From the monthly archives: August 2009

The Drinkery: Where good times go to get molested

By On August 24, 2009 · In Danse Macabre

From Butt Magazine, Owen Goes to Baltimore (and goes to my favorite Charm City bar*)(NSFW, duh):

The next place on our list was The Drinkery, which we headed to with particular gusto as a result of it’s prominence in one of John’s most notorious scenes. The Drinkery is not only the oldest gay bar in Baltimore, but also the location where Pink Flamingos’ final scene of Divine eating the still-steaming feces of a little trotting dog was filmed. Giggling like schoolgirls, me and Helen swayed up to The Drinkery’s exterior, posed with the bar’s sign and dried to pinpoint the exact spot on the sidewalk where Divine’s shit-eating had taken place. As if we weren’t going in!

The thing I liked best about the Drinkery was its happy hour. Two-for-one drinks! But you got them both at the same time. Without ice. I told a friend moving to Baltimore that he should check the place out. He wrote me back a month later to say, “When you recommended the Drinkery, I didn’t realize you HATED ME.”

*Well, my favorite bar that still exists and doesn’t involve naked dancing boys.
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Are you seriously serious?

By On August 24, 2009 · In Cremains

People wonder why newspapers are dying? Because they publish pointless articles that make totally unsubstantiated claims.

More shoppers thinking twice in the checkout line: Some are abandoning items, online shopping carts before they hit the cash register:

“Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant, estimates that in 25 percent of shoppers’ trips to the store, they’re ditching at least one item. In the recession of the early 1990s, it was 15 to 20 percent. In good times, it’s more like 10 percent.”

Hard numbers are hard to come by, but hell–we’ll make some up anyhow!

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Three things for a Friday night spent doing homework and, of course, BOOTY SHAKIN’

By On August 21, 2009 · In Cremains
  • The 50 Top US War Criminals Who Need to Be Prosecuted: This list is solid, but I don’t know if I would trust Wikipedia on the topic of conducting a citizen’s arrest. Still, I would risk it for Kissinger.
  • This is the best use of Twitter, ever: Longest Poem in the World, composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. It is constantly growing at ~4000 verses / day.
  • My booty shakin’ pagerank is PLUMMETING. Help me out here, party people.
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That’s right, son–Jesus walked everywhere.

By On August 20, 2009 · In Danse Macabre

I dunno about you guys, but I’ve got some serious booty shakin’ goin’ on today! (Actually, that’s a lie, and merely a cheap SEO tactic.)

While riding into work on the 7 today I happened to peek into an empty conductor car and see this list of radio codes. This is not all that interesting, but it is useful, because the next time I hear a subway conductor announce “COMMAND CENTER 12-8″ I know to really freak out.

So lately I’ve been thinking about Woodstock and how the hippies ruined everything. Also, I was thinking about how while Woodstock was in the works, the MC5 recorded Kick Out the Jams, and while it was literally occurring, the Stooges released their debut album, on which two of their greatest songs appear–”No Fun” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Meanwhile, the Monks and the Sonics had already formed, released records, and broken up! And the Velvet Underground, who nobody cares about, were recording shit too I guess.

The point is*, the above is what should be considered the heavenly rewards of the late 60s–not some effete mudbog gathering so uncool** that even Jethro Tull declined to perform.

And if you think that’s a weak argument, remember: it’s Woodstock that’s ultimately to blame for shit like this.

Oh, and only peripherally related, but the periphery is where I spend a lot of my time:
You wanna know something else that’s celebrating an important anniversary? This chestnut about how there’s traces of coke on paper money. Yeah, I seem to recall reading that 20 years ago in Bigger Secrets. Lame, no-story story. Is there a shortage of shark-bite-kids-die-in-hot-cars or something?

*This, by the way, is an odd conversational tic that both my father and Richard Yates have, and it’s a phrase meant to punctuate a narrative that has no actual point whatsoever.
**CCR and Sha Na Na, of course, were the lone cool folks.
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