Happy Friday, I’m back in the writing chair (more later on why I fell off…long story).

But let’s get back at it with a Friday vice. Three vices, apparently. I’ll explain.

The drink I’m having to celebrate the end of a ragged fucking few weeks — the first vice — is one of my favorite cocktails ever.

It’s all about a Czech liquor, Becherovka.

It’s a cousin of gin, a secret blend of 20 herbs and spices (that’s 9 more than the Colonel’s, isn’t it?) and more than 200 years old.

It was created in Karlovy Vary, the Czech spa town, which had been visited by European royalty and creative elite (like Beethoven) for the healing properties of the thermal waters. It’s also known as Karlsbad, named after the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia Charles IV.

A doctor who came with one of these princes around the early 1800s hung out with a townie, Jan Becher, and gave him his recipe for an English bitter concoction that was supposed to aid digestion. But, like many things the Brits love, it needed some tweaking. For two years, Jan messed with the recipe, adding the local herbs from the Bohemian forest, until he came up with something to put on Karlovy Vary’s shelves and menus in 1807. It was a hit and swept across Europe and the world, eventually.

It’s probably the kind of thing that some people love but many people hate — like black licorice. Some folks say it tastes like Christmas, because it leaves cinnamon and cloves on your tongue. For me, it’s the 80s (cloves) and the fact that I snarfed it as a teen visiting my Czech family during that glorious decade.

Today, I drink it with tonic water, a riff on my summer standard, gin and tonic. Here’s my favorite part of the whole Becherovka story. When you order the drink at a Czech bar, you ask for a “Beton”. Makes sense, BEcherovka and TONic, right?

But it’s a big inside joke for Czechs, because the word “beton” is also the Czech (and German and French) word for concrete. Which is the exact result of an overindulgent dance with Mr. Becher.

The second vice in this post is my obsession with the drinking glass you see here.

I collect all matter of newsprint stuff (scarves, jackets, leggings, etc.) because who knows how much longer printed newspapers will be around. And I love the simple black-and-white aesthetic of newsprint as decor. Newsprint drinking glasses are my weakness.

.It began when I saw some on eBay. Obviously newspapers aren’t giving these away as promotions or collectibles anymore. Heck, most of our papers don’t even own their original buildings thanks to the hedge fund dickheads going around buying newspapers, selling off their primo real estate and gutting the Fourth Estate.

But that’s another post.

I thought I’d buy The Wichita Eagle and Beacon collection because I worked there as a summer intern. The collectibles have historic front pages, reminding readers how fucking long we’ve been around, long before anyone said “fake news.”

I promised myself I’d only buy the glasses of newspapers that have printed my byline. But then I couldn’t stop. And thanks to The Washington Post news service, my byline’s been in newspapers across the nation. (That’s the reasoning I used to explain the expanding collection to husband. He can’t argue.)

Sometimes, it’s fun to pick an historic day for the occasion, like the time I served husband iced tea in a glass reporting the sinking of the Titanic when he ran our boat aground.

And it felt right to drink the cocktail marking the end of my Substack respite with a Chicago Daily Tribune story announcing the end of prohibition: 14-YEAR DRY ERA ENDS TODAY. The deck (newspaper lingo for that little summary you see after the headline) was a gem, too: CHICAGO TO GIVE LEGAL LIQUOR A GAY WELCOME.

My third vice here is — apparently (I say, petulantly) — ice.

I’ve been hosting my lovely cousin from Prague for part of April. Her husband came too. He is one of those Europeans who holds back NO criticisms of Americans. I have been grinning graciously.

When I noticed he wasn’t finishing the dark and stormy I made for him (an unusual act for him, to leave alcohol untouched), I asked if he wanted something else.

“It’s good. But there is just too much ice,” he said.

What?

“Americans love de ice. Ice. Ice. Ice everyvhere,” he said. His next phrase was something about us Americans inserting ice into certain orifices. And not the ones that give tight grins to macho cocks.

Oh well. I guess I am truly American, despite the airs I put on with my herbal liquer, knife-and-fork eating and mushroom hunting. Because a cocktail the temperature of fresh piss is not something I prefer. Fuck that. Bring on the ice. ‘Murica.

Onward to the recipe:

BETON

Start with a pour of Becherovka as long as your week felt (It can be found in most adventurous liquor stores, not too hard to come across. It’s at Total Wine here in the DMV). Or I will bring you one if you ask and invite me to drink it with you! Try me.

Tonic Water — I am keeping low-carb, so I like the Zero sugar kind, not picky on brand, I think all quinine is about the same

Lime

And a MOTHERFUCKING FORD F150 TRUCKLOAD OF ICE

Mix, stir, enjoy.

It’s just fun to say: Otoboke Beaver.

Right?

This is my vice for the weekend.

They’re an all-female punk band from Kyoto I discovered last year while trying to find something serious for a story on the SXSW website.

As soon as I watched the SXSW video, I was hooked and knew I would do anything to see them live.

In Lilly Pulitzer-style sundresses that look like they’re headed for a long weekend in Palm Beach, these ladies rip.

At Poisson Rouge in NYC, Feb. 2023

The lead singer, Accorinrin, leans into her singing with rage and urgency. She flips off the audience, she dives in. She crowd surfs on top of a giant, inflatable beaver. She’s young Ian MacKaye the way she tears it up in pink, Kathleen Hanna in attitude, bitch-slapping Japan’s shriveling, salaryman patriarchy.

A sample of their tracks:

“I’m Tired of Your Repeating Story”

“After Making Love With Me, You Eat Your Wife’s Meal”

“Introduce Me to Your Family.”

“Dirty Old Fart is Waiting for My Reaction.”

“I Won’t Dish Out Salads”

“I Am Not Maternal”.

How can I not see them? Quick check on their page and the closest show is in New York, in a week. I’m in!

That was last year, before my youngest son could drive – when I still meant something to him – so he had no choice but to come with me. 

I miss the days when I had built-in partners for my madness, the kind my husband won’t abide. When the boys were in grade school, they’d be all-in when I loaded the skis into the car at 6 p.m. to catch a couple hours of night skiing. A weekend trip to Minnesota to see a local rapper perform at the state fair? Hell yes! (Side tour to Paisley Park, natch). The younger one was always game for joining me at all-ages shows at the Pie Shop, 9:30, Fillmore during the week. Dingledodies for life.

We hopped into the car on a Wednesday (he had a couple days off school – perfect) and jammed up to New York.

To keep it cheap – and authentic – we stayed at the fleabag hotel where GG Allin (finally) died and ran around St. Mark’s Place and the Village:

I smoked a clove.

We got to Poisson Rouge in the Village too early, so we caught the opening act. It was a great argument for always catching the opening act.

Hear me out: all-female, all-immigrant, Latina accordion punk, played, according to their social media profile “with a putazo of estrogen.”

And it fucking works.

“We’re New York’s best accordion punk!!” roared Yadee Araniva, the frontwoman for Ratas En Zelo – which translates to Rats in Heat.

Well, they do have lock on that.

Truth is, they aren’t America’s ONLY accordion punk band. Their brother band is Piñata Protest in Texas.

But they slapped, with Hiromy Araniva’s accordion taking the place of guitar, they fired off ragers about police, the migrant experience as a woman, bad boyfriends.

They all wear mouse ears and yell “EEK! EEK! EEK!” in place of punk’s old skool war cry of  “Oi! Oi! Oi!”

Then came Otoboke Beaver, named after one of Japan’s infamous love hotels.

They were fast and funny, outrageous and adorable. We didn’t stop dancing for one minute of the show.

Their lyrics are a mix of Japanese, English and Katakana, the Japanese pronunciation of foreign words. Like, “sunakku” for snack or “hoteru” for hotel.

You can kinda sing along, in the most brilliant way.

Like the Japanese parts of  “Don’t Light My Fire” (which is so relatable) translate to:

“If you lit a fire to my heart,

stop the fire before you go home.

Extinguish before you go.”

And that’s when we just dance.

But then the chorus is in English, when we all scream along:

“Go go go go go go go go go go go go

Go to hell!

Go to hell!

Got to hell!”

Perfect, right?

Even if you don’t give two shits about their lyrics, their music is energy and passion and fast, fast, fast.

The drummer,  Kahokiss, is supernatural and has become a standard feature on social media posts where fried, hard rock drummers praise her in awe.

A year later, they’ve become even more popular and are heading across America.

Even The Washington Post did a piece on them.

And as soon as they announced their tour dates, I bought four tickets to see them this Sunday night at the 9:30 club.

My son and husband are already kvetching about going out on a Sunday.

Fine, guys.

Go to hell!

Got to hell!

Anyone else wanna join me?

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How about we kick off Fridays with something that society, our doctors, our mothers’ voices deep in our brains tell us we shouldn’t enjoy. Because fuckit. We deserve to have some VICES, especially when we’re feeling petulant…

Let’s start with the drink I’m going to make for myself tonight, it’s named after the former Ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

She called them “saccharine sweet” and “icky.”

I’m right there with you, Ambassador Shirley Temple Black.

The story goes that a Hollywood bartender created the Shirley Temple — grenadine, a lot of maraschino cherries and either lemon-lime soda or ginger ale — so the child star could have a cocktail with everyone else.

She said that was B.S., in a 1986 NPR interview with Scott Simon:

“Those saccharine sweet, icky drinks? Those were created in the probably middle 1930s by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood and I had nothing to do with it. But, all over the world, I am served that. People think it's funny. I hate them. They're too sweet...I’ve never made one in my life. But I was even served one in Moscow. I'm served it on airplanes. I'm not really in favor of a child having a cocktail."

Everyone wanted a piece of Shirley Temple. She was living the Hollywood #MeToo nightmare (here is my column on the #MeToo hotline in D.C. that came of that scandal) in 1940, almost two decades before Harvey Weinstein was born.

She wrote about it in her book, “A Child Star” in 1988, offering a demure but nevertheless clear account of the way legendary producer Arthur Freed waggled his weenie at America’s sweetheart:

To be clear, the lechery was so widespread, the Hollywood powercreeps hit on Shirley AND her mom.

For a while, there were rumors that Shirley Temple was an adult little person playing a child, that her teeth were filed down and her blonde curls were a wig. People tugged at her hair when they saw her and demanded to know why she never lost baby teeth (studios made her wear caps and dental plates when she lost them.)

Library of Congress

She demanded and got better pay. When a company tried to sell the canned “Shirley Temple” drink she hated, she sued.

She was crisp and frank as an adult, running for a congressional seat in California in 1967 as a moderate Republican. Her opponent, who won, played “Good Ship Lollipop” every chance he could. She lost, but went on to a sparkling diplomatic career at the United Nations. She was appointed first female Chief of Protocol of the United States and she was U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

The Czechs were obsessed with her.

She was in Prague, about to meet with President Alexander Dubček on behalf of an international Multiple Sclerosis organization on Aug. 21, 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in. She ran to the roof of her hotel as troops closed in and she was stranded. From that perch, she saw an unarmed Czech woman gunned down by Soviet troops. She said the act seared her forever.

She moved into the U.S. Embassy in Prague 21 years later, a month before the Velvet Revolution of 1989, vocally representing the U.S. during the fall of communism in my homeland. The embassy published this tidbit upon her death in 2014:

“Shortly after communism fell in Czechoslovakia, a seated Ambassador Black called her senior staff together into a private, closed-door meeting. Looking them sternly in the eye, she told them ‘I’m only going to do this once, just once.’  And with that, she stood up, smiled, and pranced around the room singing ‘On the Good Ship Lollypop’.”

(Oops, am I turning this into a perSister piece?) Maybe.

I too, hate the Shirley Temple drink. Of course it’s way too sweet.

The Dirty Shirley — a Shirley Temple with a splash of Vodka — doesn’t do it for me either. I’m trying to live low-carb and sugar-free, so here’s my version:

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Bitter, Dirty Shirley

Zero-Sugar Ginger Ale (Diet Ginger Beer if I’ve got it. Gosling’s or Fever Tree are the best)

Zero-Sugar Cherry Syrup (Torani or DaVinci, all on Amazon)

Four shakes of Orange Bitters

A pour of vodka as long as your week felt (forgive the Siberian vodka, it was a gift. I usually buy Tito’s)

A slice of orange (blood orange preferred, if available, only because it’s fun to say)

NOT a maraschino cherry, but a dark Morello sour cherry or a fresh cherry — keep them soaking in a jar of vodka in the fridge

“I've thrown away my toys, even my drum and train
I want to make some noise with real live aeroplanes
Some day I'm going to fly, I'll be a pilot, too
And when I do, how would you like to be my crew?”

- The Good Ship Lollipop, first verse

(Fun comment from a guy on Reddit about the Shirley Temple:)

Byrdman216

So I don't like to drink alcohol, but I like hanging out with my friends, so whenever I go out with them I'll get a Shirley Temple.

I've had a bartender correct me once saying something to the effect, "Guys drink a John Wayne, girls drink a Shirley Temple." I didn't have the courage to tell them that I would much rather drink something named after a UN ambassador than the guy who named names during the McCarthy era.

Happy Weekend!

UPDATE!!!

Oh. Y’all. I just had my Saturday Bitter Dirty Shirley with a new Diet Ginger Beer from Australia and it slays:

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