Tag Archives: absinthe

12/04/2016 · 12:46 pm

The Necco Betrayal

Everyone loves a gingerbread house. Even South Park’s hate campaign against the “ginger” couldn’t dull the sugary luster of the beloved cookie-built domicile. You probably remember the first time you saw one, right? Or the first time you smelled one?

How to make me put a ring on it*, chapter one. (*the robot.)

Sometime in the late 1970s, at my local church, I spied and smelled a real, elaborate gingerbread house for the first time. It was during an Advent festival, with apple-cheeked residents of my snowy hometown selling pinecone ornaments and weaving fragrant holiday wreaths budded with hollyberry. Someone had knocked themselves out on the centerpiece, a resplendent dwelling of gingerbread with all the confectionery trimmings, the kind that lured the likes of Hansel and Gretel to their near-doom.

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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Worst Of All

Tagged as 1970s, 1980s, 1982, absinthe, American Psycho, candy, corporate crap, goth, gum, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Necco Wafers, New Jersey, Optimus Prime, The Simpsons, Thomas Pynchon

10/13/2016 · 1:48 pm

Songs To Scare You Stupid

So, maybe you’re going for a little more edge in your “haunted house”, this Halloween? Or do your fireside ghost stories need some extra oomph? Say no more, my young apprentice.

From inside Torture Garden, Naked City, 1990.

From inside Naked City, 1990.

You can do much better than “Monster Mash” and Doom soundtracks to terrify trick-or-treaters. Please help yourself to some suggestions. You with the eggs and the toilet paper; take two. Continue reading →

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Thousand Listen Club

Tagged as 1992, absinthe, Bill Frisell, Bob Elliott, Daft Punk, Fred Frith, Gaspar Noe, Godzilla, Goodfellas, Halloween, Irreversible, Joe Pesci, Joey Baron, John Zorn, Naked City, Olivier Messiaen, Skinny Puppy, Thomas Bangalter, Throbbing Gristle, Wayne Horvitz

05/15/2016 · 11:17 pm

8 Shots Of Absinthe

(The following report originally appeared on Mike The Pod in December of 2007, and was written in the Pod studio.)

Around this time either last year or the year before, I acquired four bottles of absinthe from a company overseas in a republic that may no longer exist. My confusion over the exact year will make more sense after you’ve read this; also I’m too lazy to look up the dates on the pictures. Rest assured however, that what you are about to read is, embarrassingly, the truth.

I’d always wanted to try absinthe, after enjoying the work of so many followers of the “green devil” since childhood. Van Gogh? Picasso? Hemingway? You got it. In fact, it’s often speculated that absinthe made Vinny the unbearable beast he was in his final days, and shit, Hemingway became so determined to kill himself late in life that he was restrained from doddering into a whizzing plane propeller. Some claim absinthe has hallucinogenic properties, but nobody disputes that it tastes like bile hot from Satan’s fucking spleen. Continue reading →