wrong with it?" and from the manager who said "I don't know what that word means" when I said it was too cloyingly sweet.

I switched to a Hendrick's gin and tonic, which I must say was so tasty I had another. It's pretty hard to screw up a G&T, especially when the gin is Hendrick's. (However, it didn't occur to them to put the customary cucumber slice on the rim.) And also for the record, the food we had was superb. But because of the stupidity and the attitude, will I be back? I seriously doubt it. There's just too many other cool places to go, and I would have rather spent that 50 bucks on someplace that acts like it gives a damn.

And lastly, it should be noted that this place - who shall go unnamed here as a sign of goodwill - has a patio (where we ate) directly adjacent to the doors-open indoor part and also has a second floor upstairs. Dixieland jazz could be heard coming from upstairs, the TV sets were blaring some annoying sports nonsense downstairs, and on the patio we were being blasted with some of the most god-awful modern "alternative" poop I've ever heard. Someone once told me there's a auditory test for schizophrenia, where the subject is played several different things at the same time. Supposedly, as I was told, if it doesn't immediately make you uncomfortable, there might be something wrong with you. Being bombarded with three different loud audio sources doesn't make for a pleasant meal.

I do so miss The Patron, which went out of business last winter. They had the most wonderful ambience. The music there was quiet chill-channel type stuff, which, even if that's not your thing, it's still unobtrusive and not as disruptive to digestion as Lady Gaga and Black-Eyed Peas being blasted in your face. The bartenders there - especially the great Lee Look, were true experts in their craft, who had cocktail preparation down to a true art. And if he didn't know something, or if he'd never made a certain drink before, he'd tell you.

- - JSH

Blue Agave Tequila Bar

2011-04-03T00:00:00.002-04:00

Given my ongoing obsessions with margaritas and with the elixir of life they call Mezcal, it's only natural that I'd drift into this place called Blue Agave at Lexington's Victorian Square.

I showed up here recently during that gray-area downtime between lunch hour and happy hour and chatted with a bartender named Jeff (nice name) and he showed me around. Naturally I inquired about Mezcal and he showed me the only kind they carry: Del Maguey. Yes! I think I'm gonna like it here.

And when I returned in the evening, I found the place to be perfectly conducive to kicking back in a rear booth, cozying up to a margarita or a mojito, and getting some writing done.

It's located in that same spot where the late lamented Bravo Pitino restaurant, owned by Rick Pitino himself, once occupied. Something about this location has always appealed to me, back since the grand productive days when Cheeseburger & Fries (Ole Doc Dockery and I) used to follow this strict ritual every morning in the mid-1990s: 1. get up early in the morning; 2. walk all the way down to Victorian Square from Preston Arms; 3. consume ginormous mega-buttery cinnamon rolls at some bakery place that no longer exists; 4. immediately feel powerfully ill; 5. swear we'll never go there again.

Repeat until it fails.

Anyway. Yeah. Blue Agave. I vote yes. I hear they also serve food here. I wouldn't know. I drank my dinner. I'm buildin' a levee, son, drink by drink, gulp by gulp. This succulent's for you.

- - JSH

A Farewell to Pocky

2011-04-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

Putting aside for a moment the devastating loss of life and health that the people in my beloved Tokyo now face, and trying not to think about the staggering ecological disaster now unfolding, let me be shallow for a moment and lament the potential loss of what we all love so much about Japan - its pop culture.

Unlike many of my gaijin otaku peers, my introduction to the glories of Japan came not through anime or manga, but through snacks. When I was just a sprout living at Governor's Manor Apartments in Richmond in the early 1970s, the Asian couple next door introduced me to the wonderful world of Japanese candy, and often bestowed me with strange snack items that were so far removed from my frame of reference, it was like receiving gifts from another planet or reading the Voynich Manuscript. Once, visiting their apartment, I found a colorful packet with cartoon characters on it, and when I shook it I could discern that it was full of powder. Assuming it was candy, I begged to have it. "Oh, you won't like that", they said. I insisted I would. They were right: what I hoped would be a Pixy-Stix like candy turned out to be Furikake, which is essentially dried flaked fish (which is in itself, essentially fish food) meant to be sprinkled on rice dishes. The trauma associated with this incident is probably where my MSG sensitivity began, but it didn't stop my growing adoration of all things Japanese, which was soon cemented by my discovery of Godzilla, Ultraman, and Spectreman.

Given that the current radioactive mess in Japan is getting worse day by day, and that each "don't worry, everything's under control" speech given by politicians there and here turn out to be lies, I'm looking ahead to a worst-case scenario in which the Tokyo I knew may be gone forever. Even if Japanese imports aren't totally banned soon, they most certainly will be put on hold for quite some time to come.

And so, I bought a box of Pocky the other day, just in case I may not be getting my mitts on any more pre-Fukushima Japanese snacks in the future. I should probably go out and hoard all I can, but the whole thing's just overwhelmingly sad at this moment.

Somewhere The Monster with 21 Faces is probably laughing. Or maybe not.

- - JSH

Brown's Tastee Beer Cheese

2011-04-01T10:12:00.004-04:00

I was making my rounds yesterday and stopped into Pisgah to see a man about a horse, and you know I can't go to Pisgah without dropping into my favorite donut shop in the solar system, Doughdaddy's.

This day found me desirous of something savory in addition to my customary box o' cream cheese covered donuts, and so I reached into their beer cheese cooler. They have an admirable selection of Kentucky beer cheeses, including several I've never tried, and the duck selected Brown's Tastee Beer Cheese. The package says they're based in Versailles, but their website says Lawrenceburg. Either way, both fine towns with a beer cheese to be Kentucky-Proud of.

As regular readers must know, the only yardstick by which to measure the greatness of a beer cheese is The Johnny Scale, meaning, how close is it to Johnny Allman's original formula? Friends, it's right up there near the top, alongside River Rat (whose package bears the slogan "Just Like Johnny's") and the new Allman's Beer Cheese which revives Johnny's recipe, thanks to his grandson's noble efforts.

Brown's Tastee meets my core criteria:

1. It's delicious.
2. It's spicy-hot but not stupidly so.
3. It contains beer. (You'd be surprised how many wannabe beer cheeses dont!) However, the beer does not dominate the flavor, nor does the garlic, which is as it should be.
4. It has an approximation of the correct texture, for which there is no word to adequately convey. "Fibrous" doesn't sound right, and "grainy" comes closer but still misleads. But the texture is there.

And when you put it in the freezer with the lid off - not long enough to freeze it solid but just long enough to give it an extra crystalline surface veneer - and knife it into small paper ketchup-cups, it succeeds as a simulacra of what my childhood mind (I had both "photographic memory" and synethesia as a tot) recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s during my visits to Johnny's with my parents.

The texture issue is what often trips up other leading contenders for Allmanesque greatness. Kentucky Ale Beer Cheese, on the other hand, has the texture down, but tastes very different from Johnny's because of the addition of mustard powder to the proceedings. The beer cheese one was served at Johnny's was not quite as spread-like and dip-like as what you buy in a tub today - the nudging of the formula towards being a spread comes from emulation of Hall's, which for many years was the reigning beer cheese in supermarkets, but had a completely version for retail as compared to the actual restaurant's.

- - JSH

Wordless Mermaids

2011-03-30T22:19:00.006-04:00

I'm lovin' the revamped graphics on Starbucks products as of late. In a move that I applaud loudly, they've removed the words "Starbucks Coffee" that encircled the highly stylized mermaid (okay, actually, she's a siren, but let's not quibble) and enlarged the logo.

From an artistic standpoint, the silent siren makes a much bolder statement than the relatively crass and noisy old one. And from an international perspective, this is a very good move as it helps to unify their look among many different cultures. Removing any English-language writing from the logo makes it more universal to all nations, and Starbucks is in a lot of nations - from Poland to Argentina to Dubai.

(But will they have a Starbucks at the new Burj Khalifa? Actually, if they did, it probably still wouldn't have the new logo. In many Muslim countries the merm is gone entirely, and the logo depicts her crown floating on the sea.)

- - JSH

Dumpty!

2011-03-29T07:17:00.007-04:00

Which came first - the chicken magazine or the egg magazine?

Humpty Dumpty, a small digest-sized periodical for children, has always been a source of fascination and inspiration for me. Although I never had a subscription as a kid (my folks got me Highlights for Children instead), I perused it at school, in dentist's office waiting rooms, and libraries.

I subsequently went for a large chunk of my life not thinking about ol' Humpty and the gang, but then had a joyous rediscovery of it when I scored a stack of 'em for one low price in a flea market in Simpsonville.

It was then that I realized that the magazine's peculiar and idiosyncratic art had been a huge influence on my own artwork all these years and I never knew it. It had been lurking in my subconscious, waiting, like a sleeper agent awaiting its orders to make itself manifest. The egg inside.

One of my favorite bits in Humpty Dumpty was "Twinkle", a recurring comic strip of sorts (no word balloons, but narrated action from panel to panel, sort of like a children's book condensed into comic-book format). It always had stark black backgrounds with the characters rendered in white against it, in a rather scratchy, brushy kind of rendering. I didn't know it as a child, but this was my first exposure to post-German expressionist style, years before I fell under the influence of Billy Childish and then went backwards to investigate the artists he was aping.

Humpty Dumpty is still published today, but it's just a shell of its former self, and contains no trace of its former glory. I'm not sure when it took a dive, but all the copies in my collection are circa late 1950s to late 1960s, and it was still good when I read it in the early 1970s.

- - JSH

Firepit Fever

2011-03-28T21:37:00.007-04:00

Recently I've finally gotten around to upgrading the backyard firepit (which was just a hole in the ground with a grill grate) to one of them there fancy polished store-bought kind. It wasn't quite as big as I'd thought it would be, so yet another upgrade may be in store in the future, if there is one. A future, I mean.

I feel sorry for people who live in places where a firepit's not allowed; everyone needs fire in their back yard, and I don't just mean their grill. You can even cook food over the firepit and do like our cro-magnon cousins did. If you like to hang your laundry out to dry, the firepit can hasten the job plus import a nice hickory-snoked aroma. You can even send smoke signals with it. I've also very quickly reduced the fallen limbs and branches on the property of the old JSH plantation in no time, during my quests for kindling.

And at the end of the broadcast day, when the guests have gone home, it's just you and your thoughts, sipping shots of Zwack and staring at the flames, using the fire to scry into other realms, lookin' for what's comin'.

- - JSH

This Woman Is Delerious

2011-03-27T09:01:00.004-04:00

I hate it when celebrities, who so often are out of touch with reality, insult their own product.

Fables of the Reconstruction is easily my favorite R.E.M. album, and I was stunned to read a Rolling Stone interview where Mike Mills dismissed it by saying "Fables sucked."

KISS routinely puts down their own Music from the Elder album even though it's one of the most popular with their fans.

And William Shatner, whose oeuvre is filled with some of the most dreadful stinkbombs in cinema and television, has publicly dissed The Devil's Rain, a classic B-movie cult film, which is very highly regarded around the T-Gent offices. It would seem that a lot of stars are just too dense to understand the greatness of their own output.

Another case in point: I think Joan Crawford's 1952 film-noir This Woman is Dangerous is freakin' great. It's low on gunfire action, but heavy on sitting around in cozy bars, plotting and pitting men against each other; skulking around in shadowy corners, scheming and stalking; secret furtive meetings in saloons, hotels, and bus stations; driving around trying to sort out the scam and figuring out all the angles. It's got gangsters, nurses, and private detectives; what more do you want?

Then again, for me film noir is all about texture, not plot. While some of you literalists out there are overanalyzing plot structure, character motivations, and story arc, I'm ogling the set design and the lighting and the gas stations and the pictures on the wall and the clothes and the furniture and the legs. With a lot of these films, you could leave out a reel so that the story made no sense whatsoever and I still wouldn't squawk. But that is the way of things when one is sailiing through the murky waters of the crap of the ages.

Like many a good noir, the film was shunned by highbrow stuffed-shirt critics. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times called the movie "junk", but what the heck did he know? Crowther was a scholarly blowhard who demanded that films should be weighty with "social commentary". He panned Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, called Hitchcock's Psycho "a blot on an otherwise honorable career", and said Bonnie & Clyde was "as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary". To paraphrase Bunny Breckinridge in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, "Screwwww you, Miss Crowther."

According to Wikipedia, in 1973, during the "Legendary Ladies" show at Town Hall, someone in the audience asked, "Which one of your films do you regret making?" Joan Crawford replied that she considered This Woman Is Dangerous to be her worst film ever.

Really, Joan?? Your worst?

Maybe she forgot about Trog, wherein she plays second banana to what is supposed to be a caveman discovered to be still living in England (seriously!), but actually looks like just another guy in a bad ape suit. Or how about William Castle's low-budget Strait-Jacket, another of her "psycho-biddy" flicks in which life and art merge by casting Crawford, an insane old woman, as, well, an insane old woman. Or When Ladies Meet, a meandering romance in which Robert Taylor actually manages to be more interesting than Joan Crawford.

Of course, I like all those movies too. Clearly I have no taste.

- - JSH

Chicken Lit

2011-03-26T11:26:00.010-04:00

I got the latest edition of Poultry Tribune in the mail today from Interzone, and I'm glad I subscribed. There's a lot of handy information and useful tips in the ever-burgeoning world of beakiness, which, you all know me, I have a keen interest in.

Plus, I dig the graphics. And as with any periodical, the ads are always the best part.

I'm looking forward to sending off for some of these amazing offers, like the "Little Fat Friend" Piggy-Wiggy Slicing Board, a piece of cutting-edge technology that I'm thrilled to be getting in on the ground floor with.

I'm intrigued by this "Eggzit" device. I may get some to give out as gifts to the special women in my life. I know they'll be thrilled by its promise of "No cannibalism!" and that its wires are coated in GENUINE PLASTIC! I hate that imitation plastic, man, it's a real drag.

I've learned that cannibalism is actually a big problem these days in the poultry world. I did not know that. See, the things you learn when you read.

I recognize the artwork in this ad for "Gran-i-Grit" to be that of a young up-and-coming artist named Theodor Geisel. Take a tip from me, pals, this guy's gonna go places someday.

All this talk about birds is makin' me hungry; time to hit the grill and fry some.

Friend, you'd do well to subscribe to Poultry Tribune and get wise, if you want to be a poultry man. That's some ambition. And it's engrossing reading even if you're not ready to keep a coop on your stoop. When the gals come over to your bachelor-pad plantation and see a copy of this on your kidney-shaped coffee table right next to your pipe stand and your Alma Gluck CDs, man, you're gonna score like never before.

- - JSH

Cholula's Waterloo

2011-03-25T23:50:00.003-04:00

Don't put this lime on the coconut. You all know me, and I'm a Cholula man through and through. I put it on steaks, chops, ribs, chicken, french fries, burgoo, cheetos, chocolate merengue pie, Reese's Cups, Tic-tacs, anything humans can consume. But I gotta say my ol' girl Cholula made a bad play when she rolled out this here "Chili Lime" variant awhile back.

Lime is a funny thing. Lime is a very peculiar item. Unlike its sister Lemon, it doesn't adapt well to being used as a flavoring in a pre-processed savory commercial product.

(Note I say savory, as opposed to sweet. But actually, what we call "lime" when it comes to popsicles and Jarritos isn't really lime flavoring at all. Close your eyes and do a blind taste test and you will see - candy/soda "lime" is some whole other flavor entirely, but we've grown up associating this para-lime with lime just because we were told to. Same goes for what passes for grape in candy and soda - it bears little or no resemblance to biting into a fresh grape.)

But I digress.

Cholula Chili Lime, yeah. It no good. It really fail. Don't eat it, folks, y'hear? There's an overwhelming metallic taste to it that I've tried and tried to deal with; I've had this bottle awhile and I've been flogging my mind, trying to get it into some new position where it likes this stuff but it's a no-go.

I keep limes around the house at all times anyway, since they're at the core of my beloved Cuban cuisine. If you want Chili Lime Cholula, kids, just do like Col. Holland and mix 'em up fresh on the plate. Fresh is better than not-fresh, anyway, because I find it's... fresher.

- - JSH

Tom Neely's The Wolf

2011-03-24T13:07:00.004-04:00

Paris, Texas native and Los Angeles based artist and author of the Ignatz award winning 2007 graphic novel The Blot, Tom Neely, is set to publish his second major book, The Wolf. But he could use a little scratch to do so.

He is offering everything from original work he did for the band ISIS, to discount bundles of his comics and prints, to original pages from the comic book he did for a Melvins box set, to putting up for sale the original series of paintings which inspired his mucho-lauded The Blot.

Lord knows I'm a wind-bag, but it's easy in this instance to keep it brief. Neely is one of the most interesting contemporary cartoonists out there. He keeps it DIY. This is a chance to own some top notch original art and prints and comics directly from the artist at a decent price. Purchases now will result in the publication of a book that promises to be one of the most interesting publications of the 2011 funny book season. Go to it, and tell him we sent you.

--JTD

Colossal No

2011-03-23T22:02:00.004-04:00

Much of the moldy old dregs of comicdom I spotlight here is of the "so bad it's actually good" school, like this or this. Lest you think I am a completely undiscerning dolt who would rather read Li'l Jinx than Optic Nerve (which of, course, I am), let's examine a comic that really, really, really, really sucks. One that I can't find a damn thing nice to say about.

How about The Colossal Show #1, released by Gold Key comics in 1969? Not only did the comic only survive for one issue, it's a TV tie-in with a Saturday morning cartoon that never aired, and whose pilot episode is now lost. And thank God for that, because if the show was anything like this wretched comic book, it would have been a short-lived stinkeroo of Where's Huddles? proportions.

The high concept: our protagonist is Mr. Colossal, who is a talent agent for the Roman coliseum. His assistant is named Festus and together, they dodge imperial entanglements with the Roman Emperor and his wife (neither of whom bear any resemblance to any actual Emperor). The comic's setting is filled with strangely anachronistic items like credit cards and computers - which seems intended to be the same sort of humor as when The Flintstones had primitive stone-age versions. Except the Flintstones was funny and this isn't. Another running gag - using Roman numerals as often as possible in the word balloons - "meet me at V o'clock" - isn't exactly the knee-slapper someone seemed sure it was.

But even a miserably bad comic book can tell us something about ourselves, and for that could be said to have sort of merit, however malodorous. Me, what I learned about myself from reading The Colossal Show is just how much I hate "ancient Rome" shtick. Orgies, gladiators and Caligula aside, the Roman Empire was not a very interesting time period in mankind's history - at least not to me. I don't really dig togas, scrolls, and vomitoriums. When I read this comic that treats the Colisseum as something humorous (countless people, including the early founders of Christianity, were thrown to the lions and killed here as a sick spectator sport) for kids, I get a sort of vertiginous nausea.

(The entire idea was ripped off a couple years later for Hanna-Barbara's show Roman Holidays, right down to the Scooby Doo-ish anthropomorphic pet lion and the jokes about sundials. It didn't last long.)

Between the haphazard art, the anemic plotting, and the powerfully unfunny gags, this would be in my estimation one of the absolute worst comic books I have ever read in my life. Worse than the dryest Classics Illustrated. Puerile as a Spire Archie comic. Read it and I promise you, Richie Rich will suddenly seem like Shakespeare by comparion.

- - JSH

Two Faces

2011-03-21T23:59:00.001-04:00

Whenever you're with me make sure it's still me,
I've got to the stage I can't tell which I'll be,
The loveable fellow who'll buy you a drink,
Then when he's drunk he'll change in a wink
into Hyde, Mister Hyde, Mister Hyde.

- The Who

There's a stranger in the house
Nobody's seen his face
oh, but everybody says he's taken my place
There's a stranger in the house
No one will ever see
But everybody says he looks like me.

- George Jones & Elvis Costello

Sometimes it tries to kid me that it's just a teddy bear
Or even somehow manage to vanish in the air.
And that is when I must beware of the beast in me
that everybody knows
they've seen him out dressed in my clothes
patently unclear if it's new york
or new year.

- Nick Lowe

Why on Earth do you revolve around me?
Aren't you aware of the gravity?

Abort your mission, let's just say you tried
Before you glimpse I have a darker, darker side.

- XTC

- - JSH

Doc's Bourbon Bible

2011-03-20T13:34:00.013-04:00

Creekwater, they call it. Kentucky is the bourbon state. This is not a metaphor. Some of you people out there in the radio listening audience may not realize, but for whiskey to be called bourbon it has to be distilled in Kentucky with that good limestone water as a starting point. While I will drink Tennessee whiskey with my Tennessee friends like a benevolent, patient, indulgent father-figure, I never buy anything but Kentucky whiskey for myself (and if I have to buy TN whiskey, George Dickel is the way to go) other than an occasional indulgence into the realm of scotch, which I appreciate for its own merits, but that's a story for another time.

Cartoonist Max Clotfelter recently asked me to compose a "top 5" bourbons shopping list for him (and also, previous to this, my visit to the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont and discussions about whiskey with Caitlin McGurk also connects to the composition of this manifesto). There was no way I could keep it to just five, and some of the digressions in our correspondence made me realize that, in humble benefit to mankind, I should expand the parameters and compose this loving prose poem as shopping list.

First of all, before we get into the meat of the subject, there's how to drink whiskey. Neat or on the rocks is the only way to drink whiskey as far as I'm concerned, grasshopper. Ethically, I got no problem if people are into cocktails and whiskey is one of the ingredients. But if you're splashing high fructose corn syrup or aspartame laden products into a perfectly good glass of whiskey, it's even stupider to me than smoking a cigarette with a filter (and is the same philosophy why I don't taint my bourbon, which is...). If you can't drink your whiskey straight, then there's something wrong with your whiskey. I prefer it on the rocks, as I like the fire-water and ice alchemy it brings to the experience, which even to some professional whiskey drinkers is sacrilege, although I'm fine to drink it neat. Sip it. Don't drink it as a shot. I flatly refuse to drink a shot unless a pretty woman buys it, and I always regret it when I do. Drinking whiskey as a shot is strictly for school boys.

There's no reason why you Transylvania Gentlemen and Ladies out there in the world can't drink good whiskey on the cheap. But like a nose for cheap beer (read the comments on that one for the full story), a nose for the cheapest stuff will keep you walking the righteous path. Industry standard for me is Early Times. I don't think I know a better basic whiskey in the world. But since you're at play in the fields of the cheap, ET is not considered a bourbon. But it's still Kentucky whiskey. Jim Beam is fine, but not as good as ET, but I actually, for a few bucks more, prefer Jim Beam Rye to both. Honorable mention in the cheap seats: Heaven Hill, Ancient Age (which is made at the indomitable Buffalo Trace distillery, which, as well as having a decent taste, gives it a certain nobility for a bottom-feeder), and T.W. Samuels.

For those of you into history, don't discount the mythic resonance of Early Times as it was the drink of choice at Sun Records in Memphis, TN in the formative years of rockabilly. Ike Turner and his gang even went so far as to record at Sun a theme song for the brand (not officially, they just wanted to). ET was the alpha and omega of Carl Perkins's years as a drunk. According to Perkins most of his recording sessions at Sun inspired ET fueled black-outs that would result in the band and engineers awaking in the studio the next day to see what they'd actually recorded the night before (this reporter had the experience of speaking to the late, great Perkins in person and inquiring of a song, "That Don't Move Me," which Perkins claimed to have no memory of at all). It was ET that sent him into his final 1968 tail spin which resulted in him sobering up: "After drinking yet another pint of Early Times, he passed out on the tour bus. By morning he started hallucinating 'big spiders, and dinosaurs, huge, and they were gonna step on me.'" We never said drinking is always fun and games, and we don't like people who do.

But as we move towards enlightenment, drum roll please, I'll list my two favorite bourbons. Corner Creek, for the money, is hands down the best deal and the best bourbon, and lately has become my standard whiskey purchase. The way I put it, and this is our local prices as of this writing, Corner Creekwater is a 30 dollar whiskey for 20 bucks. Speaking of 30 dollars, Eagle Rare is neck and neck with the Corner Creek for favorite decently priced bourbons, and I spring for it when I'm feeling celebratory.

Now we enter into the realm of all mighty fine brands, all a little on the pricey side, and this is where I make a wave of my hand and give you my papal blessings to go experiment:

Bulleit, Woodford Reserve, Four Roses, Knob Creek, Blanton's, Russell's Reserve

This subject is much too big for just one Transylvanian's opinion. JSH says:

"I dig Russell's because it's more like Woodford was before they changed the formula. But Bulleit is high priority with me, even though I never devoted a post to it; it's pricey but middlingly so. It's cheaper than Jefferson's or Four Roses Single Barrel, which is what I would drink if I could afford to drink it every night."

I'm sure JSH and I both will be smacking our foreheads at some point realizing we left something crucial off the list, but, insofar as gathering my thoughts for Sunday school, this covers bourbon fairly well.

For right now, brothers and sisters, we all need to get real quiet...and enter into the holy of holies...this, kids, is where gnosis resides...if you've got the money and can find a bottle:

Noah's Mill or any of the Pappy Van Winkle products.

We are talking (and I'm speaking actually for myself on this), hustlers of the world, bourbon to end all bourbons. If you can afford it and can find a bottle, do me a favor: invite me over.

Drink with confidence. Drink up and be somebody. Be anybody. We salute you.

--JTD

Your Cake's Too Uptight

2011-03-19T19:20:00.008-04:00

Man, I was all excited at Sam's Club when I saw this honkin' huge big-as-a-hubcap Kentucky Bourbon Barrel cake. I snapped it right up and placed it in my cart, and started thinkin' purty little thoughts of my adventures with a knife and fork that were soon to follow.

But then I lifted the wooden lid and saw in great big letters what I'd missed on the front's fine print: "Rich flavor of real aged Kentucky Bourbon, without the alcohol! That's our secret recipe." So, uh, that's your secret recipe? A Kentucky Bourbon cake without alcohol is like a day without blood, and you know what that's like.

In the words of my esteemed colleague Vincent Vega, "what a gyp."

It also went on to say that because there was no alcohol in the cake, "anyone of any age can eat a slice." But we already learned just recently from Pappy's BBQ Sauce that 3% is the maximum amount of bourbon allowed by law in a food product. So, then, we know there's really no harm in letting a child eat sauce or cake with only 3% bourbon in it. (Hell, I ate full-on-radioactive homemade bourbon balls at my mamaw's as a child.) And Uncle Kenny's Bourbon Cookies certainly don't carry a "keep out of the reach of children" label on them either. (Oh wait, I glanced back at my own post and noticed the sticker on Kenny's cookies that reads "Adult Treat". Hmmm, yes, well, nevertheless, harrumph.)

Needless to say, I put the cake back. I guess I could go back and get one and then pour my own booze on it. It does look delicious....

- - JSH

El Toro!

2011-03-18T18:53:00.012-04:00

My never-abating passion for Mexican restaurants led me to El Toro (10602 Shelbyville Road) the other night, giving myself a bit of a break from Ernesto's. But that's what I get for trying new things. The service was pretty awful - I had to ask four times for a bottle of hot sauce since there was none at the table - and the frozen margaritas were rather melty and watered down. Weirdest of all, when you get the "two for one" frozen margarita happy hour special, they bring both of them to you at the same time, which made the second one even more melty by the time I got to it.

I should have sent them back and complained, but for some reason I decided to not be the jerk who demands that stuff not suck. I don't know what came over me. I could feel the fellers in Raising Arizona leaning in close to me and whispering, "Jeff, you ain't bein' true to your own nature."

I strolled to the bar and asked the tender what kinds of Mezcal they carried in stock. He looked at me blankly. Aw, jeez, no, don't tell me you've never heard of Mezcal, amigo. He apologized for not having any but promised to tell the distributor that they wanted to start carrying it. I betcha a thousand dollar bill it'll be Monte Alban, but what the heck. I'll git it where I can.

I ended up rounding off the evening with a Golden Margarita, which was much more what the doctor ordered. From the taste it actually had more tequila than Grandma in it, which is more than I can say for some of these joints.

I also tried out a new purchase of Sir Walter Raleigh aromatic, which is a leap away from the regular no-frills variety and a step towards Captain Black and its suave sweetness. (No, I didn't smoke it in the restaurant, although my waitress was so perpetually AWOL, I have no doubt I could have gotten away with it easily.)

Oh yeah, food, I hear they serve food at this place. My dinner companion had the tilapia, which came completely intact, I mean like the whole fish, head, tail, bones and all. She seemed patient enough to pick the slivery little bones out and enjoy her meal; I took a taste and gave it a hearty two thumbs up, but I am a lazy man and will stick to my uber-prepared tilapia at Mitchell's Fish House.

And me, my drinks were my dinner.

Will I return to El Toro? Absolutely. I actually have dined and imbibed here before, a long time ago, and it was fine then, so doubtless I just caught them on a bad night this time. They have a lovely ambience, and soon they'll have their nice shady outdoor patio open and it'll be cervazas and mojitos and mariachi bands.

Besides, there's a bottle of Mezcal incoming with my name on it and it would be rude to let it go to waste, now wouldn't it?

- - JSH

Calling Dr. Nogro

2011-03-17T00:19:00.005-04:00

In 1964, the Chinese year of the Beatle, it was an exciting time to read Marvel Comics, what with The Amazing Spider-man, Daredevil and The Avengers still publishing single-digit issues and Fantastic Four still in the twenties. DC, meanwhile, was deep into its love-it-or-hate-it (I love it) "high camp" period of aliens, beatniks, celebrities, dinosaurs, "it was just a dream" imaginary stories, and superheroes seemingly randomly generated via Mad Libs. To be a kid with a pocketful of coins at the A&P spinner rack was to have the luxury of kings.

And then there's Charlton Comics. The mark of quality.

Submitted to the jury: Strange Suspense Stories #72, September 1964. I had this comic as a child at a tender age, and looking back with my photographic memory of those years, I have to wonder just how much this comic's lead cover story scarred my fragile little mind (and influenced the manchild painter that I am today.)

The story, "The Painting", is all about a tortured and insecure artist who's afraid to show his work. Then he's compelled to paint a mysterious man. And then the man in the painting starts talking to him and giving him career advice. I won't spoil the, uh, surprise ending by going into what happens next, but I will say it has nothing to do with the whole long drawn-out setup about the artist being afraid to show his work in galleries. It reads like it set out to tell one story, then someone either forgot or ran out of space and wrapped it up quick by telling a different one.

Then there's "Dr. Nogro's Fantastic Plot", which is actually a typo because he's called Dr. Norgo in the story. I guess the Charlton flunkies weren't too big on proofreading. I like to imagine them sitting around the offices getting stewed to the gills on Tanqueray like the Mad Men guys. Anyway, this tale takes a man who incongruously has a small coal mine in his backyard, and he goes back and mines it himself, a little at a time, and sells it at market. Kind of a hobby. But one day he discovers a secret laboratory completely encased in the wall of coal, and it's the hideout of Dr. Nogro, I mean Norgo! How did it get there in the middle of all that coal? How does he get in and out? Where does his electricity come from? They didn't say. Anyway, Norgo explains his plan for world domination, the miner-dude disapproves, and escapes. Abrupt end of story.

And then there's "The Kazmachine", in which my dear Professor Kaz (really!) gleefully announces that his machine is finally finished; a machine that can bathe a living subject in rays that will make it younger. They test it out on Professor Kaz, but it malfunctions and makes him too young - an infant. His associates shrug and say "We can only wait for the years to pass! And hope that some day this infant will again become Professor Kaz..." (huh?) End of story. I'm not kidding.

Though I mock the Charltonian methodology of storytelling, there's gold to be panned in their shoddy wares. As with Dell's insipid yet inspiring Ghost Stories, the horror here comes not from the content, but from the form. The medium really is the message. Queasily disturbing as this comic is today, just try to imagine what it was like to read it as an impressionable young lad bombarded with civil unrest, Captain Kangaroo, and Quisp; to leaf through its poorly printed pages and accept this surreal simulacra as reality. In this document lay the Vietnam War.

- - JSH

Comics Round Up # 3: Geoff Grogan 101

2011-03-16T11:15:00.006-04:00

Autobiographical Prologue:

I first met Geoff Grogan walking out of the bathroom at the same time at SPX 2008. We had a nice conversation about it being my first SPX, he was complimenting my hat. I think I explained that my style comes from my mother's father more than it comes from any hipster notion of fashion (he hardly went anywhere off the farm without a dress hat). Geoff swung by my table and visited me after that "chance" encounter. I still remember his eyes lighting up when he looked at In Tongues Illustrated. I recall trying to find him, and not finding his table. Without seeing, Look Out!! Monsters, we still talked about a trade. I thank the gods I kept after him on that promise of a trade through the mail, because when I received that book, my eyes also popped. Destiny.

Let's talk turkey. If Grogan was in his twenties and hanging out drinking and socializing with the kids and producing the same work he is now, at least in comics circles, we'd hear more about his work within that tribe. Luckily, this blog is operating outside such a specific tribal structure.

His work is as innovative and dynamic and qualifies as fine art as much anything going now in "art comics" in the U.S., while, at the same time, he is an artist fluent in the form's history. Instead of one of these whip snapping upstarts, he's an elder (but not elderly!) statesman popping with work so vibrant, all the art school/art comics kids should be worshipping at the bronze idol of Grogan.

The reason I've gathered all of you here today is to celebrate my ordering online, delivery by U.S. mail, and consequent reading of Grogan's "sequel" to Look Out!! Monsters: Fandancer. Once again, Grogan has descended/ascended into the over-sized world of his collage technique. The first thing you need to know is that this is one of the best books of last year. It's a bit criminal that this isn't common knowledge.

It's a beautiful whirlwind. And not to bring myself more into the picture than I already have, but I can't help but think that Grogan has taken a poetic, non-linear meditation on femininity, such as I, in my way, attempted with In Tongues Illustrated, its archetypes and myths, and exploded the narrative and woven a rich tapestry of iconic imagery, shaken and stirred and scattered and smothered, and broke the whole thing wide open. It's just that Grogan was more focused and did it better than I.

I see this as like the work of poets like Ezra Pound or Charles Olson, invoking mythology and references to antiquity to create a sort of modernist heroic stance...it's just that Grogan, as visual-verbal poet, gathers all of this history and his remix just happens to be taking place not in the hallowed halls of academia with Shakespeare and that crew with words on a page, but all of it's happening in Jack Kirby's "Negative Zone."

Plot? You want plot? One is aware that Grogan uses all of his experience, everything he's absorbed, and reconstitutes it all on the page. It seems effortless. It reads effortless, although I'm sure the work is anything but effortless for Grogan. The experience of Grogan's experience is the plot. It's a ride to heaven and to hell and after reading it if you didn't know, now you'll know.

So now it's today. Geoff asked me to be in his anthology. I missed him last year at SPX. I hope I see him again soon.

You have a simple mission. Go to his website. Purchase his books. This is not negotiable. Failure to do so is anti-evolution and anti-enlightenment. Please don't let the species down.

--JTD

Up is down, Black is White

2011-03-15T00:07:00.011-04:00

The meeting will now come to order. If you're not a Miller's Crossing fan, go become one and then come back.

Now then, gentlemen: I had a satori the other night about this classic film, one that borders on tinfoil-hat kookery, yet has a certain whiff of the kind of truth the Coen Brothers would probably quietly endorse. Put simply, it's this:

I believe Mink and Verna were having an affair.

This would explain, among other things, why Mink shot Rug: as nervous a guy as he was, he would likely be even more nervous about being followed - because he knew that if Leo, The Dane, or even Tom found out he was makin' it with Verna, his life might be in danger.

It's a major dangling plot point that went unresolved, and Tom himself even brings it up at the very end, asking Bernie "Why did Mink shoot Rug, anyway?" Look at Bernie closely. He lowers his eyes, lowers his voice, stammers a bit, "I don't know. You know Mink - hysterical, skin full of hop, head full of boogeymen." Bernie knew. He knew but he didn't want to tell Tom because he thought admitting he knew all along might get him shot. Which, of course, he was anyway.

The Coens even telegraph this message from the very first scene, practically yelling it from the rooftops with a megaphone. When Tom asks who made off with his hat in the drunken poker game, Tad says "Verna and Mink", then shouts their conjoined names again, this time reversed, for emphasis - "MINK AND VERNA."

But since Mink is gay, why would he lay down with Verna? Well, there's always room for experimentation - after all, Bernie is also gay, but admits at one point that Verna, his own sister, tried to teach him "a thing or two about bed artistry."

And Tom said it himself: "you're a fickle boy, Mink."

Of course, there's always that wild card when love is involved: is it possible that Verna is actually a highly passable transvestite male? Ask yourself why, when Leo says "I can trade body blows with any man except you", Tom looks at him pointedly, and says "And Verna." Was the casting of the rather brusque and mannish Marcia Gay Harden more significant than is immediately obvious on the surface?

As the Dane says, "Up is down, Black is White". And the movie poster tagline for the film's original theatrical release extended it further: "Up is down, black is white, and nothing is what it seems."

In the context of the sexual-secret-agent milieu of Miller's Crossing, anything is possible. After all, the homosexual relationship between Mink and the Dane is treated nonchalantly by all the film's characters, even though this is a time period when you would expect these old gritty mobsterly tough guys to be not quite so liberal about such things. The final tear Tom sheds could be for Verna, now that she's gone away to be Leo's wife - but the scene really makes us feel like the tear is over Leo himself.

Verna was never Tom's true love. It was Leo.

Too far-fetched? Probably. But let the words the Dane used to describe Tom echo in your head just a bit: "Straight as a corkscrew, Mr. inside-outsky".

- - JSH

Raiders of the Lost Art

2011-03-14T21:02:00.007-04:00

A couple of days ago, I ventured into the dark labyrinthine depths of one my storage units to retrieve some of my paintings for a dealer. While rummaging around amid endless boxes of crap representing my long life of loutdom, hoarding and malfeasance, I stumbled upon a box of old zines from the Lexington-area scene of the 90s.

One of them in particular, an issue of Nick Valle's Blunt Object, was chock-full of pen-and-ink drawings from our own Professor Dockery. With only one exception (one I didn't reproduce here), I don't think any of the bits used in that zine have seen the light of day since.

This, then, is a long-overdue spotlight on some of these lost scribblings from the main mind of Moore's Creek. As always, click to enlarge, Sarge:

- - JSH

The Werewolf Wasp!

2011-03-13T21:49:00.008-04:00

Now, see, when I speak of the beauty and majesty of the dregs of comicdom, this is what I'm talkin' bout, see. Here's an old issue of Dell's Ghost Stories comic, and yes, you can judge a book by its cover when it's a laughably primitive and hastily-done silkscreen hodgepodge like this one.

Ghost Stories exemplifies my own personal philosophy that texture, nuance, and timbre are more important than linear content (as anyone who has seen any of my plays will no doubt attest). The author clearly seemed to think he was telling 'scary' stories here, but as storytelling they're all total flops. You couldn't retell these plots around a campfire to others and have any effect whatsoever; these tales leap around erratically with no logic, internal or otherwise. Their endings are so non-sequitur that I find myself turning the last page of each story back and forth, feeling certain that I've somehow missed a page. If William Faulkner's word was "indomitable", then the word for the writer of these stories would be "inexplicable".

Case in point: "The Werewolf Wasp", in which a science nerd captures a strange wasp he can't identify in a mason jar. Inexplicably, he notices the wasp seems to be growing rapidly, but doesn't freak out.

He decides to take it to his professor friend, Dr. Larvay (groan - how Shakespearean.) Although the good doctor is the world's foremost insect specialist, he is inexplicably so frightened of insect stings that he spends his whole life in a beekeeper's outfit and mask, even at home, and no one has ever seen his face. Oh, come on, where's your suspension of disbelief?

No one answers at the professor's door, though, and the nerd for some inexplicable reason thinks "I don't want to carry this jar back all the way home" and decides to stash it in an opening in the professor's rear cellar door.

That's when he hears moaning voices coming from below, and he bravely goes down to check it out. There, he quickly finds, in just a couple of panels, that the professor is actually a giant spider-like monster and that he wraps children in cocoons of web and then stores them on shelves in his basement. Inexplicably, the children are still alive and haven't smothered to death in these cocoons, and are all moaning.

Caution! Spoiler! (Like you're ever going to read this comic anyway.) The jar breaks, the wasp inside suddenly grows big as a bear, and Dr. Larvay inexplicably screams, "THE WEREWOLF WASP!!!" as it attacks him.

Last panel, the nerd is running away, saying to himself, "got to get help." The End. Wommmmmmmmmmp womp. If you took a drink every time I said "inexplicably", you win!

And from there, the rest of the stories in this issue only get worse, if that's conceivable. But the comic, all in all, is quite scary. How is this possible? Because the ludicrous half-assed-ness of the plotting, combined with the hasty and sometimes even childlike drawing by the "Dell, the Mark of Quality" stable of artists, manage to unintentionally convey a dreamlike sort of surrealism, one which is even more pronounced to a young mind still struggling to figure out how the world works. Hack horror comics like these, striving vainly to be EC-like but failing miserably, often can be even more chilling just by the pathos that they radiate in their alcohol-soaked, deadline-conscious flailing.

Or maybe I'm just a lowbrow lout.

Bonus: gotta love the he-man advert on the back cover. When was the last time a 90% naked man promised you "spaceman strength and endurance"? Never mind, you don't have to answer that.

- - JSH

Confidence-Trick Coffee

2011-03-12T18:14:00.004-05:00

Though I am notorious for getting stuck in blissful ruts when it comes to food - I tend to order the same half-dozen dishes from the same dozen restaurants, night after night, over and over and over - I have a relatively short attention span when it comes to coffee. When it comes to the magic bean, I'm always looking for that next great caffeine sensation, and keep a roving eye.

Even after Starbucks and I had a bitter breakup when they changed the formula to my beloved Frap, I came crawling back after I discovered the joys of their iced coffees. Some other local offerings, like this one and this one, left a bad taste in my mouth - one literally, one figuratively. I still maintain a goodly supply of KISS Coffeehouse products around my kitchen, thanks to the fine folks down there in Myrtle Beach ever since I had my one-man art show there a couple years back, but really I've been uncharacteristically faithful to the World Market Coffee Club since last autumn. That's for my pre-dawn homemade coffee, anyway - I still end up getting an iced coffee at Starbucks most days, even when it's sub-zero temperatures.

So recently, on impulse while grocery shopping, I decided to nab a bag of Seattle's Best Coffee. I tried #4 first - "Rich, Elegant, Complex" - and absolutely loved it. Before that bag was even finished, I dashed out to try #5 ("Bold, Dark, Intense") and whoa nelly, powerful stuff. High caffeine buzz factor and palate-wise, they kid not when they say "intense".

And so it was, then, that I started researching this Seattle's Best Coffee online tonight, thrilled to have found a new favorite other than the same old same old. And to think, someone's actually giving Starbucks a serious run for their money right in their own hometown.

And that's when I discovered that Seattle's Best Coffee is actually a subsidiary of Starbucks.

*headdeskhard*

I still love the coffee, of course, and I'm not gonna stop buying it. Nevertheless, I still can't stop feeling like I've just been Rickrolled.

- - JSH

Smoky the Bar

2011-03-11T22:48:00.006-05:00

East Butchertown, loaded up and truckin'. A social call tonight at Louisville's bacon-obsessed "gastropub" sensation, The Blind Pig, hit paydirt big time. Not only were the fish n' chips delish, but they actually offer a Mezcal-based cocktail called a "Smokey & The Bandit". And I'm the boy who can't say no.

And no ordinary Mezcal, mind you - these are serious people who splurged for the heavyweight stuff: Del Maguey artisanal Mezcal is supersonic high-end high-test formula produced in limited batches by practitioners of ancient Mexico's grand tradition of agave fermentation. Here, I'll let them tell it:

Del Maguey (pronounced: ma-gay) brings you a collection of fine, rare, unblended mezcals made by individual family producers in tiny remote villages scattered throughout the state of Oaxaca (prounced: wah-ha-kah), Mexico. Each Del Maguey Mezcal bears the name of the village where it is produced. The highest level of integrity is maintained in order to preserve this art which is revered by the peoples of the mountains, plains and fertile valleys of this magical region.

Using natural processes over four hundred years old, the village palenquero (maker) captures the true body and spirit of mezcal with only two ingredients: water and the heart of the maguey (agave). The hearts of maguey are roasted over hot stones in a pit in the ground for three to five days covered with earth. They are then ground to a mash using horse-powered stone mills, followed by a long period of natural fermentation in wooden vats and finally distilled twice, very slowly, in wood-fired clay or copper stills.

These mezcals are truly unlike any others. They are the most rare, pure and fine available in the world. Their flavor has been described as smokey, true, deep and warm. Our production is only available in exclusive quantities, for each different village's mezcal, to preserve 16th century style and quality.

So, they took that and the Mezcal-based liqueur Crema de Mezcal (also made by the Del Maguey folks), added a little Chartreuse and a splash of OJ and bitters, then muddled cherries and oranges to a pulp for texture. Lastly, they tossed in some smoked bourbon sugar for good measure. Put it all together and you get Christmas with Bill Haley and the Comets.

Dude. Words fail me. Best cocktail I've had this year or last. They also offer a Bacon Manhattan using bacon-infused whiskey, but I fear I may never get to try it because all I can think about is gettin' some more of this exquisite Mezcal concoction.

- - JSH

Creepy Onions, Boy

2011-03-10T23:58:00.001-05:00

Of late, my bedtime reading material has been this great dusty old tome called A Century of Creepy Stories, a honkin' thick-as-a-brick anthology of creaky tales and gothic goodies.

Most of the usual suspects are here - Arthur Machen, Charles Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Ambrose Bierce, Honore de Balzac, Algernon Blackwood, and Daniel DeFoe (what, no H.P. Lovecraft or August Derleth?). However, the collection is loaded with names I knew not, such as Ann Bridge, William Gerhardi, Lady Cynthia Asquith, W.S. Morrison, Mary Webb, C.H.B. Kitchin, Hugh Walpole, Enid Bagnold, and Oliver Onions.

Oliver Onions?

Hang on then, that can't be right.

Hmmmmmmm, no, yes, that's what it says right here, Oliver Onions. Mr. Onions is represented with three short stories in this book, and damn fine they are, too. My favorite is one called "Two Trifles", which features morse code, Hertzian waves, and a guy named "Sir Egbert"; check it, it's gold. Just consulted the Wikipedia and lo and behind, old Onions is actually secretly famous. Says here he's the renowned author of Gray Youth (1913), The Tower of Oblivion (1921), Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939), Bells Rung Backward (1953), Catalan Circus (1969), and a bunch of other books I've never heard of.

Also says here that a common theme in Onions' stories is the connection between creativity and insanity. I like him already.

- - JSH

Salsa Valentina

2011-03-09T15:09:00.004-05:00

Much as I like Tabasco, and enjoy Pappy's, and worship Cholula, truth be told I'm no hot sauce snob. I don't require much from a hot sauce except that it actually taste like something, other than white-hot flames of death.

Not only is Valentina one of the tastiest all-purpose hot sauces I've encountered in a lifetime of hot saucy encounters, get this: it's only a dollar a bottle at Wal-Mart. I kid you not. I buy this stuff in mass quantities (always the black-label "Extra Hot", which is really only average-hot, which is how I like it, and not the yellow-label "hot", which totally isn't.) to cook with and save my precious Cholula for actual plating applications.

But make no mistake, this is no fly-by-night off-brand dollar-store salsa de mierda from New York City, compadre: Valetina's has been manufactured in Guadalajara, Mexico since Valentine's Day 1854, hence the name. Get some. Get some. Get some. Get some.

- - JSH

X Marks the Sauce

2011-03-08T19:59:00.011-05:00

I've long been curious about these here Kentucky-proud "Pappy's" products. I walk past them all the time at Liquor Barn, pause for but a moment, think "some other time, perhaps", and move on. Finally the day has come that I've taken the plunge into the Pappy Dimension.

And, well, the "Sauce for Sissies" is aptly named. As I noted here a couple summers ago, I'm not a fan of all those frat-boy hot sauces whose names and labels liken their products to nuclear waste, satan, hell, torture, pain, death, etc. and make a big deal about how their product is so hot that it's virtually inedible. Having said that, Pappy's Sauce for Sissies is just too weak for me, and is so decidedly un-bold that I'd rather reach for plain old A-1 sauce instead if I had my druthers. Even Pappy himself short-sells the stuff all the way on his own packaging, comparing it to "baby food" and stating, "Honest folks, I couldn't make it any milder and still live with myself."

However, I did put it to good use the other day by dumping a third of the bottle into a big pot of pinto beans, and the results were quite satisfactory. But will I ever purchase a bottle of this again? Meh. Life's too short. It's delicious but I require more than mere deliciousness.

Now, Pappy's XXX White Lightning is whole 'nother sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. It's still not as hammer-to-the-face bold, flavor-wise, as some products, but it's a damn tasty and unique mixture. Best of all, it actually contains 3% bourbon, which is more than I can say for all the Maker's Mark and Jim Beam spin-off food products out there that contain NO FREAKIN' BOURBON AT ALL.

And if you ever wondered how much alcohol one can legally put in a food product and get away with it, Pappy's clingin' close to the borderline. Take a look at the ingredients and you'll see "Kentucky Bourbon, 3% alcohol by volume - the most the feds will allow". Bless you, Pappy. This stuff is so perfecto that it's no wonder it won the coveted Scovie Award, which is handed out to only the most top-notch hot sauces in the galazy. So far, I've only put XXXWL on a pile of beef burritos (both in the beef while cooking, and then drizzed inside the wraps), but I may have to declare Spring early and fire up the grill. I'd love to see what the stuff can do on ribs and steaks.

If you live under a rock in Panola and can't find your nearest authorized Pappy's dealership, you can get on that there world wide web and clickity-click to bourbonq.com. Tell 'em howdy from Colonel Holland.

- - JSH

Tobacco Talk

2011-03-07T01:01:00.001-05:00

Having jumped into pipe smoking with little or no prior knowledge or tutelage, it's been quite a series of trial-and-error empirical experiments. For the fellow novice, here's what I've learned so far:

* Using a lighter tastes nasty when you're sucking that butane flame down into the bowl. I'd rather taste the wood and phosphorus of boxed matchsticks, which my regular readers may recall I have a fetish for anyway.

* My pipe goes out. A lot. Between puffs, I sometimes fan the flame in the bowl by tapping my finger against the top of it. I also sometimes employ the same breathing tricks as I use for cigars, to gently blow air forward into it between puffs to help keep it lit. (I've read of people saying their pipe stays lit for an hour at a time. I don't see how that's possible unless they're using some giant pipe the size of a cereal bowl.)

* In general, I think I prefer the mellow soft sweetness of sugary "Cavendish" tobaccos like Captain Black so far. I do enjoy the more pungent Half & Half though, especially on these cold mornings when I take my outings in the woods with a thermos of coffee. Half & Half's bold heaviness seems especially suited for outdoor winter smoking.

* Sprinkling European Snuff in with the pipe tobacco makes for a nice added touch.

* I've only recently learned up on the concept of "Casing", which in pipe lingo means the "special sauce" added to give character to a blend. According to Mac Baren: "In older days, seamen had problems trying to keep their tobacco fresh on long sea voyages. They experimented with ways of keeping the tobacco moist as long as possible and found out that different types of sugar mixtures kept tobacco fresh for extended periods of time. Word of this soon made its way back to the tobacco masters and soon it became an integral element in the casing. It is not possible to put an exact date on when casing was first used and by whom, but it most certainly dates back hundreds of years."

* You know how you always see fictional characters depicted as having their pipe sticking out of their mouths all the time? I wouldn't advise it; It's hard on the teeth. Like Sherlock Holmes, I almost always keep one hand on it whilst gazing thoughtfully into the ineffable. And if I need to hold it solely by my mouth momentarily while doing something else with both hands, I let my lower lip and upper palate hold the pipe in place, rather than my teeth.

* Just as you want your cast iron cookware to develop a black carbonized coating, and just as a wok's gradual "seasoning" patina is desirable, so it goes for pipe smoking. Pipe smoking just gets better and better once a thick black "cake" of buildup has developed inside your bowl.

* Unlike my relatively expensive hobby of cigars, pipe tobacco is laughably cheap - even the high-class fancy brands. At these prices, you can experiment wildly. And when you're done with that cigar, save the butt, break it up and drop it in the old pipe.

- - JSH

They Doth Protest Too Much

2011-03-06T18:42:00.017-05:00

"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is: are they in a position to do anything about it?" - William S. Burroughs.

Back in the day, when yours truly was growing up, it was all the rage to protest and picket, carrying a sign with an oh-so-clever slogan on it and chanting goofy rhymey verses. And we felt like we were really "making a difference" with our self-indulgent antics. Fortunately, I wised up; most of my peers did not. Well, here's a hatpin for your soap sphere, my perpetually protesting pals: no one has ever changed anything by standing on a sidewalk holding a sign. I don't care what your cause is - even if it's a cause I completely agree with and fully support - don't ask me to join in your parade 'cause I won't dance.

(I'm not referring here to events like the Million Man March, where hardly anyone carried a sign and the theme was broad rather than honed on specific issues. The purpose of the Million Man March was not to yell or picket or address grievances or harass innocent bystanders, but simply to attend the gathering and let the power of their numbers speak for itself. Now that's classy, and that's cool.)

Most of the angry protest signs carried by well-meaning and painfully earnest activists should, by any measure of common sense, be an embarassment to whatever movement they represent. The Tea Party has been ridiculed to no end (and rightly so) for the sheer volume of misspellings, confused logic, intolerant comments, lame attempts at humor, and just plain unfactual claims made in their signage. But all these very same horror stories can also be found on the protest signs of the left. Misguided exuberance and beliefs without basis favor no single political persuasion.

But seriously, people: can't you at least get it through your heads that signs written in ball-point pen on cardboard with inch-high letters are utterly unreadable from a distance of more than five feet?

And for pete's sake, don't y'all know how to mentally plan out your lettering? You know, so that all your lines don't start out with huge letters and then end up scrunching up on the right-hand side when you realize too late that you're about to run out of space? This is a concept I understood in the third grade.

By mocking the effectiveness of public protest, it may sound like I'm advocating doing something drastic, violent and stupid in the name of "direct action". No. Far from it. To quote our man Burroughs again, "that would be a minor episode, which would run its course."

So what is the answer? Well, that's just it, there isn't one. There is no single true solution for becoming victor over any given adversary; it's something to be approached on a strictly case-by-case basis. But a good start is to understand that many, many people find the act of protesting to be obnoxious, tiresome, and played-out - therefore their minds will instantly shut down to whatever message you're spouting.

Consider this: if you hate a corporation so much that you'd stoop to yelling outside their business carrying a hateful sign like some sort of know-nothing angry villager in a Frankenstein movie, you might be better off channeling your energy
into something positive. Throw positivity at something you consider negative, and outdo them. Hate Starbucks? Fine, don't go there; they're so successful at what they do and make so much money I doubt they'd notice anyway. Go start your own coffee business and go into competition with them if you think you know more about running an ethical coffee company than they do. Otherwise, stick a sock in it. (Some of us are trying to enjoy our Venti Java Chip Frappucinos, dude, and you're being a real downer.)

And you can't walk past picketers without them trying to involve you in their own personal (yet very public) drama. I'm just trying to make it to back to the office from lunch and I don't need shrill-voiced women running up to me, thrusting leaflets in my face I didn't ask for and trying to engage me in conversation about whatever it is they're crusading against, rattling off factoids and statistics that mean nothing to me, trying to tell me what not to eat, what not to buy, where not to shop, what religion not to take part in. Can I quote Burroughs one more time? "Thanks for a nation of finks, where no one is allowed to mind his own business."

A Transylvania Gentleman has his own private methodology of making his will manifest in the material world, and let me tell you, friend, it doesn't involve making a spectacle of oneself on the street, it doesn't involve disrupting traffic to promote a negative and adversarial message, and it doesn't involve dealing from a position of weakness - and carrying a protest sign is just about as weak as it gets. If standing in front of a church or a store or a factory holding a piece of cardboard is the best you got, then you're defeated already, Jack, and you might as well go home. You aren't in a position to do anything about anything.

Fortunately, there really aren't many entities on this rock that I bitterly oppose. I take a rather buddhist mindset that everything that's supposed to happen sooner or later does.

Can't we all just get along?

- - JSH

New KISS Coffins

2011-03-05T00:12:00.004-05:00

The old KISS coffin has been discontinued for some time now, which bummed me out because I'm actually at a point where I can afford one, and at a point where I probably should start thinking about such things.

Happily, KISS have struck a new deal with a new supplier for not one, but two new KISS coffins!

I like that one of them has Tommy and Eric, and the other has Peter and Ace. I actually like the Peter and Ace solo album faces one better than the other, and I'm in luck, because it's several hundred bucks cheaper. Four grand is really a lot to pay for a box to toss my carcass in; maybe I'll get one if I win the KISS Lottery.

On the other hand, I could buy a generic coffin for $495 and just
glue pictures of KISS all over it myself, or paint my own.

- - JSH

He's the KING of Rock and Roll!

2011-03-04T00:01:00.006-05:00

"Old MacDonald Had a Farm"

"Confidence"

"Dominic the Impotent Bull"

"Polk a Little Sock Salad"

"Queenie Wahini's Papaya"

"Lady Madonna"

"Yoga is as Yoga Does"

- - JSH

Two Sides of the Crop

2011-03-03T18:07:00.004-05:00

My dad used to smoke Half & Half, and my grandfather used to smoke it, and my great-grandfather smoked it. I'm sure as hell not gonna drop the ball now.

I tried my first box of H&H today, mellowing out on the back patio reading Erle Stanley Gardner and finishing off the last of a bottle of cheap wodka; man, this is livin'. The product's name comes from it being an anise-cased blend of Burley and Bright (sounds like a law firm or a comedy duo), based on a 19th century American formula. And as bottom-shelf old-geezer tobaccos go, it's just fine - you have to love the price, a mere $2.50.

H&H seems to burn really hot and really fast, which sort of threw me for a loop. I tend not to pack the pipe full, and on my first H&H trial I incinerated the whole load just from my initial deep draw to get it lit. It's cut in finer, smaller bits than other pipe tobaccos I've tried so far, and this probably has something to do with its quick burnout.

The anise isn't very pronounced, which also suits me just fine because I don't really need my tobacco to taste like anything but tobacco (although I'm still enjoying my pack of Bourbon Whisky Borkum Riff.) I think I like H&H better than Sir Walter Raleigh, another drugstore pouch that makes the snobs cringe, but so far my favorite smoke has been Captain Black Gold.

I checked out these reviews to see what the Peanut Gallery has to say, and as usual, some are raving that this is the greatest smoke on Earth (which it ain't) and others are ranting this is the most godawful disgusting trash known to man (which it ain't). It is what it is, boys, and you get what you pay for. What do you expect from one of the most inexpensive brands on the planet?

- - JSH

Secret Inscriptions on the Mind

2011-03-02T21:22:00.006-05:00

One from my writing blog:

When I'm not writing, I'm reading. There are a handful of books which, like the Bible, never get old and I can leaf through their secrets again and again and again and never get bored.

One such book is Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas DeQuincey. It's written in a frenzied, disjointed, stream-of-consciousness style that screams wisdom and madness at the same time. Sometimes a run-on sentence will go run the length an entire page without taking a breath. The book was written after Mr. DeQuincey straighted his life out from opium addiction, supposedly. He doesn't sound opiated, that's for sure - just the opposite, he seems downright manic.

But tonight I was struck by this passage from the book, like a bolt of lightning hit me on my head when I read it - because it just happens to echo my own philosophical position based on my own firsthand personal experiences (with memory recall, I mean, not with opium!):

"I was once told by a near relative of mine that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the assistance which reached her at the last critical moment, she saw in a moment her whole life, clothed in its forgotten incidents, arrayed before her as in a mirror, not successively, but simultaneously; and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole and every part.

This, from some opium experiences, I can believe; I have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which is probably true - viz., that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak of is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil.

But alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed whether the obscuring daylight itself shall have withdrawn."

- - JSH

Think for Yourself

2011-03-01T21:15:00.035-05:00

George Harrison was the greatest Beatle of all time. There, I said it. Please don't smite me, McCartneyists, Lennonoids, and those of the Ringo faith. St. George was a mighty man in Century XX, even mightier than all those hundreds of other Beatles out there, and their number is legion.

Why? Here's a quick checklist:

* Joined the Quarrymen when he was only 14.
* Auditioned by playing Link Wray's "Raunchy".
* Lied about his age to get into Hamburg with the rest of the Beatles.
* Proceeded to drink the older Beatles under the table, and outdo them
in chasing the fairer sex.
* Had "Beatle Hair" without even trying.
* Provided the real rockabilly undercurrent to all their best records.
* Performed live on The Ed Sullivan Show tripping his balls off on antibiotics.
* Most influential guitarist of the 1960s.
* Played Hawaiian-style slide guitar licks without a slide for years and no one even noticed.
* Wore a true sneer of arrogant teenage condescention in their early
years, as opposed to John and Paul's clowniness.
* Single-handedly created the fuzztone psychedelic era, then quickly discarded it and moved on.
* Single-handedly made the sitar hip. (I forgive him.)
* Composed key memorable musical bits of Lennon-McCartney songs but never credited.
* Became buddies with the Monty Python gang.
* After the Beatles breakup, while John & whatshername sat in bed, sat in bags, shot heroin, and screamed into tape recorders "for world peace", George was actually doing something about it by organizing a major rock and roll humanitarian Bangladesh relief fundraising effort, years before "Live Aid", "Farm Aid", and "We Are the World".
* Jammed with Deep Purple.
* Co-produced Time Bandits.
* Helped ghost-write "Octopus' Garden" for Ringo.
* Told Paul off on camera in Let it Be.
* Told John off on a tape-recorded bit during White Album sessions: "You're so full of bull, man."
* Wrote the Beatles first anti-government protest song, long before John Lennon ever got revolution-minded: "Taxman".
* Played on John's anti-Paul song "How Do You Sleep?"
* Patti Boyd.
* Refused to let Yoko Ono play the Concert for Bangladesh.
* Played on Cheech & Chong's "Basketball Jones".
* Made a cameo appearance in Madonna's Shanghai Surprise.
* Wrote his autobiography and didn't mention John Lennon once.
* Took part in Eric Idle's Beatles parody The Rutles.
* Dabbled as a race car driver in the mid-70s.
* Has a planet named after him.
* When asked by an interviewer why he had an affair with Maureen Starkey, the wife of his best friend Ringo, when he could have almost any other woman on Earth, George shrugged and said, "incest".

You may think of Jorge as that second-string songwriter in the Beatles who sported a mustache more than the others and went all goofy-hippie-hare-krishna mushmind a go go. It ain't necessarily so. He was a spiritual man, sure, but unlike that egomaniacal blabbermouth Palmer Cartney, George mostly minded his own business and kept his mouth shut - especially about what he learned behind closed tentflaps in the swami's swamp. Those who say don't know, and those who know don't say, and Mr. Harrison was quite content to quietly sit in the back seat and let the Lennon-McCartney pissing contest go about its downward spiral.

While many may speak of the "lasting legacy" of the Lennon-McCartney songbook, it should be noted that George's "Something" has been covered by both Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, who also both did Paul's "Yesterday" but never covered a John song. (I think "Jealous Guy" would have been perfect for ol' Blue Eyes, though.) And George had genuine bonafide hits long after Paul and John stopped - 1987's "I Got My Mind Set On You" was a #1 hit in the US, #2 in the UK. And from there, George became the only Beatle so honored to receive the Weird Al treatment.

George also, like KISS, got a raw deal from the Clear Channel cultural tastemakers who get to decide what oldies we remember and which ones are relegated to a lost statistic in a dusty book. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, George was constantly all over the radio with hits - "What is Life", "Blow Away", "This Song", "Isnt it a Pity", "You", "Awaiting on You All", "Crackerbox Palace", "Teardrops", "Dark Horse", "Give Me Love", "My Sweet Lord", and "Beware of Darkness".

He also scored not one but two hits with songs about the Beatles: "All Those Years Ago" and "When We Was Fab".

And this doesn't even begin to touch upon his super-successful band The Traveling Wilburys. Nor the hits he had as Ringo's official ghost writer into his solo career: "Photograph", "I'll Still Love You", "It Don't Come Easy", "Wrack My Brain", etc.

And don't forget his big hit "Baby On Board" with the Be-Sharps, which was top of the pops in Interzone.

Meanwhile, Badfinger were also racking up hits in the early 70s, and their shtick was coasting entirely on an imitation George Harrison sound, largely with George's own generous assistance.

Soon, the whole damn decade was cluttered with third-generation post-Harrison singer-songwriters and bands, like James Taylor (who was originally discovered by the Beatles for Apple Records, and George played uncredited on "Carolina On My Mind"), Gordon Lightfoot, Klaatu, Electric Light Orchestra, The Grateful Dead, Peter Frampton, Eric Clapton (a lifelong friend of George's), Todd Rundgren, Gary Wright (who had been a member of George's backup band), Gerry Rafferty, Billy Joel, Al Stewart, Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens, etc. George Harrison gave birth to the entire gawdam nineteenseventies, for better or for worse, and not only don't I think he got his props, I don't think he got mad paid enough.

Though George seemed to live a happier life than his miserable ex-bandmembers, he deserved a lot better than he got. He was diagnosed with cancer, then was stabbed by a burglar in his home, then ended up in the clutches of a quack doctor. And it's a real drag to see a distinct lack of the postmortem canonization that Lennon, fairly or unfairly, received. Who mourns today for George Harrison, the spooky-cool Keith Richards to John and Paul's pouting-preening Mick Jagger?

Raise your glasses with me, Gents, to that werewolf-lookin' son-of-a-gun. Hare krishna, hare rama.

- - JSH

Tequila Incognita

2011-02-27T21:34:00.009-05:00

During my missing years of the mid-to-late 1980s, I decided the time had come to make a pilgrimage to Mexico, following in the footsteps of my heroes Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. And so one morning, then, with little planning and forethought I jumped into my beat-up 1981 Chevy Citation and proceeded on my adventure - without a map.

Someday, the whole story of my Mexican misadventures may be told - in the end, it all played out more like Losin' It than On The Road - but what's relevant to our topic today is that this sentimental journey was my first experience with the mysterious mezcal, a beverage that could be described as tequila's crazy-but-deep older brother - like the Motorcycle Boy to Rusty James. Both mezcal and tequila are fermented from the agave plant, but from distinctly different species with dramatically different results. Also, the agave hearts are steamed to make tequila but fire-roasted to make mescal - this gives it an earthy, musky, dirty, smoky flavor totally unlike any sort of tequila. And it's not for the faint of heart.

Back then, I was definitely faint of heart when it came to drinking. I was strictly an amateur drinker during this time in my life, and hard liquors and I didn't get along. So, what do I do when I find myself in a dangerous pulqueria somewhere in the bad part of Ciudad Juarez? Of course, I order one of the hardest liquors available in this spiral arm of the Milky Way: a shot of mezcal, straight.

I sipped it gingerly, trying to find something "cool" about it. I failed. It tasted like burnt urine and kerosene to me. The bartender, obviously amused by this Gringo kid, kept watching me to see my reaction. I tried to play it casual, tipping the shot glass far back against my mouth to make it look like I was taking bigger gulps than I really was. I whistled along with the conjunto music, trying to second-guess the melody and make it seem like I was familiar with the song, in some ludicrous attempt to "fit in".

Gradually I became aware that I was the subject of whispered and increasingly sneering discussion by every other man in the place, and so I decided to high-tail it out and exit stage left before these surly-looking braceros and maquiladora workers decided to carve their initials on my spleen. Determined not to leave the shot unfinished, I downed it and exited the pulqueria - then I went to my motel and was up with pulqueria all night.

A lot of creekwater's gone under the bridge since those days, and so the other night at Ernesto's I decided to reacquaint myself with mezcal's style. After having been softened up to agave-consciousness by my past two years of margarita immersion therapy, I found Mezcal a much more elegant dancing partner. The warm, rustic smokiness of it is something that speaks to me these days, and I will be coming back to its oasis to sup further in the weeks and months ahead.

Though the rumor that mezcal is related to mescaline is apparently just a myth, there's no denying the psychedelic punch delivered by this psychedelic punch. It gave me a peculiar simultaneous feeling of being opiated yet with a surprising clarity of thought and brightness of outlook - rather like I how I feel after a good Underberg. Of course, if I'd had more than just a shot of it, I expect that clarity would quickly give way to some weird scenes inside the gold mine.

Hey, I wonder where I can get a frozen mezcal??

- - JSH

The Bill Hicks Experience

2011-02-26T14:07:00.008-05:00

Today is the anniversary of the death of the great visionary comedian Bill Hicks, who, like fellow performer Andy Kaufman, shocked everyone by dying of cancer unexpectedly because he'd told almost no one.

From Wikipedia:

After being diagnosed with cancer, Hicks would often joke that any given performance would be his last. The public, however, was unaware of Hicks's condition. Only a few close friends and family members knew of his disease. Hicks performed the actual final show of his career at Caroline's in New York on January 6, 1994. He moved back to his parents' house in Little Rock, Arkansas, shortly thereafter. He called his friends to say goodbye, before he stopped speaking on February 14, and re-read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. He spent time with his parents, playing them the music he loved and showing them documentaries about his interests. He died of cancer in the presence of his parents at 11:20 p.m. on February 26, 1994. He was 32 years old.

What made Hicks so special to me was that he was that rare breed of comedian who got the mix of snarkiness, spirituality and shibboleths just right, not too hot and not too cold, not too bland and not too spicy. He himself described his intellectual-asshole routine as "Chomsky with dick jokes."

Many have lauded Hicks for sneaking in little nuggets of truth about the JFK assassination and the New World Order, but I appreciate him most for sneaking in ludicrous-sounding-but-true concepts like hillbilly aliens and the illusory nature of reality.

Just as Andy Kaufman left behind a legacy of conspiracy-theory that he faked his own death, so does Bill Hicks. There's been a recent spate of online kookery about Bill Hicks having faked his own death in order to assume the identity of the great Prison Planet host, Alex Jones. Apparently the basis for this is that they had some business connections in common and they kinda look vaguely similar.

Hicks was an unrepentant drunkard for the first part of his career, but surprised everyone by going clean, just to prove he could. Even after going straight-edge though, he still openly endorsed his former lifestyle for others, especially to those who had not yet walked the path he had. And tonight at Ernesto's I'll be lifting a frozen margarita to Mr. Bill in his honor. Hicks remained a tobacco enthusiast to the day he died, and I'll also send some smoke signals his way from Ern's smoking parlor (that is to say, the parking lot).

- - JSH

Andy Kaufman Exhumed?

2011-02-25T22:51:00.003-05:00

There's this video that's been making the rounds about the interwebs for over a year now, purporting to show a German film crew venturing into Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, NY, locating the grave of Andy Kaufman, and digging it up. Since I don't spend my entire life online, I just now became aware of it.

It's pretty disturbing stuff, even if it is fake, and I'm sure it is. Here's why:

There are moments when the camera is just focused on mud while they dig, that the chain of evidence is lost. They could have switched at that point to a different grave at a different site.

This body was not buried six feet deep as is customary. On the other hand, I have heard that lazy gravediggers often don't bother to bury the bodies very deep (as with Louisville's Eastern Cemetery). On the other other hand, this being a celebrity, you'd think they'd have gone by the book on this one.

This body seems to be in a plain pine box, the kind that are used for pauper's graves.

This body was not embalmed, given its state of decay and given that Andy was supposedly buried in 1984. The clothes are completely rotted away, which is all wrong. Even exhumed Civil War-era bodies still have some vestiges of their clothing left.

The skull is planted upright even though it is clearly disconnected from the spine. This is highly unlikely. The skull usually ends up flopped over to one side or the other.

It sure is a lucky break that the hole they dug (amazingly straight-lined for a guy with a shovel) just happens to align perfectly with where the underground coffin ends up appearing - so perfectly that the guy can just reach in and open the door effortlessly. This, more than anything else, screams hoax and fail.

Lastly, it would seem very strange to go to so much trouble and only bring one camera, and then hand it to someone who starts jiggling the camera around wildly once the body is revealed. A straight shot from the open grave to pan around and show us that we are indeed still in Beth David Cemetery would have been logical, too.

I don't know why 99% of everything on the internet is always fake. Perhaps it's not actually about the internet, but that 99% of everything with the human race is fake and always has been. That would explain quite a lot of history and current events.

Then again, maybe Andy really did fake his own death, and made this video to mess with our minds. I could buy that.

- - JSH

Biggie Smalls

2011-02-23T23:49:00.009-05:00

The twentieth century gave birth to the most sublimely perfect pinnacle of literary form, and I betcha dollars to donuts you weren't even paying attention.

That's okay, neither was I, really. The concept in question is the Big Little Book, a quaint contrivance of the 1930s that managed to cling to existence even into the 1980s. Do you remember those? They were children's books that were unusually small in width - they were square-shaped and about the size of a slice of American cheese - but also unusually thick.

Whether you were an avid book reader or strictly a comic-book fan as a kid, the Big Little Books combined the best of both worlds: what made them so brilliant is that each left-hand leaf contained text, while the right-hand side was an illustration depicting a salient moment from that text. Once you got the hang of it, your childhood brain learned to steam ahead through the books almost by osmosis, letting the captioned image on the right act as a skimming aid to grasping the material. By using the distinct capabilities of the left brain and the right brain to their maximum - and it even beats comics in this manner - I still think it's the ultimate literary format.

The frequent illustrations of the Hardy Boys books took advantage of this to a lesser degree, but admit it, fellow nerd: as much as you enjoyed reading, you were always waiting with great anticipation for that next illustration, weren't you?

Lynda Barry's Cruddy - a book so much like my own style but so much better, that I gave up writing for years after reading it - also employs frequent illustrations, more often on the right side than the left. I also suspect Lynda grew up obsessing on Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Big Little Books, same as me.

The first BLB obtained by young Master JSH was "Frankenstein Jr. : The Menace of the Heartless Monster", based on the short-lived 1966 cartoon show. I started reading at an impossibly young age, and was probably all of two years old when my parents bought me this book at the K-Mart in Richmond, KY. The plot, as I recall vividly, centered around hot dogs and a lookalike Frankie Jr. doppleganger. Somewhere in storage, I actually still have it, which is pretty amazing considering all the ups and downs and twists and turns my meandering path has taken.

I'd like to see some indie company start churning out new book-comic hybrids patterned after the Big Little Book style. In fact, I'm really surprised some retro-conscious uber-hipster like Clowes or Ware hasn't already done it.

- - JSH

Comics Round Up # 2: Studygroup 12 #4

2011-02-22T19:28:00.002-05:00

Editor and co-publisher, Zack Soto, triumphant following screen printing the covers, photo by Max Davison (swiped, with permission, from Zack's Facebook page)

While JSH has been investigating the Dregs of Comicdom, on the flipside of the coin, my recent mission statement has been to make sure to chart my journey into independent, self-published contemporary comics from the top shelf only. Sorta the same direction my hand goes if I'm reaching for whiskey.

I gotta cop to some writer's block issues. After getting my copy of the newest installment of Zack Soto's Studygroup 12 anthology, it became apparent to me that I don't enjoy the way most anthologies of comics artists are reviewed. There's usually some general introduction to the basic themes of the book, and then some description of the editor, and, following, usually a spotlight shown on a handful of the artists who tickled the critic's fancy, and then, if the reviewer is feeling frisky, maybe a beat-down on some of the weaker links, and then followed by some final verdict on the book as a whole, yay or nay. Thinking I had to write a review like that kept me from writing a review.

Not only is that approach predictable, it's boring, and even if the critic is stating that said anthology is the tits, the reviews invariably do not enter into a discussion of all the contributors. While I understand that it's tedious and largely impractical with most anthologies for there to be commentary upon all the contributors, I realized that in this virtual age, and unless the review is appearing in print, there's no reason that all contributors can't be linked to (so long as he or she has some sort of web presence). So that's what I'm a-gonna do, party people, focusing on the fact that ALL the contributors are worth checking out, with some words charting the journey of my experience with Studygroup 12 #4 filling in the gap.

I stuck the new Studygroup 12 in my shoulder bag (it's a satchel, honey, not a man purse) and took it around with me to coffee shops, bars, and friends' pads these past few weeks, getting it out and passing it around. This is experiencing an anthology in a fine manner. I would point out artists with whom I was familiar, and then some friends would surprise me, being into an artist's work already that I'd perhaps just seen for the first time between these pages and the various discussions made me regard some pieces in a new light. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations generated, caffeinated or intoxicated, by Mr. Soto's collection.

It saddens me that a book like this isn't widely distributed on the newsstands of the world (500 copies were printed)--well, ya know, as if there were still newsstands of the world. Sure, these artists have a web presence, and, sure, I'm guessing Zack is getting copies into the hipper stores, but the work begs for a wider readership. Hell, one of the reasons I decided to review new comics in this context was to preach perhaps to the unconvereted, where talking comics is just one component in a larger world view, as opposed to a comics-specific venue. I don't even consider myself a critic, just a guy who makes comics, buys comics, and thinks about them. Of course, print, if not dying, is evolving (or perhaps devolving) and I can't help but feel that in another version of reality, the artists contained in Studygroup 12 would be distributed nationally and in big numbers like Mad Magazine in its day or the peak of underground comix head shop numbers. Instead, contemporary cartoonists are largely operating, for better or worse, below the radar, and hanging out in their own subculture.

What Zack has presented is a handsome edition that rides a balance between eyeball kicks while also slowing down the eye to include just as many artists more concerned, in this book anyway, with narrative in a more quiet fashion (which causes me to completely balk at this perspective, Mr. Collins). Soto has taken the pulse of the contemporary comics scene of the North American continent from his perspective and summarized it between some lovely hand printed covers--of course, it's not everything worth seeing amongst all the artists pumping that piano out there in the big wide world, but it's a damn fine handy compass to find one's direction toward what's going down (also, no one ever really mentions how much an anthology is based on the editor's friendships with various artists and also on who happens to actually respond and turn in work in a timely fashion and, don't kid yourselves, FOR NO MONEY, which is a BIG part of the process, and has a lot to do with chance and synchronicity, as much as it does some masterful job at curating content--Soto from my perspective did just fine on all fronts).

If you're not near to one of these aforementioned few and far between hip physical retail outlets that stocks this kinda goodness, I suggest you do what I done did and order this online if you got any inclination at all to see what's happening out there in this nation's comic book art underbelly. As a matter of fact, expect forthcoming reviews of stand-alone books by many of the individual artists who contributed to this book.

After you place your order, you can dive into the illuminated pool right now while you wait the arrival of your own personal copy:

Zack Soto
Dan Zettwoch
Steve Weissman
Eleanor Davis
Michael Deforge
Trevor Alixopulos
Chris Cilla
Max Clotfelter
T Edward Bak
Farel Dalrymple
Vanessa Davis
Theo Ellsworth
Jason Fischer
Nick Gazin
Richard Hahn
Levon Jihanian
Aidan Koch
Amy Kuttab
Blaise Larmee
Corey Lewis
Kiyoshi Nakazawa
Tom Neely
Jennifer Parks
Karn Piana
Jim Rugg
Tim Root: crappycomics "at" yahoo.com (As to why Tim don't have a web presence, go figure, he does great work...find him on Facebook, if so inclined...otherwise, email him and tell him I told you he was great ...)
Ian Sundahl
Jon Vermilyea
Angie Wang

--JTD

Crap of the Ages II

2011-02-20T21:26:00.017-05:00

Though my DVD collection of Hollywood's crap of the ages is large enough that I could easily take them down to my fallout bunker and watch them exclusively from now till doomsday, my inquiring mind and roving eye always craves more. Because more is always better than less.

We won't always have the internet to provide us with digital giggles, so I try to put it to good use by watching some of these glorious cobweb-encrusted old films on der YouTube. And let me tell you, friend, it's a bottomless pit. Just in a quick cursory glance, I see the following publlic domain films uploaded in full for the viewing pleasure of freaks like you and geeks like me:

The Blancheville Monster Unknown World Lured Fog Island Man with a Camera Blonde Ice Night of the Living Dead The Duke is Tops M Gulliver's Travels Dracula In the Year 2889 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari The Woman In Green Nosferatu Secret Life of Hitler Nanook of the North Snows of Kilimanjaro Frankenstein (1910) Under Capricorn White Zombie Faust Phantom from Space Hot Rod Girl The Sundowners The Hitch-hiker Wizard of Oz (1910) Thief of Bagdad Escape from Sobibor Killer Shrews Gumnaam Horrors of Spider Island The Stranger Road to Bali Million Dollar Weekend The Lodger Dominique is Dead Plan 9 from Outer Space Mr. Wong, Detective Scream Blacula Scream He Walked By Night Swing High, Swing Low Dementia 13 Sting of Death My Favorite Brunette The Demon Barber The Big Bluff The Vampire Bat Birth of a Nation Son of Kong Prison Break How Awful About Allan Black Dragons Reet Petite and Gone The Corpse Grinders Snake People The Red House Shaolin Invincibles Bucket of Blood Zombie The Manster Sisters of Death Maniac The Snow Creature Cult of the Cobra Screaming Skull Black Sunday Wasp Woman A Study in Scarlet Lady Frankenstein The Ape Man Death Rides a Horse Embryo Dressed to Kill Submarine Base Blood on the Sun Mr. Arkadin The Crawling Hand She Done Him Wrong Vampyr Terror is a Man Mystery Liner Häxan The Blue Angel Phantom of the Opera Child Bride Gamera		Murder on Campus Blackmail Triumph of the Will Night Tide Desperate Cargo Godzilla vs. Gigan Five Minutes to Live Nabonga Abraham Lincoln The Devil's Partner The Great Gabbo Dixiana Fear in the Night Detour Beat the Devil Impact Carnival of Souls The Bigamist Hi De Ho One Eyed Jacks Bride of the Monster Dead Men Walk The Last Mile A Walk in the Sun Lost World Nude on the Moon Murder by Television Swamp Women Man with the Golden Arm Ghost Train Last Man on Earth The Devil Bat Theatre of Blood Something Weird Behind Green Lights Rembrandt Guest in the House Dillinger Please Murder Me Meet John Doe Conquest of Space Fear Chamber I Eat Your Skin Trapped A Farewell to Arms The Payoff 36 Crazy Fists Suddenly Destination Moon The Opium Connection Hero of Rome Beware the Blob Gruesome Twosome Devil's Island Eegah! House on Haunted Hill The Skin Game Animal Farm Butterfly Ball Mondo Balordo Trader Hornee 2000 Maniacs Godmonster of Indian Flats Savage Lagoon Fire Over England Broadway to Cheyenne Jail Bait Fighting Caravans D.O.A. The Third Man Metropolis Alice in Wonderland The Big Combo The Limping Man Hideous Sun Demon The Choppers Diary of a Nudist Countess Dracula Bawarchi Indecent Desires The Violent Years Deadwood 76 Hell in Normandy Women in the Night Castle of Fu Manchu She Gods of Shark Reef

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of free retro-cheese movies watchable in their entirety on Youtube. It's a good time to be on this planet.

Someday the bugs who run things will look back and marvel that one could endlessly watch the crap of the ages for FREE on youtube. No need for television, RedBox, NetFlix, or your local video store - to say nothing of the rapidly endangered movie theater.

But enjoy it while you can, gentlemen, because this "internet" fad won't last forever. Mark me.

- - JSH

For the Birds

2011-02-17T23:56:00.004-05:00

People come up to me, and they say, "hey, Jeffrey Scott Holland, if you despise social networks so much, why are you on Twitter?"

The answer is: because I don't see it as a social network. And even if it was one, I certainly don't use it as one.

Twitter is microblogging, and my Twitter feed is a blog, same as this one you are reading now. It has the interesting qualities of being hamstrung by the super-short character text limit, and by the fact that the concept suggests your "tweets" talk about what you're doing (or, by extension, thinking) at any given moment. Is it useless? Oh yeah. Is it crap? Totally. But hey, so is blogging in general. For that matter, so is the internet. La de da.

For many, the way to play the Twitter game is to load up on random "friends" just as you would on Facebook (and some sad souls actually pay money for fake friends just so they can look popular in cyberspace). Then they monitor their list of all the incoming Tweets from all their "friends" and then indulge in idle banter with them in this self-contained cocoon of random entropy they've created.

That's not how I roll. My Twitter feed is just a microblog, one-way communication, like Moses comin' down the mountain, puttin' his thing down, and leaving. And the way to read is it to simply go my Twitter and read it. You don't have to join Twitter (frankly, I'd advise against it) and you don't have to feel obligated to say anything or interact in any way. It is what it is - and it is just a bunch of one-sentence posts about what I'm eating for breakfast and other Very Important Matters.

- - JSH

Drink Up, Last Call

2011-02-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

I never say "I told you so", and I don't like people who do. Having said that:

One month ago, I here predicted that a new prohibition of alcohol will be the next agenda of enemy agents, now that tobacco is effectively being fast-tracked out of existence. And now, the World Health Organization has issued the most damning indictment of alcohol that I've seen from such a prominent global agency in recent memory. (It also doesn't help that Reuters, who published the above-linked article, seems all too happy to buy into the WHO's anti-partying party line, and gives maximum spin to the meaningless datum that "alcohol kills more people than AIDS or TB".)

The WHO insists that the governments of all the world's nations take greater measures to crack down on "alcohol abuse", which by their definition seems to consist of anything more than a glass of wine with dinner. Their recommendations also include "higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and tighter marketing restrictions". Well, isn't that just ducky.

I told you so.

Says here, "Alcohol is a causal factor in 60 types of diseases and injuries" and "Its consumption has been linked to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, breast, larynx and liver."

Right. Uh, "violence"? Could you be any more vague?

Is there anything these putzes don't think alcohol is a "causal factor" in? Hell, by that logic, let's just go ahead and link the 9-11 tragedy to alcohol too, since they did serve it on the planes. And automobile accidents also caused more deaths than AIDS and TB, so why don't we just ban cars and be done with it?

(I'm hyperbolically joking, of course, but I probably shouldn't, because Google is working on a fully automated car system that takes all decisions out of the driver's hands. Because the car's instructions will come from some supercomputer in Mountain View, CA, things will be "much safer" than if we continue to allow people to drive their own cars. And these robot cars have a better carbon footprint "because the vehicles would choose to drive the more efficient roads sussed out by its software". It'll be a fun toy at first, but I promise you, it will very quickly become mandatory, and the people pushing for it the most will be not the conservatives, but the liberals. Up is down. Black is white.)

Fortunately, these are not quite as dark times for the rebellion as they seem. As long as upright (or not) citizens like the goodly Thomas Paines at Modern Drunkard continue to fight the good fight, I sleep better at night.

But that doesn't mean Paul Revere isn't going to start riding again sooner or later, bearing a keg of rum like a St. Bernard crossing the tundra. and I hope Lady Godiva rides shotgun this time.

- - JSH

Rick & The Ravens

2011-02-15T11:29:00.014-05:00

In 1961 a hot little combo calling themselves Rick & the Ravens emerged in Los Angeles. They played a mix of originals and covers, in a light garage band style that crossed over into surf and blues.

The lineup was originally Rick Manczarek on guitar, Jim Manczarek on organ and harmonica, Patrick Stonier on saxophone, Roland Biscaluz on bass and Vince Thomas on drums. In 1962 Rick's brother Ray, who had been playing with his own UCLA jazz trio, joined on vocals and keyboards. Ray quickly began to dominate the band with his ivory-tickling prowess and his bluesy vocals - during this period he was actually known as "Screamin' Ray Daniels" and brought the house down many a night with his raveup blues-shouter versions of Smokey Robinson and Willie Dixon songs.

In 1965, Rick & the Ravens featuring Screamin' Ray recorded six songs released across three singles on Aura Records: "Soul Train", "Big Bucket T", "Henrietta", "Just For You", "Geraldine", and "Rampage".

That same year, Ray spotted a friend of his named Jim Morrison in the audience, and urged him to come up onstage and sing "Louie Louie" with them. He did, and everyone was impressed - Morrison put so much into his performance that he sang himself raw until his voice gave out. Eventually Ray asked him to become a permanent member as the band's lead singer and he accepted, even as Rick must have been asking himself, "whataminute, isn't this supposed to be my band??"

Rick & the Ravens went back into the studio and recorded six more songs: "Go Insane", "Moonlight Drive", "Summer's Almost Gone", "End of the Night", "Hello I Love You", and "My Eyes Have Seen You". The lineup by now was Jim Morrison on vocals, Ray Manzarek on piano and background vocals, Rick Manzarek on guitar, Jim Manzarek on harmonica (by now the brothers had dropped the letter C from their surname), John Densmore on drums and a girl named Patricia Sullivan on bass.

Ray's two bros were disappointed in the quality of the newer and spookier recordings, and doubly disappointed that efforts to shop them to a label failed. They left the band, and it staggered along for awhile longer as a quintet whose namesake wasn't even in the group anymore. In October 1965, Robby Krieger joined, who had previously been a band called The Psychedelic Rangers with Densmore. Two months later, Patricia Sullivan was let go from the lineup when Ray bought a brand new Fender Rhodes PianoBass, and decided his left hand could handle all the bass work just fine.

Morrison didn't show up for their third rehearsal with the new lineup, and the concerned band members discovered he'd been arrested in a fight with some bikers at a bar in Blithe, CA. They bailed him out of jail, and from all accounts, Jim caused no more trouble after that, and behaved like a perfect gentleman ever since.

After that, it's unclear what became of the boys. Reportedly they finally got a recording contract with Elektra Records, but I'm not sure whatever happened with that. It's a shame, too, because judging from the handful of recordings they left behind, Rick & the Ravens seemed destined for superstardom - especially that Jim Morrison fellow. Well, in another life, perhaps; in another life.

- - JSH

Mysteries of the Margarita

2011-02-14T00:07:00.009-05:00

For my fellow writers amongst the audience, and especially those who cannot abide anachronisms, I learned something tonight that totally puts the kibosh on a key element of a novel I'm working on.

I share it now with you, fellow traveler, so you won't do like I done did:

The frozen margarita did not exist until 1971.

Does this factoid fuck with your head the way it does mine? I mean, I never really thought that hard about when mankind made that great breakthrough in tequila technology, but as it turns out, a feller named Mariano Martinez in Dallas, Texas got the mas brilliante idea to pour tequila and lime juice into a soft-serve ice cream machine, just to see what would happen. In the name of science and all its wonders.

This is even more paradigm-shattering to my fragile little mind than my recent discovery that Borkum Riff has only existed since the mid-1960s. I had romantic notions that pirates of prior centuries, or at least Victorian fishermen, smoked the Riff in their meerschaum or corncob pipes while reading Melville. I also had a vague unformed sense that frozen margaritas must have existed since at least the 1920s, and that perhaps flapper girls like Louise Meyers and burlesque queens like Treasure Chest West enjoyed a couple icy ones after a long night's day.

But no.

Compounding this stunning revelation is the fact that no one really seems to know where the margarita itself came from. There are many different versions of the tale, but none of them sound terribly compelling. From Wikipedia:

Barman "Willie" from Mexico City, 1934:
Marguerite Hemery lived in the Rio Grande Valley since the 1930s and went to a restaurant in Matamoros called Los Dos Republicas. She was friends with the owner and, as the story goes, his bartender composed a special drink for her.

Danny Negrete, 1936:
Ratios: 1:1:1 (33% tequila, 33% Triple Sec, 33% fresh lime juice).
According to Salvador Negrete, the son of Daniel Negrete, the family story goes that Daniel opened a bar at the Garci Crispo hotel with his brother, David. The day before David's marriage, Daniel presented the margarita as a wedding present to Margarita, his sister-in-law. It was a combination of one-third Triple Sec, one-third tequila and one-third squeezed Mexican lime juice. The drink was not blended and was served with hand-crushed ice.

Danny Herrera, 1938:
In Ensenada, Mexico, Danny Herrera, a renowned Mexican bartender who worked at the Riviera del Pacifico Hotel and Casino was completely in love with Marjorie King, an American actress who hated taking tequila pure. Tequila was also the only liquor that her body could tolerate. Thus, with the intention of wooing her, Herrera used his ingenuity to bring together flavors to meet Marjorie's tastes, until he finally found one of the world's most famous drinks.

Rita De La Rosa, 1938:
According to Jose Cuervo Margarita Mix, a beautiful showgirl in 1938 named Rita De La Rosa was a bartender and improvised the cocktail.

Don Carlos Orozco, October 1941:
He concocted the perfect mixture of equal parts tequila, Damiana (Cointreau is used now) and lime, served over ice in a salt-rimmed glass for Margarita Henkel, daughter of the German Ambassador to Mexico at Hussong's Cantina

Enrique Bastate Gutierrez, early 1940s:
Gutierrez, who lived in Tijuana, Mexico, boasted to have created the Margarita as a homage to actress Rita Hayworth, whose real name was Margarita Cansino.
Other versions of the story claim the Margarita was indeed named after the actress, but in the 1930s, before she adopted her screen name. As a teenager, Margarita Cansino worked as a dancer at the Foreign Club, in Tijuana, where she supposedly inspired a bartender.

Francisco "Pancho" Morales, 4 July 1942:
A bartender, Pancho Morales invented the margarita on July 4, 1942, at a Ciudad Juárez bar named Tommy's Place. Supposedly, a woman requested a Magnolia (brandy, Cointreau, and an egg yolk topped with Champagne). Morales was a little fuzzy on the recipe; he improvised and his ersatz creation was a big hit.

Santos Cruz, 1948:
According to the promotional flyer for the legendary Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas, head bartender Santos Cruz created the Margarita for singer Peggy (Margaret) Lee in 1948. The Balinese Room was opened in 1941 and was Texas's finest nightclub with A/C, casino gambling, superb food and drinks, and stellar entertainment until the Texas Rangers finally shut it down in 1957.

Margaret Sames, December 1948:
Ratios: 2:1:1 = 4:2:2 (50% tequila, 25% Cointreau, 25% fresh lime juice).
Sames, who created the drink at her Acapulco bar, gave the reason of being "close with a lot of famous hotel and restaurant people" in introducing the margarita.
Sames used one part Cointreau, two parts tequila and one part lime juice for her margarita. Knowing that most people drank tequila preceded by a lick of salt, she chose to garnish her cocktail with a rim of coarse salt. Sames moved to El Paso, Texas in 1958 where she was well known for her lavish parties.

Whew. Seems to me this here Margarita question is gonna take some studyin'. I might have to drive South of the border, down Mexico way, and do some research out in the field.

Further boggling my mind, while we're on the subject of tequila, is that it's not as intensely defined as some beverages like bourbon. Technically, any fermented and distilled spirit from Mexico can qualify as tequila if it contains 51% blue agave. The fancier stuff, of course, is 100%, and the closer you go down to the bottom shelf at the licka stow, towards Montezuma brand, the closer you get to that 51% line of demarcation.

So what's in the other 49% of the rotgut stuff? God only knows. Pressed waterdog, essence of slug trail, cobwebs, a pinch of grandfather's overcoat.

I once asked Jorge at Ernesto's what kind of tequila they use for their frozen margaritas. He lowered his eyes and said he didn't know. I asked Doug and he said he didn't know either, it already came mixed and ready to fill the tanks with by the time he arrives. In other words, don't ask, shut up and drink.

And I'm going to excuse myself now and go do just that. Ladies. Gentlemen. Be seeing you. Happy Valentine's Day.

- - JSH

How Green Was My Lama

2011-02-13T22:37:00.010-05:00

Between the Green Hornet and the Green Lantern, falls the Green Lama.

The Green Lama was a peculiar crime-fighting Buddhist in a green cloak and hood, first appearing in the April 1940 issue of Double Detective magazine. Like The Shadow, the Green Lama walked a wiggly line between detective fiction and the supernatural. His real name was Jethro Dumont, and he was a New York millionaire who became tragically orphaned when his father and mother were killed in an accident. He decided to dedicate his life to fighting crime, but refused to carry a gun, believing that "this would make me no better than those I fight." If you think this sounds an awful lot like Batman, give that man a cigar. As long as it ain't one of mine.

Where the Batman similarity stops, though, is that the Green Lama deliberately gives himself superhuman radioactive powers via some sort of isotope salts. He also, apparently being a science whiz, whips up a variety of high-tech devices to assist him along the course of his adventures.

The Green Lama didn't waste any time making the jump from the pulps to the comics: his first comic book appearance came in 1940, the same year he debuted in the pulps. He appeared in 27 issues of Crestwood's Prize Comics from 1940 to 1943, then moved to his own title for Spark for 8 issues. I remember having some of these as a teen when I had a huge golden-age collection, and being puzzled by the whole concept.

Although the original pulp series has been lauded for its accuracy in depicting Tibetan buddhism, the comic book series, well.... not so much. And as World War II began, the comics began portraying Asians in general in an increasingly unfavorable manner.

The Green Lama also made it to that noble format known as radio drama, and you can listen to three episodes here.

- - JSH

Baseball's Great Inebriant

2011-02-12T00:01:00.002-05:00

"The bases are loaded, and so is our left fielder."

Ladies and Transylvania Gentlemen, join me in a standing ovation for the greatest man that ever graced the diamond of our national pasttime. Kentucky's own Pete "Louisville Slugger" Browning was a mighty man in the major leagues from 1882 to 1894, with an astonishing career.

Wikipedia tells me:

A three-time batting champion, he finished among the top three hitters in the league in each of his first seven years; only twice in his eleven full seasons did he finish lower than sixth. During the era before 1893, when the pitching distance was lengthened from 50 feet to 60 feet 6 inches, Browning ranked third among all major league players in career batting average, and fifth in slugging average. His .341 lifetime batting average remains one of the highest in major league history, and among the top five by a right-handed batter; his .345 average over eight American Association seasons was the highest mark by any player during that league's 10-year existence.

Impressive, no? But what if I were to tell you that Mr. Browning achieved all this despite - well, he would say because - he was a total unrepentant degenerate alcoholic?

"I can't hit the ball until I hit the bottle," he would often say, and he was apparently right - the better he drank, the player he got. He often appeared on the field direct from the bar, having had a different kind of "relief pitcher" - the kind that made Milwaukee famous. Though his extreme intoxication sometimes resulted in temporary suspensions, no one could argue with his prodigious record.

But wait: even more astonishing, what if I told you that ol' Pete was deaf, and in constant excruciating pain?

Pete Browning suffered from mastoiditis, an inner ear condition which results in deafness, vertigo, facial palsy, and ultimately brain damage, especially in the 19th century. He turned to alcohol early in his youth, in order to help deaden the intense migraine-like headaches. Although he underwent surgery to try to treat his condition, it did little to stop the pain. And somehow, he played pro baseball and played it better than most, even drunk and even in agonizing pain.

He also was, as you might expect, a very eccentric man. He had a bizarre stork-like habit of standing in the outfield perched on one leg. He talked to his bats as if they were sentient beings, gave each of them names (often Biblical ones) and kept them at home after he retired them. He had odd ideas about eye care: he would stare at the sun for long periods of time and deliberately try to get train exhaust in his eyes, convinced that these were beneficial to his eyesight. He lived at home with his mother all his life and remained a bachelor till he died, but was infamous for his appetite for prostitutes.

After he retired from baseball, he worked as a cigar salesman and owned a bar even as his physical and mental condition was grinding to a halt. Pete was committed to the infamous Central Kentucky Insane Asylum, which once stood where the E.P. Sawyer Park is today, just 100 yards from where I presently reside and type these words to you this evening, dear reader; Each morning when I take my exercise walk, hot coffee in hand, I pass the spot where the building was where poor old Pete laid in bed and stared down the barrel of time.

He died on September 10, 1904 in a hospital. He had not only the mastoiditis and alcohol-related dementia, but also acute liver failure and cancer and, some say, paresis from syphilis. He was only 44.

- - JSH

Black's Juju

2011-02-11T00:47:00.006-05:00

Contuining my foray into the fiery fiefdom of pipedom, I seem to be slowly moving up the food chain. I'm still experimenting with what the snobs call "drugstore" tobaccos, like Borkum Riff, and loving it. Those with more refined palates than mine may scoff, but I am a simple man and need only a simple smoke.

Captain Black will get you high tonight, as Billy Joel really meant to say. It's a tasty toasty golden blend, and it packs a sweet buzz for a novice like me. This here Captain Black Gold is my favorite one yet; it's surprisingly moist and far more flavorful than the other drugstore tobaccos I've tried so far.

It must have a good "room note" because when I was smoking outside Ernesto's a few days ago, a very drunk middle-aged woman came over to me and said "ohhhh, I looooove the smell of pipe smokers! It reminds me of my childhood when my daddy would always smoke his. Can I stand by you?" and then proceeded to indeed stand by my side, nuzzling up against me flirtatiously. I was sorting out the Freudian aspects of all this in my head when her husband glared daggers at her and said "let's go". She sniffed me once more with a mischievous smile before she trudged to the car with grumpy-boy.

Anyway. I found this review of Captain Black that says everything I woulda said, so go read it. Says here, "Captain Black has got to be one of the best mass-market distributed pipe tobaccos out there. If you like Cavendish tobaccos, then you must read on." I'm new at the Pipe game and will freely admit that I have no idea what a Cavendish tobacco is. I could run to Wikipedia and find out, then come back here and act like I've known it all my life, but in addition to being a simple man, I am also a lazy man.

Oh wait, the article I just mentioned handily explains it for me:

"Cavendish is not a plant or tobacco varietal: it is the name for (most commonly) Virginia and Burley tobaccos which have been put through a specific curing process and storing/cutting method. After their respective curing process, (Burley: air-cured, Virginia: flue-cured), Cavendish tobaccos are steamed, usually with sugars or flavoring in the water, in order to infuse the tobacco with moisture and a subtle sweetness. After steaming, the tobacco is stored under pressure (pressed) for an additional curing/fermentation period. Pressing can last from a few days to several weeks and flavorings and/or casing can be added at any stage throughout the process. The color and flavor of the Cavendish will vary between natural and black, depending on what flavoring is added and how vigorous the pressing is."

Well alrighty then.

I also appreciate the nautical piratey nature of the graphics, and makes me wonder who "Captain Black" was, or if he's just a made up name like Betty Crocker. (I'd like to believe it's named after my new favorite pirate, Black Sam, but I guess that isn't very likely.)

- - JSH

Forgotten Cruft of the Airwaves

2011-02-10T00:00:00.013-05:00

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Much as I live for decrepit old TV shows like Ronald Howard's Sherlock Holmes (I recently scored a great cheapo box set containing all Howard episodes for 4.99!), and as much as I adore watching Hollywood's eternal crap of the ages, I could actually do without my television and my DVD/Blu-Ray players if I really had to.

Why? Because like, man, who needs the idiot box when you can listen to moldy old radio plays?

Now, I don't necessarily mean that cornball stuff like Fibber McGee and Molly, Blondie, or Burns & Allen, but hey, I'd still rather listen to an old Blondie than watch whatever the heck is on network TV tonight.

One of the classic 1930s/40s radio horror/supernatural dramas was Lights Out, and in the early 1970s a syndicated radio show called The Devil and Mr. O repackaged old episodes of it. The Internet Archive has 26 episodes of it available to seekers such as yourself. Public domain, baby, now that's what I'm talkin' bout.

From the Archive entry's accompanying text:

Wyllis Cooper, who created, wrote, and produced it, was then a 36-year-old staffer in Chicago's NBC Studios. Cooper created his horror "by raiding the larder." For the purpose of Lights Out sound effects, people were what they ate. The sound of a butcher knife rending a piece of uncooked pork was, when accompanied by shrieks and screams, the essence of murder to a listener alone at midnight. Real bones were broken - spareribs snapped with a pipe wrench. Bacon in a frypan gave a vivid impression of a body just electrocuted. And the cannibalism effect was actually a zealous actor. Gurgling and smacking his lips as he slurped up a bowl of spaghetti. Cabbages sounded like human heads when chopped open with a cleaver, and carrots had the pleasant resonance of fingers being lopped off. Arch Oboler's celebrated tale of a man turned inside-out by a demonic fog was accomplished by soaking a rubber glove in water and stripping it off at the microphone while a berry basket was curshed at the same instant. The listener saw none of this. The listener saw carnage and death.

Dimension X was a short-lived but highly influential NBC radio program broadcast from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, which turned out to be a logistical nightmare, so the rest were pre-recorded. Later the television programs The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits would directly mimic this program. Stories included works by Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Bloch, Murray Leinster, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray Bradbury, H. Beam Piper, and Isaac Asimov. Our pals at the Archive offer you all 50 episodes of Dimension X.

An attempt was made to bring Dimension X back under the new name X Minus One, which ran from 1955 to 1958. Stories featured adaptations of cutting-edge Science Fiction writers like L. Sprague DeCamp, Philip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl, Fritz Leiber, James Blish, Poul Anderson, Clifford D. Simak and Theodore Sturgeon. Listen to all 127 episodes here.

Meanwhile, The Hall of Fantasy ran in 1953 on the Mutual Radio Network, mixing inventive new scripts with older tales from the likes of Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe. The Archive has 10 episodes here, another here, and a few more mixed in here.

Is the awesomeness of it all just leaving you slack-jawed? No? But wait, there's more!

By 1964, radio dramas were on their way out. That's what made the ABC radio network's Theater Five so interesting, as it tried creatively (but unsuccessfully) to keep audio-broadcast theatre alive.

In so doing, they painted a rather odd and idiosyncratic view of the world which comes into focus as you step back and look at the totality of subjects they chose to portray. Science fiction and outer space themes were common, and coexisted alongside detective stories, psychological dramas, and just plain uncategorizable tales. In order to cram a lot of plot into their short time slot (half hour programs, including commercials), they used a lot of extreme storytelling shorthand, giving some of the episodes a fascinatingly incongruous feel.

And the Internet Archive has 256 episodes of Theater Five. Free. To listen or to download. Seriously. Why aren't you ruining your pants at this news??

Although Theater Five was one of the last radio programs to carry the geezerly tradition of radio drama into the post-Television era, it wasn't the only. From 1963 to 1967, a show called Black Mass aired sporadically on radio station KPFA in Berkeley and KPFK in Los Angeles.

Black Mass offered radio dramatizations of dark stories from the likes of Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Saki, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Bram Stoker, and even Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Thankfully, their productions are not completely lost: 31 episodes of Black Mass are preserved online.

Or how about the stand-alone six-part radio play Aliens of the Mind, in which Peter Cushing and Vincent Price discover a remote Scottish isle populated by telepathic mutants?

Or how about 125 episodes of Sherlock Holmes in radio play form, with none other than Basil Rathbone himself at the helm? Or 33 episodes of CBS Mystery Theater? (And believe it or not, there are 1300 more episodes out there waiting to be had if you want to buy them.) Or 54 episodes of The Clock, a peculiar and spooky Australian anthology?

Or Dark Fantasy, a great supernatural-themed show with 28 episodes online? Or 30 episodes of Crime Club, a hardboiled gritty murder mystery series? Or 26 episodes of Murder at Midnight? Or 14 episodes of Candy Matson, a tough female sleuth who chain-smokes her way across San Francisco circa 1949?

Is your mind melting by now, or should I go on to tell you about the raw space-opera sci-fi glories of 2000 Plus, with corny-yet-true epics of cardboard rocketry like "Space Wreck", "The Brooklyn Brain", "Temple of the Pharaohs" and "Robot Killer"? What about 77 episodes of Planet Man, or 34 episodes of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet?

Right now, though, my old-time radio obsession du jour is a deliciously noir-ish show called Suspense, which ran from 1942 to 1962 and featured stars like Lucille Ball, Agnes Moorehead, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Ida Lupino, and Cary Grant. Some of my favorite shows I've heard so far are all on page 9: there's a great beatnik episode called Like Man, Somebody Dig Me, a Hitchcockian heist-thriller called Death in Box 234, and a carhop-in-distress story called Drive-In. The scripts and production on these are top-notch, and you can listen to 668 episodes of Suspense on the Archive, bro.

Get it? Got it? Good. Tune in, turn on, drop out. Dismissed!

- - JSH

Pirates Say The Darnedest Things

2011-02-09T16:10:00.004-05:00

Words attributed to the great pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy, who went down with the ship in a storm on April 26, 1717...

Supposedly, as the story goes, Black Sam offered the Captain of a merchant vessel (that he had just robbed, torched, and sunk) a chance to join up and become part of his crew of pirates:

"..You are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make [yourself] then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?"

When the captain replied that his conscience would not let him break the laws of God and man, Black Sam bellowed back:

"I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me! But there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure."

Damn, Sam. Quite a self-determined soliloquy for a pirate. So much for "Arrrr, Matey, shiver me timbers." Don't hoist anchor just yet, Cap'n, I'll join ye! Just let me run get my tricorne hat and my bottle of Kraken.

- - JSH

Air Devils Inn

2011-02-08T21:16:00.001-05:00

One from my Unusual Kentucky blog:

It's not often you encounter a saloon with such old-school cool as Air Devils Inn. Even now in the 21st century, they are a strictly cash-only business. I worship them for that luddite stance every bit as much as I appreciate that they keep the joint dark as a coal mine. I'm a great fan of dark bars.

Their neon sign is awesome-O, and by night even more so. (Some say it's the oldest neon sign in Jefferson County, though I'm not quite ready to bet the farm on that factoid.) Their name derives from its proximity to Bowman Field, and harkens back to the truly good old days when pilots where pioneers; when aviation’s most distinguished hell-raisers, dizzy from their aerial antics, would march directly to the pub to hoist a few beers and sober up.

They were one of the first and most ferocious resisters to Louisville's ridiculous smoking ban, and one of the last to wave the tattered flag of freedom of choice to the very end when everyone else had considered the battle lost.

Strange as may seem, there are many - inside city Government and outside of it - who would dearly love to see Air Devils Inn cease to operate. Why? I honestly am not sure. Chalk it up as proof that true evil does indeed exist in this world.

Friend, I advise you to go and make your pilgrimmage to Air Devils Inn now while you still can, before it's just another entry in the hallowed hall of great Kentucky landmarks that got torn down for the sake of someone else's sinister and short-sighted agenda.

- - JSH

Night of the Spud

2011-02-03T07:00:00.003-05:00

Tonight's the night! Our own J.T. Dockery's Spud Crazy art exhibition and comic book release party opens at Institute 193, 6pm. Be there.

From Institute 193's blog:

J.T. Dockery is one of those rare artists that seems to exist both within the work he creates and alongside the rest of us in the “real world.” Women, booze, cigarettes, and shady characters spill onto the page and seep back into real life–drawn, stacked and stashed into portfolios or passed on the street. No one is safe.

Spud Crazy, originally published as a script in The Nick Tosches Reader, has been re-imagined by Dockery as an excerpted graphic novel. Wielding his penchant for fragmented plots, bizarre themes and mash-ups, Dockery has composed, directed and illustrated Tosches’ original script into a visual film complete with soundtrack and frame-by-frame action. The resulting package is some new hybridized publication: part comic book, part musical score, part academic essay, part artist-edition and all SPUD.

- - JSH

Quantity is Quality

2011-02-01T06:28:00.021-05:00

The writers I tend to enjoy most are those who have emitted a vast word hoard. Sure, Stephen King may crank out a doorstop-sized concrete block of a book every year, and the late Stieg Larsson reportedly dropped all three volumes of his "Millenium Trilogy" on his publisher in one big dump. But that's nothing compared to some of the greatest authors of pulp fiction, whose prodigious output seemed to defy the laws of physics.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, for instance, left behind a staggering body of work, composed under the influence of brandy and Cubebs. Not just that humdrum Tarzan stuff, but engrossing science fiction-fantasy works like his Moon, Mars and Venus series. For decades I dismissed ERB as "that Tarzan guy" and not being worth my time, and now that I've wised up midlife, I fear I may not finish digesting the man's wondrous oeuvre before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

The collected works of Robert E. Howard would fill a room, ranging from well-known fantasy stories (Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn) to boxing series (check out the highly politically incorrect Steve Costigan series, about a sea-faring boxer - shades of Popeye), and western series like Breckinridge Elkins, Steve Allison the Sonora Kid, and El Borak.

I love Howard not for his sword-and-sorcery bits but for his Steve Harrison series (he evidently had a thing about the name "Steve"), all about a detective who encounters some rather weird cases in his journeys through tales like Graveyard Rats, Fangs of Gold, and Names in the Black Book.

And he did it all, perhaps, for the one and only love of his life, Novalyne Price.

And that there Lafayette R. Hubbard guy, aka "Kurt Von Rachen", aka "Winchester Remington Colt", aka "Legionnaire 14830", was probably the most prolific of them all, cranking out hundreds of books in serialized form via pulp magazines such as Argosy before he become known for, shall we say, other pursuits. Unlike most of his pulp-fiction peers, however, those early works were never reprinted in his lifetime and only recently have been made available again.

But is all this mass-quantity pulp stuff any good? I say emphatically yes. As a voracious consumer, I am thrilled to sit down to a good meal of a tall stack of books. I'm a fast reader and a quick study, and I like it when writers can keep those literary flapjacks a-comin' to match my appetite.

I was unfortunately born after the golden era of pulp magazines, however, so my point of introduction to the genre of epiphanous-text-overload (I think I'm going to have to coin a new term for this soon) was the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries. As a child, I had probably three quarters of the Hardy Boys books, which was closer to having the whole set than anyone I knew. (Ralph Bowling, wherever you are out there, you still have my copy of The Twisted Claw I lent you in fourth grade and I still want it back.)

Theoretically, the Hardy Boys books were for boys and the Nancy Drew books were for girls, but I read them both. The styles of Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene seemed so similar, and of course that's because both were pseudonyms behind which stood the same bunch of hacks at the Stratemeyer Syndicate and Grosset & Dunlap.
After a couple bottles of Coca-cola and an entire MSG-laden bag of Doritos, it was hard to tell the difference between Keene's Secret of the Old Clock and Dixon's While the Clock Ticked anyway.

Will there ever be a popular series like the Hardy Boys again? I sincerely doubt it. Nowadays kids are so full of Nutrasweet and Prozac that they can't read the directions on a pack of microwave popcorn, let alone a novel, let alone a series of novels that takes up two shelves.

Of course, Drew and the Hardys were neither the first nor the best in youth-oriented book series. As a child I had a special fondness for the Danny Dunn series, which was aimed at science nerds. There were only fifteen books in the Dunn series, beginning with Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint in 1956 and ending with
Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue in 1977.

Although the Dunn books were very well written and meticulously crafted, I would have preferred they put a little less effort into the process and doubled their output.

And then there's the 33 volumes of the Tom Swift Jr. series, a dazzling science-fiction tour de force that ran from 1954-1971, and that's one small part of the over 100 volumes of Tom Swift adventures beginning in 1910, spanning five different series of books. These five Swift series, by themselves, could keep a happy seeker of the Crap of the Ages and the Dregs of Comicdom satisfied for years to come.

But probably the greatest "word hoard" author of them all, for my yankee dollar, would be Harry Stephen Keeler, who got his start in the Pulps but soon began generating a baffling array of novels infamous for their lack of internal logic. Most people who read Keeler for the first time, myself included, are convinced that they must be reading a surrealist parody of the pulp-mystery genre. This idea is seemingly bolstered by over-the-top titles like The Skull of the Waltzing Clown, The Case of the Lavender Gripsack, The Riddle of the Wooden Parakeet, and The Mysterious Ivory Ball of Wong Shing Li. It is cemented even further by run-on passages that reek of mental illness, such as:

"Now, local-colourist, we can eat up-town at an air-cooler place--rather half-way de luxe, too, for a town like this--or we can eat at a joint outside the gates where a hundred sweat-encrusted mill-workers, every one with a peeled garlic bean laid alongside his plate, will inhale soup like the roar of forty Niagras, and crunch victuals like a half-hundred concrete mixers all running at once. Which--for you?"

God bless him, Mr. Keeler - who hammered these pearls out of his typewriter by night while working in a steel mill by day - produced dozens of confused/confusing works in his lifespan. Like Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Franklin W. Dixon, Keeler's determination to tell his stories did not pause for consideration - or, it seems, second drafts.

Who will be the Harry Stephen Keeler of our age? I fear it must be me. A ghost butler told me so in the bathroom last night while he was wiping Advocaat off my coat. And he should know; he's always been here.

- - JSH

Whither Rum Diary?

2011-01-31T00:02:00.001-05:00

In 2003, it was announced that a film version of Hunter S. Thompson's great Kerouac-ish novel The Rum Diary was in the works, and starring the great Kentuckian Johnny Depp himself as its protagonist. Being a huge fan of both HST and Depp, I rejoiced and waited for it to appear in a theater near me.

And waited. And waited.

Then in 2009 they declared the film wrapped up and ready to go, with a 2010 release on the way. 2010 came and went. No sign of The Rum Diary.

IMDB currently lists the movie as having a 2011 release date, but nothing specific. Curiously, they still list it as being in post-production.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Then again, how could it go wrong with Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, and the yumtastic Amber Heard? I'll watch it no matter what. If it ever gets released, that is.

- - JSH

The Gold Key of Quality

2011-01-30T09:27:00.011-05:00

If you were a youth of a certain generation in the 60s and 70s, you always cringed at the sight of Gold Key comics. They were everywhere you looked. Dentist offices invariably chose them to put out with the magazines in their lobby because they seemed more wholesome than those increasingly socially-conscious Marvels and DCs. Your grandma would bring them by the stack after finding them for a nickel apiece at the Goodwill, and you had to smile and say thank you and then half-heartedly flip through them wondering what could possess a company to manufacture such drivel. I wanted Fantastic Four, not Jungle Twins, dammit!

Somewhere along the way, though, as a man rises up above the entirety of the timespace continuum and surveys it, one finds that we were swimming in low-budget beauty all along and lacked the sensory operating system to recognize. These same comics with painstakingly painted covers that I tossed aside in 1970 are now highly sought after by my older, wiser self that now craves the dregs of comicdom. I mean, come on - The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor. Who can say it isn't beautiful? What was I thinking?

While it's true that nothing Gold Key produced ever came close to the glories of a Jack Kirby or a Steve Ditko, it's also true that they represent a peculiar snapshot of an era when comic books were not homogenized into a crass tail-wags-dog commodity aimed at a contrived "fan base" with comic shops, comic conventions, and such. While Marvel and DC constantly scrambled to "build a brand" out of each of their titles, and churned out inferior toys to hype themselves, Gold Key was content to simply make simple comic books. And though many of their publications were indeed intended to cash in on existing popularity of various TV shows, the content in those comics is surprisingly rich and vibrant compared to how little effort Marvel put into their Star Wars comics.

Gold Key's Star Trek probably had the longest run of any of their titles, providing a methadone-like substitute for desperate Starfleet junkies during the great "dry period" between the original show and the movie franchise, when the only thing Trekkies had to keep them going was this and the Saturday morning animated version.

The weird thing about Gold Key, looking back, is how they were all over the place. They put out scores of TV tie-in comics like Star Trek, Dark Shadows, I Spy, Lost in Space, Man from UNCLE, Green Hornet, The Avengers, Twilight Zone, etc. which virtually guaranteed them a future place in the hearts of backwards-looking baby boomer retro freaks. Like, uh, myself.

They put out "funny animal" comics, like Underdog, Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry. They put out superhero comics like Magnus, Robot Fighter and Doctor Solar. They put out new comics of hoary old-codger pulp characters like Tarzan, Doc Savage, G-8, The Lone Ranger, The Phantom and Flash Gordon. They even put out Disney comics, which makes no sense because Disney already had its own titles on the market at the same time.

In retrospect, even a lot of the Marvel-DC comics I loved at the time now seem to be utter and complete shite. There's the colossal downer that was Gwen Stacy getting killed in Spider-man, and then reading about Green Lantern and Green Arrow tackling "serious issues" like drug addiction just bores the living pee outta me. (Not to mention I hated Neal Adams' art then and I hate it even more now.) I coulda been reading Wally Wood's MARS Patrol instead and helped keep Gold Key solvent. But now they're gone, and only the stones remain. Don't do like I done did, kids. Don't be cool!

- - JSH

Junk Data

2011-01-28T07:18:00.004-05:00

Question: what the fuck is this? Why am I listed in this video of theirs, with the cryptic caption "Lived: Louisville" in past tense? Why have they uploaded three thousand similar videos?

Is that more than one question? Okay.

- - JSH

Smoke like a Sailor, Drink like a Shark

2011-01-26T14:33:00.006-05:00

My recent sojourn into pipedom began with Sir Walter Raleigh (the tobacco, not the guy), which has served me surprisingly well considering its bottom-shelf "strictly for old codger" status. But as an old codger in training myself, one who actually enjoys old Casper comics without a trace of irony, I'm totally down with decrepit-dude culture of yesteryear. I get 1918's papers today.

My latest step along the yellow (toothed) brick road is a pack of Borkum Riff bourbon whiskey tobacco, which according to the packaging purports to contain actual "Kentucky bourbon whiskey traditionally aged eight years".

When I was a kid, Borkum Riff was always something of a surrealist joke to me. I watched old guys in woollen caps and suede jackets with cordoroy patches on the shoulders stand around sucking on pipes that reeked of what I then considered to be the most godawful burning-zoo stench East of Java. Like the similarly schooner-logoed Old Spice cologne, it seemed something beyond the understanding of my toddler mind. Now, I've come to respect and adore that same damn pirate ship pictured on its packaging, even though I've since found out that this tobacco doesn't date back to some previous century. Borkum Riff has only walked this globe since the 1960s, if you can believe what you read on Wikipedia. The original Borkum Riff was a Dutch lighthouse, and the only ship named that came later, as an offshore radio station vessel. Well, at least there's something piratey about the name after all.

I'm still wet behind the ears at this whole pipe thing, but wow, this stuff is surprisingly moist compared to the supreme parchedness of ol' Walt. And sure enough, when you unfold the package, a wonderful aroma of whiskey wafts up into your face and makes you say "Hip-de-hoo!" (Well, it made me say that anyhow.) Can the bourbon, in the final analysis, really be tasted clearly when you actually set it on fire? Well, maybe, maybe not. I'm not really getting an overpowering bourbon taste or scent from the smoke (but my olfactory's turning womanish on me in my old age). But it is leaps n' bounds over Mr. Raleigh. No wonder John Lennon cursed him.

Mind you, these are literally my first impressions, hot off the presses, as I had my premiere puffs of the Riff moments before entering the Cathedral of St. Ernesto, from which I commit these words to the aether, dear reader. As my brain starts to piece together all the data it's being fed, and as my palate for pipe tobacco matures, I'm sure I'll chimey-chime in here with a further report. Meanwhile, you can click here to read reviews by all manner of men ranging from the educated to the idiotic, all with such wildly varying descriptions of this product, one scarcely can fathom that they're all talking about the same thing.

And if you'll excuse me now, I have drinking to do.

- - JSH

Ben Durham in "Art in America"

2011-01-25T07:54:00.003-05:00

Here at Transylvania Gentlemen HQ we don't say "I told you so" and we don't like anyone that does. Anyway, we told you so. Check out Ben Durham in Art in America.
--JTD

The Dregs of Comicdom

2011-01-22T12:05:00.006-05:00

Just as my taste in movies leans largely toward obscure B-movies of yesteryear, I also have a predilection for reading material of a similar aesthetic position. This means comic books that most collectors have shunned for decades - anything on the Gold Key, Charlton, Whitman imprints, for example. For a bottom feeder like myself, raiding the budget bins of comic stores is always successful, and I always haul away a hoard of obscure beat-up (even coverless) comics that no one on Earth wants but me.

I especially worship DC comics from their "total crap" period: Leave it to Binky, Scooter, Bob Hope, Inferior Five, Metal Men, Anthro, Fox & Crow, Stanley & His Monster, Metamorpho, Sugar & Spike, The Creeper, Doom Patrol, Flippity & Flop, Hawkman, Rip Hunter, B'wana Beast, Sea Devils, Dial H for Hero, Challengers of the Unknown, Angel & The Ape, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis and the subsequent Jerry Lewis series. These comics, along with the glut of Batman/Superman spin-offs on the market during the 1960s, form the greatest archive of slapped-out deadline-approacheth hack literature of the 20th century, even above pulp magazines and even above the ubiquitous children's book series like The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Danny Dunn, Tom Swift Jr., Tom Corbett, etc.

My acquaintances who obsess on modern serious superhero comics (and by "modern", I mean anything after the 1970s) are lacking some crucial set of synapses that enable a person to sort out the cosmic nuances of Archie Comics, especially the confused 1960s-1970s ones where some of the comics were overtly Christian and yet others treated witches and sorcery as commonplace.

You haven't lived, my friend, until you've gone deep out into the woods with a bottle of Zwack, a flashlight, and a backpack filled with Harvey Comics like Casper, Spooky, Wendy, Baby Huey, Stumbo, Sad Sack, Jackie Jokers, Hot Stuff, Mutt & Jeff, Richie Rich, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, Little Lotta, Little Dot and not come back until well after midnight. After a vision quest like that, you will return a changed man. Even if you're a woman.

- - JSH

Après moi le déluge

2011-01-19T18:58:00.017-05:00

In the wake of the unexpected Louisville smoking ban and the newly-proposed statewide smoking ban, I've had an epiphany: if we want to protect the forces of evil from banning alcohol, we'd better go ahead and start marshalling our forces now.

Oh, that'll never happen, right? And yet, when I came into this world, the idea that tobacco would ever have even a chance at someday being banned - and in freakin' Kentucky of all the states in this confused Union - was laughable tinfoil-hat kook talk. But now, bizarrely, even as marijuana of all things is actually making significant legal inroads, it's two steps back for the sacred sacrement of non-wacky tobacky. Clearly, this is not the same world that I came into.

As unthinkable as tobacco bans were in the 1960s, that's just how unthinkable bringing back liquor prohibition is now. But it's like "Anything Can Happen Day" on the Mickey Mouse Club; the rumblings are already being heard from groups both left-wing and right-wing, who see alcohol as the next "there ought to be a law" target to help bring us more in line with enlightened nations like, uh, Russia and Bahrain.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a South Carolina minister said he wants alcohol banned because it could save lives. And among the rabble who bother arguing about such issues on blog posts and news stories, many are actually expressing agreement.

And how about this petition to return to prohibition, brought to you ironically from a group called The Autonomy Party. This kind of Orwellian doublethink should frighten any patriotic citizen whether you imbibe or not.

"We, the Undersigned, are sick in the stomach and hurt in the heart due to all the rape and sexual assault, drunken driving deaths, child abuse and neglect, divorce, anxiety and other psychological disorders, cirrhosis of the liver and other health problems, enslavement through addiction and dependence, bad decisions, destroyed property, drunk driving deaths and injuries, depression, damaged property of innocent business owners, insincerity and phony personalities, rowdy and obnoxious behavior, avoiding dealing with problems, sour moods, rage, angst, violence, clogged courts, declined productivity in labor and a host of other problems caused and / or instigated and / or worsened by alcohol."

Wow. Just wow.

Selective bans of alcohol on certain kinds of premises are already underway. It's quickly becoming an accepted sort of common sense that booze should be banned from strip clubs, homeless shelters, and even military installations during combat duty. (You can send boys to war, but you don't want them to have a beer during their downtime in between dodging sniper fire and looking for landmines? What would Colonel Bill Kilgore say?)

A Google search for "bring back prohibition" finds hordes of wackaloons who are expressing precisely that very sentiment. Fortunately, it did also produce some hits to sensible folks like Canadian columnist Alan Caruba, who notes, "I smoke cigars. I have smoked them since I was in my twenties and I am now in my seventies. My father, who passed away in his early nineties, smoked a pipe from his youth. Second-hand smoke had no apparent affect on my mother who passed away at age 98."

As any viewer of Boardwalk Empire knows, the smart guys had a vast network of underground alcohol manufacturing already in place before the axe of 1920s prohibition came down. It's time to prepare for a potentially dry future, my friends, and start building similar networks right now.

Educate every red-blooded American man, woman and child in the means to ferment wine and beer. Let the process of building a still become as common knowledge as how to change the distributor cap on your Chevy, and let recipes for liqueurs spread like wildfire in a tinderbox on the net.

Nothing else you do in your current span may be this important.

(Images: 1. Title still from Robert Mitchum's epic story of Kentucky moonshine rebellion, Thunder Road. 2. Rum runner sloop Kirk and Sweeney with contraband stacked on deck, 1924. 3. Buncha unknown old guys standing around a still sometime back in the day. 4. Henry Chinaski, wielding the tools of his trade.)

- - JSH

Crazy from the Spud

2011-01-16T22:43:00.007-05:00

That's right. The indomitable Nick Tosches and myself are working on a graphic novel of Spud Crazy.

Whatever it is or isn't, it is first showing itself to the light of day as a 30 page excerpt of a work-in-progress (to coincide with an exhibition of those said original 30 pieces of art) published in an "art edition" through Institute 193, complete with an introduction by Richard Hell and an accompanying essay by Bob Levin, packaged together with its own soundtrack by the Spud Imperials (a one-shot band consisting of myself, Robert Beatty, Justin Eslinger, and Brian Manley).

[It is the editorial police around these parts not to embed videos, but this has been deemed an exception to the rule.]

Friends, you can get in on the ground floor here, helping to make this noble endeavour reach full fruition by donating to the Kickstarter pledge drive, orchestrated by the head honcho of 193, Phillip March Jones (193 is a non-profit). Also note that by pledging 25 bucks or more you get almost half off the retail price by preordering the book now. Not to mention that there are several spending options for those of all the tax brackets that include me having to cough up various amounts of original art. Act fast to join the party wagon. For NO CHARGE WHATSOEVER you get to see me do the good bad acting free forming on the subject of Spud Crazy in addition to sneaking a peek at the artwork for the book and hear bits of the soundtrack in a video by Coleman Gunyon and the aforementioned Robert Beatty.

Speaking of parties, the opening reception/Spud Crazy release for this is coming up quick on Feb. 3rd in Lexington, Kentucky. And the night before is the world premiere of Tom Thurman's Harry Dean Stanton documentary at the historic Kentucky Theater (part of the HD Stanton film festival!). Feb. 5th is my birthday, so we're gonna kick out the good jams the first week of February.

Rock you like a potato.

--JTD

Waitin' for my Zsa Zsa

2011-01-15T10:40:00.006-05:00

Avoiding the barrage of repulsive bloggers that are actually taking glee from Zsa Zsa Gabor's recent leg amputation, let's take the time and space here at our gentlemanly lodge to summon up visual memories of why Zsa Zsa is awesome and "Hollywood Gossip" scumbags are not.

- - JSH

Crime! Disaster! Death!

2011-01-14T10:26:00.015-05:00

Who said crime doesn't pay? As I discussed here a couple days ago, last year I used my mad skillz to pay the billz doing crime reporting for Louisville Mojo, despite my misgivings on the subject and despite my original stated desire to write about entertainment and nightlife.

Why the misgivings? Because I think crime reporting, like much of the mainstream media in general, is a scam. TV news producers and newspaper editors, desperate to generate "controversy" to attract readers and viewers, make it a matter of policy to bombard their audience with detailed lurid descriptions of crimes. So-and-so's house got broken into at 2434 Schmuckingbird Lane. A mother killed her child at 615 Slopco Avenue. An arsonist from Splopville was caught burning down his own property for insurance fraud. Ned's Sporting Goods was held up by an "armed black man" who was wearing a mask and gloves yet they're somehow 100% certain he was black anyway.

Bear with me, now - the average person has most of their day-to-day life taken up by a job. In the few remaining hours they have allotted to themselves, they have to spend it trying to maintain their home and deal with other errands and business. If they're lucky, they get to zone out with a little TV at night or maybe playing Facebook games on the net.

If you have a family, your responsibilities are drastically more onerous and your precious time is even more stretched out; you have to keep that spouse happy and make sure you spend quality time with your children - not just token moments for appearance's sake, but serious quality time to make sure your kids are progressing as they should. Family outings, church, school functions, visiting relatives and hosting visits from in-laws, all of these come with a family and all of these shave away even more of the insufficient hours of the day.

If you own your own home rather than rent, your duties are multiplied still further - you have to deal with the yard guy, the roof guy, the furnace guy, the chimney guy, the pool guy, the plumber, the walk-shoveling kid, and so on.

If you have any personal dreams and goals of your own, there's a good chance that they're pretty much shot to hell by everything I've enumerated, if by nothing else than sheer time constraint. So if you intend to get anything done outside your family, home and job, you'd better make minutes count. In the words of Roger Miller, "knuckle down, buckle down, do it, do it, do it."

Given all of the above, no one has ever been able to adequately explain to me why I need to know that some nutjob across town shot his grandmother in the face and then killed himself. It is not useful information. It benefits me in no way. Even if it happened on my street, I gain nothing from having learned of it, because it's already happened and there's nothing I can do; so much for "neighborhood watch".

For many people, reading about the misery of others is a pasttime, a form of cathartic entertainment. The media, understanding this, feeds on this and actually promotes it as normalcy. The net effect is that the world is presented as a far more dangerous place than it really is, because the "news" is almost exclusively dwelling on every bad thing done by every misguided loser in the tri-state area. While I don't suggest that the media turn to total fluffy pollyanna "light" happy-crappy news, there is a way to report on vital information that a citizen can actually put to good use. But the media moguls, great and small, nevertheless stick to their formula of selling chaos and negativity.

I don't know about you, but life is short and I don't have time to read "community gossip" detailing the sordid stories of deadbeat dads, or "crime beat" reports about some random idiot crackhead who took too many drugs and ran over a family at a bus stop. Society has been gradually sculpting you into believing that "this is just the way things are" and that it's "normal" that the world is filled with danger and that we should keep "informed" on it all. Sensitive people are driven into inaction and apathy by the information overload, and less-sensitive people are driven into greater sociopathy by getting daily doses of gradual confirmation that "people suck".

I jumped off the whole shared myth of "the way things are" long ago. Just as I no longer feel obligated to stay hip on the latest generic pop star or reality show, I no longer feel a need to burden myself with negative news of the failed lives of others. It's not the same as not caring - it's caring, but it's also knowing that being dumped upon with the emotional contagion of the collective misery of the world does not solve the problems at hand.

Join me, won't you?

- - JSH

2010 Retrospective

2011-01-12T12:32:00.013-05:00

I was going to do a big roundup looking back at the year 2010 a couple weeks ago and then I got distracted by something shiny. That's a great way to start the new year, isn't it, by procrastinating?

So what did happen last year?

Well, 2010 began with me writing for Louisville Mojo, a relationship which soon ended when they cleaned house and got rid of all the paid writing staff, including my boss. That I was constantly complaining about being given crime assignments to write about was apparently a factor, especially after I threw down an ultimatum that I wanted off the crime beat. (Me, I think reporting on crime is a lazy way to report the news, and it serves no purpose except to dumb down the public. But I'll rant more about that at a later date.)

Anyway, there was a slight return to Mojo after I negotiated my way back in there to write strictly about nightlife, but that quickly went South all over again when they now insisted I start writing in a generic "evergreen" extreme keyword-spam SEO style. Fuck that. And the final punchline came just last week, when I noticed that they've deleted all the articles I wrote for them. So, they paid me thousands of dollars to make blog posts - posts that still continued to send traffic to their site by my aggressively linking back from my own sites - just to delete them? Well, whatever, Mojo, and thanks for all the cash.

The main thing I learned from the whole experience is something I actually already knew but foolishly didn't follow through on: that I cannot waste my time doing something that I don't have total control over. For better or for worse, it's gotta be my way or the highway.

I did some book-signing events and personal appearances, including a Weird Kentucky signing at Costco, of all places. I was initially dubious about the idea of sitting there in a megagrocery amongst housewives pushing shopping carts filled with antifreeze-sized jugs of barbecue sauce, but it went off amazingly well and I met some wonderful people.

Weird Cemeteries, my current book project and follow-up to Weird Kentucky for Sterling/Weird US, has been stalled for some time even though the idea has already been greenlit long ago. 2010 marked the year I gave up on that and began pursuing my next book deal elsewhere. Here in the early days of 2011, it seems to be bearing fruit: I have several new deals in the works that I'm sure I'll be blabbing about ad nauseum very soon.

I also started a writing blog that serves to gently hype my bits that appear in magazines, and to give occasional sneak peeks at what I'm working on. One of those works in progress is a play called Son of Grimaldi, which will mark the return of my theatre company, Catclaw, to active duty. We've been resting on our laurels for the last year, ever since the highly successful puppet-theatre extravaganza Birth of Merlin in NYC last winter. (Of course, if you can get anyone to show up to a puppet show held during the Xmas season in one of the worst parts of NYC in a freezing warehouse, I call that highly successful.)

I won the Derby again this year, which actually speaks very little of any handicapping prowess on my part, but of sheer cosmic luck. I won a sizable Derby Pot at our party and showed my gratitude by making genuine-recipe Juleps for everyone.

My biggest regret of 2010 is that I failed on my goal to obtain a pedal surrey and to challenge the car-dominant status quo with it by driving it in traffic. Maybe this year will be the year of my surrey gang.

2010 was the year I became obsessed with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which I estimate to have watched at least 300 times since summer (many more, if you count having it run on an endless loop while I sleep, which I have often done!) You can check my musings about the film here and here. My main interest in the film, aside from general adoration of Kubrick, is how much it has in common with William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch and the Cronenberg film made about how it came to be written. As a writer, the notion that we are compelled to write the things we do by external forces (and not all of them are good) is one that continues to resonate with me.

The JSH Combo still steadfastly refuses to coalesce again, but hey, they've got a blog anyway. Although I've done some woodshedding, rehearsing and even recording with several local musicians, the time just hasn't been right to unleash this latest incarnation of my rockabilly-exotica-lounge combo. However, I did renew my niche as a purveyor of noise, by churning out large quantities of pretentious minimalist avant-garde snippets of synth-noodling, ambient noise, and found sounds. I even set up a new YouTube account and dumped many of them on an unwilling and unwitting web.

2010 was, honestly, a year of sitting back and enjoying what meager successes life has trickled upon me, rather than overt action. I spent a lot of time puttering around with my organic garden, my wine cellar and holding little cigar-tasting get-togethers, and learned the joys of being a wi-fi gypsy with a new Acer netbook and finding a new writing muse in the spicy ambience of Mexican restaurants. I spent a little too much time gazing at the sunset while sipping Dundee, Maredsous and Schlenkerla and watching old Spectreman videos when I shoulda been carpe-ing the diem a bit more. Then again, why not eat, drink and be merry when tomorrow we may get hit by an asteroid?

- - JSH

Prunus dulcis liquidus

2011-01-11T11:14:00.005-05:00

"Moreover the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree." - Jeremiah 1:11

Something I always like to keep in stock around the old JSH wine cellar is Amaretto - I use it like sugar syrup; you never know when you might need some to sweeten some tea or coffee, or even to add to your pancake batter. It also was useful for the research and development of the Overlook Cocktail, which wedded the wetness of Amaretto to the weirdess of Advocaat.

I was a DiSaronno man for the majority of my existence on this rock, but recently have been wooed to the ways of my good friend Vic, who forgot more about booze than I'll ever know. Like most of his wares, ol' Vic's formula for Amaretto is darker, punchier, grippier, and less candy-like than other leading brands.

And don't kid yourself that this is a lightweight liqueur. Something about this stuff - perhaps the herbs, perhaps the almond oil - gives it a real psychoactive kick that can mess with you if you aren't properly prepared to be messed with. I've seen Amaretto reduce many a stout man to a gibbering, pants-removing raving lunatic. S'truth.

Drink responsibly, gang.

- - JSH

Fat Elvis and Fat Jim Morrison Team-Up!

2011-01-08T22:54:00.003-05:00

As Mr. Holland and I often do, we were engaging in serious philosophical discussion when we started goofing on the idea if a fat period version of Elvis were to team up with a fat period version of Jim Morrison. While this ain't the most reverential way to celebrate Big E's birthday (nor was it planned that way), here we are a few days later and I've brought the concept from our serious discussions to fruition via my sketchbook (thus the double-fisted posting in the true "team-up" spirit).

Not only is the result not safe for work, it's not even in good taste. Not that TG is ever really either of those things. Click this link and then navigate through the pages.

--JTD