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

As captain of industry Ed Skoog said in a recent blog post for the Seattle PI (which used to be a paper, but which now is a website, or something like that, as the song says), “summertime is poetry time.” Well, maybe that’s a paraphrase, but it was close, and when I was drinking with him last week he at least mumbled that exact phrase. Which is why I wanted to put up this poem called “The Menu” for you, dear Spiked Punch reader, to make your summertime complete. And, cause I like the rhyme of “the days” and “mayonnaise.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the author, is dead. But he had a rollicking time of it before March 19, 1907, from what little I know, and from reading this poem, which is pretty darn celebratory of the drinking-and-eating-with-pals-makes-life-better theory, a theory I have signed on for myself. With that said, have a pal or two over, make some treats of the liquid and edible variety, and read this out loud. It’s a hoot. Hoot, hoot. Or maybe I’ll just record myself reading it? Unless you send me pictures of writers or pets drinking. That’s a threat.

The Menu

I beg you come to-night and dine.

A welcome waits you, and sound wine–

The Roederer chilly to a charm,

As Juno’s breath the claret warm,

The sherry of an ancient brand.

No Persian pomp, you understand–

A soup, a fish, two meats, and then

A salad fit for aldermen

(When aldermen, alas, the days!

Were really worth their mayonnaise);

A dish of grapes whose clusters won

Their bronze in Carolinian sun;

Next, cheese–for you the Neufchatel,

A bit of Cheshire likes me well;

Cafe au lait or coffee black,

With Kirsch or Kummel or Cognac

(The German band in Irving Place

By this time purple in the face);

Cigars and pipes.  These being through,

Friends shall drop in, a very few–

Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.

When these are guests I bolt the door,

With Not at Home to any one

Excepting Alfred Tennyson.

–Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Menu

Poor Martini (I’m talking the real honest-to-Betsy-straight-up-gin-vermouth Martini here. None of your “ini”-added-to-anything-even-liquid-shoe-polish drinks that aren’t, after all, a Martini, but just a drink some joker was too lazy to come up with a real neato creative name for). Yes, the most popular drink in the world, and perhaps the most popular icon in the last 100 plus some odd years (maybe Mickey? But he’s a kid’s game.) And yet, still slogged off in the most ridiculous manner (hence the “ini”-on-anything-makes-a-name disgust). Well, don’t let ‘em get you down Martini. We still love you, and to prove it, everyone reading this will have a Martini tonight (that means you and you and you, and maybe you, too), and I’ll type up this Bernard DeVoto quote, which extols your loveliness (Mr. DeVoto will have a Martini tonight as well, in that great next world bar):

You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.

–Bernard DeVoto, The Hour

PS: I like mine this a-way, by the way: 2-1/2 ounces gin, 1/2 ounce dry vermouth, lemon twist.

Maybe you’re feeling a little dark, or loveless, or like you might want to get involved in a little small-time grift that might end up in a pool of bullets or blood or bourbon (ah, the three B’s). You could blame the holiday weekend and go on with your head down and your eyes tearful. You could go out and get involved with a dangerous person in a typhoon romance consisting of violence and betrayal. Or, you could just go read a little James M. Cain and live vicariously. To help you head down the last path (I am ready to help, my noirish pals), here are two quotes from his book Love’s Lovely Counterfeit. It’s probably not the best Cain, but still better probably than what you’re currently reading (well, I gotsta be honest), and it does have a little Midwestern politico and gangster flair I’m fond of, mighty fond I could say. If you need more than a read to flip-flop your mood, well, scroll down for some drinking ideas.

Ben, however, seemed neither surprised nor unduly upset. He righted the glasses, flipped a cherry in each, and poured the Manhattans. Setting one beside her, he said, “Here’s how,” and took a sip of his own, put it down. Then he took an envelope from the inner pocket of his coat and handed it to her. “Your share.”

“… Of what?”

“Of what we’re doing.”

He squashed his cigarette, looked at the palms of his hands. They had pips of moisture on them. He had the dizzy, half-nauseated feeling of a man who has been rocked to the depths by a woman, and knows it. He got up, crossed in front of her, went into the alcove for a drink. When he had downed a hooker of rye he looked and she was still there.

–James M. Cain, Love’s Lovely Counterfeit

Following up on our Ed Skoog-drinks-and-almost-pokes-his-eye-out (thanks for the worry, too, PhiSmi–it’s nice to know folks like you are looking out for the eyes of poets like Ed) post below, I decided to turn this into Ed Skoog week (a week being two posts here at the ol’ Spiked Punch). With that, here’s the first stanza in a poem Ed had in LitRag magazine, issue 5, in Winter 1999, almost 10 years ago. Jeezus. He doesn’t necessarily like the poem anymore (cause poets are like that), but hey, this is my blog, and I’ll do what I want. So there. And I do think this stanza is such a perfect dip into the personality/personalities of that moment when you’ve left the bar after being there a bit to walk out into the night. And I like bars, and poems, and you, which made me think you might like reading it, too. We’ll see (and, this gives me a chance to give a fat shout out from fat me to LitRag magazine, which I used to put out for the screaming masses with D-Rock back in the day, as the kids say).

We waver and our shadows waver

along the alley, walking home drunk

past blurred and dulled angles,

call it the parson’s late night amble

or the clock-gong’s pave of morning,

this moment on the broad plaza

between the Mississippi’s tankers

and Rome’s outpost in the old town,

the scent of old robes rising

as if they were bread loaves

which are baking somewhere, so are

the bars open still, intensely

compressing the night before

for a few more drops of that spell

that holds a body inside four walls

that do not form the corners of home.

–Ed Skoog, Gaslight, LitRag 5

Chicago Confidential: The Low Down on the Big Town is a 1950 tell-all by reporters (and authors of Washington and New York confidentials) Jack Lair and Lee Mortimer, which is both “uncensored” and “shocking.” And reading it, I’m sorta shocked. The indie-rock haven that I know and love used to be a combination of Sodom, Gomorrah, and a Rambo movie, with more sex, death, grifts, grafts, and gambling than this poor boy can understand. Maybe the authors toned it up just a snitch? And maybe Chicago just used to be more rootin’ and tootin’. Maybe I just lived in the wrong neighborhood? Maybe if I would have crick’d my neck out longer (ala PhiSmi) I would have seen more? But wait, wait! This isn’t about Chicago and its malcontents, this is a quick paean to my favorite Chicago bartender and longtime close pal, Joel Meister. See, Mr. Joel (as many know) lives in rowdy Chicago, and tends bar, and rules, damnit, rules. Which is why I want to dedicate this quote to him, completely un-confidentially.

Burlesque bars are few on the near North Side beyond the mile of Clark Street dumps. There is only one open stripper on Rush Street, the Spa. Most establishments are restaurants or cocktail lounges with only a singing pianist, male or female, for entertainment, plus the inevitable B girl. The initiates hang around to drink, talk, meet old friends or pick up new ones. But the bartenders will get you anything you want–tell you where there is a crap game, contact call girls, or take a bet on the horses. Throughout Chicago, bartenders function to a much wider extent than they do in any other known place. It is the fashion to advertise their names in connection with saloons and restaurants, as though they are stars. And some of them are, with individual followings because of their wide usefulness. Their local appellation is “the mixo,” and they are heavily tipped.

–Jack Lair and Lee Mortimer, Chicago Confidential

PS: Don’t forget, when in Chicago and having Joel pour you or shake you or strain you one: “they are heavily tipped.”

Not that I’d want to tee off any polar bears (does anyone say “tee off” anymore, outside of the obvious golfers? That’s a good phrase. You should use it this weekend). Anyway, I finally got a copy of an interview I did that was printed in Onion’s NY edition about a billion years ago. Or last fall. It was when Luscious Liqueurs came out, so there is some liqueurs talk, but also just general drinking talk, talk about the Replacements, talk that could get me retroactive tickets, and more, all rolled up in an article that I now have as an  incredibly-difficult-to-read pdf. It’s probably my favorite interview (even better than the one that starts “A.J. Rathbun, we’d kill to have a drink with you” if you can believe it), so you should read it! Right now. And if Andy Battaglia is out there, thanks pal. If you see Andy, buy him a drink for me, too.

Okay, I’m gonna come out and say it (cause it’s a Friday before a long holiday weekend, and I don’t have time for any dilly-dallying, and you don’t have time for me to go on along a long, literary, meandering, essay about it): Charles Dickens kicks ass. Hah, search and spam engines, chew on that. Dickens, even, kicks a mule’s ass. And if you’re from Kansas that’ll make some sort of sense. Or not. Dickens is not only one of the (probably the, but again, I’m not taking up too much of your time today) greatest novelists ever, but also enjoyed his pubs and pub-denizens, had a fine home stock of booze, and was known to take a sip or two regularly. Like all good-minded people.

Anywho, the following quotes are from the lesser-known (but genius) book Martin Chuzzlewit. I thought they might be a good prelude to your long weekend, help get you going with the right frame of drinking mind, and might, might I say, induce you to read a little, too, while kicking up your holiday heels. But avoid the dullness. Cause you aren’t ever dull. Not you.

As to them, the man who can dream such iced Champagne, such claret, port, or sherry, had better go to bed and stop there.

He could hang about a bar-room discussing the affairs of the nation, for twelve hours together; and in that time could hold forth with more intolerable dullness, chew more tobacco, some more tobacco, drink more rum-toddy, mint-julep, gin-sling, and cock-tail than any private gentleman of his acquaintance. This made him an orator and man of the people.

–Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

There hasn’t been any Cocktail Talk on here in forever, thanks to me going to Italy and making videos and being generally an anti-literary bum on a tramp steamer. So to speak. But here are a couple quotes for your Friday from a fine bit of pulping (lawyer pulping even, as the main character’s a legal man), a little pocket book called Suddenly a Corpse, by Harold Q. Masur (which you’d think would have to be a pseudonym, right? But no, it’s just one of the greatest names ever). Tough stuff, but then again, so are you:

She had another pull of rye that would have knocked me kicking. She might have been drinking water for all the effect it had. Her stomach, I thought, must have been installed by the Bethlehem Steel Company.

For a moment there I was busier than a drunk on a tightrope.

–Harold Q. Masur, Suddenly a Corpse

It’s a dog-gone dreary first day of spring here, with clouds, wind, and intermittently nasty and extra-nasty rain, and I’ve had a cold/flu/allergy/asstastic thing all week (my sinuses hate me, I swear), and am generally in a woe-is-me state of mind (cause, well, I have to work, when I should be under the covers drinking a hot drink and watching the Thin Man or some such). With that, I’m turning to two quotes from Wilkie Collins short stories, quotes about warming up with a drink and fire, a situation I’d much like to be within. Being that Mr. Collins (old schools Dickens era writer and partier) is most remembered for rolling out some formative ancestors to our current detective yarns and mysteries, and has a habit of putting his characters in unfriendly situations, maybe I shouldn’t wish to be one of his characters–but dang, that “gin and water hot” sounds dreamy right now.

He said, ‘All right?’ and walked back to the inn. In the hall he ordered hot rum and water, cigars, slippers, and a fire to be lit in his room

After settling these little matters, having half-an-hour to spare, I turned to and did myself a bloater at the office-fire and had a drop of gin and water hot and felt comparatively happy.

–Wilkie Collins, The Yellow Mask and Other Stories

PS: Just realized “The Yellow Mask” would be a pretty great name for a drink. It’d need to be a bit creepy though (the story is). But hey, if anyone reading this wants to take a shot at a drink that fits the name, go to—just let me know how it turns out.