How Sweet It Is

The Modern Drunkard Magazine has an excellent article on the myth, madness and magic of Jackie Gleason:

"Picture it: It’s 1950 and you stroll into Toots. The first thing you take in is the circular bar, lushly appointed and wrapped around a spire of liquor stacked to a distant ceiling. In the deepest corner of the room a crowd roars with laughter and you naturally gravitate toward the source. First you pass through a sea of gawking tourists willing to pay premium drink prices to get a glimpse of their idols, then a moat of newspaper columnists, their ears cocked for material for tomorrow’s column, then finally the inner circle itself—Frank Sinatra drinks Jack Daniels with known mafia kingpins, Humphrey Bogart nurses a double whiskey and a triple hangover, Joe DiMaggio pours champagne for his wife Marilyn Monroe. Milton Berle, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, Walter Winchell and Mickey Mantle stand enthralled, waiting for the next hilarious word. At the very center of this thick ring of American heroes stands the then relatively unknown Jackie Gleason, holding court, doing what he does best—working the room for laughs. He makes light of himself, he makes greater light of those around him; mining huge egos for uproarious laughter. And they take it, daring not to show weakness, because if Jackie smells blood he goes in like a shark.


via A Large Regular

*****Music On The Mind******

Is Matisyahu the new king of hasidic reggae?

via Radio Active, the completely normal and boring New Yorker.

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When the President Talks To God, via The Scottish Patient.

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As always, great new live video and audio clips via 3 voor 12

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Planxty

by Erik Satie

Drunk in a cafe, some French coastal village
you wouldn't know. Studying
the mirror, all bubbled
and discolored, that hangs over the bar:

"I like it there's no piano here.
Pianos: just furniture, really.
The music of an open wallet,
my friend, obbligato of popping corks . . . ."

Signaling with consummate grace
for another bottle, seen only
by the proper waiter,
then tightening his tie suddenly:

"Did you know that Herr Beethoven,
for his majestic final symphony,
earned the equivalent of sixty
of your American dollars?"

A smile that could not possibly
be transcribed: "Although
my information is incorrect,
I do not vouch for it."

*****MISCELLANY

Don't look now but it looks like The Chimps Are Running Kansas - original link via Search Blog

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How To Eat At The Dollar Store:

"Your edible meat choices at the dollar store pretty much come down to tuna, tuna and tuna. Sure, there are other options, but they consist of meat whose origin, both with regards to location on the planet and on the animal itself, is questionable. Besides the aforementioned corned beef hash, other meat-like products that I did not put in my basket included Vienna sausages, off-brand chili and turkey SPAM.

I did, however, throw some Dinty Moore Chicken Stew in the basket. When I look back on it, I have no idea why. Maybe because it was a brand name. Maybe it was because I've never seen Chicken Stew before. All I know is that I'm too scared to eat it. Knowing how crummy the meat is in a homemade beef stew (it's supposed to be tough, cheap meat that softens up over the hours it's simmering in the stew), I can't imagine what kind of chicken meat is of such low quality that it only is suitable for canned stew. I just stare at the can periodically, wondering what kind of unpleasantness lurks just under that lid."

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Unintentionally sexual comic book covers via The Best Page In The Universe.

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All through life you can go without ever realising there are two types of shoes in the world:

Fuck-Me Shoes and Fuck-You Shoes.

So dress carefully.