The Masked Drinker's Bourbon Pairing: Shotgun Willie

Let’s talk music. Now I might be a man of strong opinions when it comes to music, but I make no attempt at seeming like I’m an expert. I’m basically one of those annoying guys who “knows what he likes.” But I can freely admit when I like some terrible fucking things, and when I hate some amazing stuff. It’s nice when what I like coincides with What Is Good, but not necessary.

Today I want to talk about an album that is not only Good but Perfect Drinking Music. And that’s Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson. I don’t understand how this came out as a country album in 1973. It’s funky, jazzy, funny, and completely awesome the entire way through. The title track starts off with this crazy bass line and simple guitar work. The lyrics are silly, metatextual, and make fun of the Klan on top of it. When the horns kick in you know you’re in for something special. Willie’s classic, often underrated guitar work doesn’t hurt too bad, either. Listen to it.

Then, of course, you get that second track, “Whiskey River.” Now, I’m a man of certain traditions and rituals. When I see a “L’occatan en provence” shop, for instance, I say the name out loud in a terrible French accent. This was designed to drive an ex of mine nuts, but I still do it, even when alone. I dunno, I like this stuff. Anyway, whenever this song comes on, no matter my state or the time of day, I take a glass of bourbon. The lyrics are simple, but exactly what you need them to be.

Whiskey River, take my mind
Don't let her memory torture me
Whiskey River, don't run dry
You're all I got to carry me

I'm drowning in a Whiskey River
Bathing my memory's mind in
the wetness of its soul
Feeling the amber current flowing from my mind
To warm an empty heart you left so cold

Damn, I couldn't find the album version, but here's a good live one.



Those two stanzas are just repeated in between some great music and solos. Everybody gets a turn, classic jazz/bluegrass style. That funkyass bass is still there, and the vocal harmonies are churchly beautiful.

Incidentally, Willie released his own bourbon called Old Whiskey River and it’s pretty damn good, actually. I remember being offered it by a waitress friend whilst in a heartbroken state. I took it because it was nice of her and, hey, free bourbon, but I really didn’t expect much. Blew my mind that a celebrity bourbon could be so damn tasty. Pretty hard to find these days, and it’s not my absolute favorite, but it’s always a welcome sight.

Next up is “Sad Songs and Waltzes,” a sad and funny little tune where Willie tells some woman that broke his heart that she doesn’t need to worry about anyone finding out, because no one will listen to this song. Cake (remember them? Faux Bee June does.) did a good job covering it, I recall. It’s kind of hard to find a good waltz these days. OK, let’s start a movement, Waltzcore. Who’s in? Cotillion INSANITY all the way. Man, we will make some parties that will be THE THING.

The whole album’s great. There’s classic great country like “Local Memory,” more crazy 70s countryfunk like “Devil in a Sleeping Bag” . . .it’s all over the place in all the right ways. “She’s Not for You” is a minor key masterpiece. The Bob Wills cover “Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)” is what we all want to say after that fourth drink and that cutie next to you just cracked the perfect joke and smiled that smile.

Anyway, I can’t recommend this album highly enough. Don’t be afraid if you don’t like country; it’s barely recognizable as such. Just get a tall glass of straight bourbon, nothing too fancy. Sit back, relax, and have a damn fine time with an American genius. (Not me, Willie. Although you’re welcome to try me sometime, too.) Read more...

The Masked Drinker's Bourbon Pairing: Garth Ennis comics

I’ll be honest. I’m not doing so well right now, folks. I have had a bit too much too many days in a row. Jobs that start early and nights that go late can add up. And that goddamned animal holiday yesterday filled every bar with rank amateurs of questionable skill, knowledge, hygiene, and moral fiber. But I soldier on, fear not. I’ve got another bourbon pairing aimed right at your soul, high caliber style.

You may have noticed I’m a man who enjoys the occasional dip in the nerd pool. OK, fine, I’m prune-fingered from staying in too long. THIS METAPHOR IS GETTING TIRED. So this week’s bourbon pairing is all about me bringing you, the reader, into a pleasant nerd cave filled with excellence.

See, one thing that always goes well with bourbon is the comics of one Garth Ennis. Ennis is an Irish writer that came to American comics by way of a slightly different route. Most comic writers grew up reading the same superhero comics that are around today, but not Ennis. He grew up on a steady diet of British war comics, more anthology-based, more morally complicated, and often laden with irony and honor like ketchup on a classless person’s steak.

He’s worked on a number of books that are prime bourbon material. One of his few forays into (somewhat) traditional superhero fare was Hitman, the story of an Irish gangster with x-ray vision. Superheroes were skewered and satirized while keeping the action going and the humor ribald. Friendship between men, a common theme in his work, is an important strand throughout. I honestly don’t think it’s his strongest work, as some of it seemed derivative of the works of John Woo.

He’s more famous for the series Preacher drawn mostly by Steve Dillon. There were sixty-six monthly issues now collected into nine trade paperbacks. Both a love letter to the myth of America and a deconstruction of Judeo-Christian (especially Catholic) belief, Preacher is the story of Jesse Custer, a tortured man with a complicated background and a strong right hook who one day acquires the “Word of God,” an ability to make people do whatever he says. He, a hitman girlfriend, and a vampire best friend go off to find God and “make him pay for all the suffering.”

The tone moves from slapstick, gross-out humor to elegiac romance to action buddy-movie and everything in-between. Steve Dillon’s artwork is clean, full of expression, and representational enough to ground even absurd concepts, like the failed suicide called Arseface. There are lots of great moments and overall it’s an impressive, personal work. There are unfortunately points where Ennis falls a bit too in love with his characters, and tidies things up a bit too neatly, and other points where his critique of religion is more adolescent petulance than thought-out theology, but it’s a remarkable work well worth checking out.

It’s my masked opinion, however, that a more recent epic is even better, and it comes from the strangest place. Ennis and various artists spent the past few years working on the Marvel Superheroes gun-toting vigilante, The Punisher. The character debuted as a Spider-man villain, but eventually became popular enough to support several of his own titles (including a near pornographic “file” book detailing the various guns he uses). Largely and for ages thought of as something of a joke by readers over the age of 13, Ennis was given free reign to do whatever he wanted with the character. He started with a dark comedy called “Welcome Back Frank” that teamed him again with Steve Dillon. Sort of a morbid Road Runner cartoon, villains were dispatched in increasingly violent, absurd methods. But then Ennis wrote “Born,” a sobering look at The Punisher’s time in Viet Nam and here is where he seemed to really find what he had to say about the character, and, more, through the character.

He quickly relaunched the book with rotating artists for different stories and a darker, more serious tone. Now an adults-only book, it tackled various issues in the world today from sex trafficking to the war on terror. In truth, it became a years-long epic examination of the world and especially the United States, in today’s both post-Viet Nam and post-9/11 environment. Harrowing, poignant, and yet never losing the pulp excitement and action that carries the character, the series is one of the most significant pieces about America I’ve seen in the form. Frank Castle, the Punisher, is portrayed as a man of his time, completely dedicated to his psychopathic war, a relentless killer who just happens to kill terrible people. But the Punisher is more a vehicle for the social examination that Ennis is doing; he’s often less a character than a device.

A book about a guy with a skull symbol on his chest killing bad guys has no right to be such a vital, amazing work of art. But it is. Also collected in trade paperback form, I cannot recommend it more highly. Crack it open, pour yourself something brown and hot, and let the two things rattle your brain together with toughness and meaning. Read more...

The Masked Drinker's Bourbon Pairing: Mad Men

The Masked Drinker was having computer problems, so I have posted this week's article for him.

--The Colonel
A main fact about me is that obviously I am extremely wise. I have been dropping twenty dollar knowledges on you from the inception of this blog. But my role as educator need not be limited to how to guides for bar living. Starting this week, I’m also going to occasionally talk about booze pairings. Specifically, I’ll be talking about bourbon pairings.

Now when I say this I don’t mean foods you should eat that go well with bourbon. I love bourbon more than I love a lot of people, but it’s not exactly refreshing or thirst-quenching. And the rich, caramel overtones in truth blend well with very few edible things. No, when I talk about bourbon pairings I’m going to be talking about experiences, media, and non-edible concepts that are great in and of themselves, but pushed along to splendor with a nice glass of Kentucky’s finest.

Today I want to talk about a television show that goes so well with bourbon, partially because it’s so often consumed by the characters of the show. That show is Mad Men. Now, 99.99999999999% of TV makes me wish the robots would finally rise up and destroy the puny humans, but every now and then something worthwhile gets by. Upon seeing ads for a show on AMC of all places about advertising guys in the fifties, I was certain that this would not be one of those worthwhile times. Hokey jokes about “Hey, back then people sure did act different!” and some weird deification of the world’s most disgusting business.

Well I was wronger than a Klansman in Bed-Stuy. While the first couple of shows did have some snickery, “Boy, wouldn’t it be great if we had a machine that could copy papers for us?” moments and the constant smoking seems to overdrive the point home, quickly something far more subtle comes through. The show, in truth, is actually about the societal change this country went through in the mid-twentieth century and, more importantly, how that affected different people.

The show covers all sorts of people, from executives to housewives to children to the nearly-invisible black help . . .and each person reacts to and is affected by these changes differently. Some fear it, as it represents the end of their control; some fear it because it gives them control and they don’t know what to do with it.

Both the writing and the performances are pretty goddam sublime. January Jones turns what could be a typical frustrated housewife into a vibrant, discordant ball of petulance and neuroses. Jon Hamm, handsome guy extraordinaire, plays Don Draper so perfectly that every revelation both fits and shocks. Anyway, there’s countless places to read up on what makes Mad Men so damn good, so I won’t belabor the point.

What I really want to talk about is that it’s a damn fine show along with which to drink. The characters drink pretty freely, at home, at bars, and at work (oh, how I wish . . .) and they drink well. Lots of bourbons and ryes consumed throughout an episode. But here’s the catch, folks. Don’t drink in your ratty old t-shirt with that band you don’t even like anymore on it. Dress the part. In Don Draper’s world, men and women dress well, all the goddam time. At the very least, have a pressed shirt unbuttoned with a loosened tie. You’ll feel better. Ladies, put on a dress. Match your underwear. Make your drink an occasion of awesomeness.

But if any of you assholes want to make a drinking game out of it, I will personally crawl through your internet tubes and shit on something you love. Drinking isn’t a game! Drinking is an art, it’s a life, and it’s a pleasure. You heard me! Don’t fuck around.

So, I hope you enjoy this bourbon pairing. Mad Men Season 1 is available on DVD and season two probably will be soon. Make a party of it and live it up. Enjoy a drink, enjoy a cigarette, enjoy your friends, enjoy the show, and enjoy living in a world that can completely remake itself when necessary.

Mostly the drink.

pictures again stolen, I almost feel bad, but these dudes are awesome Read more...