The Advil Calendar 21 Dec 2011: WEIRD DRINK WEDNESDAY ON THE DARK SIDE of BLACK HOLE CYGNUS X-1

All right, I was wrong. At the end of yesterday's MARATHON HANUKKAH POST I bragged that today I was going to offend the pagans. But no. The solstice is tomorrow. Today it's...

21 12 2011: A Day to Offend All Fanboys

Because, yeah, you can imagine Vader
gets pretty chapped under that helmet.

I started this month off with a trip to Target with my friend Heather. Two of Heather's six-year-old triplets (Heather has six-year-old triplets, y'all. That means that a couple of years ago she had FOUR-year-old triplets, and two years before that she had THREE TWO YEAR OLDS tearing her house a new one. Bow down, boys and girls. BOW THE FUCK DOWN.) Where was I?

Oh. When we were at Target, we picked up all kinds of Star Wars branded items as gifts for our kids. PJ's to cover the triplets' cute little heinies at night. Water bottles to keep 'em hydrated. Lip balm to unchap their tender pieholes.

You see, two of the three trips have just discovered Star Wars, and they have fallen hard. They sleep with their toy light sabers. They wake their parents at 5:30 AM with news like, "Hey mama? Hey mama? Hey! When Luke was in the cave? He was SCARED."

We must blame the patriarch in this case: Heather's husband Todd, aka the Toddfather, is something of a nerd. Giant nerd, actually. He's an N to the ERD power.  Oh my gosh he's a nerd.

Of course, my sons are well versed in the politics of Empire as well, but that's my fault. My husband Bob's a different kind of nerd - he can tell you what high school just about every player on the Cleveland Browns went to. (OH MY LORD CAN HE) But he couldn't tell you what species the monster in Jabba's pit was, much less what planet it is native to. (It's a Rancor, but I don't know where it's from. Todd does. 'Cause he's a NERD.)

Nice, huh?

(Todd also is an extremely talented illustrator and graphic designer - he drew the illustrated version of the banner for another blog I am involved with, and does all the graphics for a number of businesses in the area, including Zeke's Coffee, mentioned in yesterday's uhhh make that this coming Thursday's post.)

(I am getting all wonged up with my days - the 25th can't come soon enough.)

(Except it better not, because after a surprise day wasted in the Baltimore City Courthouse jury room on Monday, I have yet to decorate, wrap, address cards, or do the MASSIVE post office run that I should have taken care of last week. ARG.) (And now on top of everything I have a terrible suck-ass cold.)

Anyway, that dissection of Heather and Todd's home life (sorry guys) was just an excuse for the drink that I'm about to perpetrate here. Oh man. This thing is... well even the name of it is vile. And then you get to the ingredients list: 

Jabba the Hutt's Cumshot Express

1 gallon tequila
1 quart yogurt
7 cubes beef bouillion
1 stick butter
1 box Tang
Mix together with crushed ice in a glass and garnish with mint leaves

I didn't make it up, of course. Me + dairy = ewwww. Me + tequila = lock up your car keys. And this recipe is clearly a joke. It does sound like what Jabba might have been sipping while he watched that poor slave girl do the hootchie dance, but after all Jabba was a fictional character of a fictional species.

This next one, however, sounds just as terrible, and it is a drink apparently meant to be drunk by humans:

"You want to take your shirt off."

Jedi Mind Trick

1 oz. Cinnamon Schnapps
1 oz. Irish Cream
1 oz. Melon liqueur
1 splash 151 Rum
Shake with ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks or low-ball glass. Top with a float of rum

Really? Midori and Irish cream and cinnamon schnapps? I'll take the Dark Side, thanks!


But you know the real Fanboy Significance of this day - the total nerdleptic fit rippling across Facebook and on Pandora - relates to today's date. First of all, you have to do the Euro thing where the day comes first, and second, you have to be me (or possibly Todd) or definitely the curly-haired guy in that photo trying to get the hooker to take her shirt off via his awesome Jedi mind control skillz. That's Brooklyn boy Dan Fogler as Hutch in the movie Fanboys. One of Hutch's defining characteristics - and there were kind of a lot, including going as a stormtrooper on Halloween every year, an unwarranted faith that Boba Fett was truly badass, and "just the one testicle" - was that in his van, it was "Rush. All Rush, all the time. No exceptions."

So um, today is 21/12, just like the title of arguably the greatest Rush album of all time - YES I SAID IT! Yes! The rock opera 2112 in my opinion eclipses Moving Pictures, Hemispheres, even Caress of Steel and the not at all pretentious-sounding A Farewell to Kings.

Wow those are the most epically awful album names aren't they. I think the talented minds behind Spinal Tap may have been inspired by Rush when they recorded Break Like the Wind.

Maybe it was the double-neck guitars that triggered your
episode. That bass is kind of disturbing.

And I know, sure, I am well aware that there's a lot you can say about Rush. Like:

• "Ooh poor me, I had a serious dysphoric episode when I was fourteen and it was triggered by the way Alex Lifeson's crotch looked in his stretch satin bellbottoms on the back cover of the 2112 album," or, 
• "God, there was this guy who lived in our house in DC when I was an EPA intern who listened to Rush ALL THE TIME. He never came out of his room except to walk down to the health food store to buy almond oil. We had no idea what he was doing with the almond oil, but to this day whenever I hear 'Tom Sawyer' I swear I can smell it," or 
• "Geddy Lee's voice causes my balls to retract into my body and I don't even have balls."

Listen, whine away... but I have a little wisdom to drop on you: they're from Ontario. Ok? The fact that they ever got out of Neil's mom's garage is worthy of admiration. Also, they are just behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in terms of the most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums by a rock band. I got that from Wikipedia. I think it's a lot like "most successful prog- or hair-related rock band not affiliated with a reality show with no more than three lifetime lineup changes," but any time any band can be named in the same breath as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, you must acknowledge that band.

I mean. It's not like having triplets, sure. But. Bow down. BOW DOWN I SAY. And drink a glass of really nice wine or a peaty old Scotch while you contemplate the life story of three Canadian music nerds who do nothing but play, and have played for thirty-five years. Because, as befits the elder statesmen rockstars they are, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are the kind of rich old guys who both own serious wine cellars - and Neil takes a wee dram of The Macallan when he climbs out from behind that magnificent drum kit and revs up his motorcycle to ride to the next gig.




I think that's my brother in law Joe climbing the barrier in front of the stage at the Cleveland Agora.



TOMORROW: Drink to honor the sun's cowardly retreat from the whole holiday shebang - it's the Winter Solstice! (For real this time.)