Blue Ribbon Radio's Drunken End of the Year Celebration

Blue Ribbon Radio: Shooter Jennings

Blue Ribbon Radio is proud to welcome Mr. Shooter Jennings...

Blue Ribbon Radio: The Only Thing Better Than Kate Upton's Boobs

Blue Ribbon Radio Drunkenly Rides Again

REPOST: The most awful episode we've ever done.

Blue Ribbon Radio: And Now For Something Completely Different

Folks, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, this episode is going to get fucking weird. I reached deep into my musical tastes to pull out a little bit of everything. It's not the usual episode, that's for certain. Feel free to send your hate mail directly to us.

In Fighting: Why it's happening and where we stand.

Like all groups of "like-minded" people, the outlaw(?)/underground/roots- country scene has it's fair share of fractures and offshoots based on differences in opinion or taste.  Hell, we here at BRR hold no pretenses about our loathing of the pickled cunt Trigger-Man, and have few qualms about expressing disdain for any of the other asshats who find themselves in possession of just enough influence to over-inflate their egos and begin considering themselves more important than the music.

The newest and most popular trend in intra-scene bashing has been to root out the "posers" or "johnny-come-latelies" that are just now discovering our beloved scene or genre or lifestyle or whatever you want to call it.  My friend J.B. Beverly went off on a day long meme-centered diatribe the other day on this group.  The central argument was that those that are trickling into our ranks are basically lifestyle-hopping based on an ill-informed perception of what the newest and most original counter-culture is.  I understand JB's point of view, and can definitely see where he's coming from.  If anyone has traversed the landscape of musical influences that have created this mutant-almagamation of a country music scene, it's JB fucking Beverly, and for that reason, I'll excuse his prejudice and write it off as simply reacting to the symptoms rather than the underlying causes.

The reality, as I alluded to above, is that this "scene," or whatever the fuck it is, has exactly one thing that holds it together, and it's not music anymore.  It was in the early days of the Hank III renaissance that took place around 2005-2008, but that's over.  Now, people are more important.  Artists with similar INTERESTS became emboldened by Sheldon's success and his support of other unknowns showed a lot of us that he wasn't out there by himself.  There were a lot of musicians with the same spirit as Hank III, even if the music was dramatically different, and not only brought the artists into a more or less unified camp, but produced the phenomenon of fans who claim to be a part of a scene that embraces both Those Poor Bastards and Jimmy Martin.  We (the fans) finally felt like there was something to which we could belong.  There are plenty of people out there who have been fans of Wayne Hancock and the Dead Kennedys, but the last five years are the first time we felt like that was right and it fit somewhere in a larger set of influences and interests.  Many of us have forged friendships that will last our lifetimes, and at the very least have a web-based society that we can feel a part of.  For our own reasons and because of our own experiences, we identify with this "lifestyle" and are proud to be a part of it.

When others stumble across us and our music, then, it's no surprise that they find in it a community of fellowship and shared interest that they want to be a part of.  What we must remember is that more often than not, these newcomers discover the scene in the exact same way many of us (yours truly included) did.  One flagship artist (be it Hank III, Shooter Jennings, or a love for more vintage country like Cash and Nelson) sparks an interest or further exploration.  Before you know it, someone has discovered something that they can identify with.  Sure, maybe a year ago they were bobbing their heads to Shaggy 2-Dope and chugging Faygo, but people change.  The first CD I ever owned as a kid was the Space Jam soundtrack, and I'm from fucking SOUTHern Alabama.  Who are we to judge someone's past interests and assert that it invalidates their present ideas?  No-fucking-body, that's who.  Here's a newsflash, I can name more ARTISTS (with label affiliations and strong connections in the scene) for whom I have exceedingly more disdain than any reformed juggalo in Ariats.

What Mr. Beverly seems to not understand (or simply not care about) is that his success as a musician is based SOLELY on his ability to attract new fans.  Without them (us), his endeavours are doomed.  It doesn't matter where those new fans come from.  If it were really "all about the music" for him, he'd see that it's the power of his lyrics and the allure of the images they create... in a word, his fucking talent... that have won over the unlikely listener.  I'm not saying that we're sitting on something that ever has any hope of going mainstream, or becoming huge, but if we become so exclusionary that one of the best in the business is actively demeaning the possibility of a growth in the fan-base, then we're doomed.  We'll be listening to Straight to Hell and Deguello Motel long into our fifties because the scene will die.

Now, I know this has been a fairly liberal interpretation of the acceptance of all newcomers to the scene.  It's an inflated ideal of the best possible scenario, if you will.  I hold no illusions that next month at MR12, there will be those in attendance that I see as misplaced and, for lack of a better term, uncool. They won't get it.  They were dragged along by someone else, or worse, they came with a gross misinterpretation of what the festival is all about.  There are those that are unwelcome, for sure, but it's not because of where they came from, per se.  It's because they do not fit.  They are misinterpreting the message and the spirit of the underground that we hold dear.  Here's the thing, though, if they realize that they don't fit in with us, they'll stop coming.  There are no doubt thousands of people out there with Johnny Cash CD's in the sun visors of their Z71s that would be so grossly put off by our little counter-culture that we'd never see them again.  That's not to say they aren't at home listening to the same music, but their interpretation and expression of that interest is different from our own.  It doesn't take a genius to see that we're all straddling a line of interest and insanity.  Anyone who's met Scott Biram can attest to that.  The atmosphere isn't for everyone, even if they like the music, but attacking them hurts the artists by putting album sales in jeopardy.  I may own several Wu Tang albums, but you'll sure as fuck never see me at a show.  Guess what, though?  Wu Tang still has my money, regardless.  They're still benefitting rom me, even if their body guards would beat me with a pipe for asking to get backstage.

The sad thing is, there already exists such a pervasive attitude of "we're better than you" in this scene, that we're most likely already over the edge and heading toward further fracturing and bad blood.  There's plenty of it in the Southeast already, and it'll spread and grow as shitty artists continue to get breaks, and people begin to feel excluded or alienated in what they thought was their social safe haven.   To me, the only way to stop it is try to remember back just a few years ago and see how close knit everyone was.  The solidarity seen at Muddy Roots last year was a fine example of it, but it faded away as the hangovers subsided and the mud-stains washed out.  If that spirit's gone in the scene writ large, then what's the fucking point of it?   As a military man, I've seen first hand the power that across-the-board equality has and the strength and solidarity that it creates.  If people from all over the country and world, with completely different cultures, experiences, backgrounds, interests, and personalities can overcome their bullshit and not just tolerate, but truly care for one another, then what the fuck is wrong with us, a group of people so closely linked by interests that it borders on the cultish, when we can't pull our shit together?  Who can say who belongs more than anyone else?  Certainly not me, and if any motherfucker thinks he's in a position to posit any sort of opinion on my own inclusion, I've got a brand new pipe wrench just itching for some teeth marks.

Andrew is sick of your bullshit.

Be a Better Citizen

            Recently my wife brought home a study guide for the U.S. citizenship test. I had always heard that it was an incredibly tough test, one that most “regular” American citizens couldn't pass. I took the test hoping for a good challenge, but instead I walked away feeling kind of gipped. It was actually a fairly simple test, or so I thought, right up until I quizzed a couple of recent high school graduates. This was just another in a long line of shameful experiences that  showed me just how much our culture looks down on intelligence and knowledge, especially here in the South. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but the Tea Party is a nationwide thing so we are obviously idiots all over.

            What struck me more than their complete lack of knowledge was their apparent glee in their ignorance. They actually thought it funny and cool that they couldn't tell me either the day or the year when the Declaration of Independence was signed. There was no shame on their part, nor was there any interest in learning or voting. This is worrisome on many levels, as voting is one of the few things that I will go out of my way to do. Especially disconcerting is the fact that I realized these are the exact type of people who hear professional paranoiac Wayne LaPierre rant about President Obama coming for your guns and believe it to be true, and I say this as a card-carrying NRA member.

            This has brought me to the conclusion that we should have voter ID laws, but not in the way that Republicans or anybody has suggested. Before you gain the right to vote, you should have to take the U.S. citizenship test. You shouldn't be allowed to pick the people who run this country if you know nothing about it. If you can't tell me who succeeds the President and Vice President if they can't serve, I don't want you to be able to pick either. Upon completion of your citizenship test, you get a nifty little card which certifies you as a person worthy of the responsibility of voting.

            I understand that not everyone has either the time or inclination to become a history buff or policy wonk, but it's not hard to remember how many Senators we have. Sure, this idea would alienate plenty of voters, and I'm not saying the plan couldn't use some tweaking. However, the majority of America is terrible, awful and incredibly stupid, and I shudder to think of what this country would look like if we had 100% voter turnout. I'm all for higher turnout, but there should be some sort of competency test to make sure you aren't some ridiculously under-informed fucktard who thinks that President Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.

            We should all strive to be a better citizen. Learn something about who you are voting for, and for chrissake if you must watch Fox News don't let them fool you into thinking that they are anything other than the Cartoon Network of news, or that they are “Fair and Balanced.” Try and get at least a few different and reliable sources, from both sides of the aisle, before you pull the lever. That's how we keep people like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum out of office.

Frank Nichols

Why We Write.

Frank wrote last week on the undeniable influence that drinking has not only on our creative abilities as writers, but as artists writ large.  I'd first like to commend him on a fine article, and having been made privy to his particular approach to writing now for somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade, I can attest to the effectiveness of his methods and their ability to produce quality prose, regardless of subject matter or motivation for putting pen to paper.  It's a process that I myself clung to throughout my high school days, and into the early semesters of college.  Writing things out on paper to give myself the sense of creation and ownership of the work I was producing was a crucial part of the process.  Sadly, the demand for quantity over quality that so pervades the early years of academia, coupled with my increasing penchant for laziness, insomnia, and substance abuse rendered this critical part of the process too inefficient to cling to.   When it comes down to it, it's a quicker, simpler, process to punch your disconnected streams of consciousness into a keyboard now, and cut, paste, rearrange, and edit later using the miracles(?) of modern technology.  This article itself is being composed right in the browser-based blog editor, and I will no doubt be employing all of the electronic gadgets at my fingertips to render it as legible and coherent as can be expected of this type of endeavour (not to mention a man who's working his way through the bottom sixth of a bottle of Bombay Sapphire tonight).  What's the point of all of this?  Why am I giving you a lesson on the writing habits of two friends brought up under identical tutelage during the formative years of our writing evolution?  The answer to that question is as elusive to me as it is to you.

You see, for at least a week or more I've been scouring the news, absorbing all of the information I could on everything from Pakistani/American relations to solar storms to why Iran should be allowed to develop the bomb to the world's fattest woman dropping one hundred pounds by having marathon fuck-sessions with her ex-husband.  If it's been put into print or oozed onto the net by the waterheads that sell their souls for internet publication, I've at least scanned it in the last few weeks, and what I have found is that I have no idea what to even write about anymore.  This blog, and my first few contributions to it, were guided by the principles of Blue Ribbon Radio:  Substance abuse and behavioral deviance.  How long, though, can we beat these into the ground?  How many articles can I write about getting drunk and finding prostitutes or avoiding the mafia in European cities before they start to sound exactly the same?  It would seem that the number is smaller than I would have liked to admit.

I ponder why this is, and I look at my approach to writing writ large.  I'm no longer a product of my own drive and creativity... at least not completely.  I cling to the habits I picked up in college and inevitably find myself punching out a page or two of text, reading halfway through it, hitting [command]+a and deleting every last fucking letter of it.  These aren't just quick ramblings, either.  They're thought out, hard fought paragraphs that I struggle through, and then at the first sign of displeasure, I trash it all to start over again.  I've done it three times in the last ten hours, and am roundly convinced that the only way I'll get through this and actually publish it is to drink enough to enjoy the process and not care about the product.

I keep at it, in the face of the tedium and drudgery I often feel when composing, though, because deep down a part of me still wants to believe in my own creativity.  As I've noted before, I came up, much like Frank, with a predisposition for academic excellence.  He and I spent many years internalizing the same processes and experiences, and there was no doubt a point in our early years that either of us could have chosen to focus on writing and turned it into a career as adults.  I chose the singular focus of music, however, during those years, and that led me to where I am today.  That didn't pan out, as it were, and so I'm here in Bavaria furiously rapping these keys trying to get all of these thoughts out before I appreciate how mundane they may seem to anyone unfortunate enough to come across them.

That spirit, however... that small but nonetheless present spark of faith in our own ideas and artistic processes is what lies behind this seemingly (and very probably) fruitless enterprise we have undertaken here at the Blue Ribbon Radio Blog of Awful.  It is unquestionable that the greatest literary minds of the last 200 years have been unapologetic drunks, misfits, ramblers, transients, and misanthropes.  We don't entertain dreams of ever joining the Faulkners or Hemingways or Conrads of this Earth, but we do take a very personal delight in the fact that we share their experience regardless of the quality of our work.  We know how and why they wrote, and we are enchanted by the same muses these greats worshipped.  Modernity is an evil motherfucker in this sort of exercise, but we embrace it where we must and try to honor and respect the past for what it has inspired us to be.   For good or ill, in us beat artistic hearts, and there's nothing quite as pleasurable as having the opportunity to express and share our inspired ramblings.  As Frank pointed out, the booze is simply a relaxant to allow the creative process to flow freely, while drawing from the inspiration that music, love, sex, death, violence, and Batman (just to name a few most prominent sources) provide.  We are not, and likely never will be, masters of this craft, but it is a privilege nonetheless to ply it for your consideration, and maybe even entertainment.  As Chris and I have stated on air before, our ramblings, both verbal and written, are largely for our own cathartic entertainment... perhaps even more so than for our readers and listeners... but knowing that in spite of that, many of you enjoy what we do here, provides just a little bit more buoyancy for our ever-plunging souls.

Yours in sullen desperation,

Andrew.

Alcohol and Art

For as long as we have had booze, we have had poor drunk fools who think themselves an artist. I mean this in a very broad sense of art as a whole: literature, music, painting etc. Alcohol has played a crucial role in the arts, as it has been directly responsible for the likes of Hemingway, jazz, van Gogh and countless other luminaries of art.

           

            I think that everyone fancies themselves a writer at some point, and there are few who are worth a damn. It is interesting to note that many of the greats were unrepentant drunks. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson and Bukowski were all great drinkers and their work reflects it. One thing that so many people, especially high school kids, get wrong about them is that they see their drinking as the ends rather than the means. Rather than abusing alcohol solely for the state of being drunk, they used it for their craft.

            Hemingway saw it as one of those wonderful things about being alive and wrote often about how it made the world a finer place to live in. Robert Jordan from For Whom The Bell Tolls says that absinthe “takes the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafes...of all the things he had enjoyed and forgotten.” This does not jive with an amateur's assumption that we drink solely to blackout and throw up all over ourselves. In fact, Robert Jordan would likely frown upon such an act.

            On the other end of the drinking spectrum, we have the venerable Dr. Thompson. More so than any other, his substance abuse is far more misunderstood. Too many teenagers have seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and completely missed the fact that Raoul Duke and his attorney were searching for the American Dream. They see the flash and hilarity that came with the drug use (some of which were fictional) and incessant drinking and cannot grasp that it was essential to their mission. I don't want to go into too much detail now, as I want to save material for a Lords of Awful installment on Hunter S. Thompson. He used alcohol as a coping mechanism in order to deal with the grim realities of the brutal politics that he covered so well. Unfortunately our society has made reading uncool, especially for the young kids, so the vast majority of them will know nothing about the brilliant Gonzo Papers, and will wrongly remember him as a guy who was only famous for doing a bunch of drugs in Las Vegas.

            It has been my experience with writing that what alcohol does best is not necessarily providing inspiration, (apart from directly writing about it) as much as relaxes you and allows you to write about whatever you want, taking a small seed of an idea and then writing it into oblivion. Papa Hemingway once said to “write drunk, and edit sober.” I'm a big fan of this theory for many reasons, not least of which is a terrible affliction that I'm plagued with. My problem is that while I'm writing, I tend to edit as I go along. Until I get a few drinks in me and loosen up a bit I spend five minutes on every sentence, trying to make sure that it fits perfectly and sounds profound and grand before I actually put pen to paper.

            I have often found that the writing that I'm most proud of is the stuff where I was able to just write and write, editing be damned. My work generally goes through about four stages: First I write it out on paper, then read it to my darling wife, and come back a few days later with a red pen to do some proofreading and minor editing. After that I type it up as what is generally the final draft and do some last minute editing. One of my favorite pieces, “Death in America,” looked like someone literally died on it. There was so much red ink that I wondered if I severed an artery. When I was writing that I had reached that perfect drunk where I was still lucid, but riding an incredible buzz. The Wild Turkey had loosened me enough to plumb the depths of my soul and pour all my feelings onto the page, and I think it shows.

            Music is an area where I have considerably less experience, but still hold a great deal of knowledge. I have not seriously played music in at least five years, but when I did alcohol was integral in helping me learn new songs on guitar. I never did many original tunes, but I could play a cover so well you'd think it was an original recording. I could begin learning a song drunk, and after I sobered up and started again things would just kind of fall into place.

            One difference between the drunks of music and literature is that many times the drinking was the ends rather than the means. The most egregious examples are those awful hair bands of the 80's, Mötley Crüe in particularly. If you ever have the chance to read The Dirt, do it. It is a vile tale of an utterly hedonistic band who focused more on debauchery than making good music. While these are the types of drunks who give us a bad name, it is important to note that alcohol is a key factor in who they were.

            Jazz is another genre heavily influenced by alcohol, and in fact owes its entire existence to it and the gin joints where it developed. While I completely disagree, there are those who claim that jazz is the only truly original American form of music, but it is undeniable that the seedy bars of the Prohibition era provided the perfect incubator for this music. After we aborted the failed social experiment of Prohibition, legends like John Coltrane and Miles Davis honed their craft in hazy, smoke-filled barrooms across America. While it is true that Coltrane preferred heroin to hooch, it was the audience at the bar that shaped jazz. Without a liquored-up audience to listen to him, Miles Davis couldn't have reinvented jazz time and again.

            I would be remiss if I didn't mention country music in an article for Blue Ribbon Radio. Throughout country's history alcohol, especially whiskey, has played a major role. Countless songs have been written about it, because of it, and sound great under the influence of it. There is no need to discuss the legends of George Jones and his lawnmower, or the myriad other stars and their stories; we know them all. I feel that I must join the legion of detractors of the modern country scene, fashionable though it may be, but I come at it from a drinking standpoint. As I have stated before, there are different approaches to drinking as either an end or a means. At some point in country music drinking became the ends rather than the means. Somehow we went from Merle Haggard singing about “Memories and Gin” and ended up with Toby Keith blathering on about a red Solo cup. To address a pet peeve of mine, men drink from glass. Inbred hillbilly swine drink from plastic. I cannot imagine Johnny Cash leering at high school girls at some silly field party drinking Bud Light out of a red Solo cup. He was a God, and he drank from glass.

            Apart from knowing the van Gogh liked absinthe and cut his ear off, I don't know much about “art” art. I think I read somewhere that a lot of architects are drunks. The fact remains that alcohol is a shining beacon for the artistic set. Even if you don't have natural talent, booze can help you fake it. A drunken, vehement rant is usually entertaining to read, always fun to write, and you  may have the luck of writing something good, and all thanks to your pal alcohol. So the next time you find yourself at home with nothing to do, start drinking and writing. Pick whatever topic comes to mind, and write the hell out of it. Then submit it to us, because we need content.

Frank Nichols is a deep drinking heavy thinker. 

Ramblings From a Lazy Drunken Hillbilly

It's almost two in the morning here in Alabama, and I really have little clue as to where I want to take this post. I do know that this will be my weekly blog update about all the awful, strange, and pointless thoughts that fill my head on a nearly constant basis, but the point of it? That I do not know. I may not even have a point, and none of this really matters anyway.

After a year of depression along the western side of the this once great country, I have finally returned to my adopted homeland of the South. I left the South after Muddy Roots of last year and headed for California, and since then I have spent time in Nevada, Washington, and finally another return to California. This, to say the least, worked out miserably for my mental psyche. Not that my mind was ever in great shape, but it got severely worse over the last twelve months travelling the west in search of some fictional idea of being alright. I tried it drunk, I tried it high, I tried stone cold fucking sober, then I tried it even fucking drunker. Nothing mattered. It's just life, and it is what it is.

Now, I've been what my mother lovingly refers to as "the family's rolling stone" since I was eighteen, and I've never really let up on my rambling. It may sound cliche, but I really have been everywhere you can go on a Greyhound bus in this country. I've lived in New York, Alabama, North Carolina, Idaho, Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Nevada, and probably some other places I was too blacked out to remember over the last seven years. That's a fuckload of displacement, all in search of some idea that maybe I'll find someplace somewhere that will make my personal issues melt away. This, of course, is fairy tale bullshit. No matter where you go you're still you. I will still be the lovesick drunk I am, no matter what shit hole I'm resting my head in, and I'm alright with that.

You have to make life work for you. It's never going to be great, just know that right now. It's life, and it's a real motherfucker on it's best days. In order to survive this life sentence you must learn to get by on the little things. Happiness is being under southern skies, smoking a hand rolled cigarette, and drinking a glass of Irish while sharing stories of your fucked up past with a good friend. I've searched this country high and low, and I've yet to find something that tops that, my friends.

Slainte

Chris Miller is back in South to terrify the believers. 

Blue Ribbon Radio: Kind of Live with T.Junior

Blue Ribbon Radio returns to Alabama and the living room of T.Junior for a drunken episode the likes of which can be only be pulled off by such a skilled radio program. Cheers, folks.

Three Rules: Conquering Your Hangover

Your eyes take a minute to adjust to the cruel sunlight blazing through the window. More than a few grunts of discomfort as you right yourself from your slumber on the living room floor. Eyes burn, stomach rumbles, mouth filled with moss. You have a hangover.

This awful beast known as a hangover is one of the unfortunate side effects of having a drink or ten, and we are all familiar with it to some degree or another. There are myriad guides for how to get over one, but they almost always begin with the advice of not drinking so much. This, dear reader, is simply not an option. There are some general prevention tips I have picked up and use to some extent, such as the “Sinatra Rule” of having a glass of water between every alcoholic drink you consume. (I generally start after round 6) Others would have you drink water and take aspirin before bed, still other well-intentioned fools say to only have one drink per hour. Some of these preventive measures have merit, but most only exist to take up space on the Interweb.

For the purpose of this article, I am assuming that you are afflicted with a true-blue five-star hangover. This is one of those hangovers that comes with three hours of sleep and no less than five receipts for you to make sense of. Upon waking you find yourself with a pain running up your left side that feels like you had a stroke. If this hangover had formed in the Gulf of Mexico a state of emergency would be declared before it even made landfall and Jim Cantore would know it would be worse than some terrible ancient warlord and used his executive power to name it Agamemnon. You had a great night is what I'm saying.

One final caveat before we begin: this is my personal hangover regimen. Nearly everyone has their own cure that they swear by, but they all suck. Use mine and you will conquer this hangover and make it clean your house.

The first order of business in combating a hangover is to fill your belly. Water is key, even more so than food. Just in case you aren't aware, one of the biggest factors in a hangover is dehydration. After you have drunk the second of your many glasses of ice water, it is time to shift your focus to food. The English get a lot of crap for their terrible food, but they know how to have a king-hell breakfast. I don't generally go for the full English breakfast, but it is certainly one to cure a hangover.

My personal preferred breakfast is scrambled eggs with salsa, sausage patties and bacon, biscuits and gravy, and perhaps some potatoes. The key here is to eat greasy food, whether you cook it yourself or not. As a result pretty much anything at the Waffle House will help cure what ails you. Whether or not I go all out and cook the fantastic spread above, I will always have the bacon and eggs. I'm a big fan of routine, and that's what I eat pretty much every morning. The twist for the hangover breakfast is that I put on Guy Clark's album Some Days the Song Writes You, not only because it's a great album, but because “The Coat” comes on as I sit down and it's just got that hungover feel to it.

There are those who advocate the hair of the dog method of hangover cure, and from time to time I have engaged this tactic. However, I have found it mostly useless before lunch. If you decide on this method I would suggest using only lighter and simple alcohols. My few successes have been Corona and eggs, or leftover Jameson with fresh ice cubes and Meet the Press.

The second step for dealing with the incessant pounding in your head is to relax for a few hours. This is the time to find a couch and lay on it for a while. In a future post we will discuss the finer points of Hangover Theatre, but suffice it to say that the movie shouldn't be complex, or loud, or even outrageously funny. Although the title would lead you to initially believe it perfect for the job, The Hangover is one of the worst movies to watch when you are actually hungover – it's just too damn funny. The movie you're looking for is the kind of movie they used to play on TBS until they got all weird and became the Tyler Perry channel and dropped the Braves for those ridiculous BoSox. You're based in Atlanta for Christ's sake! Spaceballs is a good hangover movie – funny, but not gut-bustingly so after the first viewing. You can try and take my man card for this, and I will beat you to a bloody stump with your own legs, but I also like Julie and Julia for this. It's simple, it has food, and it has Meryl Streep so you can all just go to hell. It's Complicated is also nice.

If you don't feel quite like a movie you can always fall back on music to help you through, but it's not the music you think. Apart from while I'm cooking and eating breakfast, I'm not wanting music with lyrics and themes and anything that might require me to think. What I like is Aphex Twin, especially Richard D. James Album, and any of the Selected Ambient Works series are great for a hangover. Some of the Aphex Twin records are a little too far out there and strange for this fragile state, but this type of electronic/ambient music really helps me with the healing process. Old Tom Waits will be a great choice as well, but nothing newer than Franks Wild Years.

You could also read a book if you wanted, but I never have since I couldn't concentrate enough to pay attention, which is the reason for the easily digested hangover movie. If you do choose to read, I would suggest some simple, paint-by-numbers novel by the likes of John Grisham or James Patterson. Most of the greats are simply too heavy for this operation. Can you imagine reading The Road hungover? No thanks, I already feel like death twice warmed over, I don't need a book where that is every day life.

Now that you've spent a good portion of the day being lazy and feeling sorry for yourself, it's time to act like a grownup. No later than 2:00 you should be pulling yourself together and trying to unravel the story that your receipts are telling you in order to brag on Monday about what you did on Saturday. How did I spend $80 at the last bar? Why did we keep going from one side of town to the other? Surely I did not drink a dozen rail whiskeys by myself.

This is also a good time to get your house back in order. If for some horrible, unforseen circumstance you didn't grab some Waffle House before you came home, you likely cooked something so that your stomach was settled and you didn't throw up. As a result your kitchen is a wild landscape of dirty dishes and beer bottles. Go ahead and deal with this now. You are already miserable so cleaning won't make your day any worse, and with any luck you will run into a neighbor as you throw a garbage bag full of bottles into the dumpster and can acknowledge them with little more than a grunt from your sore throat you got by singing Bohemian Rhapsody at top volume during the cab ride home. This has the effect of cementing your neighbors suspicions and ensure they don't pester you to come over for a barbecue.

As an honorable mention, I must bring up the specter of exercise. Obviously with a hangover of this magnitude a workout is out of the question. However, when you have a stage-2 or a light stage-3 hangover, half an hour of vigorous exercise can work wonders. If you are traveling and find yourself in a hotel with a steam room, use it. Those things are just the tits after you make a run on the continental breakfast.

In conclusion, you can choose to treat your hangover as a curse, or as a cleansing experience as the good Modern Drunkard advocates. Obviously I choose the latter. I have been lucky enough to have developed the fortitude of liver so that I rarely get hangovers more than 3 or 4 times a year, regardless of intake. For myself, it is more an issue of sleep as I am a morning person and can rarely sleep past 7:00 no matter when I finally passed out. However, when I do come down with a hangover I embrace it. They remind me that I'm human, and to quote the Modern Drunkard again, it's not all rum and games.

Frank Nichols makes Ron Burgandy look like a classless hobo

Top Five Albums of Half of 2012

Just want to start out by saying that there are mine, Chris Miller, favorite albums of the year thus far. Andrew may have an entirely different list. I don't know if he'll be doing one. Go ask him yourself, I'm not his fucking biographer.

The first half of 2012 has been very solid in terms of releases, and only figures to get better with the likes of Hellbound Glory and Adam Lee & The Deadhorse Sound Company still on the way. I figured, like every other music blogger out there, that I'd throw out my favorites of the lot. Going with the tried and true "Top 5" format, don't be looking for reviews here. I've gotta go to work in an hour and don't have time to be professional. I'll just throw my favorites out there, with a little blurb underneath, then you can discuss amongst yourselves. Alright, enough bullshit, lets get on with it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Kara Clark-Southern Hospitality
Owen Mays & The 80 Proof Boys- Nobody Loves You When You're Down
Stevie Tombstone- Slow Drunken Waltz
Tom Vandenavond- Wreck Of A Fine Man
Joseph Huber- Tongues Of Fire
Jackson Taylor & The Sinners- Bad JuJu
Bob Wayne- Til' The Wheels Fall Off
Ray Wylie Hubbard- The Grifter's Hymnal
Shooter Jennings- Family Man


5. T. Junior- Man In Gray

At number five on the list we've got longtime friend of the show T.Junior with his first solo EP "Man In Gray". The former Honky Tonk Hustlas front man brings seven, five brand new, dreary tales of southern doom and despair on this gem.

4. James Hunnicutt- In Full It Shall Be Paid

Coming in a number four we've got the most versatile man in roots music, James Hunnicutt. This collection of demos from 2004-2010 is my favorite release from James' catalog, and that's saying something.

3. Marty Stuart- Nashville, Vol. 1: Tear The Woodpile Down

Marty Stuart is arguably the most important person keeping the spirit of true country music alive. This album features a duet with Hank III where they do my favorite Hank Williams song "Pictures From Life's Other Side". Plus, Marty is playing with a goddamned jungle cat on the cover. Cool points.

2. McDougall- A Few Towns More

From my neck of the woods up in the great northwest we've got McDougall coming in at number two. I've never had more fun drinking alone than the other night when I cranked this fucker up to eleven and danced with lady bourbon.

1. Willie Nelson- Heroes

 















This is the best album Willie has made since the mid 1980's. Simply fucking fantastic.

Drinking and Movies

Whatever petty differences the fans of Blue Ribbon Radio may have, I think it is safe to assume that we all love drinking and movies. If you have been at this drinking business long enough to be associated with Blue Ribbon Radio you should have developed a sense that not every drink is proper for every occasion. There are times when nothing but a good dark beer can cure what ails you, and other times when your world seems good and right and true a protracted evening of bourbon is in order. Just as in normal life, your drinks should reflect the movie you are watching, especially if your goal is to drink with the movie.

Most movies worth watching will have some sort of easily discerned code or guide for how or what you should drink. I don't mean drinking games, as they tend to punish those who are good at them by forcing them to remain sober. On top of this already heinous state of affairs you still have a movie to watch. However, there are some movies where this code is not so obvious and you may have to do a spot of thinking to figure out what your proper drink is.

As a basic guideline, the different genres of movies lend themselves to different drinks. For example, you would never dream of drinking a Chardonnay while watching a Western, and it would seem more than a little strange to pound the blog's namesake beer during a viewing of Schindler's List. Some movies are kind enough to have a very specific drink for you to consume, but others don't.

One of my personal favorite genres is film noir / hardboiled detective. If you drink anything other than rye or bourbon while watching a movie based on Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett you should just be ashamed of yourself. By that same token, it seems that beer is the perfect drink for a good action movie. These movies are testosterone-fueled escapism and beer complements this well. Action movies are best watched with several friends, and often whiskey is too heavy and intoxicating to keep you interested in John McClane's struggle without having you completely ignore the movie in favor of seeing who can do more one-handed pushups. The best example of this is the movie Shoot 'Em Up. By any critical standard it was a terrible movie, but this doesn't account for the gigantic awesome factor. It wasn't meant for and Oscar, but for men to gather round and drink beer and watch absolutely insane gunfights.

On a different wavelength, there are those movies which have a definite and concrete connection with drinking. These are movies where your protagonist has his drink, and by God he's going to have it whatever the cost. These are movies like The Big Lebowski, with Lebowski's White Russian. Blue Velvet lends itself to PBR, but I prefer to drink the Heineken. Full disclosure - I absolutely loathe PBR. I understand that I write for Blue Ribbon Radio, but it is just terrible beer and I cannot abide it one damn bit. Although I said earlier than rye or bourbon is the only thing appropriate for film noir, the one exception is The Long Goodbye, when you should drink a gimlet - “Half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice. Nothing else.”

These types of movies tend to be some of the best movies for both drinking and watching. Even if you take drinking out of the equation, God forbid, these are movies that bring people together. These are the movies where everyone watching it can quote every line. Not surprisingly this makes it hard to introduce new people to the movie, as nobody wants to watch a movie for the first time with some asshole who can't stop quoting it. Movies like these are movies that make family. I will never forget the memories I can't remember from High School of getting drunk and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Movies like Barfly, Withnail and I, and Casablanca will forever connect drinking with watching movies. The connections are so strong that they develop cults, as in the case with The Big Lebowski. The simple act of having a drink while you watch a movie is so pleasurable and grounding that I cannot really manage without one. To plug my other article on “Dressing for Drinks,” this is another one of the reasons why I wear blazers – pockets for flasks. Six ounces of Wild Turkey is a lifesaver when you've been drug against your will to a Pixar movie on a Sunday afternoon in a dry county.

Frank Nichols continues to bring a little bit of class into our otherwise awful world.

Why do we drink?

The title of this blog is no doubt a question any wandering internet adventurer would inevitably wonder about those of us here at Blue Ribbon Radio (and the majority of those that we call friends, followers, comrades, and cheap imitators, as well).  It's a question that I've personally found myself pondering over the last few months as my drinking has taken a turn for the clinically alarming since March.   Admittedly, asking why we all drink is about as open-ended as asking "Why is the air?," but I am here to address my own personal perspective on the matter.

There is no doubt that the consumption of alcohol and exploring life and it's various adventures under its influence is a fundamental part of what we do here at Blue Ribbon Radio.  The show itself was named, not after a kitchy nod to Americana, but in fact after our very favorite beer.  In fact, the first show I appeared as a co-host on, Chris and I had consumed something in the neighberhood of a fucking goddamn lot of PBR before we started drinking  (the human figure is somewhere in the neighborhood of a case each in about 7 hours, but we can't remember, because this is the night we discovered "Mets-Tits" and that has taken precedence in our spotty conjoined consciousness ever since).

As for myself (and I'm sure I'm speaking for Chris as well), my own experience grew out of the typical high-school partier/drinker phase that most of us go through.  I was fortunate enough to have an affinity for academia, and could afford to partake in the destructive behaviour that my brothers engaged in with literally ZERO consequences.  I graduated with a full scholarship to the university of my choice and a suspended truancy charge because of my obscene amount of absences thanks to my countless hangovers and ruthless "give-no-fucks" spirit.  In short, I left high-school on the verge of what our normative cognitive maps would consider a drinking problem, and had never faced a single consequence for my behaviour.  (It of course would be a terrible oversight to not mention, and now's as good a time as any, that I do come from a purely Scotts-Irish family that traces it's heritage back to the Irish exodus from North Caroline to Alabama in the early 18th century... To put it simply, drunk is in my blood).

This background obviously lends itself to a propensity for substance (mostly alcohol, but let's not forget all of the other chemical delights that science has brought us) abuse.  College was no different, and really only upped the ante with the introduction of more complex chemical compounds introduced into the whole affair.  It was during these times that I learned that life really was okay after all so long as you knew a shady hood-rat named Snowball to sell the okay to you in little baggies.

Unfortunately, along with a penchant for scholarly endeavours comes a collective expectation of success from every member of your white trash family as well as every moderately successful middle-class twat that you ever spent time with growing up.  When you happen to be the exception as I was (a dog-dick poor kid with a relatively trashy upbringing but inexplicable academic abilities) it's just understood that you're going to go on and do something slightly more lucrative than giving old-fashioneds in the stairwell  of your illegal loft for more pills.  This pressure is not without its consequences, which of course manifested itself in the form of further substance abuse, but a critical tipping point was on the horizon.  I only gave a fuck about what I was studying because I thought it was interesting.  However, as anyone else with a liberal arts degree can attest to, this is no fast track to success.  So, after I buried my 25 year Army veteran (and raging alcoholic) grandfather in 2008, I decided that the military was as lucrative a choice as any.  The pertinence to the story here is that, while I remained the same chemically dependent asshole on the inside, the outside needed a job, and there was the promise of assault rifles and the sanctioning of shooting people, so I jumped in feet first and started the path toward becoming a respectable US Army officer.

So here I am now.  I've followed that path to it's fruition and am now a commissioned officer in the United States Army.  I have a combat tour under my belt, and I've been living abroad now for nearly 2 years exploring the opportunities the world has to offer.  Unfortunately, the fundamental elements that make up the asshole persona that thinks this is interesting enough to share with people has changed very little.  I spent some time exploring why, and came to an undeniable conclusion.  This conclusion has slowly evolved into the answer to the question I laid before you at the start of this barely literary excursion.  I worked my ass off for two years.  I spent countless hours and days devoting myself to becoming an honorable contributing member of society.  I became a respected military leader:  a man that my family could be proud of, and my judgmental assfuck peers could envy, and it fucking BLOWS.

I got what I wanted.  I make a fuckton of money for a 24 year old kid.  I'll easily clear 90K this year.  This economy has left lawyers, bankers, doctors, and many other sleazy fucks out on the streets, and I am doing great.  The only problem is that I fucking loathe it.  I hate this life.  I hate everything in it.  I hate every single thing about what I have to do every single day, and were it not for the overinflated legal ramifications, I would get my ass on an airplane right the fuck now, and leave it behind.  But, of course, life doesn't work like that.  We can't just turn our backs on our responsibilities, especially when they involve contractual obligations to the Pentagon.  So here I am.  Depressed, lonely, miserable, and fucking disgusted at the sell-out mentality that led me here.  How does one deal with this nonsense?  How does one examine the world they have built for themselves and find nothing but disgust and shame reconcile that without tasting 700mph buckshot?  It's quite simple, really.  He drinks.  He drinks until that world dissolves around him and he can sit in a room with a record player and a bottle of whiskey and feel something other than despair.

You see, more than any other recreation in our lives, music is our catharsis.  We need it to feel.  We hear the words of sorrow, pain, joy, encouragement, determination, and desperation, and we empathize.  We know what Leroy Virgil means when he talks about not hitting rock bottom alone, but unfortunately, the words aren't enough anymore.  To take a cue from Miller's comedy article, life fucking blows.  For all of us.  None of us are doing what we want to do.  Human being aren't meant to waste their lives the way we waste ours.  This disgust at our existences has left us so jaded that even the words that speak directly to us in the deepest ways can't get through.  Our insides are scarred ugly callouses, and very few things can get through anymore.  Our ointment is drink.  It softens the senses.  It allows us to push away the anger and hate and desperation at our wasted lives and absorb those feelings from others and know that we aren't alone.  We don't drink to numb ourselves from everything.  We drink to drown out the background noise so we can feel what we are all looking for:  togetherness.  We know that it will put us in an early grave eventually, but we recognize that the time we have here is precious and that we'd rather spend it feeling like a part of something than being miserable for 80 years.   So, if you don't get it, feel free to look on us with disgust and hatred, but never pity.  We don't need it.  We're experiencing life in the only way that makes sense or will work for us, and at the end of this run, we'll have far less to regret than most people.

Sláinte.  In vino veritas.

Andrew is drunk somewhere.

Lords of Awful: Installment I: Shane MacGowan

Welcome ladies and gentleman to our first edition of our brand new "Lords of Awful" series. It is here that we will celebrate those who have lived, perfected, and inspired our lifestyle of awful. Our first master of drink and brilliance is none other than Shane MacGowan.

Best known as the toothless face behind the originators of the "Irish Folk Punk" sound, The Pogues, his amazing appetite for drink and drugs has often overshadowed his sheer brilliance. The first three albums that The Pogues released featured a collection of the finest songwriting since Townes Van Zandt was at his most prolific, and the man wielding the pen was more often than not Mr. MacGowan.

The displaced Irish group made there debut in 1984 with "Red Roses For Me". In a time when it was mighty unpopular to be Irish in London, The Pogues came out wearing their Irish on their sleeves with a collection of original and tradition songs. Their infusion of traditional Irish Folk music and punk attitude set them apart from all the post-punk new wave garbage that was dominating the charts in London, and found an audience in the disgruntled young displaced Irish youth in London. The shining moments on the "Red Roses" come from Shane's songwriting. His "gutter hymns" about drunken eternity, and the hardships of being Irish in a land that despises such as "Boys From The County Hell", and "Streams Of Whiskey" paint such a beautifully bleak picture, and offered a taste of the brilliance that would come from the band in the future.

Following the eye opening release of  "Red Roses For Me", The Pogues were back in the studio to record their follow up "Rum, Sodomy & The Lash", with a famous new fan producing the album in Elvis Costello. While Shane didn't always agree with the methods of Costello, one cannot argue with the results. "Rum, Sodomy, & The Lash" would be the album that propelled a band with great potential into being a truly great band. Once again, much of it was due to the songwriting of Shane MacGowan. "The Old Main Drag", "A Pair of Brown Eyes", and "Sally MacLennane" showed a depth not previously seen from the band. What "Rum, Sodomy & The Lash" showed was that this was not a gimmick. They were not just fast playing with no substance. This was a band with a sound, and a voice.

While the band continued to produce fantastic music, Shane continued his love affair with alcohol and narcotics. He claims in his autobiography that he would eat LSD every day, to go with the whiskey, gin, and cocaine that he was consuming on a regular basis. He even goes so far as to blame an experience on LSD in New Zealand for some of his missing teeth. Apparently, under the spell of lucy, he painted himself blue and began eating his Eagles records. This, as one would imagine, provided much oral trauma. Even though Shane's personal habits where beginning to spiral out of control, both he and the band had one more great album left. Their masterpiece, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God".

Lineup changes, Shane's increasing substance abuse, and problems with their record label led to a three year lapse between "Rum, Sodomy" and "If I Should Fall From Grace...", but it would be more than worth than weight. The band branched out by adding influences of Spanish, and Jazz to their sound, while still remaining loyal to their Irish roots. It was on this album that they would find their greatest success with "Fairytale Of New York." A broken christmas carol duet with Kirsty MacColl , the daughter of Ewan MacColl who famously penned "Dirty Old Town", would go on to reach number two on the charts and be remembered, at least by me, as the greatest Christmas song ever written.

Unfortunately, this would prove to be the end for the The Pogues brilliance. Two sub-par albums, creative differences, and Shane's increasing erratic behavior led to the bands breakup in 1991. Shane would go on to form "The Popes", and record "The Snake". It was a decent record, with the usual strong songwriting, but it was clear that the drink had taken it's toll on his voice. Neither the remaining members of The Pogues, nor Shane would ever achieve the success they had in the mid to late 80's again.

Today The Pogues are back together, although they don't record. You can catch them live, and if you're lucky Shane will not vomit on stage, and on a good night you can understand him as he growls through his songs. Shane MacGowan is the ultimate example of living the awful lifestyle that we promote here at Blue Ribbon Radio. He lived it, he wrote it, and while it may have left him a shell of the brilliant man that once was, without it we may not ever of had "Fairytale Of New York". So, Cheers, Shane, here's to you, and those like you.


Chris Miller continues his full on assault on his insides, while idolizing people who sweat pure gin.

Blue Ribbon Radio: J.B Beverley

Death In America

Death, and especially the way that it is treated, is a truly strange thing. The fact that so many different cultures have so many radically different views of death shows me more than perhaps any other single thing that there is no higher order to the Universe; we simply are here, and we should enjoy it. In many instances the Japanese seem to embrace death, while we Americans have an almost fetishized fear of it. There are indigenous tribes in Africa who don't give a shit about it, and there are the Irish who use it as a reason for a great party. These distinctions seem to be drawn largely among religious lines. Granted, I have not travelled outside of the U.S., but from my seat it seems the the Protestant countries have the worst view of death, America in particular.

Every funeral that I have ever attended has been an interesting mix of lies and hypocrisy. Perhaps it is just because I live in South Alabama, but I have never been to, or heard of, a funeral that has not been driven by religion. I always find it curious how preachers suddenly become ok with blatantly lying if it comforts the family.

The most egregious example I can think of is of my grandmother, who died a few years back of breast cancer. The cancer had spread all over her body, and in her last days she couldn't speak because of all the fluid that had built up in her throat. In spite of this the preacher, who I had tremendous respect for, decided to tell all in attendance that she had been singing hymns right up until the very end. As I sat in the front row as a pallbearer, fighting the urge to stand up and give a proper, bullshit free eulogy, I began to first realize that there is something dreadfully wrong with the way that we treat and remember our dead.

In general, I don't really have a problem with the viewing or wake, and it is in fact the only part of the traditional American funeral that I want a part of, more on that later. Ideally the viewing is a time to see old family and friends, and swap a nice story or two about the deceased. Naturally some women will cry, and more than a few husbands will spend the hour rolling their eyes and tapping their foot impatiently, wondering how they got suckered into coming. This is generally an inoffensive evening that culminates with overeating a bunch of food that other people cooked.

Where the American funeral becomes truly grotesque is at the actual funeral service. This is where regardless of your past behavior you are expunged of all evil and become a true and never-wavering Christian. This is where the preacher, the man who should represent everything that is good about Christianity, stands up and lies to your face. This is what sickens me about the way we observe death in this country. We have collectively said that we want to be told some farcical tale about how faithful the deceased was, and he is now in a better place (a phrase which makes me want to murder a litter of newborn puppies). In death we refuse to confront who the person actually was. This is not to say that we should talk about all of their faults and shortcomings, but we shouldn't gloss over their life either. It is a sensitive time, but that does not give you license to lie about their final days. That does a disservice to the deceased and their family, and it sickens me every time.

What so many funerals claim to do, and fail miserably at, is to celebrate the life of the dead. I have never known anyone who would want a multi-day event of moaning and wailing over how much they are going to be missed. It is incredibly depressing, and wholly unnecessary. It is very sad that someone close to you has died, but you should spend that time reflecting on the good times together instead of weeping because you'll only see them in heaven again, which is the tack that most funerals take. They are all geared to make you cry and depressed, but mine will be different. Oh yes, there will be drinks.

Although it may be a naïve misunderstanding of the Irish culture, I have always been interested in the idea of a wake. Having only stereotypes and movies to rely on, it seems to me that it is more a celebration of life with a hint of sadness at the passing, whereas American funerals are polar opposite. Morbid as it may be, this has caused me to spend some time considering how I want my own funeral/wake to be conducted.

To start, my casket has been converted to some sort of icebox, replete with good beer. I have been embalmed with my hand in the exact shape to hold a bottle of Wild Turkey, which everyone in attendance should drink from. I do not wish for any single eulogy, and I'm not even sure if I want anybody to give any sort of eulogy at all. If you do speak you should be warned that if you say I'm in a better place now the bouncer will throw you out. I want my wake to be a literal celebration of my life. Those who know me will know that I have loved drink and music, and would want neither disturbed with hogwash about how I was a kind and generous man with a heart of gold. I know I'm a straight bastard, and I don't think that it's anything to be ashamed of.

The music should be a mix of everything that should not be played at a funeral service, from Tom Waits to Led Zeppelin; Miles Davis to Franks both Zappa and Sinatra. I have loved music, in almost all of its forms for as long as I care to remember. I see no reason for an incessant drone of depressing hymns played on piano. At every funeral they claim to be celebrating the life of the dead, but the constant dirges, both played and sung, suggest otherwise.

After everyone comes to the next morning, they eat a grand and greasy hangover-killing breakfast and go home. That's it. No more funeral. My family will take me to be cremated, and there will be no weeping and gnashing of teeth as I'm lowered into the ground. There will be no perverse unspoken contest for who can mourn the hardest.

As the great Don Draper said, “Mourning is just extended self-pity.” Americans excel at this, and have built an entire industry around it. While there is nothing inherently wrong with feeling sadness at someone's passing, we have taken it above and beyond. The fact of the matter is that the Universe does not care; the Universe is indifferent. A person's passing should be marked with the respect of not feeling sorry for yourself and instead getting slobbering drunk and swapping stories.

 

Written by Frank Nichols

He's put away enough Wild Turkey to kill all of Kentucky

Three Rules: The Home Bar

With everything in life there are rules regarding how tings are done. Many of these are frivolous and unnecessary to be sure, but I believe there are some that are an honest attempt to provide a uniform way to do things in the best interest of the consumer. There are certain things that you should be able to do or order anywhere in the world and know exactly what you are getting. Every drinker dreams of having his own bar in his own home. Lucky for you I have made that dream a reality, and make real cocktails and as a result can make more real drinks than most bars around this terrible drinking wasteland known as Alabama and have learned a few things.

The first rule of home bartending is that everything works with ginger ale. It is impossible to make a bad drink with spirit, ginger ale, simple syrup and a lime wheel. Coke gets most of the attention as a mixer, but can you imagine gin and Coke? Tequila and Coke? Those are positively barbaric and belong only in the realm of high school drinkers who think they're hard for drinking hard liquor. Ideally, only rum should be put in Coke, and only then with the juice of half a lime so you have a Cuba Libre. However, ginger ale works with literally everything. I personally prefer a 1:1 or 2:1 mixture, but for some folks that is a bit strong. Whatever your ratio, I guarantee that ginger ale will complement you spirit so long as its Canada Dry. Seagram's is just sad.

The second rule of home bartending is that anything you can do with vodka, you can do better with gin. The whole point of vodka is to have as neutral of a spirit as you can; no flavor and no soul. On the other hand, gin take straight is as vile a spirit as has ever been made. However, as soon as you mix it with other liquids, it becomes magical. Case in point – the Martini. James Bond famously ordered a Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. Most people are not aware that this is strictly a gimmick for the films, the novelized Bond preferred bourbon over all else, and the proper name for the drink is a Kangaroo. A well-made Martini is truly a thing of beauty. I make mine with 2 ounces of gin, ½ ounce of dry vermouth and stir it well. Going against tradition, I like to garnish with a lemon peel instead of an olive.

The third simple rule of home bartending is that you should always have backup bottles of all your liquor. This isn't so important with liquers that you only use a half ounce here and there, but it is crucial with your two ounce pours. On a night of heavy drinking I can easily put away ¾ of a bottle of whiskey, and there are times when you just can't make it to the liquor store the next day. Even on days when I don't get soused I still like to have a glass of bourbon while I watch the news and that doesn't leave much for a night when one glass turns to three. By having a backup bottle you never have to worry about running out, and this is especially important if you have company with a healthy capacity for consumption.

These three rules are by no means inclusive, and I hope to give more, but they are a good point to start at once you have made the decision to invest in a home bar. One of the greatest things about having your own bar at home is that you can always have a good and refreshing drunk without having to worry about a DUI. 

Frank Nichols is currently roaming the untamed lands of Alabama. He's the classiest thing to happen to awful since Pabst Blue Ribbon in a bottle

Laughing At Awful

Doug Stanhope's "action pose"

It's no secret to my long time listeners, all six of you, that there are three main things that help control my hatred and allow me to let the world to keep living another day. They are music, baseball, and stand up comedy. This, obviously, is about number three on the list.

Since watching George Carlin on HBO with my father when I was a kid, I have been absolutely in love with stand up comedy. Just as with music, or baseball, or heavy drinking, I dove right in and set about learning as much about this amazing art form as I possibly could. And make no mistake, friends, comedy is as pure an art form as there is today. But, ya know, with dick jokes. When I'm having a shitty day, and my brain won't shut the fuck up, I can get the same release from Doug Stanhope as I can by putting on a Hank Williams record. Comedy, like much of the music we play here at Blue Ribbon Radio, takes dark thoughts, shitty situations, mental disorders, failures, and turns them into something fantastic. You have to be able to laugh at life, or life will fucking destroy you. That's how important I think comedy is.

 

Art!

 Now, folks, I know comedy is subjective. What one finds funny, another may find offensive, or just downright incest baby retarded. I know there are a lot people out there that find Dane Cook hilarious. I'm not going to get into the joke stealing arguments, or anything like that, I'm just going to say I find him to about as funny as puppy cancer. The only place I want to see gimmicks is in professional wrestling. If your act is based around props, having your hand up a puppets ass, or inventing new and retarded ways to say "fuck you" in sign language, I couldn't give less of a fuck about you. It's the same argument that we've been making about music since day one of our terrible drunken existence. The pop country song about fucking under a tractor, and the puppet master who makes easy jokes about dead terrorists will always be more marketable to the masses, and thus will always exist. That's fine. Enjoy, masses.

What I want out of my comedy is the same thing I want from my music. I want darkness, I want to hear somebody talk about something fucked up that I can relate to so I don't feel so fucked up about being fucked up. Also, dick jokes. I can understand when Bill Burr talks about thinking of killing himself just to get out of having to bake a pie on Thanksgiving. I get how the fucked up person's mind works. When Bill Hicks ranted against mediocre bands being a good image for the children, and told wonderful stories about taking LSD and exploring one's minds, I got it. When Gallagher smashed a Watermelon, I didn't get it.

This Man Fucking HATES Watermelons

The point is, if I really have one, is that the old saying "laughter is the best medicine" isn't too far off. We live in a fucked up world that is slowly collapsing in on itself because we're absolute morons. If you can't laugh at it, it's going to be a long fucking trip.


Chris Miller is currently in Northern California drinking like his liver fucked his wife.

Blue Ribbon Radio's Ode To The Drifters

Blue Ribbon Radio is back this week with it's tribute to those who've lived life on the road, been displaced from home, and spent more than their share of time wandering the highways looking for something better. Here's to ya, folks. Cheers.

Awful Abroad: Installment 2: One Night in Amsterdam

Hello and welcome back to the Blue Ribbon Radio series, Awful Abroad!  We kicked off our virtual tour of fortress Europa with a brief hit on Germany and a few nods toward what I see as the greatest brewing tradition in all the world. We certainly have far more to cover in Germany, but I wouldn't dare dedicate just a single article to all the awful that Germany has to offer.

Which brings me to the point that I feel I should have made in installment one.  This is NOT a travel guide if you're looking for anything to do other than seek out the best ways to participate in as much deviant behaviour as possible.  The subject of our second installment, the Netherlands, absolutely offers some of the most breathtaking scenery, richest culture, and tourist friendly societies in Europe.  That shit, however, is not what I'm here to write about.  No, my friends. We do not seek higher cultural enlightment and loads of new Facebook pictures to share with our families.  Our trip into the heart of darkness is unabashedly aimed at one thing:  being a terrible person.

If any city in western Europe exists that was purpose built for the non-fuck-giving adventurer, that city would be Amsterdam.  Now, I know what you're thinking:  POT BARS!  Shut the fuck up hippy.  You've never been to Amsterdam, and if you have, then you fucking did it wrong.

Doesn't know what a Hamster Dam is...

Now that my ignorant-filthy-hippy bash has been photographically played out, we can move on to an actual discussion.  Yes.  Amsterdam is the home of the infamous "marijuana-cafes" that every person thinks of when they imagine a trip to Amsterdam, and it is here that we begin our discussion, short and disappointing though it may be.  The bottom line is this:  American tourists have simply caused too much trouble for too many years to make the pot-cafe a place one would actually want to visit.  Sadly, the stereotype of the awful American tourist is absolutely true.  Having found myself in dozens of international airports surrounded by Americans and their fat-assed obnoxious fucking families, it no longer bothers me when waiters, bartenders, and InterPol officers are predisposed to being dicks toward me.

There are various influencing factors, but when it comes down to it, too many people (Americans) who can't handle their shit have gone and caused trouble in the pot-cafes.  They have all essentially begun a membership program similar to some nightclubs in America.  If you're not a member, you can't get in, and at MOST of these joints, if you're not Dutch, you can't be a member.  So, legal drug-tourism in a marijuana cafe is pretty much out for most of us.  Unless you are well connected, the pot-cafe experience is getting harder and harder to find in Amsterdam.  What does remain, however, are street drugs.

The legality of USING marijuana remains the same; unfortunately, acquiring it becomes legally ambiguous (or illegal for those who lack subtlety glands).  Basically, if you can avoid getting busted by buying it from the growing number of street dealers, you're still legally allowed to own it... up to a certain amount.  I don't know how much, and if you're thinking of trying this shit, I suggest you do your own reasearch beyond reading the ramblings of a drunken asshole like me. 

Typical street drugs (ecstacy, coke, speed, shrooms) are also available in relatively good supply, though these are all outright illegal and getting busted with them will land your ass in a Dutch jail, though, admittedly, I'm sure I've stayed in hotels shittier than even the worst Dutch prison.

Locked Up Abroad: DisneyLand!!!

The allure of getting outrageously fucked up on amphetamines and hallucinogens with friendly Europeans makes most of this well worth the risk of getting caught for a lot of people.  Even the oft spat-on American military community finds it easy to make friends with locals in the Netherlands, so long as they're not pot-cafe owners.  So, if you're outgoing and can afford the possibility of a few months locked up making wooden shoes, then you could really have one fuck of a time in Amsterdam.

Eten mijn voet!!!

So, you've braved the wilds of Amsterdam's clog filled streets and scored yourself one sick ass eightball of high-grade Colombiana.  What, oh what, will you do with all of that energy and the drug boner you are so conspicuously sporting?  Why, you'll fuck until you just can't anymore... that's what you'll do!

Now, I'm going to say something outrageously racist right now, but experience has shone it to be inexplicably true.  Unless you are of an ethnicity other than Hitler-inspiring caucasian, you will find it difficult to get laid in many European countries; especially if you're an American.  The only theory I can offer is that everyone here is white, and bitches like variety.  I've seen it play out hundreds of times in bars and clubs across Europe.  You can have the best game in the world and be on your way out the door with your European beauty, but if just one relatively symmetrical black man walks in, you will not be taking her home.  Seriously.  Even if she doesn't leave with him, she's not going with you.  So, what's a horny coke-fiend to do?  Why, visit the greatest red-light district in existence, of course!

Where stop means go!

Now, sex-tourism is a problem on a global scale.  Girls and women are kidnapped from their homes and forced by human traffickers into sex-slavery all over the world.  This is probably the most serious human rights violations in the post-WWII world, and you just don't know us if you think we're not going to make light of it. Here's the deal:  In many European countries prostitution is a perfectly legal and governmentally regulated enterprise.  Amsterdam has taken this concept and turned it into what I have just now dubbed "Pussyland."  Seriously, people, this place is like Wal Mart.  You can get it all there.  Black, white, Asian, midget, tranny (for our good friend Blake over at IBWIP)... You name it, you can fuck it in Amsterdam's red light district.  Now, sex-tourism is not without it risks, and it is highly recommended (seriously... google this shit... there are entire blogs dedicated to finding the best whorehouses in Amsterdam) that you do your research before you just take off lest you be ripped off by the evil conniving prostitutes.  But, if you play your cards right and don't mind dropping a few hundred Euro to brutalize the naughty bits of a call-girl/boy/gender-nondescript, you can go ahead and work off a little of that drug energy the way God intended.

As for the ladies... seriously... if you haven't figured out now that nearly every man you know or meet is willing to have non-committed sex with you at any given moment by now, then your naivety is not something with which we can assist you.

Andrew continues to shorten his life expectancy daily in Bavaria in order to bring entertainment to the masses.