Cocktail Of The Week: Year Of The Rat(fink)

This past weekend was the start of Chinese New Year, and it’s the Year of the Rat. Washington always has a parade in Chinatown along the H Street corridor, with dragons and firecrackers and wushu, “oh mei!” My favorite childhood memory of Chinatown is when my parents took me to the opening of a new restaurant one snowy February night, meeting the then Police Chief’s wife who was boozily downing a standing row of martinis after which she proceeded to backslide politically and literally down the steep stairwell. Welcome to the wonderful world of grown-ups, kid.

Every year, the U.S. Postal Service does a Chinese New Year Stamp. This year, instead of showing a rat or mouse, they are using red lanterns; red being a very lucky color on such occasions. I'll use these on all of my bills.

Traditional Rat Attributes/Associations

Zodiac Location: First in the Chinese Zodiac
Ruling hours: 11p.m.-1a.m. (Heck. Sinatra and his Rat Pack stayed up later than that.)
Direction: North
Season and Month: Winter, December
Chinese Lunar Month For The Rat: December 7 to January 5

Gemstone: Garnet

Actor: Jimmy Cagney (I just threw that in here to see if anyone's paying attention.)

Colors: Black, red, white
Lucky Number: 11
Roughly equivalent western sign: Sagittarius

Polarity: Yin

Element: Water
Food: Pork, peas, cabbage
Positive Traits: Meticulous, intelligent, shrewd, compassionate, charismatic, charming, ambitious, practical, industrious, honest, eloquent, versatile, familial, creative, hard-working, neat, organized.

Negative Traits: Controlling, obstinate, back-stabbing, resentful, lacks-a-sense-of-humor, manipulative, cruel, vengeful, power-driven, critical, possessive, stingy, bossy, fickle, defensive, quarrlesome, dishonest .

If I go to hell for this piece, I'm set

"Being the first sign of the Chinese zodiacs, rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous, and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own agendas, which often include money and power. They are energetic and versatile and can usually find their way around obstacles, and adapt to various environments easily. A rat's natural charm and sharp demeanor make it an appealing friend for almost anyone, but rats are usually highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends and so often have only a few very close friends whom they trust. " (Thanks, Wiki.)

If I had been in Chinatown, I would have gone to the parade, but I opted for the gym and Maxim’s market to get some joss and good juju going for the New Year. The store was packed, everyone buying up the traditional foods for New Year's: long noodles for longevity, steamed buns, and there was a lady doing a food demonstration with her fry pan and about six different types of meat. Since it was all in Chinese, I took a gamble and speared a bit of something which turned out to be a bacon coated in brown sugar. Bacon from what, I don't know. I was thinking "chestnut soup pureed with a crumble of this stuff on top." Oddly enough, later in the day I was talking to a friend who had done up some food for a Super Bowl party. ("Oh yeah. How'd that go? Who won?") He had made a sugared bacon "thing" using a portion of a recipe I had given him some time back, then adding his own twist to it.

Persons born within these date ranges can be said to have been born in the "year of the Rat," while also bearing the following elemental sign:

• 31 January 1900 - 18 February 1901: Metal Rat
• 18 February 1912 - 5 February 1913: Water Rat
• 5 February 1924 - 24 January 1925: Wood Rat
• 24 January 1936 - 10 February 1937: Fire Rat
• 10 February 1948 - 28 January 1949: Earth Rat
• 28 January 1960 - 14 February 1961: Metal Rat
• 15 February 1972 - 2 February 1973: Water Rat
• 2 February 1984 - 19 February 1985: Wood Rat
• 19 February 1996 - 6 February 1997: Fire Rat
• 7 February 2008 - 25 January 2009: Earth Rat
• 25 January 2020 - 11 February 2021: Metal Rat
• 11 February 2032 - 30 January 2033: Water Rat
• 30 January 2044 - 16 February 2045: Wood Rat
• 15 February 2056 - 3 February 2057: Fire Rat
• 3 February 2068 - 22 January 2069: Earth Rat
• 22 January 2080 - 8 February 2081: Metal Rat
• 7 February 2092 - 26 January 2093: Water Rat

Asians kids around town love to soup up their rides, and I usually know if I see a tricked out Honda or Toyota, invariably the car will have Chinese characters along the side, undercarriage lights, a big motor that’s being gunned at the stop light and some punked out Asian kid with Brain Failure blasting out "American Dreamer." For a while (and maybe still) the kids would hang out in the parking lots up along Rockville Pike to show off their cars and pick up the Cheng Du. I had read in the newspaper that the cops were trying to break that practice up, fearing some type of gang behavior out of it. Maybe. But teens have been hanging out in parking lots, showing off their cars, since cars existed.



From primitive paint jobs of the 1920’s on Model-T’s proclaiming “23 Skiddoo,” and “Oh U Kid,” to the fifties flames of the James Dean set and then the sixties with Mr. Custom Chop Shop himself, Big Daddy Roth, the creator of the Rat Fink. Big Daddy died a few years back, but he is still remembered for his innovative work in car creations and his cartoon illustrations. I often think of him as a very early graffiti artist in his use of swooping lines and air brush styles.






To quote the King of the Rat Pack himself, “I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.” So I hear ya, Frank, and awwwwaaay we go (Gleason):

The Year of The Rat(fink) Cocktail:

1 ½ ounces Dark Jamaican Rum
1 teaspoon Triple Sec
1 teaspoon Maraschino Liqueur
1 teaspoon Grenadine Syrup

Shake and pour into a chilled highball glass. Cheese nibbly things on the side are optional. Torch up your joss sticks, paper and candles and have a ring-a-ding time celebrating the New Year.




By the way....have you ever had Chinese liquor? Not beer. The hard stuff. Gasoline. It tastes like gasoline. One swallow and you could join the circus and be blowing fire like a sideshow act…or join a parade and yell out gung hay fat choy!, but if you do it from behind the wheel of your cherry ride with the blue undercarriage lights, you will probably get pulled over, so stick to restaurants and fall down stairs respectably like the grown-ups do.

Confucius say, "Give frat boy red cup, he play beer pong."

Cocktail Of The Lost Week:Britney SpearsHighball, Lowball, Screwball, Correctol

Image from TMZ.com

I was going to make my cocktail of the week the Britney Spears Car Wreck, given that two days ago she shuffled into a Mercedes dealership, bought a new SLK350, then immediately went out and hit something with it. Just the thing for that 4 a.m. roll to Popeye's. By the time I have gotten to posting about this cocktail, Britney has already been hauled off to an evaluation ward at the hospital, complete with police escort. Britney burps. News at eleven.

In keeping with the highs and lows and crazy strings of her life (just shoots right out there and lands in gloppy, tangled messes,) I've created:

The Britney Spears Highball, Lowball, Screwball, Correctol Cocktail:

2 ounces Absolut Vodka (It's in your freezer, Sweetie. Ten bottles of it. No. Over there. Over THERE! The kitchen. THE. KITCHEN. THE PLACE WHERE YOU GET CHEETOES!)

1 dash Barcardi 151 Rum (Mama needs her jolt in the a.m.)

1 ounce Chambord Raspberry Liqueur (It's sweet y'all, and it comes in a bottle with a crown like those air fresheners I can put in my back seat window.)

1 ounce Peach Schnapps (Louisiana is peaches, ain't it? No wait. Maybe that's Mizzippi.)

2-3 ounces Orange Juice (I know this one. I used to put it in the babies bottles with that absolutely stuff.)

2-3 ounces Pineapple Juice (Where do I get pineapple juice? Hawaii? I gotta go to Hawaii? I need some new bikinis and spray tan and a weave..a new weave.)

Shake with ice cubes and pour into Hurricane Glass (as in..."she's always in the eye of a ....")

NOTE: If you are a PA, you may need to get a jug of that nasty colored water at Shopper's Warehouse, dump it, tenfold this recipe to make the drink a traveller and stock up on red cups.

NOTE ON PHOTOGRAPH:

A St. Christopher candle (already lit ;) to keep Britney out of car wrecks. Yes, C-Chris lost his Catholic whammy, but he's still got some juice;

A copy of the book Train Your Mind: Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley;

Amy Winehouse's red lace bra she FINALLY took it off (and we thought it would never happen);

A slew of rosaries Madonna had ditched. (Listen, Brit Brit. Madonna just bought a $12 million property for her next door GYM. Doncha get it? Listen to the Master. You NEVER have to leave the house. Those rosaries have been blessed with strong juju. Use them);

A LARGE bottle of prescribed medication. You could string the pills and wear it around your neck like those candy necklaces you loved chawin' on as a kid. String the pills in the shape of a rosary and you could use it to pray AND eat it. Multi-taskin' sorta-kinda.

P.S. Save your chicken bones from Popeye's for some massive Santeria power.

P. P.S. I bought the candle in a Santeria shop, so the magic is already workin', girl. You're out of the car.

THIS JUST IN: Britney consuming massive quanities of laxatives. Maybe she thought it was hair coloring?

It wasn't that long ago that people thought this was Britney at a malfunctioning level .

From Fanta to Correctol. At least her wig matches the packaging, right? Some images from TMZ.com. I would hate covering her as a news assignment. Her story changes by the minute, as I've seen in editing this piece.

Cocktail Of The Week: The Pink DeVille

Here’s to the King. Well. Actually. Here’s to the King’s mother. To be more precise, here’s to the King’s mother’s pink Cadillac, a 1955 DeVille. Today is Elvis’ birthday, and I was thinking of his taking care of business in buying Cadillac’s for his Memphis Mafia, but the first Cadillac he bought and gave away was a pink number, painted his mother’s favorite color, and his favorite car. Ebis loved his Mama.

Clint Eastwood was in a movie called Pink Cadillac. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called Pink Cadillac. Eddie Cochran, that hiccupping rockabilly, wrote a song called Pink Peg Slacks, but even today a man would have to be secure in his masculinity to wear them. We're not counting the men who strut around wearing those Lilly Pulitzer preppy sissy pants with little lime green golf clubs easily categorized as “Your wife dresses you funny.”

The Pink DeVille Cocktail

Created by Chris, a bartender at Martin's Tavern, in honor of this day, The Pink DeVille consists of the following:

The Pink DeVille Cocktail

1 and 1/2 ounces Stoli Raspberry Vodka
Splash of Cranberry Juice
1 ounce Pink Grapefruit Juice

Shake and pour into chilled martini glass with sugared rim

…or take a handful of pink pills and wash them down with a glass of pink champagne.

"I'm afraid to wake up each morning. I can't believe that all of this has happened to me. I just hope it lasts." ~~ Elvis Presley some time in the 1950's.

Cocktail Of The Week: The Deluge

Visual communication is not unlike other forms of communication in that it is created, displayed and received in a form that has be to intelligible to the viewer. I’ve always been of the belief that there is an alchemy in creation that goes on between the artist, the creative experience itself, and the viewer; all necessary to the totality of the work. With paintings of earlier centuries, the painting was invariably a picture of something: a family group, a landscape, a Biblical parable, and with the general populace’s viewing, the sentiment was easily perceived and expressed. "That’s a church!" So it was for the most part in my visit to the National Gallery, trying to catch the last weekend of their Turner Exhibition. “Look at that wave.” “Look at that man’s hanging upside down from the ship.”

There’s something about observing art while standing in a throng. You have others perceptions thrust upon you unwillingly, both visually and verbally. I stood next to two Italian men happily videoing the paintings under a written “No Photographing The Paintings” caution and oblivious guards. And the pushing peanut gallery. “Look at the sharp nose of that woman. That person has a sharp nose too. He gave them all sharp noses.” A ship is busting apart at the seams, but look at the schnozes on those people. You are studying a brush stroke of white trying to understand how Turner captured the essence of wave turbulence, but ear to brain and your eyes are shifting from nose to nose to nose.

It’s always been of interest to me to study the progress of an artist’s skill and how often as the artist ages, (and presumably advances in technique,) that they pursue their expression in a more abstract manner. Michelangelo's last sculpture of the Rondanini Pieta comes to mind. Turner was no exception and all of those earlier painstaking droplets of water give way to smears of light and dark. Later in his career, Turner expressed a pronounced interest in color theory. He read a 1810 treatise by Goethe in an English translation (1840) annotating his copy with many comments and especially fascinated by Goethe’s associations of cool blues and grays with negative emotion and weakness, while warm red and yellow tones reflected more positive, active states. Commonplace beliefs now, but rather revolutionary then. Turner explored this contrast of cool and warm colors in a pair of pictures on the theme of the Biblical flood in The Angel Standing in the Sun and The Evening of the Deluge. Leaving that steerage hold of culture seeking humanity in the Gallery, I headed for a bar, newly inspired.


The Deluge Cocktail

1 part Bombay Sapphire Gin
1 part Vodka
½ part Lime Juice
1 part Cherry
1 part Grenadine

Layer ingredients for that Turner active glow, but mix them if you want to be able to drink this concoction. Otherwise, it will be way too tart... but it will look fabulous. Capsize a cherry into it, and think of Turner’s warships sinking in their turbulent seas.

Après Moi, Le Deluge *

Thanks to the bartending magic of Chris at Martin’s Tavern for his enthusiasm and skills.

*Google it.