It’s hard to say no to a free bottle of tequila. It’s even harder to write a review of that free tequila where you explain how the only way they could have made a less palatable product is by mashing up three turnips and a carrot, filtering the juice through a nylon stocking they found on the side of the interstate, and leaving the swill in an unwashed goldfish tank for two weeks to ferment using leftover saran wrap from a package of ground beef as a valve, then distilling it in a column made from the catalytic converter of a 1984 Oldsmobile. Fortunately, this is not that review.
The free tequila in question is Rosangel, a hibiscus-infused version of Gran Centenario Reposado tequila. It’s bottled in clear glass, which lets the pink hue of the hibiscus show. The glass is incredibly solid – great for clubbing an opponent in a bar fight or preparing root mush – but the cork adds a touch of class that’s usually only seen in a nice bourbon or scotch.
A few friends and I drank the majority of this bottle while watching the classic British gangster film The Long Good Friday. It’s well-suited to drink as a shot – the hibiscus flavor makes it much more interesting on its own – and survives the trip down your throat smoothly enough that a lime isn’t needed. As long as you’re secure enough in your masculinity to handle the pink color (or sufficiently heedless of your femininity to drink straight tequila), it’s also fine for sipping. (more…)
In “There’s No Secrets this Year,” the first song on Swoon, the Silversun Pickups come out swinging for the fences. If the band has been bothered by frequent comparisons to the Smashing Pumpkins, they don’t show any signs of it here. It’s an auspicious track that makes the same kind of promises that “Cherub Rock” made as the opening track of Siamese Dream fifteen years ago.
In 1998, Terrence McNally’s play “Corpus Christi” was first performed in New York City. It wasn’t hard to predict that portraying Jesus as a promiscuous homosexual living in Corpus Christi, Texas would inspire vehement condemnation from religious groups – and it most certainly did, as “Christians” spewed death threats against the members of the Manhattan Theater Group that first produced the play, and when the play opened in London in 1999 a British Muslim group issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of the playwright.
There was a time, not too long ago, that when the Oscar nominations were announced, I’d seen all the nominated films. Indeed, I’d seen all the significant movies of the year. My Top 10 list would have been signed, sealed, and delivered at least a week ago.
Buddy Revel, the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of a bully in Three O’Clock High (1987), isn’t actually a bully. Bullying is a tool used to establish or enforce social dominance. And Buddy isn’t the slightest bit interested in the social dynamic at Weaver High School. As he clearly states to Jerry Mitchell (Casey Siemaszko) when the hapless young journalist attempts to engage him while they stand in front of a row of urinals, Buddy doesn’t want anybody to know anything about him. The enigmatic and elusive science fiction writer John Steakley wrote “Bullies don’t want to fight you. They don’t want to fight at all. They just want to beat you up.” And the exact opposite is true of Buddy Revel. He has countless chances to beat Jerry up. But he’s not interested in beating Jerry up. All he wants to do is fight him.
Why is gold valuable? Why is it worth anything at all? Sure, it’s yellow and shiny. But so is brass. It’s scarce, but so is osmium, and you don’t see anybody making jewelry out of that (actually, osmium is kind of poisonous, which is why it’s rarely used, and in those cases only as an alloy). Gold has got a low melting point and is very malleable, which makes it nicely workable, but also means it’s easy to scratch or dent. And it’s pretty damned cumbersome, too. So what’s so great about gold?
A few years ago, my dad took a vacation to Hawaii. While he was there, he tried surfing for the first time. Even though he’s a good athlete, and solid swimmer (a former lifeguard), he didn’t have much luck. As he explained it, he was able to get to his knees, but couldn’t progress upwards from there and stand up without losing his balance. During the few times that I’ve tried to give people surfing lessons, kneeling on the board is one of the mistakes I strongly caution beginners against (the other is to never, ever, ever let the board get between you and an incoming wave). It’s an understandable habit for anyone to develop – it makes sense to progress from your stomach to your knees – but I think members of my father’s generation are much more susceptible to this tendency, due to a fundamental difference in the way they approach athletics in general.
