my northern sky

JUNE 21, 2010
1920 HOURS
NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

Adam met me at the train station. We caught the metro to Monkseaton and a cab to Tynemouth. The middle-aged driver had "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell playing on her radio. (That kind of threw me for a loop.)

We rolled up to Adam's mum's house just as it was getting dark. We debated a bit about what we wanted for dinner; when Adam and Elaine discovered that I'd never had Indian food, they rang up Marks & Spencer and ordered some, pronto. In a little over an hour, two great heaping platters of naan bread and tikka masala rang the doorbell and deposited themselves in the living room. Ahhh, bliss, my friends, sheer bliss. I found tikka masala to have an intensely-spicy-yet-not-overwhelmingly-hot kind of flavor to it, a delight for the taste buds and the brain. And having that crumbly naan bread to sop up the sauce made the evening even better. I am now of the firm belief that the U.S. needs a more universal distribution of Indian delivery joints.

There remains little left to tell, dear reader. I took no more pictures after Edinburgh; no more notes are scrawled in my little red notebook after the evening of the 21st. Now, from here on out, I shall have to rely on my memory to finish the story.

...

Ha-ha-ha, I can already tell how this is going to go.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Well, some stuff happened, and then some other stuff, and a little more stuff after that. One thing led to another and I wound up on the point.

What's the point, you ask?

A "point" is, among other things, a projection of land that juts outward into a body of water. The particular point I'm talking about is just above the widest stretch of Newcastle Beach, where the surly North Sea sweeps onto fine golden sand. We were perched on a pile of rocks, dirt and grass about 100 feet above this panorama. This being summertime and all (or close to it) the sun sets in the northwest instead of the west. So you can sit on this point and look in a northish sort of direction and see the sun set over the rooftops.

It takes roughly three hours for the sun to do this. As I've mentioned previously, the planet's semi-spherical nature means that Earth has a remarkably small circumference this close to its northerly pole. Due to the shorter distance, and the constant speed of the Earth's rotation, it's as if the Earth is spinning slower the farther north you go. In Newcastle, the sun doesn't set swiftly like it would on the equator. It

slowly

creeps

down

toward

the

horizon

at

downright

sluggish

speeds. This means, then, if you happen to be a sunset lover like yours truly, Newcastle (and points north) should be a veritable haven for you. Particularly if you have a pack of fun-loving Geordies with you who like to sit on the point, drink beer, smoke, and jibe with each other.

...which is just what I did on the everlasting evening of June the 22nd. That pack of fun-loving Geordies and I had a ball. Jay was there, Mike and his girlfriend Vee, and Jon, and Adam & Elaine of course. We laughed, talked, sipped adult beverages, and just generally reveled in each other's company.

We'd spent most of the day watching the England and Algeria in the last slew of games before the Round of 16. England's performance was...disappointing, to say the least. The game was a complete deadlock. The Algerians were less interested in scoring than they were in preventing England from scoring. Focusing all their energies on defense, they utterly stymied their opponent. The big names on England's side—Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, John Terry, and Wayne Rooney—battered away at the Algerian goal with no success. The game ended in a miserable nil-nil draw.

The comments of the voracious football fans in Adam's mum's living room, watching this unfold on television, may well be imagined.

[Spoken in various species of Geordie brogue]

"This is disgustin'..."

"Come the fuck on!"

"Rooney looks fuckin' knackered!"

"We don't deserve to win this, do we?"

"Fuckin' hell..."

It was dispiriting. And as an encore, on behalf of the American in their midst, the company took in the U.S.A.-Slovenia game immediately thereafter. Another 0-0 tie. I was mighty disappointed in my fellow Americans. I expected more from Oguchi Onyewu, Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore, and Carlos Bocanegra—rather unfairly, as I'd never seen any of them in action before. I was somewhat ashamed. I felt that I really ought to know more about the guys playing on my national team, who represented my country in the largest international soccer (football) tournament in the world. The English guys knew more about the American players than I did, for Pete's sake! I kept my mouth shut during the game, only making generic comments about how disappointing the outcome was, and thus concealed my staggering ignorance.

But, at the end of the day, we commiserated over cans of Carlson out on the point, the fresh North Sea breeze in our faces and a staggeringly beautiful sunset unfolding slowly in front of us. This is my single greatest regret about the entire trip: that I didn't have my camera that evening. You'd have really loved the view. It looked a bit like this:

Only, like, you know, better. A lot better.

You'll have to take my word for it.

cocktail review no. 51 - Old Groaner

(I've decided that I'm going to start posting these reviews on Thursdays, now, so you slobs have time to go out and buy ingredients before Friday night hits, if you so desire.)

One of the main reasons I love The Bartender's Bible above all other drinkin' books is: it concerns itself with recipes rather than methods. Gary Regan merely delineates a few basic bar-keeping tips and lists some equipment a home bartender might need, and then gets straight to the point. One-thousand and one cocktails make their home within the Bible's leaves, and you can still stow the volume in your pocket if needs be.

The recipes are stratified by liquor rather than being arranged alphabetically. There's a chapter on tequila, a chapter on rum, etc., etc. This means, then, that regardless of whatever particular tipple you might be in the mood for (brandy, bourbon, Scotch, tropical drinks, hot drinks, beer and wine concoctions, whatever), you can simply turn to that section of the book and pick a likely candidate.

All manner of hidden gems are concealed within the pages of The Bartender's Bible. The Old Groaner is one of them. For months, nay, eons I've wanted to mix and sample this one, but have not, due to a conspicuous lack of amaretto. "Old Groaner" is a strange name, and like most of the cocktails I've run across, no explanation for it seems to be forthcoming. For some reason the phrase immediately reminded me of the image above, which is actually the album cover for Led Zeppelin IV. The painting on the album cover has no name as far as I'm aware; it is merely a 19th-century oil painting purchased from an antique shop in Reading, Berkshire, England, by Zep's lead singer Robert Plant. It was affixed to the wall of a decaying urban house and then photographed for the cover of the band's fourth studio album. Zep had decided beforehand that there'd be no name, title, or any information whatsoever on that cover. They were so fed up with all the flak they'd caught for Led Zeppelin III that they decided to do something almost totally anonymous. Guitarist Jimmy Page came up with an esoteric symbol to represent his name and affixed it to the inner sleeve and record label of the vinyl album. He asked his fellows to do the same. Thus the symbolic and renowned codename of Led Zeppelin was born:

But I didn't come here to tell you that.

Let's hear about the Old Groaner:

• 2 ounces Canadian whisky
• ½ amaretto

Pour both ingredients into an old-fashioned glass half-filled with ice cubes. Stir well.

Now, I wonder: how do you, dear reader, believe a cocktail composed of Canadian whisky and Italian almond-flavored liqueur would taste?

Like whiskey and almond.

Seriously. That's it.

But that's all it needs to be. Two ingredients doesn't lend itself to gustatory variety, I know. Often, however, some species of synergy evolves from a simple blend of two or three ingredients in a cocktail glass. Nobody would expect a whiskey sour to be merely base liquor, lemon juice, sugar, and garnish. It tastes like Mount Olympus put to music.

So does the Old Groaner. There's a strong almond nose and the flavor is a moderate nutty kick, moderated by the burnished peat in the whiskey. The aftertaste is spicy and hot, all Black Velvet smoothness. The effect is intoxicating (so to speak): an amalgamation of the best that the aqua vita can offer, combined with a delicious overtone of sweet almond. 

Simple? Yes. Unoriginal? No way. Tasty? Quite. Unique? Very. Exceptional? That's up to you. The Old Groaner gets a 7 for flavor, a 10 for simplicity and maybe a 3 or 4 for inspiration; but an 11 for enjoyment. I'd thought that amaretto and whiskey weren't meant to mix; but first impressions can be dangerous. (So it's best to sample a drink once or twice or even three times, you know; it took me two or three sips to really make up my mind.) You could also try it with vodka or rum; something sweet would let the amaretto really kick through.

But who am I to judge? 

[gulp]

this is the end...my only friend, the end

You know you're living high when you wake up in a roofless room in an abandoned church, a hangover splitting your skull and the pale Scottish sunlight beaming down on you like the reprehending finger of God Himself.

You also know that, once again, you've been a sorry bastard who stayed out too late, spent too much money and drank too much booze.

Swearing inwardly, you put a hand over your face, partly to assuage your throbbing temples, and partly to shield your eyes from God's index finger. In about five minutes, you find the courage to sit up. A fresh whack of pain bolts through your head. Your mouth is dry and cottony. Your hair is greasy; your body grimy; your eyes bleary and reluctant to function.

Water. That's what you need. A nice big glass of water. And possibly a swift kick in the arse afterward.

Edinburgh. June 19, 2010, or something. The first thing I did was drink a big glass of water. That helped put me to rights, as did the Egg McMuffin I had at the McDonald's on the eastern end of Princes Street. Now, under grayish skies, Jeff and I were heading toward the Old Town again, on our last day in Edinburgh. We were determined to make good on it. We'd sampled Edinburgh's culinary delights, its liquors and heady vapors, its cultural bestowal, its arts and literature, its hospitality, and its history.

There was but one mysterious component left to assay: natural attractions. And we had quite the weighty feat in mind: climb to Arthur's Seat, the main peak of the bevy of hills which forms Holyrood Park.

The hill the Seat sits on is an extinct volcano. It was formed approximately 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous Age, which makes it older than the dinosaurs. The terrible lizards were just foot-long wannabes during the Caboniferous, newcomers to the global scene. The world was mainly ruled by plants, amphibians, and scorpions the size of dogs.

Later, in the Quaternary, glaciers shaved and scoured at the volcano, exposing rocky crags, igneous and sedimentary layers, paring the mound to about 820 feet in height and gentling its slopes. This occurrence allowed James Hutton, the father of modern geology, to realize that the layers which formed the hills had been set down at different times, far back in the past, much farther than anyone had previously suspected. This revolutionized Earth science. Up until the late 18th century people had believed the planet was just a ball of rock, which never moved or changed or did anything weird. Hutton changed all that. He realized that Earth was a dynamic, pulsating, glowing thing, whose surface had changed drastically over its long past. Hutton both sired modern geology and allowed other scientists, like Charles Darwin, get their theories off the ground by providing a much longer history of Starship Earth with which they could fiddle.

The origin of the name "Arthur's Seat" is disputed, much to everyone's surprise. Many argue that it links back to the legends of King Arthur. There is an intriguing reference in the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin to Arthur, mentioned in connection with a "seat" in the north. But since most of England and Scotland is north of Wales, the truth of the matter is up for grabs. It certainly was an intoxicating thought, however, that the old sentry post up on top of the hill in the center of Edinburgh might've played host to the backside of one of the most famous people in British history. 

But all of this is beside the point.

All Jeff and I wanted to do was climb the damn thing.

There's a dichotomy in any natural obstacle or geological formation. In considering it, you must first appreciate its mental or intangible forms. When someone says the word "mountain" to you, you might immediately think of the words "lofty," "beautiful," or "majestic." Those are the pathetic (meaning emotional) buzzwords which the word "mountain" evokes within you. Also there are scientific keywords which trigger certain perceptions within the mind regarding mountains. Your mind may respond with "igneous" or "extrusion"; "subduction" or "convergent boundary" or "tectonic"; "erosion" or "weathering"; or, ignoring the geological, you may think "alpine," "altitude," "moraine," "treeline," or any of the multitudinous biological phrases applying thereto.

Then there is the physical side to the mountain. The rock-hard, ice-cold, vertically-inclined, down-to-earth, gritty sensations which come when climbing instead of considering. Birdsong in the trees. A breeze through the grass. Feet crunching in snow. Sweat dripping down your forehead. Wheezing breath, heaving chests. The beatific gulp of water. Blisters, calluses, muscles aflame. Blood pounding through brains, fingers scraped on rock, sweet mountain air coursing through lungs and nostrils.

It was the physical side to mountaineering and hill-climbing which was foremost in my mind when we started down Princes Street to Holyrood Park, and the climb to Arthur's Seat. I wasn't thinking anything remotely geological, here. I was out to climb a hill.

We weren't quite sure where we were going, but hey—Arthur's Seat was the highest point for miles. It wouldn't exactly be hard to miss. We just followed every side-street and byway we could find until we got to the entrance of Holyrood Park and our way became clear. That's the kind of pioneers Jeff and I are.

The approach was steeper than it looked. And it'd been a while since I'd climbed a hill. But this was Scotland. I wasn't going to leave without surmounting the obstacle, without getting some cool air in my lungs and sweat under my hatband.

Past an ice-cream stall, up and over a small rise, and we were on the trail to the top. My legs were aching in about 15 minutes. My breath sawed at my throat, and my lungs felt like they were filled with sandpaper. Nonetheless I thrust doggedly uphill, wondering which would fail me first: my legs, my lungs, or my sense of adventure. I didn't care which of the three propelled me to the top, as long as I got there in the end. Some twenty minutes later, I realized with disbelief that I was being outstripped by a sixty-year-old man with a beer gut. Insulted and mortified, I intensified my pace. Jeff was a much wiser man about climbing hills (as he'd proved during the ascent of Jirisan in Korea a year earlier). He plugged away, not hurrying, but not stopping either.

And so we went during the 800-foot, multi-kilometer climb: me rocketing upward for a hundred yards only to pause, panting, at the crest of the next rise; Jeff stolidly working his way uphill, a look of benign and peaceful concentration on his brow.

At least the view was nice, though.

Vistas only improved the closer we got to the Seat itself.

And totally not before we knew it, we were at the top.

There wasn't really a seat to speak of up there; more of a cairn with graffiti scrawled all over it. The lumpy basaltic rocks which formed the peak hadn't escaped the street artist's pocketknife, either. Nonetheless the view of Edinburgh, the Firth of Forth, Kirkaldy, and the surrounding countryside was worth the sweaty climb and the chill breeze.

And then down we went again.

Jeff, after his wont, did the same thing going down the mountain as he had going up: he plodded steadily, never hurrying, never slowing. I descend hills like a mountain goat trying to start an avalanche. I was often hundreds of yards ahead of Jeff, and had to slow up and wait. Mr. Mountain Goat and Mr. Lizard were racing down a hill...

...so Mr. Lizard could take some nice photographs of Mr. Mountain Goat when there was a photo-op.

I was unable to resist the temptation of the ice-cream vendor on our way out of Holyrood Park, so I paid a chunk and got myself a cone. It helped cool me down enormously as we threaded our way through the winding, hilly streets of Old Town Edinburgh and back to our hostel.

We got cleaned up, packed our bags, and checked out of the Belford Hostel. We said farewell to the roofless rooms, the vaulted church ceiling, the stony brickwork, and the snores of our fellow inmates, and walked down the street to Ryan's Bar for one last pint. It was here that our trails parted ways. In an hour or so I would be taking the train back to Newcastle, to spend a final 36 hours with Adam and Elaine before I left for London and the flight back to North America; Jeff would jump the Channel into France and his seven-month sojourn in Europe and North Africa.

A good-luck beer seemed appropriate.

What was even more appropriate was the song that came on as we sat, sipped and reflected on our adventures of the last fortnight.

Another case of art imitating life. We were suddenly sobered. Whatever buzz the Scotch ale had imparted to us was abruptly dissipated. We were parting, perhaps for a very long time, and we we knew it. The bond between fellow travelers, tenuous at the best of times, was somehow calcified by the dreamy lyrics Jim Morrison was calling from the pub's dusty speakers.

An excerpt from Two Fusiliers, by Robert Graves, came to my mind as Jeff and I shared that last drink at Ryan's.

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

We finished, paid our bill, walked to Waverley Station, shook hands, and parted ways. I got on the train and sat, staring out the window at the rolling green of the countryside, my head spinning and my heart about to burst.

cocktail review no. 50 - Boston Sidecar

Having delineated the Sidecar, it behooves me to give honorable mention to one of its more popular variants, the Boston Sidecar.

• 1 ounce light rum
• ½ brandy
• ½ Cointreau or triple sec
• ½ lemon juice

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all the ingredients. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

This is delicious. Normally it's tough to find a drink variant (a play on the original, often adding or subtracting an ingredient) that's not merely "good" or "interesting" but is actually an improvement upon the original.

In Postie's book, the only "developments upon the original" which I've ever truly liked are (a) the dirty martini, (b) the Colorado bulldog, and (c) the Boston sidecar.

I explained the taste of a regular ol' Sidecar to you in the previous review: sweet with a sourish kick at the end, heightened by the warmth of the brandy. Picture that in your mind, and add another wallop on top of it: a powerful overtone of rum. This changes the game completely. Whereas before the lemon juice and triple sec were the dominant players of the game, here they have been relegated to second fiddle, only not in the exclusive and humiliating way in which most things are relegated to second fiddle. They still harmonize, still play their part, still provide a vital backdrop to the rum's lead role. And the brandy isn't overwhelmed either: it exchanges heating duties for complementing the rum, and does a good job of it.

The cumulative effect of all this is that you get a slightly sweeter, cooler drink, which lends itself less to the after-dinner scene and more towards the back porch on a summer evening. And you get extra booze. What's not to like?

street fighting man

So, says the storyteller, sitting in a chair on the back porch, a Moscow Mule in his hand, did I ever tell you about the time I got into a street-fight in South Korea?

Honestly. I'm not kidding. This is one of my most jaw-dropping travel tales. I actually did get into a fight. What follows is a morality tale about combining alcohol with a language barrier.

It was mid-2009. My tenure as an English teacher on the island of Geoje, in the Republic of South Korea, was drawing to a close. We were old hands at this by now, my coworkers and I. We had our expatriate's routine down pat: teach 35 hours a week and then go kvetch about it at the local bar. Our favorite watering hole was a little place called Ganiyeok (which, loosely translated, means "Whistle Stop"). It was our favorite because it was close to us: in fact, it was just about perfectly in between all of our apartments. Mr. A & Ms. E, the couple from England, lived up the hill and south, down the boulevard; Jeff (the Canadian reprobate) was a furlong to the north; and I was just down the block and left (east), hardly 300 yards away. We'd duck in there every chance we got. The beer was cheap, the snacks were palatable (and often squid-flavored) and the company couldn't be beat. And best of all, it wasn't too far for us to stagger home afterward, if perchance we overindulged.

And we certainly overindulged that night. We got so greased up and friendly that we wound up sitting at the same table with a bunch of Samsung dockworkers. I don't remember whether we moved to their table, or they moved to ours. I was too far gone. One minute it was just A, E, Jeff and yours truly; the next we were squeezed in with four or five of these hefty Korean shipbuilders.

The next thing I remember is getting punched in the face.

There was obviously some span of time in between, of course. We were sitting with these guys, laughing and joking and singing, putting our arms around each other, downing beers and shots of soju, and then suddenly we're out in the middle of the street, a four-way intersection garishly lit by fluorescent streetlamps. Jeff and Ms. E are gone, Mr. A is grappling with two of these brutes and one of them has just sent a haymaker right for my jaw. I get the first inkling of this when a meaty, olive-skinned fist shows up about a hair's breadth from my face. If I had any pertinent or pithy observations to make, I don't remember them. The fist connects. I feel nothing. The breeze from a gnat's wing might just as well have brushed against me. But I go down hard. My head flies backward, my arms shoot up, and I topple over, landing flat on my back on the asphalt.

My memory takes another hiatus at that point. The next thing I recall is helping a Korean man to restrain Mr. A. This interloper is not one of the dockworkers, but another man, somewhat fluent in English, with longish hair which somehow reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's father from Little House on the Prairie. He is apparently the brother of one of the dockworkers, and is trying to stop Mr. A from beating the man to a pulp. No one else is to be seen; it's just me, Mr. A, the little Korean man on the prairie, and one of his friends. The dockworkers, Jeff, and Ms. E have disappeared. Mr. A is in a seething rage. His voice carries to every house within five blocks. Obscenities and invectives, all directed at the Korean man's shipbuilding brother, resound through the humid night air. He strains against our arms like an enraged bull; the four of us totter about the silent street like a blind centipede. I don't know what's going on, but the fight seems to be over, and I'd like it to stay over. My jaw would agree. So I help hold Mr. A. Using my facility with the Korean language (only marginally better than the average foreigner's) I help the Korean man calm Mr. A down. We go home. It is only later that I learn that some of the dockworkers, including the man's brother, took Jeff and Ms. E off to a deserted street and went to work on them. Jeff was held by the arms and punched in the gut; even Ms. E caught a blow across her face. It was this that had Mr. A in such a rage, and rightly so. Had I known I would have let him go, and the two of us would have trod right over the long-haired Korean and searched the streets until we found those Samsung bastards. Goodness knows what would've happened then, in our drunken state.

We disperse to our homes and finish sleeping off the effects. In the morning we regroup and try to piece together what happened. Ms. E is fortunately all right, and Jeff, though sore, is fine as well. Our recollections are ragged, but we manage to put together a semi-coherent picture. It seemed there was some disagreement over the bill at Ganiyeok. The dockworkers got hot because they thought we were trying to rip them off. A credit card changed hands. We had no intention of stealing from them, we were just looking to get everybody's money together and put it in the billfold for the Whistle Stop's proprietress to take to the cash register. The Koreans misconstrued this as an attempt at robbery, and a fight erupted. It boiled out of the bar and into the street, where chaos ensued. The police were apparently called (twice), but they arrived, got out of their cars, shook their heads, got back in and left. Only the Samsung dockworkers up to their old tricks, this time with some stupid foreigners. Nothing to worry about.

A few days later, we (in the company of Charles, our Korean liaison from the English academy where we worked) went back to the Whistle Stop to formally apologize to the proprietress. She was understanding and kind. She brought us in, sat us down, brought us a pitcher of our favorite beer, and apologized to us. Charles translated as she told the story. Those dockworkers, apparently, were all in trouble with the law, possibly even ex-cons. They were notorious troublemakers and the proprietress didn't like having them in her bar. She much preferred our company to theirs. We were supremely touched by this, and vowed to come to the Whistle Stop more often.

We never saw those guys again. Whether the proprietress banned them, or they got into a fight with somebody they couldn't beat down so easily...we never found out. Good riddance to them, I say. My only regret about that night (aside from the fact that I was so drunk that I couldn't prevent poor Ms. E or Jeff from getting assaulted) was that I didn't get a piece of anybody. If I'm in a street-fight I want to do the thing properly, you see. Get a few licks in. At least get one good swing at my assailants. That's all I want.

Next time will be different, you'll see.

cocktail review no. 49 - Sidecar

Anyone for a brandy?

I'm not sure how much of these cocktail reviews you, dear reader, actually absorb. I'm not sure whether I'm reporting on the right drinks, either. The ones I've put up here are far from popular. They're not even that well-known anymore. Generally I try to go for classic drinks, with a good smattering of the most odd and esoteric cocktails I can find. I think I've accomplished that goal quite well. Of course, if you already know your classic drinks, you're bound to find these reviews sterile and pedestrian. In that case, I suggest you skip 'em and go find the oddball reviews. If, by chance, you don't know what a gimlet or a sidecar or a Moscow mule is, then by all means, pull up a chair, pour yourself a round and have a listen.

This here is another classic. 

• 2 ounces brandy
• ½ ounce Cointreau or triple sec
• 1 ounce lemon juice

Combine all of the ingredients in a shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

A great many good drinks got their start in the hotel business. A fancy hotel is a veritable spawning ground for high-class libations. (The Moscow Mule, as you'll recall, was first incepted at the Chatham Hotel in New York, depending on who you talk to.)

In this case, the Ritz Hotel in Paris claims authorship of the Sidecar; supposedly they first served it around the end of World War I. (I suppose there must have been a proliferation of motorcycles and sidecars in Paris at that time; although, in hindsight, the drink might just as well have been named the Rusty Tank or the Horse's Ass.) The first Sidecar recipes appeared in 1922, and legend has it that it contained several more ingredients than listed above, at first; but these were "refined away." Experts claim that the Sidecar is simply a Daiquiri with a  brandy base rather than rum, and triple sec in place of sugar syrup; but any fool could tell you that.

It certainly tastes nothing like a Daiquiri. Irrespective of the clam chowder and peanut butter sandwich I was consuming as I sipped on it, the Sidecar has a tart nose and a dry, sweet, fruity sort of flavor that almost reminds one of a reisling or some other dulce vino. The lemon juice and triple sec make a citrus blast which overrides and yet compliments the firm warmth (this is an R-rated cocktail review) of the brandy. And what's better, it's got only three ingredients. This means the libation passes the "Dad test" (Pop doesn't believe any drink with more than three ingredients is worth a tin shit). By proxy, it's also insanely simple to whip up.

Get some quality brandy (I'd recommend cognac, or perhaps something aged a little longer than your standard Christian Brothers) and some Grand Marnier, and you'll have yourself a fine old sip some evening when you're playing bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Kellerman.

on the docket for 2011

TRAVEL

Miss H and I have decided to go back to South Korea. The money's better there than anywhere else overseas (outside of Oman or Saudi Arabia). We'll go, live for a few years, have ourselves a ball, save up a bundle, and then come back here and start our lives.

MISS H

I love her to death. This is wonderful. I never expected to feel this way about another human being, not so soon in my life. I can't even imagine what I did, how I lived, how I existed before we got together. It's difficult to be separated from her for more than 24 hours. This sounds like sappy nonsense, and yours truly would've labeled it sappy nonsense eight months ago, but it's honestly how I feel. This is paradise. I can't wait to start my life with this gal. The fact that I've found someone who not only tolerates my existence, but actually enjoys doing so to an appreciable degree, is the grandest and most marvelous thing in this world or any other. Just thought you should know.

WEDDINGS

There was a streak there a few years ago where it seemed everybody I knew in college or high school was getting married. A month would hardly go by when I wouldn't receive an invitation in the mail, or see someone's glowing wedding pictures posted up on Facebook. I got quite disgusted, really. Didn't these people have anything better to do than get married? Wasn't there anything else they wanted to do first, like living? Getting drunk? Traveling? Philandering? Law-breaking? High-rolling? I was disappointed in the extreme. I'm starting to come around, though, now that I've met somebody whom I adore the living daylights out of. I don't hear any wedding bells myself yet, but I'm looking with a more equable eye upon marriage in general. I've received several invites in the mail over the past 18 months and have chosen to accept one of them: my friend B, a female acquaintance from high school. She lives near Phoenix, Arizona,  but she's getting married on the California coast this summer, and it's bound to be a showy and many-splendored affair. Plus there's a beach afterward. So I think Miss H and I will go and have some high times. Don't expect me to blog about it, though. That ain't my line.

FLYING

Would you believe that I only have 30 hours to go before I rack up the requisite 250 to become a commercial pilot? I wouldn't, but it's true. I just need thirty more hours. That's a month's worth of flying at most, weather permitting. Then I have to jump through a few hoops: long cross-country flights, some more night work, practice maneuvers. But after that I'll be ready to take my practical exam, which the old salts at the airport dismiss as a "glorified private-pilot checkride." I'm tremendously excited. Being a commercial pilot is something I've been working toward for years, and hoping and wishing and praying for, but it never seemed like it would happen this soon. I've got so much time in complex airplanes now and I'm learning from some of the best pilots in the United States, former squadron commanders in the Navy and versatile men with thousands of hours in different airframes. This is the place to be if I want to become a proficient pilot. Wish me luck.

WRITING AND PUBLISHING

Okay, that settles it. I've been complacent for too long. I've been lazy for too long. I've been scared for too long. It's time to crack that novel out of mothballs and show it who's boss. I'm going to start the second edit this month, and damn the torpedoes. I won't stop until I've whipped the thing into shape, and made it into the dynamite debut I've always wanted it to be. While I'm at it I'll finish tweaking the novella and send it off (probably to Fantasy & Science Fiction) and take another glance over those other, shorter stories on file and see what I can do with them. But either way, I'm getting something published before summer. You can quote me on that.

TENDING BAR

On hold for the nonce. I'm going to see if we can get to South Korea by August 2011, and that's only a few months away; it wouldn't be very remunerative nor rewarding to hold a job for that short span of time. If I'm going to tend bar I'd want to make a proper go of it, you know? Build relationships with employers and customers, get familiar and comfortable behind the bar, and stick it out for a while. That'll have to wait until I get back from Korea. The job market's just as bad for drink-slingers as it is for everything else right now. Twice I've been over this town with a fine-tooth comb and nothing's turned up. So I'll wait it out in a foreign land and focus on my travel writing.

And finally...

READING LIST

Damn, did I ever bite off more than I could chew. Have you taken a look at the list I posted at the bottom right of this blog page? Look at all that stuff. You're looking a first-class champeen reader right here. As you can see, there are some new acquisitions. I picked up Ice Station Zebra at the grocery store the other day, as part of a charity book drive. For two bucks I could own a classic Cold War thriller and simultaneously help out some children with disabilities. I bought I, Robot just to make sure I could get free shipping on an order from Amazon.com (and sock it to Will Smith). I've wanted to read the book for a while now, and I thought, "I'm really behind on my Asimov anyway...why not? Besides, the title of the last book I bought begins with an 'I' so I might as well keep the streak going."

My main goal is just to get freakin' done with Herman Melville, so I can move onto greener pastures (like Edgar Rice Burroughs). Not that I'm not enjoying Moby-Dick, mind you. I just trapped myself is all. By vowing to read only one chapter a day I doomed myself to four-and-a-half months of whaling ships and crazy captains. Now that I've said I'm going to do it, I feel like I ought to see the thing through, and not cheat by reading multiple chapters per day. And it doesn't seem like I'd be paying proper respects to Melville and his doughty work if I picked up something else in the meantime. So here I sit, plugging away. Don't you wish you were as cool as I am?

jaguars and spring rolls

April 7 was a fine day: clear and cool with a fine breeze blowing. So fine, in fact, that our hair was lifting off from our foreheads and tugging at our scalps, trying to fly away. The trash cans kept falling over and a fine haze of aerosol hung in the desert air, obscuring the horizon.

Nevertheless Miss H and I decided to venture some 100 miles to the southeast, to the town of Palm Desert, California...and the singular zoo and botanical garden which hides itself there. Tucked into the rocky hills behind the city, behind the golf courses, country clubs and gated communities, lies the Living Desert.

One of Southern California's little-known gems, the Living Desert showcases plants and animals native to the world's deserts. Here you will find all the major players from the hot and arid regions of Planet Earth: the Sahara, Arabian, Gobi, Atacama, and even our own Mojave, Colorado and Sonoran. (For some reason,  they left Africa's Kalahari and Australia's Great Sandy and Simpson Deserts right out.)

From the black widow spider to the zebra, the oryx, giraffe, ostrich, bighorn sheep, Ankole-Watusi, peccaries, badgers, mountain lions, coyotes, fennec foxes, ringtails, coatimundis, servals, sand cats, rock hyraxes, chorus frogs, Gila monsters, meerkats, golden eagles, roadrunners, Mexican wolves, ravens, pronghorn...all manner of desert denizens reside here. Heck, the only thing they don't have is...

...well, I take that back. They have 'em now.

Now, my girlfriend had never been to a zoo. Her parents are homebodies. They don't really go anywhere. Miss H has been to Disneyland (with her friends, or the school band), but not the thousands of parks, museums, zoos, beaches, or other attractions Southern California is famous for. She hadn't even been to an aquarium until she went to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, near where she went to college.

I consider this a travesty.

Zoos were central to my childhood. I still consider them one of the few places I could spend an entire 12-hour day, along with libraries and arcades.

So I elected to rectify this inequity.

I've already spoken to you about the wonders of Old Highway 247, so I'll say no more about it here. But the wonders of the CA-62 deserve honorable mention. The chaotic descent through Morongo Valley (little more than a glorified canyon, narrow and steep-sided, houses clinging to the hillsides like mountain goats) is followed by a sudden drop through through a perilous gorge, which opens out into the Coachella Valley. Mount San Jacinto looms up in front like a great blue-gray god preaching to his minions—the white and many-armed masses of windmills which line the valley floor. A few miles later and we merge onto Interstate 10, which stretches from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Florida, thousands of miles to the east.

A few miles later we get off in Palm Desert.

Palm Desert (and the neighboring borough of Indian Wells) is the slightly shabbier cousin of Palm Springs. Only slightly shabbier, mind you. If Palm Springs is the equivalent of a thirty-room mansion, Palm Desert manages at least a fifteen-room hacienda. Green lawns, red-tile roofs, stucco walls, golf courses, country clubs, classy restaurants, and more palm trees than the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It's a haven for the wealthy, where the comfortably-well-off go to golf and get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach and metropolis. It gets blasphemously hot here; even a 90-year-old wouldn't need to pack a sweater or track suit.

This is also the perfect environment for a zoo with desert animals.

Miss H and I had to dodge a few stupid drivers on our way through town (unfortunately, you can't lose the dumb people no matter how far you go). We parked, took a last swig of water, and marched on the gates. About $28.50 later we were inside.

Thankfully, in early April, it was still quite equable in the Coachella region. If this had been a normal spring, temperatures might've been in the upper 80s; but as it was, a cold front was blowing through and it was a balmy 67. That same stiff breeze was blowing, cooling whatever wasn't already cool enough. The train diorama was in full swing, and so were the billions of schoolchildren surrounding it. 

(Photo credits go once again to my beautiful and talented girlfriend.)

I won't spoil the multitude of exhibits awaiting you inside this fantastic place. As always, I invite you to see for yourself. I will say, however, that Miss H and I strolled through it with languor and abandon, picking out the zoological attractions we'd most like to see on the map and sallying forth to peruse them. Aviaries, paddocks, sprawling pastures, quiet tree-lined paths...arm in arm, hand in hand we walked, gazing into each other's eyes and sharing a quiet giggle between us. Once we paused beneath an ironwood tree to snatch a quick, passionate kiss. We were in love and we didn't care who knew it, not the oryx, nor the meerkats, nor the warthogs or cheetahs or...

...the jaguar.

Whoa, wait, WHAT?! A jaguar? What the—?! They didn't have jaguars the last time I was here!

It was with awe and wonder and no small enjoyment that Miss H and I beheld the Living Desert's newest attraction, a grade-A genuine jaguar. Set in a newly-built habitat simulating a Mexican silver mine, the jaguar dozed contentedly on his patch of dirt, in the shade of a spreading mesquite tree. I was stunned. I'd never seen a jaguar in the flesh, not in any zoo. Up until this point I'd been content with the Living Desert displaying species which were unique, unutterably suited to their environment, but nonetheless familiar, and therefore slightly mundane: golden eagles, mountain lions, coyotes, giraffes. A jaguar...well, that was a cat of a different color.

After enjoying the park to the fullest (including the unexpected proximity of bighorn sheep), we made our egress from the Living Desert and went in search of our next conquest.

The Elephant Bar.

A charming little African-themed place on the CA-111 in Palm Desert, the Elephant Bar had lots of dark, carved wood, brass fixings, bamboo inlay, and some rather unusual ceiling fans. We arrived during happy hour, and seated ourselves at the 60-foot bar, where appetizers and well drinks were half-price until 4. The food, which the menu had claimed to be an Oriental-Occidental fusion, was just that—only in wondrous abundance. We dined first on artichoke dip and Vietnamese shrimp spring rolls, both of which were more delicious than anything we'd yet sampled. For the main course, I selected the teriyaki chicken, while Miss H chose the chicken marsala. Between the two of us, we'd try both sides of the coin. Both dishes were exceedingly flavorful and succulent, and served in amazing proportions. We didn't even have room for desserts, even though there were at least four pages of those in the menu: the bartender recommended the crème brûlée, but it was the chocolate-chip cookie sundae that caught our eye. We waddled out of that place.

It was but the work of an hour or so to traverse Palm Desert and Indian Wells in the fading daylight, view the fountains and green fairways tinged orange by the red desert sun, regain the CA-62, climb the torturous road back into the Mojave, and travel homeward with the warm evening breeze fresh in our faces.

Another field trip bites the dust.

the Great Edinburgh Pub Crawl

Five hundred yards from our hostel, wedged onto the corner of Queensferry Street and Shandwick Place, a half-mile from the Haymarket Rail Station, lies a little bar named Mathers.

It's an unassuming place: stony façade, brass lettering, long wooden bar with an oblong room in front of it. Standing room only, unless you grab a bench in the corner. High ceiling. Some television sets. Flags from all the soccer-playing nations strung up across the walls. Regular patrons having a sip of ale or cider. Two hooch-mongers meandering slowly up and down behind the bar, like ducks at a shooting gallery.

It was here at Mathers that Jeff and I decided to start our Great Pub Crawl on the evening of June 20, 2010. Showered, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we waltzed into the establishment at about five o'clock to start our pregame warm-up. As the sun set slowly over the New Town, Jeff and I sipped some Strongbow and watched the World Cup, omnipresent as always, twinkling away on every TV screen in every pub in the U.K.

We only stuck around for a little sip, though. We gulped down our glasses and gave a satisfying burp apiece. When we felt the first blurry tendrils of the alcohol begin to tickle our brains, we adjourned across the street to Ryan's Bar, a distinctly larger and more energetic establishment.

And more touristy. Billing itself as "Edinburgh's Busiest West End Bar, Cellar Bar and Coffee Shop," Ryan's was situated quite conveniently on the opposite corner of Queensferry and Shandwick, right where Shandwick met Princes Street. Simply put, the place was on the outskirts of the largest tourist trap in Scotland. It was only later that we found out that Ryan's was also a "tied house," and thereby required to buy at least some of its beer from the breweries which owned it. The general feeling in the U.K. is that a tied house can never be superior to a "free house" which, as the name suggests, is allowed to buy its beer from anywhere. Selection, as you may guess, is generally better at a free house. Free houses also preserve more of the character of an "authentic" British pub. The atmosphere at Ryan's, I noticed, was almost akin to a grill or a classy fast-food joint.

Ryan's was, indeed, a gastropub. That was something of a consolation. Undaunted, Jeff and I sat down, ordered some Tennent's, a roast for Jeff and some nachos for yours truly, and watched as Brazil literally kicked the crap out of the Ivory Coast on the numerous TV screens.

I should point out that Ryan's was our second and last stop. (Some pub crawl, eh?) Certain events transpired which prevented us from leaving. Number one, they were late in bringing Jeff's roast. I got my nachos on time, and they were incredible. They didn't have quite the same flavor as (finger quotes) authentic nachos. I'd say they were lacking in certain irreplaceable spices, unique to the Mexican culinary hemisphere. But nonetheless they were tasty, with adequate amounts of salsa and sour cream to go around.

But Jeff's roast had gotten lost in the shuffle. When we called this to the attention of the barmaid, she apologized, took the offending item off the bill, and brought a sizzling, delectable beef roast to our table and set it down in front of Jeff, lickety-split.

Now that's service.

Number two, we wanted to see how the Ivory Coast-Brazil game ended. That was a foregone conclusion. We should've known better. The Africans are renowned for their expertise in the sport (as they would prove a few days later, when I was back in Newcastle); but the Brazilians are among the top five on the planet, consistently making it into the final rounds of every championship. It was still a pretty good game, though. So Jeff and I waited it out and watched the rest of it. That's what we had come to the U.K. for, after all. 

And number three...

There was a rather pretty girl standing up at the bar.

(Try and guess where this is going. I think you can figure it out.)

I noticed her about halfway through my nachos. She was of medium height, neither skinny nor plump, with a tactical stockpile of curves. Her skin was fair, and lightly freckled. Her nose was assertive and lent an angular sort of seriousness to her otherwise round and innocent face. Her hair was bobbed short, and either dirty-blonde or brown with golden highlights. Her wardrobe was modest, a top and jacket over jeans and tennis shoes. A woolen scarf completed the ensemble. I perceived her charms at a glance; the effect only grew with each successive look.

After a little thought, some more beer, and a few more Brazilian goals, I made up my mind.

"Jeff," I said, "I do believe I'm going to go talk to that girl at the bar."

Jeff gave me his blessing. That is to say, he knocked back another Scotch ale, and I took the gesture to mean "Go to it, buddy." It seemed like a favorable sign. I was a bit sozzled by now and everything was suddenly open to interpretation.

I swung myself out of my chair, sauntered up to the bar, and planted my elbows down upon it. I looked the bartender squarely in his two foreheads, and asked for a whisky. I chose the ten-year-old Springbank, distilled in the Campbeltown region—the only one I had yet to sample. Then I casually turned to the lady.

"Evening," I said, or something equally eloquent. (At least I managed to refrain from the cheesier pick-up lines, like "Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" or "Do you know karate? 'Cause your body's kickin'.")

"Evening," she replied, in heavily accented English. I couldn't quite place it. She introduced herself as Karla, a German student on holiday in the U.K. She was quite fluent in English (though with the noisy pub, her soft-spoken nature, and my own thick-headedness I sometimes found her hard to understand). Jeff joined the two of us at the bar and we whiled away a happy few hours laughing and joking. In between glances at the TV (which helped fill up the occasional awkward pause), we discussed everything from the number of fouls Côte d'Ivoire had committed against Brazil, to the demographics of Germany, to the general hostility felt toward the German people by most European nations. (I believed Karla when she said there was a lot of it still around.)

I enjoyed the conversation and the whisky immensely. I found the former to be rewarding, refreshing, just the ticket after a couple of days spent solely in the company of my erstwhile travel buddy; and the latter I thought very light, the lightest I had thus far sampled among single-malt Scotches. It had a sort of dry sweetness that was rife with vanilla, easy and mellow. The effects, however, crept up on me. If I'd had more money and the booze had cost less than four pounds a sip, then I probably would've had to be carried back to the hostel.

Our three-person party broke up around 11 or so, when Karla said she was getting tired. The poor woman had likely had enough of the rowdy foreigners badgering her. We parted on good terms, settled up at the till, and made our way home through the mild Scottish twilight.

Back at the hostel, I was on my way to the john when I spotted an attractive American brunette peering gingerly through the open door of the ladies' room.
"Oh, God," she groaned.
"What's up? I asked.
"There's no toilet paper."
I winced. "Oof. They forgot that, huh?"
"Yeah."
Being the chivalrous man I am, I went to the front desk. 
"Is he not here?" I asked the night watch, referring to the janitor.
"He's out smoking a cigarette."
"Well," I said, after explaining the problem, "let's go get 'im."
I poked my head outside.
"Need something?" he asked, between puffs. He was a short, dark-complected fellow with spiky black hair and a goatee.
"Looks like there's no toilet paper."
"Oh."
He came cheerfully inside, twirling his keys around his finger. The paper was refilled in minutes.
"Thanks," the brunette said to me. "I've been holding it for two hours."

Bedtime came, but not sleep. I lay in my bunk and stared for hours at the high vaulted ceiling, limned by the lights in the roofless hallways. The sky outside was not black, but purplish; I found it oddly comforting that the sun was not on the other side of the world, but merely hovering below the horizon and not far off. I gazed over the wooden buttresses and arched windows as a dying man might look upon his final sunset. I couldn't get enough. All was magic and wonder and Heaven itself. I was living high, in the midst of a dream, but I knew it wouldn't last. I used that last night in Edinburgh to soak up as much as I possibly could before the daily grind came back into my life. I strove to confine some shred of the marvels of my environment to memory, and carry it away with me into years and travels unknown. Drunkenness be damned. I was seeing with remembering eyes.

When sleep finally did come, it didn't last. Between the sagging mattress, the alcohol in my veins, the titanic snores of my fellow tenants, and my own tendency to rasp, I didn't get much rest.

But there was adventure even in that. On the morrow Jeff and I would go our separate ways: I back to Newcastle, and thence to California; and Jeff across the Channel into France, bound for all the major European capitals, and North Africa beyond.

For the moment, however, I threw myself onto my side, shut my eyes, rubbed my congested nose, and slept.