Hungover? I Gotta Cure For That...

Click image to enlarge

I'm indebted to M Magazine for a lot of things but this hangover cure of garlic soup stands in the top 10 of M Appreciation. Days like today?  It might well come in first.

This is a tad more complicated than a rare blue cheese burger on dark rye and a fountain Coke but it really isn't that difficult... although peeling garlic with the shakes can be a little tricky.

You also might smell like garlic for a couple days and that's okay if, like me, your idea of Hell is other people. I'm trying to find a cure for other people but, until I do, this soup ain't a bad place to start.

Merry Christmas

Written in 1988 for soprano, Jessye Norman, ‘Christmastide’ has always stood in the way of my motto, “Not as good as it was - Better than it will be.” It is amazing, quiet, erudite, humble, peaceful and simple.  Although, I am sure you will never hear it on the radio.  

Green and silver, red and gold

And a story born of old.

Truth and love and hope abide,

This Christmastide, this Christmastide.

Holly, ivy, mistletoe

And the gently falling snow.

From a simple ox’s stall

Came the greatest gift of all.

Children sing of peace and joy

At the birth of one small boy.

Let the bells ring loud and clear,

Ring out now for all to hear.

Trumpets sound and voices raise

In an endless stream of praise.

Green and silver, red and gold

And a story born of old.

Words: Jane McCulloch   /   Music: Donald Fraser

Please Come Home...

This is the only Christmas song that has really moved me.  I understand it also  moved Darlene Love…into a bigger house.

Memories of Rowley at Christmas

Riu Rui Chiu

I'll admit I was a fan but there were extenuating circumstances in 1967.  TV was allowed only during the weekend and the Monkees opened those TV weekends early Friday night. In retrospect, were they really that bad?  I don't think so. This video from a '67 Christmas special will support me...Or not. 

My Nuts: A Trad Tradition

I've been invited to a New Year's party. And I'm bringing my hot nuts (and the Golf Foxtrot). The guy having the party has some mighty fine nuts and his wife is a big fan of his nuts but I'm bringing heat this year. Real HEAT.

I've been going by the recipe in the 'Essentially Lilly" cook book for years. Well, ever since it came out in '04. Nice pictures of Lilly in that book. I swear I hit on her at the Conch House in St. Augustine, FL around 1983. She left me standing in the parking lot and waved goodbye as she drove off in a Rolls Corniche. I'm not sure it was her but my heart tells me it was.

If you're going to a party this week - - I suggest you bring your own nuts. Here's a great recipe from Lilly P's book with my alterations:

Half stick of unsalted butter (I've done this with salted and unsalted - didn't seem to matter)

1/2 C of sugar ( Cut Lilly's half cup in half. Is that a 1/4 cup? I dunno)
1/4 C of water (Again, half it)
1 tablespoon garam marsala (double it)
1/2 teaspoon salt (or not if using salted butter )
3 1/2 C Pecan halves (Make it 4C)
Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan and add the sugar, water, garam marsala and salt (or not) to the mix over medium heat while dissolving the sugar.

First posted 28 December 2009

For nuts with HEAT add-
1/2 tablespoon of cayenne
1 teaspoon chili powder

Reduce for a minute and dump your nuts in the sauce pan. Coat them as best you can. You may need help some help with this. Once coated, spread your nuts on a glass baking dish and pop in a 350 degree oven turning the dish every five minutes for 15 minutes.

After taking your nuts out of the oven they'll need to cool. But before they get too cool you'll need to scrape your nuts up and toss them in a bowl. Then you're ready to bring your nuts to the party. If you did this right -- people are gonna be saying some nice things about your nuts. Somebody might say, "Hey, how do you walk with nuts like that? And you say, "Lilly taught me. Just before she left me in the Conch House parking lot.

Christmas Party Sport Coat...

With party name tag

Gideon by Paddy Chayefsky

Esquire, December, 1961

The Angel

"It is passion, Gideon, that carries man to God. And passion is a balky beast. Few men ever let it out of the stable.

It brooks no bridle; indeed, it bridles you; it rides the rider.

Yet, it inspirits man's sessile soul above his own inadequate world

and makes real such things as beauty, fancy, love and God...

Passion is the very fact of God in man that makes him other than a brute. I must own, Gideon, yours was an old and cold and settled soul, and I huffed and puffed quite a bit before I found the least flame of passion in you."

Christmas Tea

Lake Forest, IL 1995

My college journalism professor, Jack S Smith, was chief editor of the Associated Press in London during WWII and news editor for the Today Show until his retirement in 1980. I was photo editor of the college newspaper and D-76 pumped through my veins. It was one of my career fantasies to be a photojournalist... complete with safari jacket and a couple black bodied Nikons hanging around my neck and a Lucky Strike hanging outta my mouth.

We were discussing ethics in journalism one day when I asked Jack what purpose was served by sticking a camera lens in the face of a grieving mother who lost her son in a tragic accident. Jack said it was news and that years after the initial story, that image would still be around... telling its story.  I thought of Capa, Weegee, W Eugene Smith and other photographers who had to stick a lens in a grieving face and I understood Jack. I also understood I didn't have that ability. 

Years ago, I was asked to take photos of my mother in law's Christmas Tea.  And long after the tea...the images are still around.  Haven't had any hits Googling, "Christmas Tea Photographer Job" yet, but I'll keep trying.

A 1976 Christmas - From Neiman Marcus

(click on image to enlarge)

Last year, the 1972 NM Christmas catalog was featured here to a somewhat lukewarm reception. This year, the 1986 Apple catalog I posted was seen by half of the United States and all of Australia. I don't get it but I never do. Maybe it was the Belinda Carlise video? Anyway, I blew the dust off my corporate American Express card (they'll never know) and secured this 1976 cheese extravaganza off eBay.

Christmas of '76, I was waiting for the Special Forces 'Q' course to start at Ft Bragg. I didn't know Neiman Marcus from Shinola and the same could be said about Special Forces and what it took to make the grade. Of the 88 in my class -- three got their green beenies and they were all noncoms. My class was the last to allow lower ranking enlisted (E-1 to E-4) after which you had to be an E-5 or above due to the brutal wash out rate.

It's not what you dream -- It's what you fail at that gives character. And this catalog is full of character. That's why I love it so. However, I'm not adverse to an equally cheesy music video of the era saving my ass. Here's to the 85 who failed at USAIMA and to Phil. I remember this playing in the barracks like it was...a very long time ago.

Christmas - 1971

Hampton, Va, Christmas, 1971

5th Avenue Lunch

Between 58th and 59th

Nice restrooms @ The Sherry Netherland just in case.

Brooks Brothers After Christmas Sale - 1982

346 Madison Avenue, NYC

I first pushed my way through the 44th Street entrance in 1982 during the after Christmas Sale. I see it like a crane shot high above the main marbled floor. Associates balancing stacks of shirts piled high in their arms. 20 or more it seemed. Customers followed...winding through the maze of dark oak cabinets filled with oxford shirts and silk ties.



I purchased a Maker's pink button down oxford. It came in a navy box stamped with a sheep and closed tightly by a stretch of gold band sprung across the corners. A Shetland draped saleswoman with Peter Pan collar and short blonde hair, slipped my box into the bag. I couldn't help but notice how perfect her hands were with frosty pink nail polish. A good omen.

The shirt was on sale. I'm guessing, but I think it was under $25. It lasted almost 15 years. The left cuff frayed by a too big diver's watch and the collar finally blowing out after some three years of dedicated yard work. I threw it in the kitchen trash can and stared at it. Knowing the story it told but never knowing how.

The original cotton oxford button down is marked down 40% if you buy four. Today and today only will get you another 20% off. That's $38 a shirt. If my math is right. In store or on line.

Merry Christmas

Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC

The bars were razed and the hookers who tagged along were dispersed. That was all the civilians wanted. To spread Hay Street across Fayetteville like margarine on Wonder bread.

Three generations of bloused boot paratroopers spent Christmas on Hay Street. Cheering beer and strippers in Suzy Wong, The Seven Dwarfs or Pop A Top Lounge.

30 years later I walk an unforgotten route and nothing's the same. Cocky paratroopers are replaced with the waddling middle class twirling pasta in ersatz Italian restaurants.


Santa poses for pictures and I follow him to my hotel bar. He joins a red head and she smiles offering him a saved bar stool. He lights a cigarette with a Bic and orders a drink.

I think of Christmas when I was 19. Offering a stripper a heart shaped Whitman Sampler in my Bullit black turtleneck. She smiles down at me from her stage. When I think of her... I smile at Santa and buy him a drink.

Piss Off Early...

...tomorrow is Christmas Eve

The Sterile Cuckoo - "Sometimes you have to get away from the noise, you know?"

Japanese One Sheet




I saw The Sterile Cuckoo in Lincolnton, NC with my mother and sisters when I was 12 years old. I don't think my mother knew what she was getting into, but it's a film I wouldn't hesitate to show any 12 year old -- Hell, a ten year old for that matter. Never released on DVD, it'll pop up on TCM every now and then, but a high quality, uncut version was recently added to You Tube in nine parts.

Producer - Director Alan J Pakula (Klute, Sophie's Choice, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Love With a Proper Stranger) captured the '60s I remember as a kid. Not just the look but the feeling. Those days of care free bliss interrupted by seconds of teeth gnashing anxiety. I suspect screenwriter Alvin Sargent had much to do with that.

You know you're in for something different when Liza Minnelli as Pookie Adams tells Jerry Payne (Wendell Burton), "Some people guzzle God like He was a keg of beer." Tim McIntire as Jerry's roomie, Charlie, nails overweight beer drinking and ersatz sexual success that, despite 10 minutes of total screen time, is one of the most amazing performances ever. Ever! Or, maybe I have too much in common with Charlie.

No one is attacked. No one means any harm. But hurt is everywhere. If Christmas movies and forced cheerfulness of a happy holiday get you down...check this film out. It's as truthful as you can get this time of year...when you need to get away from the noise.

A Gift for Brohammas

Dylan Dalyn has needed a proper pair of shoes since I met him. Those vulgar Pliner square-toed wheels of his will clash with an Ivy League degree. These are a little too Italian for me but they'll suit him just fine in the city of Brotherly Love and Boyds. Marked down from $478 to $79 and available in more sizes than I thought. From Ron Rider.

A Gift for DB

My packaging guru since we were both 17. Obsessed more with the outside than the inside -- and that includes people. Nothing is cooler than the wrapper. Cream cries out for glass. Like Bond needs Walther. Johnny needs Bandit. Mina needs a Vespa. The bridge needs Lions. $14.95 and still in stock from Think Geek.

A Gift for Alice Olive

Alice loves photography and her Joe. And while she's all Nikon, I don't suspect anyone will notice this is a Canon lens. $24 for the 24 -105mm. $30 for the 70 - 200mm. Order from Photojojo here.