Some days (January days, often, as it seems January is not only a cold month temperature-wise, but also a cold month life-wise, being the month of re-orgs, and silly resolutions, and uncomfortable whatnots. And if not all those actually happen, there tends to be the threat of all those, anyways) you need a bit of boozy medicine. If you’re in need, then you’ll especially like this quote from an old pulp called Murder in Havana. Which is about, funny enough, a bunch of murders in Havana, that our main character “Andy” tipsily stumbles in to (it’s not my pal Andy Sweet–who was one of the writers of Battleship, Battleship, Battleship–though it could have been, cause both are go-get-um guys). Anywho, Andy thinks that sometimes you just have to take your medicine (booze, that is). Here, see for yourself:

His bag was already on the customs bench and he opened it for a uniformed inspector who made but a cursory examination until he found the leather-covered flask. He unscrewed it, sniffed rum, grinned. ‘Medicine,’ he said. ‘Medicine.’ Andy grinned back at him and opened the briefcase.

–Murder in Havana, George Harmon Coxe

It is the middle of the holiday cocktail party season. There are, let’s see, daytime work holiday parties, and nighttime work holiday parties, afternoon drinking parties with friends, and evening drinking parties with friends, holiday booze-teas with families, and holiday booze-luncheons with families, and holiday booze evenings with families, and then a host of parties thrown by those that might be friends, but not good friends, but parties you feel you should go to anyway, in the spirit of the season. With all this holiday partying, it’s possible (if not probable) that one or two of the parties may be more chore than cheer. With that, I’d like to present the following poem by Catullus, ancient partier. The poem is about these later parties a bit, and may well be worth reciting loudly when you’re at any holiday party. The translation (because, well, I can’t read ancient Latin) is by modern partier and poet Ed Skoog (did you get Mister Skylight yet? Cause if not, I’m sending a zombie Catullus to haunt you) and is, well, delicious.

Poem 27

 

Are you tending the bar, kid? Pour me the strong stuff,

the Falernian wine, and one for yourself. We’re going to need it,

the way this party is going. Our host, Postumia, is drunker than

these grapes. No water, please. It kills what wine is.

Save water for the fool who prefers his own sorrow.

This wine is more than wine. It’s the blood of the god

whose mother was destroyed by his father’s splendor,

the god of madness and ecstasy, who shares it with us.

– Poem 27, Catullus, translated by Ed Skoog

PS: Enjoy this drunken poetry and lit’rature stuff? Then you must, I say must, visit the blog Drunk Literature. It’s a literary boozehound’s dream blog.

It’s rare that I like a movie or T.V. series or podcast or alien mind scan more than the book it’s based on (cause books are better. So there). But, in the case of The Irish R.M., I think the BBC series is, in fact, better than the collection of vignettes by E. OE Somerville and Martin Ross. Though the collection is nice enough, and gives us the below quote, and introduces us to memorable drunk Slipper (who is almost always “slightly advanced in liquor”), as well as the main character (a somewhat stuffy-but-sweet English fella who goes to rural Ireland to be a registered magistrate, and then gets taken in and involved in all kinds of hijinks with the crafty locals—in a way, it’s like the big city folks from Salina, KS, who would come visit us country folks in Lindsborg, KS, when I was growing up. We’d always be drunk and scheming and riding after foxes while they laughed bemusedly) and various others, it doesn’t have the same jolly resonance as the series starring jolly Englishman Peter Bowles. I strongly suggest it if you want to learn about shebeens (and really, who doesn’t?), and I also strongly suggest the following quote:

It was a day when frost and sunshine combined went to one’s head like iced Champagne; the distant sea looked like the Mediterranean, and for four sunny hours the Knox relatives and I followed nine couple of hounds in a tranquil footpace along the hills, our progress mildly enlivened by one or two scrambles in the shape of jumps.

–The Irish R.M., E. OE Somerville and Martin Ross

PS: Also worthy, this descriptive phrase: “a woman who had th’ appairance of having knocked at a back door.”

Well, some may know this already, and I’m not such a good “blow-my-own-horn” guy, so I’m going to keep this sorta short: my  new book Dark Spirits: 200 Classy Concoctions Starring Bourbon, Brandy, Scotch, Whiskey, Rum and More is out, and ready for you to take it home, drink with it, and cuddle with it (well, at least pet it a little). The basic overview of the books is that it’s a bunch of dark-spirit based recipes broken out into seven fun (one hopes, at least) thematic chapters: Dark Classics, Bartender’s Choice, Bubbly Refreshers, Dim the Lights–Chill the Cocktails, Dark Drinks That Go Bump in the Night, Powerful Punches, and Hot Stuff. All the recipes are surrounded by what I like to think of as “party talk,” so histories, stories, quotes, suggestions for specific occasions, facts, further readings, and genial cocktail chatter. Also, as with a few of my other books, it has stunning and wonderful and wondrous photos taken by award-winning genius photographer Melissa Punch. While all that’s good and well, to complete my little sales pitch (see, I’m bad at this), I’ve decided to bulletize a few salient points:

• Has two drinks in it (Sweet Louise, Very Old Fashioned) by bartender-about-town-and-serious-vest-wearer Andrew Bohrer

• Has a George Brett mention in at least one recipe and the world’s best Football Punch recipe (that’s for the Kansan sports fans)

• Has two Mighty Boosh call outs, two Robots in Disguise call outs, and one Matt Berry call out (that’s not an outrage at all)

• Has recipes by two Jeremy’s (Holt and Sidener), a Hess (Robert) a Pingleton (Ken), and a Paul (Clarke)

• Has 35 recipes ideal for those days and nights when you and your specific other want to get “romantic”

• Has a host of obscure literary and comic book references (though the Dr. Strange lines were sadly cut during editing–Neilalien will not buy this book), including the most obscure of all, a quote from Fandral from the 1976 issue of Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight on Warriors Three in the Rob Roy recipe

• Has the phrase “the drink just wants that belly scratched” on page 221

• Has shout outs to these four musical hot numbers: Truck Stop Love, Zoom, Warlock, and Tom Waits

• Has a mention of you at some point in the book.

Okay, maybe that last one’s pushing it, but hey, Dark Spirits just might have you in it. And if not, you can certainly pretend. It’s available now at Amazon, and if you don’t want to buy it there, check out this page for more options. And let me just thank you in advance for the support, and for keeping me well-stocked in booze. And, let me tempt you with one more item below, the fabulous pic for the Crimson Slippers (won’t you be sad if you don’t have a book with that picture in your collection? I think so).

PS: Oh, could you (if you’re a facebook-er, and haven’t yet), also please become a fan of me on my A.J. Rathbun facebook fan page? If not, the PR guy at my publisher is going to beat me with a tape recorder. And I can’t take the scars.

I can’t get enough of The Long Goodbye. Maybe it’s cause I’m a big Raymond Chandler fan. Maybe it’s cause I think his creation Philip Marlowe is a big dollop of hard-boiled fun (some like Sam Spade or the Continental Op better. I say, “why not have all of them?”). Maybe it’s cause I have a soft spot in my hard heart for the Robert Altman movie version of the Long Goodbye, starring the genius, Eliot Gould. But maybe, just maybe, most of all, my liking of the Long Goodbye is because of this quote (which I featured in good ol’ Good Spirits, and which is admittedly a rough-around-the-edges, smelling-a-bit-like-bourbon, not-what-you-take-home-to-the-parents, quote. But great, so great, anyway):

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.

 

–Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Sometimes, even in a book (or comic book) you’re not especially fond of (or, haven’t grown fond of yet, because some books and comics, like cats, sneak up on you. At first, you’re all “take-it-or-leave-it” and then all-of-a-sudden you can’t put the book or comic or cat down), a quote just jumps up and makes you happy. Or, at least, this happened to me this morning while I was reading the Leslie Ford book Washington Whispers Murder. I’ve picked up a couple of Mrs. (Miss? Ms? Madame?) Ford’s books because, well, I liked the covers. And I’m a sucker. Or, sucka, if you prefer. Though I haven’t read one yet I can honestly say I dig. But what I do dig is a pitcher of Manhattans made for me when I come over to visit. Which is why I liked this quote (and cause I know you like the same–the Manhattans, that is–I figured you might like the quote, too).

Her pale blue eyes widened inquiringly as she looked at the Manhattan pitcher he’d picked up. If he’d been a magician, and the Manhattan he poured then a chinchilla rabbit, and she a child of five, her eyes couldn’t have shone with greater or more enchanted wonder.

–Washington Whispers Murder, Leslie Ford

A quick break from the Chow tips (check ‘em out below, if’n you haven’t seen them), but only enough so I can slip in a quick quote from a book by A.A. Fair, called Some Women Won’t Wait (amen), with only a quick introductory graph, which I am writing quickly (but lovingly), so I can skedaddle out to the Friends of the Seattle Library Booksale (the most wondrous of events). So, quick (he says): A.A. Fair is, actually, Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote 3 billion Perry Mason mysteries, and who I don’t tend to like (though, oddly, quickly, I love the Perry Mason TV series), but this book I found fun, probably because there’s lots of drinking, and a mysterious woman with eyes the size of orange slices drinking on the cover. I’m not saying I get easily swayed, but . . .. Anyway, check this out, go buy some books, and then make a big boozy punch and slide into the weekend.

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel was saturated with an atmosphere of deep, quiet luxury. The royal palms furnished dappled shade; the air was a combination of ocean tang and the scent of flowers.

            I wandered through the lobby and a couple of shops before I found Bertha Cool seated at a table out on a lanai overlooking the ocean.

            There was a planter’s punch in front of her, and Bertha was just a little flushed, her eyes just a little watery, her lips pressed in a tight line.

            I took a good look and decided that Bertha was just a little bit high and very, very mad.

 

– Some Women Won’t Wait, A.A. Fair

Hey, happy Mon-Tuesday. Just hold off before calling me calendarily challenged. I know today is really Tuesday, and that there is no Mon-Tuesday day. But as it’s the day after a Monday holiday, all of us working slobs (those who work the regular work-week at least) going back to work feel like it’s a Monday, cause it’s the first day of the week with the good times that entails (sing it now, good times, any time you need a favor), but it’s actually Tuesday. Hence the Mon-Tuesday. What does this mean in the world of boozing and spiking of punches? That it’s a fine time for a quote by Hal Masur (who in his full name is Harold Q. Masur, as seen in this post about Suddenly a Corpse), from a book in his Scott Jordan series. Scott’s a lawyer, see, when that meant more than a bad film adaptation and a southern accent. What it means is he drinks hard, rumbles with jerky DAs, snuggles up with any number of hourglass figures, and then solves mysteries and murders. The kind of lawyer a boy or girl can admire, and aspire to being (or hiring). You know, as it is Mon-Tuesday, here are two quotes from Tall, Dark and Deadly: one martini one, and one bar one. Enjoy them, and then go litigate yourself something cold and strong (whatever that means).

“Thirsty Scott?”

“Parched. I’d like a martini, very dry.”

She went to a portable bar. “One martini, coming up.”

“May I help?”

“I know the formula,” she declared loftily. “Gin, vermouth, and cyanide.” She prepared the ingredients in a chrome shaker, applying the vermouth with an atomizer, and substituting a twist of lemon peel for the cyanide. I drank. It was very dry indeed and the gin left me a trifle lightheaded.

“Another?” she asked?

“Not unless you can handle me.”

“Does that mean I have to get you drunk?”

“Helps. I’ve very shy.”

I entered and perched on a bar stool. The place was humming with activity. Regardless of the hour or the temperature, it seems that a large number of citizens continuously suffer from parched throats. In order to accommodate this drought the city has spawned a thousand watering holes that serve no water. This one was indistinguishable from its cousins.

            I ordered Canadian ale and got a glass of Milwaukee stout.

–Tall, Dark and Deadly, Hal Masur

It’s Friday, which means yippes, hallelujahs, wowie-zowies, and more exclamations of general merriment, as we communally breathe out one big happy weekend-is-here yelp. Not that all of us hate our weekdays (not at all), but the weekend’s usually more fun, with its sleeping in, and staying up late, its revelries, drinks, and merriment. However (and here’s where that ol’ other shoe sometimes drops), the weekend can also mean things like mandatory work parties and other “parties” which might be funnish, but which you don’t seem to have a choice about attending. Which is why I’m sending you out to your weekend with this quote about parties from Anthony Trollope, taken from his most famous (or top five, at least) book, Barchester Towers, the second book in the Barchester series, the first Trollope I read (I think I’ve got them all now, or darn close, now), and nothing short of a masterpiece of English drawing room comedy. Maybe I like another Trollope or two better, but I’ve read Barchester Towers at least three times, and every time I’ve wanted to skip every other facet of life until I finished it. Which is saying something. While this quote is specific to “morning” parties, it goes somewhat to all parties one feels they have to attend, or, for that matter throw.

Morning parties, as a rule, are failures. People never know how to get away from them gracefully. A picnic on an island or a mountain or in a wood may perhaps be permitted. There is no master of the mountain bound by courtesy to bid you stay while in his heart he is longing for your departure. But in a private house or in private grounds a morning party is a bore. One is called on to eat and drink at unnatural hours. One is obliged to give up the day which is useful, and is then left without resource for the evening which is useless. One gets home fagged and désoeuvré and yet at an hour too early for bed. There is no comfortable resource left. Cards in these genteel days are among the things tabooed, and a rubber of whist is impracticable. All this began now to be felt.

– Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

Happy last day of July, 2009. And, happy last day of the hottest work week Seattle’s ever had (that’s what the weather people are going on about at least). You know what really hot weeks like this lead to? Drinking, naturally. But you know what else hot weeks like this lead to? You got it: murder. And mayhem. And mangling. And mauling. And muzzles. All those devious and deadly “m” words. Which is why I thought there’d be nothing better to start the weekend then a quote or two from Richard Sale’s Benefit Performance. Not that this is the most murderous of Dell pocket-sized book (which are about the same size as Pocket Books), but it does take place in Hollywood, which is of course also hot, matching up with the theme of murder and temperature (or something along those lines–really, I just like the quotes).

To the left was the bar. The bar looked as good as the band sounded. “We’ll have a drink,” Kerry said.

“We’ll go up to the office and wait,” said Willie.

“You heard what the Bull of the Pampas said,” Kerry replied. “Clam isn’t here yet. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Willie nudged him with a round hard muzzle.

Kerry said meaningly, “Shoot me in front of all these people. It’s good for business and it stretches your neck.” He pushed the muzzle away boldly. Then he walked into the bar and ordered a Scotch old fashioned. When he glanced around, Willie had joined him, looking mad and frustrated. “You’ve been seeing too many movies,” Kerry said, amused.

A night club in the daytime is full of phantoms.

He took a breath and passed through the dusty light shaft as if it had depth and breadth. When he reached the bar, there was no daylight, and the dust danced invisibly. The bartender was working patiently behind his bar, designing his architecture of inebriation. He was cutting his lemons, putting his olives and cherries in their receptacles, anticipating Manhattans and Martinis.

–Richard Sale, Benefit Performance