Flaming Party Punch

2 January 2010

Since everyone knows that it’s not really a party until something is on fire, and because you only have about 8 more weeks to have hot drinks as the signature cocktail of a party, I figured I would share my recipe for Flaming Party Punch… well all of those reasons, and because a friend who used it recently sent me this exceedingly cool picture

1 pint of rye whiskey

1 pint of spiced rum

3 oranges whole with cloves poked liberally into the skin

1 pint of orange juice

4 ounces of freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 pint of apple cider

Mix the rum and rye in a punch bowl

Add the oranges and light it on fire

Let it burn for about 30 seconds, for the oils from the orange skin and the cloves to properly get to know the booze.

Add the juices – the flame will eventually blow itself out, in the mean time, just enjoy the awestruck look all of your guests have on their faces.


The 18th is Among My Favorite Amendments

4 December 2009

5 December 1933 was the date the United States’ failed experiment with national temperance came to a foreseeable and justifiable end.  Seventy-six years ago tomorrow, the booze which continued to flow during prohibition was finally legal again.  Bathtub gins, bootlegged whiskey, and moonshine were replaced with permissible varieties of spirits and state tax stamps.  Speakeasies flung open their doors to the public and once again a civilized society could have an adult beverage without flaunting the law.

As you proceed with your weekends, I hope you will all raise a glass of something and celebrate your ability to drink freely, well, sometimes poorly, and sometimes to excess.

Happy Repeal Day to you all.


What Else Are You Gonna Do in 9 Days?

2 December 2009

There are too many reasons to get together with friends in early December… the top five off the top of my head:

5. You survived Thanksgiving with the family, or the in-laws, or the new partner’s family, or without any of that.

4. Closer to Christmas and Hanukkah no one has time with the shopping and the parties, and the other random obligations that arise.

3. Because on this date in 1960, Aretha Franklin gave her Big Apple debut performance at the Village Vangaurd – how do you not honor three legends?

2. Drinking away your holiday presents budget is a great way to keep costs down.

1. Because LiLu, Maxie, and I decided it’s been a while since we got the band back together.

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Some Random Housekeeping:

I’ve consolidated the posts in which I offer advice/opinions into a section of links on the right.  It is either a hopeless exercise of my own vanity or something slightly helpful for a reader or two.


Lessons Learned from my Adventures in Online Dating

1 December 2009

  1. Apparently, every man inflates his height by at least two inches
  2. People who claim to “look X number of years younger” usually have a maturity level that is multiplier of X number of years younger too.
  3. Less than 10% of women are more attractive than their pictures upon first meeting. Usually it’s the women with the accidental and or group photos who are in that 10%
  4. There ought to be a mandatory “honesty window” after the first drink, during which one or both parties are afforded opportunity to end a date without explanation or harsh feelings.
  5. The slim response rate to “real” emails (differentiated from the vulgar, the one liners, the barely literate) encourages men to use such passive approaches like the wink, woo, or whatever one-click measure a given site has.
  6. Despite the slim odds expressed in #5, the wink is still the hallmark of a lazy flirt and/or an inactive mind.
    1. Rule #6 applies primarily to men. Yes, it’s a double standard, yes, all men need to get over it.
  7. If a woman is interested in you, there is no volume of messages in her inbox that will delay a response to a well written message.
  8. Women with only one picture posted have a tendency to prefer an informational imbalance. That passive power play will extend to other areas of virtual and actual interaction.
  9. Match algorithms are a terrific guide, but musical preferences are an incredibly accurate predictor of compatibility.
  10. Women who don’t read are almost certainly going to be poor conversationalists (further evidence provided in the form of Sarah Palin.)
  11. Just as a gentleman doesn’t have the option of refusing a drink from a lady (he is required to offer at least 10 minutes of polite conversation,) he is similarly obliged to respond to all valid initial messages from a woman… if only to encourage the practice of women choosing rather then waiting to be chosen.
  12. The existence of true chemistry cannot be confirmed via email exchanges but the absence of it can.
  13. Women and men who are obviously hiding something in their pictures (i.e. – always wearing hats, all pictures taken from slimming angles, facial close-ups only) have esteem issues.  This shouldn’t inherently eliminate them, but it is an important data point.
  14. Optimism is a good thing – I know six married couples who met via electronic assistance, and three more who are engaged or about to be – but should never be confused with the over-eager.
  15. Reasonable caution and pessimism shouldn’t be confused, one is pragmatic, the other unattractive.
  16. The effort may not always be appreciated or rewarded, but one should always dress with some effort and intention.  Failure to exhibit effort may be a sign of latent pessimism.
  17. Always have a reason to meet someone in person. “Why not,” ego boosts, and “nothing better to do” are not reasons.

This list was originally drafted in response to a message received from a woman and her list of lessons.  Feel free (not like any of you lovely blogtarts* need permission to express your opinions) to disagree with any of the aforementioned and/or add your own.

* term lifted from the incredibly talented author the Skrinkering Hearts blog, a woman I am delighted to call a virtual friend.


The Best Reason to Drink with Old Guys

20 November 2009

I love my local for too many reasons.  Not the least among them is the fact that the regulars are a hodgepodge of humanity.  All ages, races, and orientations are welcome under the big booze filled tent that is my local bar.

Last night I spent the better part of an hour bending elbows with a late 70something gentleman who I’ve know for a long time.  For no good reason, I never knew that Eddie was a veteran.  I’ve had more conversations with this gent than I can remember but we’ve never talked about his service or his time in the Korean Theatre.

I don’t know how the topic came up, but I just listened as Eddie told me the lighthearted and funnier parts of war.  It was loud and profane and had me in tears with laughter.  Suddenly Eddie’s face took a somber pale and he said:

You know, Refugee, that’s the reason I hate that mutherfucker Dick Cheney and his cronies.  It’s only the assholes who’ve never seen war that are eager to go back to it.

I was dumbstruck with the simplicity of his statement.  I just thanked him for his service… and paid his tab.


Housecleaning Friday…

17 July 2009

My new favorite text message: “It’s 5:30; do you know where you’re drink is?”

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The republicans are right: It is about time that Latinas end their long history of oppressing white men in this country.

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All of the people who complained about the disproportionate coverage of MJ’s death were right: the media never obsesses over the death of some people except the Billings, Joan Benet, Natalee Holloway, or too many other people to name.

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Even though I swore I wouldn’t return to Bar Dupont unless it was at the end of a Bayonet (apparently the end of a well wielded mascara wand was equally effective,) I went back recently and can confirm that it still sucks more than a hooker or a Hoover.

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I just found another reason to love a Canuck.  Margaret Wente may be a partisan ideologue but she sure is funny.

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When Screen on the Green was cancelled, I wrote this post questioning the existence of philanthropy and the moral bearings of the über wealthy.  Well SOG is back, and Richard Branson is doing a good turn too.  Virgin Festival is free this year – this almost makes up for that that reality television show he inflicted on the public back in 2004.

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Dear Chef from last night, my food ought not be a mini statue to your ego.  If I have to knock it down before I can eat it, you’re really just pissing me off.  I know that there are some people (usually with more money than good sense) who are easily impressed by the excessively whimsical aerosol spray in the mouth of a course – but do know that their numbers were small before the economic downturn and they are dwindling fast.  Rule of thumb – cook to satisfy the soul, the palette, and the eye in that order.

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To everyone that keeps asking about my Old Man, thank you again for your kind wishes and words.  He is rehabbing well and getting his ass kicked at backgammon by the home healthcare nurse that I love.


Potential Becomes Possible in a Moment

18 June 2009

“All potential lovers encounter a moment when the harbored crush becomes possible”

Taken from the book Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch

I know that I really like a word, a sentence, a paragraph when I can’t stop myself from reading it aloud.  I read that sentence and the rest of the paragraph at least a half dozen times this most recent Sunday.  I read it twice to the woman who gave me the book and several times more on the patio of the coffee shop where I began this missive.

With that sentence, all manner of moments – simple and complex, gestures and statements, plain old moments – bounded across my brain like a romantic kaleidoscope.

An ankle crossed against mine and left there

Feeling a charge when the big of my hand reached the small of her back

An invitation for a drink

The warm, breathy “thank you” that I felt against my neck as much as I heard it while dancing a salsa to the Latin-jazz band’s Afro-Blue

The sharing of personal space for no other reason than sharing’s sake

A last look over the shoulder to see if I was still watching

A certain long lashed ingénue saying “it’s too loud in here”

Sitting next to a blind date as she talks to another man and saying “I don’t think that’s the guy you’re here to meet”

“My mother warned me about men like you”

All of those moments were cosmic winks (which are as good as a nod to a blind man) filled with enough electricity to turn a switch in my brain if not my heart.  Now divorced for more than a decade, within a five iron of age 40, I am still looking for my first last moment.

Tell me about your moments…


Been Thinking About Space Since Yesterday’s Morning Storms

10 June 2009

The space after the thunder but before the lightning

After the bottle is tipped but before the booze hits the glass

Between anticipation and reality

Between two bodies before a first kiss

After the pride but before the conceit


Breaking-Up Via Blogpost

3 June 2009

Dear Tony,

I know that our relationship is only five months old, and I know that you don’t have that much experience with long term relationships.  I am so sorry to have to end things this way – via an open letter to you, and on the internet no less.  But I owe you some sort of explanation for why you haven’t seen me for a while and won’t see me for some time.

You violated a cardinal rule of relationships – not just ours – but of every relationship.  You should understand that in long term relationships you don’t do what you did to me – someone who you know, you know to have walked that same road, someone who gives to you and treats you well.  But you don’t treat anyone whose name you know that way.

So Tony if you’re wondering why I don’t hold up your bar anymore – it’s because you charged me, one of your regulars, the guy who routinely leaves you a twenty on a twelve buck tab, an industry guy to boot, you charged me for a fucking soda water, you charged me for water… with bubbles.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Bartenders should know better, and you’re no longer one of mine.

Sincerely,

Restaurant Refugee


Only in the Movies – Really, Just the Movies

2 June 2009

It’s still spring but this was a summer storm – the kind that comes so suddenly it feels like God unzipped the roof. 

I was standing under the overhang of at a downtown Metro station with a growing handful of umbrella-less people waiting for enough cessation to dance between the fat and furious raindrops to our destinations.  I was more fortunate than most as my only appointment was a meeting of the Friday Four O’clock Cigar Club.

Angela emerged from the subway a few moments behind me.  She opened a silver cigarette case and pulled one of the contents to her lips.  She made no effort to find a lighter, perhaps because she didn’t have one or more likely because she looks like the kind of woman who is accustomed to having men light her cigarettes for her.  I was happy to oblige.

“Thank you, apparently it’s not dead” she said.

“All indications are that it’s on life support but certainly not dead just yet.”

I retraced the two steps I had taken to extend my lighter to her and went back to reading email on the crackberry. 

“So that’s your thing? You appear out of nowhere, light a woman’s fire and then go back to whatever you were doing so you look mysterious, is that you’re thing?” Angela volleyed.

“Ha, No, that’s not quite the plan.  I just think that courtesies should be extended on their own accord and not because the recipient happens to be good looking.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon” Angela said by way of changing the subject.

“Yeah, I think I am just going to give up and just go upstairs to Morton’s for a cocktail. Would you care to join me?”

It was a throwaway invitation – the kind that is only accepted in the movies.  Not just because two strangers rarely meet on the street and share a cocktail minutes later (though more people should) but also because Angela is extremely tall for a woman and I am of average height for a man.  Yet she accepted.

I don’t think it took more than five minutes before I thought differently of both the offer and acceptance.  We had barely settled into a corner table on the covered patio and my bourbon had yet to arrive before a string of questions from Angela had been asked (and mostly obfuscated) in an effort for her to discern one thing: do I have enough money and/or juice to justify her sitting with me. 

Where did I go to school? Grad School? What do I do for a living? Where do I live? When did I buy? Parents?

About the time that Angela finished her glass of wine and the first part of her questioning, I had reached my breaking point.

“Thanks for having a drink with me.  If you leave me your business card, I am pretty sure that I can forward you my CV and credit report right from my blackberry.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary” she said her body unfolded from the chair and she grabbed her purse.

“I suppose not, but thanks anyway for having the drink.”


Things I Would Tweet This Tuesday Were I to Twitter

12 May 2009

What is the appropriate etiquette when crossing paths with someone you have only met online through a dating site?

What’s the best way to respond when seeing a former lover in the lobby of her apartment building in the morning?

Why do some restaurants insist upon serving me cold bricks of butter that are more useful for building tableside forts than buttering bread?

In my closet, there are suits, great suits, and suits to wear when you’re going to run into an ex.  I wore the latter on Friday.

Screen on the Green has been cancelled and this DC summer will not be the same.

Go to Granville Moore’s now – like right now, before Chef Teddy Folkman appears on the Next Food Network Star.

Accidental Irony is 2.6 times funnier than Intentional Irony

Sunday – Funday, nuff said, wish you were there; and to the four siblings from Peoria, it was lovely drinking with you.

Any decent bartender can keep your glass filled; a great bartender keeps your secrets too.  I’ll miss you K.

Three days and counting…

Really what was so outrageous? Smart, literate, interesting, likes art, food, and drink, curious, mature, and gets me: that’s not too much to ask.

I suck at responding to comments and promise to be better.


My Type

8 May 2009

“I don’t think she’s your type, Refugee” were the words that slipped from the lips of one of my favorite women and in reference to MISTY.  OMFW and I were at the tail end of an evening that would have been among the best dates I’ve had in a very long time had it been a date.

“Why is she here; is she stalking you” was her next query.

“It’s kinda my fault she’s here.  I introduced her to this place and I never should have.  I never should have brought her down here because this is my bat-cave and she ain’t Vikki Vale…  But back to your prior question, why do you think she’s not my type?  I mean what do you think my type is?”

“I can say more about what I think it isn’t than what it is.”

OMFW and I continued our conversation for a bit.  She excluded a few women in the room, never acknowledged that the best example of my type looks her in the mirror, but never quite described it.  Thus, I feel the need to provide more clarity to the question of my type.  For the record, my type is:

Blisteringly bright

A brilliant conversationalist

A toe curling kisser

Appreciative of the movies Thomas Crown Affair, Gross Point Blank, Imagine Me & You, and the Lion King

Eats for pure joy rather than sustenance

Bends her elbow, if not on the regular, at least she doesn’t oppose its bending

A lover of some genre of art

Appreciative of all genres as a generalization

An explorer of the world even if the stamps in her passport don’t testify to this fact

Likes holding my hand

Thinks that slow is better than fast, and words hotter than pictures

Takes care with words

Knows how to fight fairly, because the fights will surely come

Tells me why she’s angry or at least admits her anger and tells me that she isn’t ready to discuss it at the moment

Kisses me goodnight even when she’s mad

Takes great care with the people she chooses to be in her life

Has empathy for all people who cross her path

Reads more than the Style section of the newspaper

Is engaged with our world

Dances like no one is watching and loves like she’s never been hurt

At the very least, tolerates my cigar smoking without sanctimony

Makes metaphors and men turn their heads in equal measure

Likes Sundays in bed with Neruda, Coltrane and the Sunday papers

May not understand my particular brand of troubles (which are not particular to me) but understands when they make me tilt at windmills

Did not think that Sarah Palin was remotely qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency

Cleans up well

Is not my ex-wife

A library card is a nice bonus

So is an appreciation for the genius of John Coltrane

Breathes a throaty “Oh my” when she reads this or the things in which I believe just like Annie Savoy

And if all or most of the aforementioned comes wrapped in a package that is easy on the eyes then that is the sundae’s cherry and the needlestack needle.


As Helpless as a Kitten Up a Tree

4 May 2009

Because there is always room for another acronym in our world, I give you all MISTY or Mistake I Slept with This Year.  It is gender and sexual orientation neutral and can be used in a broad set of instances. 

Married or otherwise entangled – MISTY

Smoking hot but spectacularly dumb – MISTY

Manipulative Kryptonite but you still take the call – MISTY

Left you broke and battered but you thought it was a good idea in the desperate hour of a last call morning – MISTY

Beer goggled error that still drinks at your bar and propositions you for another round of drunken sloppiness – MISTY

I saw my MISTY a few nights ago.  She heaved her massive boobs into my back by way of salutation – I knew she was drunk.  More than most people she does the close talking thing when she has imbibed more than is prudent.  It’s not that she has the typical impaired sense of spatial relations; MISTY just likes it that way.

We had barely dispensed with the pleasantries before she asked the bartender for another drink and declared “Refugee’s buying me that Manhattan.”

I gave the bartender a look that surely conveyed the “Like hell I am” that hung in the air like cartoon dialogue; but just in case it wasn’t clear, I followed it with “Not tonight.”

I am a man of innumerable faults, but a lack of generosity has never been among them.  However, I am not a fan being told when to extend that generosity.

After sucking down that glorious elixir, MISTY grabbed her car keys with her left hand and my ass with her right.  “You coming?”

The same cartoon clouds hung in the air and I repeated the same words in case my look was unclear – “Not tonight; and you really shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’m fine” she protested too much.

“No, you’re really not.  You shouldn’t drive, let me drive you home.”

“Hell no, I’m fine.”

If you ever need an indication that you’ve had too much, responding “hell, no” when someone offers to drive you home is a pretty good clue.  After a few more rounds of largely combative banter, MISTY agreed to let me drive her home, only to change her mind once we reached her car.  I kept trying – really not for MISTY’s sake but for the sake of everyone else on the road – but eventually decided that I had done my good turn and went back to the bar to finish my cigar.

I had barely settled back into my seat and explained to the people next to me that MISTY had changed her mind and wouldn’t let me drive, when she reentered the bar.

“You’re really not coming home with me if I won’t let you drive?”

I wanted to say “I’m not coming home with you unless hell freezes over at exactly this moment” but I opted for the path of least resistance and concurred with her assessment.

She capitulated and I left the bar for the second time that night.  And for the second time that night MISTY changed her mind once we arrived at her car door.  I gave her a version of the Roadside Sobriety Test as I recalled it from the one time I had to take it and what I remember from television.  MISTY failed spectacularly.  Yet she was unmoved in the conviction of her ability to safely navigate the streets.  I surrendered one more time with the knowledge that I had fought the good fight, had a beer and cigar waiting for me at the bar, and added one more reason to the list of why she was a Mistake I Slept with This Year.

 

 

Feel free to tell me about your MISTYs in the comments, and by the by, I will happily buy a beer for anyone who gets the reference from the title of this post.


The Limits of Compassion, Exhausting Gratitude

24 February 2009

I didn’t see what caused the Marine to fall down on the Metro escalator, just that he fell and the two women near him weren’t strong enough or didn’t care enough to help him to his feet.  Before he grasped my hand Occam’s Razor was proven accurate once again – youngish man falls on escalator on a Saturday evening the most likely cause, too much booze, is almost always the cause – as I could smell the beer coming from his pores.  He had passed wobbly a while ago and was firmly in the barely walking category.  I curled my left arm under his right to hold him upright.

“What branch are you in” I asked trying to keep my new friend alert and awake.

“Marine Corps, sir, you serve?”

“Nope just recognize the haircut, Marine.  Thanks for your service.”

Not more than five hours earlier I was having cocktails with a friend when a cluster of service men and their dates entered the restaurant.  They were in full dress uniforms.  I remarked to my friend that I have a soft spot for those who wear uniforms because they run towards trouble when all logic tells you to run away.  I didn’t know that the universe was going to test the veracity of that statement so quickly.

The Marine had a couple of inches on me, but I probably had him by a few pounds so the fight to get him to the bottom of the escalator was about even.  Yet, keeping him prone took more effort than I anticipated.   He was the kind of drunk where people cleared a path for me to walk him down the platform.

“Our mission is to make sure you get home safely, Marine, so just keep talking to me and we’ll get you there.  Our train is six minutes out, stay with me.  Tell me where you live.”

This was the first moment I could see the wheels turning in his head.  His pupils were almost as big as his irises.  This is also the first moment I considered letting Metro PD deal with this 170lb mess on my hands but arrests are not good for top secret billets or careers.

“You wanna know where I live?”

“No, I don’t wanna know where you live but the cab driver will need to know.  Listen, do you have anyone that we can call?”

“I dunno where my phone is.”

I am shocked by the Marine’s clarity of voice despite a level of inebriation that one rarely sees.  The train is two minutes away from the platform and I start calculating the amount of time it will take me to get him to the edge so that I will have to spend the minimum amount of time keeping him upright. 

The Marine is the kind of drunk where people don’t just make a path but once I square him into an empty seat at the front of the car, the two women in the neighboring seats move.  Back to trying to get his address… “Marine, how far away from the Metro station do you live?”

“Far” is the one word answer.

“So this is the plan, we are going to exit at Close to Your Stop station and get into a cab because it will be easier to find one from there than your station.  Since we have to cab no matter.  So what is your address?”

“You know I can kick your ass right?”

“No one is questioning that.”

“Why you want my address?  Why are you helping me?”

“Because you served our country, and making sure you get home safely is the least I can do to say thank you.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.”

I damn sure don’t know what combat is like.  “No, I don’t know, but that has nothing to do with our objective which is to get you home safely” I said in as soft yet forceful voice as I could.  The Marine started laughing, and moving towards me in a manner that would be threatening if he could stand on his own for more than two seconds.

“I know why you want to take me home, mutherfucker.”

“Marine, my only motivation is to make sure you make it to your house safely and don’t end up face down in the street on the way.  That’s all.  Our stop is almost here.  Are you ready to tell a cab driver where you live?”

“Faggot, I know what you want!  Dude, just tell me you’re not a fag, ok, are you a fag.”

“Fuck you, Marine.  I tried to help you and now I’m done”  I said as I left the train, left him behind.

Fucking homophobe, fuck him and his backwards thoughts I mumbled to the teeth of the escalator – hoping the sentiment would be mashed in the grates.  Hoping that my latent homophobia would be mashed along with it – I know that my anger was directed at his intolerance and stupidity first, but I also know that at least a small part of me was angered because he called me gay.  Either way, I surrendered to frustration.

 

“Excuse me, Station Manager, the northbound train that just left has a passenger that needs some help…”


An Endorsement and a Proposal

19 February 2009

I endorse, embrace, and enthusiastically support the crush.

In the same way that some would argue that the single cell organism is the purest form of life, I argue that the crush is the purest form of affection.  It is perfect, wholly contained, and needs no augment.  It can exist in a personal vacuum absent acknowledgment or reciprocity.  The Crush can be romantic, professional, artistic, vocational, social, bloggerational, and can even exist within the confines of a healthy relationship.  The crush is perfect.

To have a Crush is to engage whimsy, to embrace possibility, and in the extreme case to wrap oneself in the courage of romance.

With my friend Lemmonex co-hosting a Blogger Crush Happy Hour this Friday, I have been thinking generally about the Crush and specifically about my crushes over the years.  My crushes are more frequently inspired by words and wit than physicality these days.  However, I am not blind; I readily acknowledge that my head is turned by a pretty face but intellect sustains my crush and interest more reliably than rosy lips which are times fool.

This Friday’s blogger boozefest has the explicit theme of inviting your blog crush for a drink.  I posit that we should extrapolate the concept beyond the DC venue, beyond the date too.  Let Friday be the day that you send at least one of your crushes a message that you dig the way they think, write, move, act, play a sax, manage a meeting or whatever else inspires that tingle.  Whether that Crush is across the country or in the cube next door acknowledge it – embrace the crush wherever you are.

Let February 20th be National Crush Day.


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