R.I.P. -- Mick, the Fish -- 2007-2008

I can't believe people eat fish.

I can't believe I used to eat fish. And I used to enjoy it. Alas.

Rest in Peace, Mick. The water was better for having you in it.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

My high school Spanish teacher used to sing this song all the time. He'd sing his heart out.

Chocolate Moose

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day Field Trip

A Valentine's story for the vegans in the audience (and for those who are in love with, but fundamentally misunderstand vegans). Check out my latest article in City Paper and leave a comment!

Olives, Toothpicks, Painful Death

Talking about aphrodisiacs, of course alcohol has long been employed in the service of desire. But it really just don't cut it. Consider the following:

On this day in 1872, Silas Noble and James P. Cooley of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts patented a machine that would produce toothpicks. Toothpicks, as everyone agrees, serve one purpose finer than any other. They make it easy to pry an olive from a Martini without spilling gin all over oneself.

Fast-forward into the more recent past. On March 8th, 1942, author Sherwood Anderson (of Winesburg, Ohio fame) died of a case of peritonitis picked up in the Panama Canal Zone after swallowing a bit of a toothpick stuck in a Martini olive.

Anderson's epitaph: "Life Not Death is the Great Adventure".

Anderson was married and divorced three times, so one might presume he'd pecked a few lusty olives from out a lady's drink.

So there you have it; my next dissertation: "Toothpick of Desire: Totem of the Final Threshold". No, how about: "Toothpick of Lust: Death's Ultimate Weapon".

Hmm. It'll never beat a frying pan. Though it's more difficult to hide a frying pan in an olive.

Brody Kills Jaws

R.I.P.
Roy Scheider

He managed not to get eaten.

And he was among those of us who saw what Iraq was going to be before it became was what it is.

May we not get eaten.

The Truth About Rhinos

Rhino Horn.

Throughout much of the world, the keratin Rhino horn is valued as a phallic enhancer. The aphrodisiac of aphrodisiacs.

The horn isn't bone. It's actually made of very tightly compacted hair that basically solidifies into something resembling bone. The only way to remove it form a Rhino is to kill the animal.

Despite a loose resemblance to the most well-endowed of endowments, the horn -- which is ground into a protein-fueled dust -- does nothing to benefit the ladies’ man. Just about the only thing it fuels is the poaching industry.

And it contributes to the endangered state most Rhinos find themselves in.

Here's some info on helping the Rhinos. And why not you and yr honey skip the chocolate and instead donate to help a couple Rhinos this Valentine's Day; it's the sexy thing to do? Here's the link: http://www.rhinos-irf.org/

Pancake Monster!

I promised you all this picture. My friend Carrie shot it. I find it vaguely terrifying.

Sit awhile staring at this picture and see how long it takes before it gets creepy.

Japanese Puffer Fish

Like I've said before: you gotta be willing to die for love.

The Road to Love is Paved with Dead Shellfish

Saul Bellow once noted that writers are their own aphrodisiacs. Be that as it may, even the Humboldts among us find need on occasion to employ nature’s best seducers, mythic herbs, and sympathetically magical objets de l'amour.

From now until Valentine's Day, we here at LTSRP will be giving advice culinary and otherwise on food and the art of love and how to be more cusiniaphrodizzying.

First bit of info:

Two purported lust-igniters are privy to any discussion of practical seduction. First is the oft-mentioned Spanish Fly. Known alternatively as ‘Cantharides’ or ‘Blister Beetles’, these minced insects are mostly used in livestock breeding and are known to cause great pain when ingested by humans. Has something to do with their tendency to tear up the urinary tract. Ohh, how sexy!

A bit less severe is Yohimbine, an alkaloid sucked from the bark of an African tree that purports to be the natural man’s Viagra. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with trying out whatever nature has to offer; but where’s the romance in cattle breeding and tree bark?

A safer bet rests with the classic culinary aphrodisiacs. And nothing says passion like potentially fatal bottom-feeders...

Oysters have been considered a fleshy bit of magic based on looks; some varieties even play sexual ID games: Ostrea edulis manages to flip its sex from male to female and back again depending on the season. Kinky trick, but perhaps not for all of us.

Caviar has long been considered more than just salty fish roe. The rare and heady golden eggs of the little sterlet fish were once so prized that you would have had to have been seduced by the Tsar to taste them. Imperial swagger notwithstanding, caviar is high in zinc content which possibly produces slight elevations in testosterone. Nonetheless, the amount of caviar one would need to consume to gain the benefit would likely gross out any worthy object of desire.

Rounding out the sex magnets of the sea is the pufferfish. Known as fugu in Japan, buyer beware: though believed to be a substantive aphrodisiac, the fish also produces tetraodontoxin in its glands. Mis-cook it and you’ll be cruising among the dead.

Have any sea-borne aphrodisiacs up your sleeve? Sexy Sea Monkeys? Exotic urchins?

Lay 'em on us. In the meantime, bone up on yr Jacques Cousteau. Because tomorrow, we're headed way underwater.

1. Tom T Hall: I Like Beer

Because Vodka puts my mouth in gear, and because there's really no reason to top this list with any number of tragic booze songs, I've gone to one of the great unpretentious songwriters for a song that pretty much says it all in three words: "I like Beer".

It was Lawrence Lanahan who first brought this song to my attention. We were preparing for a gig and I said we should play a booze song. "I like beer," replied Lawrence. "Well, I do to," I said. "No," he intoned, "I Like Beer".

And thus I came one step closer in this life to knowing what it's all about.

It should be noted, I sort of purposely left out a number of great booze songs from this list: Whiskey River, There Sits the Glass, Waiting Around to Die, One More for My Baby... This list just represents songs that I've got a personal connection to and that I think belong in any musical beer fridge.

So enjoy in moderation, and I'll be back with something utterly strange regarding pancake people tomorrow.

2. Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (played by Phineas Newborn, Jr.)

This is booze writ large. The great american existential drunk. Job wanders into a tavern. Leviathan.

Strayhorn's lyrics (go look 'em up -- this is obviously an instrumental version) are the greatest poetry ever comitted to paper regarding drink. The reason I picked this version is two-fold...

First: the melody stands on its own like no other melodyin any song ever written about booze. The melody is your bartender. For my money, Johnny Hartman's reading of the melody is the best vocal delivery (better than Ella's and I think precisely because it is delivered in such a detatched way it is better than Vaughn's although her version is scary in its beauty). But I wanted to do this version for another reason...

Newborn himself. At the time, he was already suffering mental problems exacerbated by the critical blowhards who dogged his style. He might have been one of the greats, but instead the early '60's saw Phineas fall precipitously into near obscurity. Evans and Tyner and later on Hancock would come along and redefine the sound of jazz piano and Newborn's sound -- rooted between Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson -- would fade into a gauche memory hole. But on this tune and at this time, he does it, man. You can hear it in those blue notes. He's putting it on the line.

And you could want nothing more from the interpretation of such an existential song.

3. Tom Waits: The Piano Has Been Drinking

So this one shouldn't need an explaination, yet I feel compelled to offer one.

This is a clip of just the song from a longer interview/skit. I used to really be into early Waits; not so much anymore. I find his whole presentation too focused at that point in his career. He knows it's a gag, but I am unsure of whether he realizes that we realize it's a gag.

But, like Charlie Chaplin said: " In the end, everything is a gag."

That said, I think his work from Swordfishtrombones on up to the present -- especially his collaborations with Robert Wilson -- comprise the best American (pop?) music of the late-20th / early 21st century. The Black Rider alone is -- along with Robert Ashley's later work -- the most inspired opera of our time.

And that said, I look back on this video and I see a guy who was more idea than anything else -- not yet near his prime; but from whom often very beautiful things came. And the lyrics to this little ditty -- in all their obvious Bukowski homage -- are word by word things of beauty.

4. The Kinks: Alcohol

And the countdown of the Greatest Booze Songs Ever Recorded continues...

And what a fantastic song and what a fantastic performance. Yes, that Demon Alcohol has ruined many a poor lad; but all in the name of art, no?

Ok. So if #4 is this good, you have to imagine that the top three gotta really be something!

Fiery Demons

Let's take a little field trip over to theCity Paper and learn a little bit about food poisoning...

And don't worry, they'll be another post today with the next song on our list!

5. Joni Mitchell: A Case of You

Ok. Now it's getting serious. We're in the Top Five of the Greatest Booze Songs Ever Recorded.

This song is proof that Canadian beer and Canadian Ice Wine produce more than drunk hockey fans.

6. The Champs: Tequila

For those of you who have stumbled upon this list midway, we are trying to chart the Greatest Booze Songs Ever Recorded. Here's a one-hit-wonder from 1958. The guy who says 'tequila' was named Daniel Flores, but went by 'Chuck Rio' on stage.

Whatever you call him, he scored with a #1 hit and places at #6 on my list.

This clip, BTW, just happens to be from one of the greatest films ever made. A work of stupifying genius.

And for the kids reading this, that thing Pee Wee is talking into in the beginning of the clip is called a 'pay phone'. Google it.

7. The Jesus Lizard: Boilermaker

I miss the '90's...

8. Leonard Cohen: Closing Time

One from the Master. As much about life, death, and God as it is about whiskey and dancing.

9. The Pogues: Streams Of Whiskey

A little bit of heaven, no?

10. Loudon Wainwright: White Wine

I think it was when I was in the hospital...

I got sucked into an awful television program about the greatest Country and Western Booze Songs ever written. And I remember thinking to myself, with all the great Booze Songs out there, I can't believe they actually put together a list this godawful.

So, anyway, I've taken it on as my duty over the next ten days to present to you my version of the 10 Greatest Booze Songs (country and western or otherwise) Ever Written.

Here's number ten. A song that makes me think about my own mum.