Count Dappula

Dear Readers,

After some serious thought (or in this case... after some serious Bloody Marys), I've decided to enthusiastically exploit this whole Vampire craze sweeping our fine country. If George Hamilton can do it, so can I, Dammit! And it's not really much of a stretch for yours truly. I tend to slumber all day as it is, prowling the village lanes all eve looking like death warmed over; I love the cape and sash thing, AND have been told, on more than one occasion, that I suck the very life out of people.

If I may first bore you with my historically inaccurate pontifications... Apparently, this whole Dracula thing is loosely based on some dapper Transylvanian (or is it Pennsylvanian?) Cat by the name Vlad, with a panache for sticking people on poles like human corn dogs or something... which is the craziest coincidence, since my prep school chums bestowed the epithet "Link the Impaler" on me after that series of unfortunate javelin incidents in the school cafeteria.

That said... I am hard pressed to think of a more dapperly ghoulish incorporeal being. So who of the master thespians of vampire lore do I emulate? Grampa Munster? Bela Legosi? Count Chocula? Perhaps Blacula?


A trip to the Young Squires department at Shempley's is in order, post haste! Luckily my personal tailor, Señor Tito keeps late hours for us denizens of the dusk. He recommends a cape made of Megachiroptera bat fur, teamed with an ox blood sash, but I want something more macho so I choose a Ladakh pashmina cape with a candy apple red velvetine sash. Très virile!


In true Count Dappula™ style, I've festooned my sash with my many medals from my time as a soldier of fortune in the service of the Liberian junta. Actually, I have no idea how to fire a weapon. I was just there for the blood diamonds, but my dapper camo safariware and pistol-shaped cigarette lighter was apparently misconstrued as war mongeresque. C'est la guerre!

But I digress...

Donning my new accoutrements, I venture out into the gloomy eventide, looking for fresh meat to feed my insatiable appetite for blood. Blah! First stop... the local watering hole for a libation. Can't do any of the Devil's work on an empty liver! But, as I sit there, perched dapperly on my bar stool, I'm sensing a palpable lack of love from my fellow lovers of the bottle. The amount of stink eye is unbearable... and where did they get the pitchforks and torches? I decide to slink out while the slinkin' is good, only to find myself being chased by this pitch-fork wielding mob of angry liquor-fueled town folk. Who knew George Hamilton had such a negative impact on people?

Into my apartment building I fly, hammering on each and every door looking for an escape, only to be surprisingly handed small individual-sized chocolate confections and stale popcorn balls by befuddled neighbors, who apparently thought I was a tad early on the trick or treat gig.

Well, that was certainly a bust. No young fleshy women to sink my plastic teeth into. No succulent vampire-inspired aperitifs. No nuttin'! Just a handful of sweets that I'd get anyway from my weekly shakedown of the neighbor kids. Frankly, I'm starting to rethink this situation...

In retrospect, I'd be open to the whole werewolf thing instead, but I just got a full Brazilian.

Link Takes a Load Off...

While perusing the expansive Charmant Cabbage selection at the local green grocer (because as you well know, I have an unquenchable Slaw fetish), I noticed, neatly stacked in a fetchingly pyramid-shaped end aisle display, Glen Plaid-imprinted Chubbies Brand Diapers. Now, I'm more than familiar with the usual kiddie character-festooned poop pants, but these were downright dashing! In fact, dare I say... they were truly... Dapper... Crapper... Trappers™!

My mind was a flutter with steaming hot corn infused potential! So I grabbed a pack of XL Chubbies (For the portly child), to take for a test run... or should I say test "runs" in my case, given all the slaw I consume.




And what cat doesn't get a bit perturbed by having to cut short life's more scintillating activities to visit the powder room? I know I do! So, now sportin' my new Crapper Trappers™, I can continue to charm that lovely lass, play a rousing game of badminton, or even graze at the snobbiest supper clubs, all in the knowledge that I can simply "let it all go".

Since the pattern matches my favorite sport jacket, I don't have to bother with trousers. Plus, it makes clean up a snap! I just simply recline on the Le Corbusier, or if out and about, a park bench, or billiard table, lift up my legs skyward, and holler to my man-servant Chatsworth to wipe, powder, and replace. Viola!




But as any ecologically-minded gent, I worry about these doodie dungarees filling up our precious landfills. So, I have Chatsworth gather and deposit them in a special brass repository on my penthouse veranda. There they come in handy on warm sanguine afternoons to hurl at my recalcitrant Beatnik neighbors as they sun bathe and play those God-forsaken bongos!

Score one for the MAN... the MAN in the diapers, that is.

CHATSWORTH! I made a stinky!

Ask a Sausage Link...

While Link finishes his electo-shock therapy over the trauma of the last few months, we thought, just for shits and giggles, we'd run an all new "Ask a Sausage Link..." that's been festering on the back burner for some time:

Dear Mr. Sausage Link,

First off, I'm a long time fan of the sausage. In fact, if I may toot my own intestine wrapped horn, I was crowned Ms. Kielbasa Queen '36 in the salad days of my youth. Well, the blossom of that young Kielbasa may have shriveled and putrified, along with the majority of my essential body parts, but I still crave the sausage in a big way.

Enclosed is a photo of me in full pork mode:


But I digress: Is it bad form for a lady of my maturity and vaginal dryness to ask a young man to see his sausage? I'm usually rebuffed with giggles and gagging, but all I desire is to feast my eyes on the fresh cylindrical beauty of young ground pork/beef/venison that he may be consuming or carrying at the moment.

Sally McDickleson
Perth Amboy, New Jersey


Dear Sally,

Hot damn!!! YOU ARE A SAUCY SAUCY SALLY AREN'T YOU? Why can't I ever meet a spicy older broad with a taste for the sausage like you? All I seem to meet are hungry eyes and salivating mouths... I'm more than a wiener Goddamit! I'm a man! No wait... I am just a wiener. But a wiener with feelings, Sally. I know you understand. Can I come live with you? Be you're special salsiccia? If you're open-minded, I know a beefy Macedonian lukanec that would be open to a Ménage à trois!


_________________________________________



Dear Mr. Sausage,

I have what I believe is the world's biggest sausage, but I need an expert's opinion. May I show you my sausage? It measures 50 feet long and has a thickness of 1 foot. Is there some sort of award, or ribbon, or maybe a parade that I could receive for such a feat of pork packing?

Ronald Berkowitz
Long Island, New York

(Picture enclosed)



Dear Ronald,

While certainly an impressive log of meat, it is laughably small and pathetic when compared to the what is the actual KING OF ALL THINGS SAUSAGE...

Behold The MUNDARE METTWURST MONSTER!

An amazing feat of pork-based architecture. I believe it only lasted one day until a group of whacked out hippies, high on dope, stumbled upon it, ate the supporting pork, causing a collapse which wiped out a nearby orphanage. God Damn HIPPIES!!!!!

So, no Ronald. No GOD DAMN PARADE!



_________________________________________



Have any sausage-related questions? Well, then send them to:

Sal Salsiccia
1232 Broadway
NY, NY 10020

The Lost Link

Dear Pupils,

Excuse my tardiness, for I have been most certainly delinquent in my Dapper™ blogifications. But to be frank... I 'm beginning to ponder what I find more deeply disquieting...

The fact that I have been missing for several long weeks, or the fact that NOBODY SEEMED TO NOTICE!!!!

I thought someone might inquire, or at least send a search party out to ascertain my whereabouts, but apparently Link Worthington III, Esq. isn't quite worth the effort. Well, I had the stratagem to just simply pretend to have been amiss in my professorial duties, due to fabulousity and drink, or dazzle you with tales of extreme sexually-charged international chicanery, but the truth is far more horrifying.

But that's for another day. As soon as the nightmares soften, the sores heal, and my sphincter stops quivering, then and only then, will I entertain the thought of passing on the blood-curdling details of my disappearance.

Which brings me to the subject of today's bloggery: SHOES. After weeks of sporting nothing but duct tape and Chinese take-out boxes, the first thing I did was to slip my precious little pitties into my coveted "Rodney of Burbank" loafers. Renowned for his use of only the most endangered animal skins, his footwear excel in both sheer audacity and soft pillowy comfort.

Mr. Rodney personally invites his most valued patrons along to hand pick the "raw materials" with which he'll weave his huarache magic, so off to the Hydrofoil! My last excursion was to the frozen tundra of Greenland, to find just the perfectly portly Phoca groenlandica pup pelt. Decisions, decisions! So many porky pelts to peruse. And times a tickin': We've only a few days to "harvest" the best snowy white furs before they molt! I just need to find the right little fellas and give them a hearty whack upside the noggin. I brought my own club along for this endeavor: A 3-foot long picana negra wood stocked, platinum tipped facilitator of fabulously fine feathery footwear.


But as I gaze hypnotically into those deep, moist, jet-black peepers, I can't seem to muster the inner blood-thirsty killer that I know lurks inside me. I have not a touch of chagrin with butchering my unruly manservants, but I find myself unable to... strike... the fuzzy... little... puff...

WHACK!!! As luck would have it, Mr. Rodney instantly notices my trepidation, and gentleman that he is, promptly pummels the fuzzy imp to death. Heavenly loafers, here I come!

And oh how that buttery soft baby seal fur soothes my horrible carbuncles, corns, and calluses. Cheers to you, Rodney!

Now if only we can rid ourselves of those pesky PETA agitators forever blocking patronage to your fine establishment. Today it's the seal slip-ons, tomorrow... who knows? Will they be ruffled by your Kitten Klogs™? Your Tibetan Sand Fox puppy pumps? And why pray tell is it only the homeliest of the group that must strip and paint faux blood all over their corpulent frames??? I've a right mind to protest their visual pollution! Well... as soon as my sphinter ceases to quiver that is.

Link's Drink of the Week: Tax Time Tea Baggin' Toddy

As a man of unparalleled Dapperness & Wealth™, I loathe the 15th of April almost as much as I loathe my continually reoccurring case of the Prawns.

I so despise having to give a penny of my hard-earned (earned by someone else) money to the "Man" only to have it be given to supporting various ridiculous services, organizations, charities, and worth-while associations that I'm not directly affected by...

How will this help me purchase those fur pants I've been eyeing, if I have to give .0001% of my income (I have a great accountant) to help pay for silliness such as the police, army, fire, or civil services? I say Anarchy in the streets! I have my penthouse safe room AND access to the Worthington Family Armageddon Bungalow™ on the Cape. Plus, my new manservant Chatsworth is trained in the deadly arts. Not sure which ones, but they're DEADLY...

So when I came upon literature pertaining to something called a "Tea Party" rallying against taxes, I though it my civic (ie. greed-induced) duty to attend. Well, actually it was the rumors of "Tea Bagging" that got me a tad bit more titillated. Tax protest AND orgy. What a great combination!

But upon arriving (wearing my special quick-releasing silk ORGY pants), I saw no such activities taking place. And to be brutally honest, I wouldn't even want to dangle my treasured man-sack in any of these homely pie-holes. The nerve of such false advertisement!

After storming out, it dawned on me...

The perfect protest is to drink heavily! Hence this weeks Drink of the Week:

Tax Time Tea Baggin' Toddy

1 All-American, Red-blooded Lipton Tea Bag

4 Shots Wal Mart Barn-Burnin' Brandy

1 Tbsp. Honey (From some God Forsaken Dustbowl State)

1 Lemon Slice (Carved in the shape of a Bald Eagle)

1 1934 Minted $1000 bill

1 Match

Steep tea in hot water for 10 minutes. Place tea bag off to side. Mix in brandy and honey. Garnish with Lemon Eagle. Place $1000 bill in mug, light on fire, then throw drink out of nearest window, or if incarcerated down the toilet. Now drop cold tea bag into mouth, and stew about giving away both your precious booze and money.

Link Gets All Artsy Fartsy

I truly am an unabashed Paraclete of the Arts, as all us bona fide Dapper Gents™ are. When not posing au naturel for the local progressive-minded primary school figurative drawing classes, I'm snatching up young penniless artisan's work hand over foot to both horde and later exploit.

At the moment, my collective "peepers" have been focused on the talents of one Margaret Keane. Her hauntingly disconcerting doe-eyed rascals equally charm and creep the hell out of me. In fact, when I placed my vast collection in my boudoir the other eve, I had a dickens of a time persuading my various lady friends to disrobe and fornicate. So off to the rumpus room with you, Keane-ish freaks!


I kept the kitty pillows though. Worked with the milieu of the room.

Ms. Keane was kind enough to let me pose for a portrait recently, and I am tickled pink by the horrific results! I swore she wouldn't make me cry, but she had to bring up my dearest Mr. Dingles... and the waterworks began...


I believe she has captured my true essence... that of a small, forlorn pipe-smokin' man-boy who's only dream in life was to skin his pet leopard for a fur-lined bathtub. Where's my hanky? Sob...

A little trade secret: As luck would have it, these priceless Keane paintings show up ever so often in local second hand stores, rummage sales, and more commonly, dumpsters. Pick any random trash receptacle, dive in, and you'll surely come up with a Keane painting AND a nice pre-chewed, post-supper snack.

Next time on Art Collecting with Link™: A behind the scenes look at my life-size, anatomically-exaggerated, Alabaster sculpture garden.

Maintaining your P-Zone™

Gentlemen,

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times...

Proper grooming starts in your pants.

I'm in full preparation mode for my annual ritual of streaking through the Center Court championship game at Wimbledon (which is a time honored Worthington family tradition: I'd like to think we put the CREAM in the Strawberries & Cream), so I know the value of a well maintained Shrub Sack.

Unfortunately, those damned Bobbies covered up a "smashing" ode to Michael Caine. That copper may have covered the strawberries, but he still got himself a healthy hatful of cream!

Frankly, why bother leaving your Man Cave, if you have unruly, unkempt, and unhygienically dreadlocked pubic hair? Ask yourself... Does your buttocks hair regularly get caught in your zipper? Do you have to work your pubes into Squaw-styled Pigtails just to find your Johnson? Is there a nest of Madagascar Sub-Desert Mesites inhabiting your twisted briar patch of man bush? Then Sir, you have some seriously disturbed follicle issues, but thankfully you've come to the right establishment: Link's House of P-Zone™ Salonery is open for business!

P-Zone™, you ask? Why, yes, I answer. Just as a certain dromedary-festooned cigarette brand (that my lips would never touch... I'm a Chesterfield man myself) has it's "T-Zone for Taste ", I have my P-Zone™ for "PROPERLY PRUNED PUBIC PALACE". When your well maintained P-Zone™ now meets a lovely dish face to face, you can feel supremely confident that upon slipping off your trousers and leopard-print thong, instead of uncontrollable gagging and dry heaving, you'll receive a rousing standing Ohhh-vation!

All you need are a set of clippers, generous globs of shaving powder, and your imagination.

Here's some classic P-Zone™ styles I don when the occasion arises:

And here's some duds I WILL NOT sport under ANY occasion:

My gonad-itude is too precious to be cheapened by trendy pop culture references. Only the classics for this gent. So drop those drawers, grab the tweezers and landscape that P-Zone™ post haste!

Link's Trouser Packing Tips

Ah... back from the salt mines. Who knew over-priced French Sea Salt was mined in the hummocks of West Pennsylvania? I most certainly didn't. Oh, the magic that is marketing, My Friends! It was Herculean work, and we lost a number of good chaps to mine collapses, but it's all for the good of spiking the blood pressure of an insatiably sodium-addicted public.

But what do I come home to after weeks of back breaking work? Is my penthouse festooned with "Welcome Home" banners and blithe balloonery? No. I come home to an automated computation device filled with angry electronic letters.

It seems some of you fine readers have rather rudely commented that I've started to fall off my message. That Chief Big Shot is sending up the wrong smoke signals. That my carrier pigeon has become a directionally-impaired turkey. More Dapperocity™ you demand! Less "What did Link find in his stool this morning". Well, I thought that you'd appreciate the amount of corn and barley in my mid-morning guano, but apparently I am horribly mistaken. So rather than pout like the wee little imp that I am, I will instead toughen up the teats and discuss more appropriately Dapper issues, since after all (read sarcasm here) you ARE paying so very much for this educational enlightenment!

So fine...

Let's discuss PANTS & BELTS:

BUT... Before we address that, I'd like to first clear the air about some scuttlebutt, related to my southern hemisphere, making the rounds of the local bath houses: That I am, or am not, hung like a Belgian Draft Horse. Photos of the now infamous sword fight with Milton Berle in the litter box of the Zanzibar Club have recently resurfaced in Skin Fiesta magazine. First of all, that was an accidental crossing of sausage. Since the urinals are a smorgasbord-styled affair of one long porcelain trough, any wrong movement can result in a twisted knot of gent genitalia. I tacked left, Milton yawed right and... Well, you'll just have to see the snaps and judge for yourself. Or ask the lovely Ms. Mary Tyler Moore...

During a recent fashion shoot for Shempley's Department Store, Ms. Moore took such rapacious delight in perusing my bulging pants, that she couldn't take her eyes of them, there by ruining the whole sitting. Shame on you, Ms. Moore! But sadly, her dreams were horribly dashed, as I later pulled out the Hucklebuckle Farms™ Summer Sausage I regularly pack into my trousers for snack purposes. A man does need to get a big piece of sausage in his mouth now and then. Hmmm. Perhaps I should reword that.

So you see, my fine friends, I do not need a belt. For a man of my unparalleled style and natural effervescence does not need a slab of cowhide to keep his slacks from a droopin'. No, my pants stay aloft by the sheer magnetic and centrifugal force of my life-giving energies (and snack products). Well... that AND the fact that I only wear Sansabelt Action Pants from the Young Squire's Department at Shemply's. No need for moo skin with these adjustable togs. They put the the ACTION back in my pants where it belongs:


I'm ever so rudely asked by both the Cats and the Kittens, if they can "cop a feel" of my shiny 100% Dacron Action Pants. Like a moth to flame, crowds quickly gather, as they marvel at both the extreme tightness of my slacks, as well as the fact that they can see their most undapper reflections in them. Mouth agape, they drool and froth as I saunter, ever so dapper-like, into the local drinking hole or Hucklebuckle Farms to reload my Snack Sack™.

So there. Are you all happy now?

Excuse me while I now retire to the lavatory. BUT don't you worry, Dear Readers. I wouldn't think of BORING you with the details. And that's certainly a shame since I recently ate a very large bowl of pistachio pudding. Oh well. Your loss...

Link is Free, But Good God is He Fat

Dear Readers, I am once again among you un-incarcerated plebs to spread to Dapper word. Consider me now the Ex-con of Cool™. This jailbird has his leopard print wings back, Baby.

Yes, there truly wasn't a dry eye when I left prison. And to be honest, I didn't want to leave. I had to be forcibly vacated from my freshly decorated cell, which only made it all the more heart-breaking for my inconsolable cell mate and "C" block chums. But alas, their tears and riotous wailings were quickly washed away when the screws turned on the high-powered hoses...


It seems my twin brother, and arch-nemesis since the womb, Wink Worthington IV, using his substantial powers of monetary persuasion, bought my way out of the pokey. But at what cost, My Dapper Brethren? Now I must labor under his wrathful thumb in the Family Salt Mines (A wholly owned subsidiary of Worthington Industries, Inc.) for an undetermined allotment of time to pay off this debt! What is a Trust Fund Fop to do? My hands are so silky and supple!

But worse than the thought of actual manual labor, is the fact that I packed on a few pounds in the can. And by "can" I don't mean prison, if you get my drift. All that easy livin' added some serious poundage to my once lean physique. Charles Atlas no more. Pas plus Jack LaLanne. And since us Worthingtons must look our Dapper Best-est™ at all times, I am required to shed said chub before entering the family business.


My plan is simple: A liquid diet of gin, raw eggs and wheat germ (I call it a "Gin & Colonic"), teamed with strenuous lounging while wearing the Fat-A-Mizer Lard Melter 650 wired to my portly frame. I should start losing those 150+ pounds of unsightly deposits of excess adipose tissue within months... or years!

Week 1: A brisk introductory workout after waddling out of bed, consisting of Squat Thrusts and Deep Knee Bends, followed by a horrendous burning sensation in my groin/buttocks/testicles forces me to postpone my diet plans indefinitely. Heavy drinking, pill popping and strudel sucking ensues. Pounds gained: 15


Week 2: A fresh start. Make myself a Gin & Colonic. Spend next hour in powder room. Cleans out the pipes like Liquid Drano. Reclined on chaises fully wired to the Fat-A-Mizer Lard Melter 650. Watch as my stomach muscles do the "El Crampo Cha-cha". Put on bongo music to soothe my tattered nerves and sphincter. Read warning in brochure: Do not use in conjunction with alcohol or intestinal blowout may occur. Immediately consume TWO more Gin & Colonics. More rectal rooting and intentional intestinal blowouts. Pounds lost: 25

Weeks 3-5: Can't leave Man Cave in fear of losing sphincter lip down trouser leg. Oh, the cramps... the CRAMPS... I think the electronic impulses from the Fat-A-Mizer have made my testicles shrivel into tiny Hickory Times™ charcoal briquets. Lost all nipple sensation... and generous clumps of body hair. Vision blurred. Pounds lost: 137...

Mission Accomplished. On to the Salt Mines!

Link's Drink of the Week: Cell Block "C" Cider

You know... I am truly enjoying this prison thing. I'm learning exciting new crafts (such as shiv making), the routine body cavity searches are doing wonders for my regularity, and I've never had such an all-over even tan. While my barrister says it's just a matter of time until he "springs" me, I think I'll stay here a tad bit longer, nonetheless. A well earned vacation. The easy livin' prison life. My hectic schedule of partyin', swingin', loungin' and lovin' was wearing me mighty thin. It almost made getting out of my leopard print water bed utterly unbearable.

The only thing missing in this utopian existence is a good stiff drink (or three). Unfortunately, recreational drugs (those bigger than you can wedge up your sphincter), which would include my friend, Mr. Alcohol, are strictly verboten. But, while perusing the prison bibliotheca, I happened upon the tome How to Make Fine Sippin' Hootch Out of Everyday Items Found in Your Prison Cell (what luck!) by Beaufort Beauchamp. You may know him better as the ink slinger behind the Mastering the Art of Possum Cooking series. His Confit de' Possum dore au Thym is très fantastique!

So armed with this book, and my trusty shiv, I begged, borrowed and shanked my way to producing a sweet nectar worthy of gracing my Drink of the Week:

Cell Block "C" Cider

Directions:

1 Dirty Sock (preferably from your cell mate. Extra cheesy)
2 Boxes of raisins (I won't tell you what I had to do to get these)
1 Gallon Apple juice
1/2 Gallon warm water
2 Moldy pieces of prison Wonderloaf™ Bread
1 Straw

Pour liquids and raisins into either your toilet, or a double-lined plastic refuse bag. Place moldy bread into cheesy sock, then drop into liquid. If using plastic bag, tie off bag with straw sticking out, so it won't explode from the carbon dioxide. If using toilet, don't urinate or defecate in it for at least a month as to not spoil your "head" hootch. Use your cell mates pillow case instead. Or perhaps throw it at the guards. That'll keep them out of your cell while the fermentation takes place. After a month to six weeks, strain fruits and sock from liquid using the pantyhose the lads insist you wear in your prison summer stock production of Moliere's Le Tartuffe, ou L'Imposteur. Voila! Now pour into your battered tin cup and enjoy.

Link's in the Clink!

Dearest Friends, I truly apologize for not posting Part Two of my "Guide to Throwing the Swingingest Tiki Party", but alas... My downstairs neighbor arrived home weeks early whilst I was in the midst of finishing up the imu pit! He was not at all pleased at the sight of a gaping hole in his ceiling, or for that matter, the swine drippings from an early test run. So, Your Kind Teacher in the Arts of Dapperness finds himself in the pokey. The joint. The Big House. The... CAN. I have been incarcerated these past days in the most slapdash of conditions. Balderdash, I say! My barrister will make mincemeat of this travesty of justice! But, in the meantime, I must carry forward the Dapper Banner™, no matter what the circumstances.

I find myself cohabiting a powder blue 8 x 8 reformatory nook with a most charming, albeit elephantine, chap: A Mr. Victor Kerchankowitz. The "screws" and fellow yardbirds refer to him by the congenial moniker "The Broomstick". I have yet to figure what this exactly pertains to... Is it his undeniable skills at his sweeping duties of the cell blocks? Perhaps I'm being a tad paranoid, but he always seems rather fixated on me with the most lurid gaze as he brooms. Quite odd...


My first order of business, now that I'm a convict, was liberating myself from the ghastly orange institutional pantsuits, and slipping into a more classically Dapper black & white prison stripe ensemble. Chain Gang Chic™. Frankly, I am just not an Autumn, but more of a Winter on the color scale, therefore ORANGE is not to be found in this gent's chest of drawers. As luck would have it, the warden is an old prep school chum, and fellow Sigma Lambda Nu brother, so my special needs were promptly respected.


Yes, I may stick out, but that's my job, Mister. AND... It pays to stick out in prison! I get the best chow and the choicest seat in the mess hall, complimentary soap latherings in the showers, a very light aluminum ball and chain, and the best work detail (something called a "Bitch", which basically means I get to spend my days sunning in the yard while others toil making license plates or some such). All thanks to being Dapper™! Well... and thanks to telling my fellow cons how much I LOVE to smoke the pipe. Apparently they're fond of a good smoke as well.

Now down to important matters... how to smuggle leopard print in here so I can remodel our cell?

Link's Guide to Throwing the Swingingest Tiki Party: Part 1

Ah yes, it's that time of year, My Little Wahines. Time to slip on the pâ`û heihei and coconut bras and paddle the Waka ama over to Uncle Link's paradise isle for his annual Swingin' Tiki Party. Thrown the third weekend in February (to commemorate the untimely death and ritual disembowelment of Captain James Cook on February 14, 1779), it's a three-day long libidinous luau of unimaginable vulgarity, topped with the sacrifice of a "virgin" to Pele, the Goddess of Fire, in the seething cauldron of Mt. Linkauea.

In preparation for the festivities, I offer the local tots a shiny nickel for every potted fern, palm, or tall grass they can pilfer and bring back to the abode. I lose a few rascals every year as they slip off fire escapes and porches in search of green booty, but before long, I've got a lush jungle of super-equatorial vegetation.

Now comes the sand. You can't have an authentic luau without loads of it. The whole pad must be blanketed at least 4 to 5 inches deep. I send our young entrepreneurs off to the local playground to carry back as much sand as their soon-to-be blistered little fingers/pockets/hats/backpacks can hold. Job well done, cubs!

One last chore is handing them the power tools to half the coconuts I'll need for the cocktails. Don't fret... I always keep a box of adhesive bandages and iodine on hand in case of any accidents. I am a trained professional after all. Safety is first and foremost: I have them toil on a drop cloth so the blood doesn't stain the imported rugs.

As luck would have it, February happens to be the same month that my downstairs neighbor vacates for warmer pastures to soothe his egregious case of gout. This greatly facilitates the installation of the imu pit in the living room to cook the kalua pig. The pit is 6' by 4' by '4, so I have to cut into the floor and "borrow" a few feet of turf from the neighbors ceiling. Here's a cut-away of what it looks like:

Mmmm. One can almost smell that sweet succulent swine right now...

Tune in next time, when I'll discuss music, cocktails, setting up the volcano, AND, of course... How to Sacrifice a "Virgin". Aloha!

Link's Drink of the Week: In Memory of an Old Friend

Yesterday, the world lost a truly Dapper Gent. In fact, he was the prototype of all things Dapper... My friend from the halls of ivy: Frank Duba. English professor, writer, connoisseur, bon vivant, and all-around good egg. A chap who was so unassumingly Dapper, that he had no notion of the highest level of Dalai Lama-esque, transcendental Dapperocity™ he had achieved. Bravo, Monsieur Duba. You are an inspiration to me in my own pursuit of the Eightfold Path of Cool. I know you're upon high, probably pulling your hair out at my atrocious punctuation, foul punnery and incomplete sentences, but remember... it's for the Grand Cause.

THE FRANK DUBA-NET COCKTAIL

DIRECTIONS:

1 1/2 ounce Dubonnet Rouge

1 1/2 ounce London Gin

1 Dash Peychaud's Bitters

Orange slice

Shake first two ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled Martini glass that has been previously coated with the dash of bitters (discard remaining bitters from glass). Garnish with orange slice and homemade, intricately carved Bernard Shaw alabaster swizzle stick.

Cheers to you and your memory, My Friend. May you rest in peace.

Sir Dingles is Found! A Valentine's Tale of Amour & Taxidermy

Upon my daily, mid-morn, Bloody Mary-fueled speed saunter down Park and E. 60th, I spied a comely young tomato promenading upon the opposing sidewalk, proudly sporting what appeared to be a fresh, shiny Leopard print outfit: Pill box chapeau, jacket, skirt, and matching pumps. But what caught my pickled peepers in particular was the Leopard head purse... it had two char marks on the proboscis similar to ones I had administered to Sir Dingles with my cattle prod the day before his disappearance. Bad kitty.

This vision in hide, this debutante in endangered skins, had more than my Sir Dingles upon her nubile frame... she had mon coeur (Just on temporary loan. After all, there are plenty of poissons dans la mer). She dazzled me with a scintillating tale of knife-in-the-teeth safari action, all night jungle tracking, and plenty of hand-to-paw cat wrestlin'. All cock n' bull, I was to find out. In reality, she just came upon the corpulent corpse of Sir Dingles sprawled outside her apartment door, where he apparently choked on her mink welcome mat (mistaking it for a very flat Beaver perhaps), dragged him in and went to work fashioning an ensemble très à la mode. She had everything I look for in a lady: A lying, knife-wielding opportunist from a very respectable family.

Hats off to you, Ms. Penelope Fitzwhistle. I can only hope to be stuffed and mounted by you in the very near future. Happy Valentine's Day all!

Link's Swingin' Some Pipe

Contrary to public opinion, and the rash of recent front page hack-jobs in the local high society peeka-boo rags, I will not put just ANYTHING in my mouth. That incident with the ferret at the South Salisbury Supper Club was blown WAY out of proportion. But what I WILL put in my pie hole, at any and all moments, save for dining and drinkage, is a well-made, hand-carved English briar pipe. And I'm in good company. Why, just look at these pillars of manhood that share my love of the pipe:

Nothin' compares to having a can o' spinach, causing the unnecessary destruction of Manila, or choking down a mouthful of blindness-inducing moonshine, than sharing it with a smooth smoking pipe!

Yes Gents, pipes come in a cornucopia of sizes and shapes:

My preferred around-town pipe is a Thornybrook No. 450 Cordovan African Block Meerschaum (Full Bent), but when feeling particularly sassy, I whip out the Whale-bone Churchwarden and slap on my Tyrolean:

Above, you see me with my vast collection of pipes, which I lovingly team with my modest, but ever growing collection of shrunken heads. I feel the two are kindred spirits, and go so swimmingly together, seeing that the heads once graced the necks of my former manservants who all failed to heed my stern warning to keep their Damn Dirty House Boy Paws off my prized pipes. On that note: I happen to be in the market for a new valet, if you know of anyone. Always looking for a chap with a good "head" on his shoulders. Titter titter.

But in closing, I post a photo sent in from a enterprising reader, of a puckish country gentleman who has taken his love of the smoke to an all new level:

Hats off to you, Cletis! A truly clever use of your precious galvanized buckets. Yes, now you can certainly smoke both your hams and your tobacco at the same time, but where will you take your morning constitutional or bathe the house pig?

Wait a moment. Before closing this morns blog, there's one special lady I'd be amiss to not mention...

Oh, Mother... I have you to thank for my love of the smoke. I fondly remember as a young lad, suckling on your ample, cherry-tatted bosom, drifting off to the sweet scent of your Compton's of Londonderry Bent Bulldog, as you stomped through the manor spitting venomous decrees toward the domestics. Always a lady...

Link's Drink of the Week: The Sir Dingles Spotted Slushy

In lovely tribute to my lost leopard, I've concocted a special drink to honor his sweet spotted memory. I thought it befitting to base the cocktail around a blender drink, since he so loved to growl and swipe at me every time I whipped up a Daiquiri or Pina Colada. Luckily, he was so morbidly obese, due to my fattening him up to stretch his pelt, his feeble attempts at Link-lunching™ only merited a chortle and a jolt from my trusty cattle prod.

So, on to the libation...

DIRECTIONS:

2 Parts Amarula Liquor "The Fruit of Africa"

2 Parts Fermented Ethiopian Honey Liquor

1 Cup Kaffir Beer

Handful of ice

Handful of Chocolate Chips

The first three ingredients were obtained on Safari a few years back while hunting for rare Northern White Rhino feet to prop up my teak coffee table. I had grown ever so tired of the okapi legs. I try to incorporate animal elements into my interior design as much as legally possible, though again smuggling had to be utilized. Why must the officials punish me so for being a unique and special snowflake?

But I digress... Place first 4 ingredients in blender. Blend until silky smooth. Pour into hurricane glass and gently stir in chocolate chips. Garnish with little umbrella and gnawed tibia.

Cheers to you, Sir Dingles! Wherever you may prowl.

Sir Dingles is missing!

I knew it was just a matter of time. The Call of the Wild was too much for my future tub liner/pet. Sir Dingles is missing! I leave the front door ajar every night, so he can go out and stalk, but this morning, instead of finding him reclining on his Le Corbusier Chaise, gnawing on a femur, I found nothing. Some scat here, a chewed up old ladies' orthopedic slip-on there... But no Sir Dingles. So, I'm making posters which I need my readers to distribute. Spread the word near and far, for I must see my Sir Dingles again! I had the tub all prepped for his pelt.

Link's on the Links

Golf. Is there a more Dapper sport in existence? I think not, Little Ones. What other sport do you get to wear the most Dapperly ostentatious clothes, tool around in electric clown cars, AND knock incognizant fellow golfers unconscious with well-placed slices?

Many chaps whine about the intrinsic difficulties of hitting a small pock-faced ball into randomly placed gopher holes, but they are apparently blind to the real purpose: Drinking yourself silly while wearing stain-resistant pants. I think of the golf course as an expansive, well-groomed lawn bar. You stake out a nice vista, mix yourself and your lady guest a few libations, and whack a few balls hither and yonder. Why, I think it's so convenient that the management has established 18 holes/stations to upchuck your last cocktail into. And the sand traps are perfect locales to relieve oneself. Just remember to take a cue from the felines and cover up your golf guano.

Usually, I can only muster 5 or 6 holes before succumbing to the charms of Lady Liquor. Upon awakening, I brush off my plaid trousers, pick the grass out of my hair and high-tail it in the clown car (if still operational) to the Clubhouse. I never quite understand the banter in this drinkery. All this yapping about "birdies" and "eagles" and "albatrosses"? Pardonne moi? To infiltrate this charming camaraderie, I pepper my Link-speak™ with liberal applications of bird-related prose: "I sure sunk a Siamese Fireback Pheasant on the 8th!" or "Boy, that Red Collard Woodpecker I got on the 3rd's gonna mess up my handicap!". Suffice to say, the puzzled gentry immediately give me a hardy slap on the back, and buy me a round of drinks. Another day of successful golfing!

Seems someone took a compromising snap of me during one of my mid-game slumbers. Oh my... That was a good round of golf. "Don't mind me. Just play through, Fred!"

Oh yes... I almost forgot. What becomes of my lady friends? I usually forget where I left them, but if found, I try to scrap them off the greens or out of the bushes before the sprinklers get turned on. But usually they stagger back to the Clubhouse under their own power, or slung over the back of some fellow hackers cart. Fore!

My preferred brand of golf britches is, of course, Shemply's. Amazingly deft at resisting even the most tenacious post-binge soilings. I wear my Shemply's, or I wear nothing. And believe me, I've done my fair share of golfing au naturel. Usually because I somehow end up losing my pants while stumbling through the bramble looking for a place to plug in the blender.

Happy Birthday to ME!!! And a Drink of the Week Inspiration...

Cheers all. Well, I am most certainly having a truly delightful birthday. A jaunt to Frank E. Formaggio's for drinks and pizza with the gang, then home for a power nap before heading out again for round two of the week long celebration of ME!

I guess I should explain... By "gang" I mean the tykes whom I sired through the Upper Manhattan Thoroughbred Sperm Repository. Every year on my anniversaire, I gather them up from around the greater New York area, and force them to acknowledge the superior genetic material I graced them with... They appreciate that and the bag of game tokens I slip them as they bow and thank me.

Here's a snap of me and a few of the happy little Spawns of Link™. Oh, and Frank E. "The Rat" Formaggio had to bully his way into the photo. I do wish they'd launder those costumes. His stench of Faberge Macho Man cologne and Mortadella rendered a few of my offspring unconscious.

While I was sitting there, fanning my comatose moppets, and in desperate need of a stiff libation, I came up with the perfect Drink of the Week: The Frank E. Formaggio Birthday Boy Bloodbath. A take on the classic bloody Mary, but with gin, pizza sauce, sausage balls, and a candle.

DIRECTIONS:

5 Parts Gin

4 Parts watery, flavorless Pizza Sauce

1 Pack Hot Pepper Flakes

5 Sausage Balls

1 Candle

1 Handful ice

1 Desperate Birthday Boy

First, drag 25 children to your local two-bit pizza party establishment. Sit in misery for one hour, muttering to yourself and handing out tokens to placate the screaming children periodically. Pull out your Dapper Gent Survival Mini-bar™ (where the gin lives) and pour said liquor into plastic cup. Add ice. Stir pizza sauce and pepper flakes into gin until thoroughly mixed. Arrange sausage balls in an "X" shape by using toothpicks. Impale candle in middle pork ball and rest gently on top of beverage cup. Light candle, make a wish, and guzzle drink in one swallow. Cough up candle and prepare second drink...

Ask a Sausage Link...

A new column, where YOU, our devoted readers, can write in and ask pertinent sausage-related ponderings to an actual living, breathing, stinking sausage link. And not just any old kielbasa, but if I don't say so myself, the Dapperest of 100% pork by-products. My name is Sal Salsiccia, but please call me "Mr. Sausage". And without a further adieu, our first question:

Dear Mr. Sausage,

First of all... I love the sausage. I mean I REALLY love the sausage. I eat it for breakfast, brunch, lunch, banquet, snack, tea, dinner, supper, and dessert! But I have absolutely no idea what is in this heavenly meat tube. Can you enlighten me?

Linus P. Schneider

Queens, NY

Dear Linus,

It's really quite simple. The only two ingredients in any "official" sausage are... Lips and Assholes. Ha! I love that one! But no, I wish it were true. Unfortunately sausages are actually made out of parts far worse than that. Lips and assholes are reserved for "chicken" nuggets and chili fries. Since you have only a few more weeks to live, based on your sausage-exclusive diet, I'll tell you what's in these devil dogs...

On second thought, you might as well die in peace.

_________________________________________

Dear Mr. Sausage,

I'd like to team a Finnish Mustamakkara sausage with an appropriate beverage. What do you recommend?

Martin Globnick

Pensicola, FL

Dear Martin,

You Sir, must have the Balls of Altas to even look at, let alone, consume this black evilness masquerading as a sausage. Oh, I know what the townsfolks of Tampere say about killing the pungent flavor with lingonberry jam and rotmos, but I have traveled the world of sausage, and know that this wiener is Satan's work... So, I'd recommend a dry white wine. Perhaps an Aligote or Basque Txakoli.

Our apologies...

Due to an unfortunate flare-up of his horrible case of the Prawns (see "What's that on my Johnson?" posted on January 12), Link will be unable to process today's blog entry, but he's posting the punch card of it, for your perusal. Binary digit line 12 is particularly saucy. Shame on you, Link!

Links New Automated Computation Device

Good God, people. I really don't think you fully realize the level of difficulty I must endure in my pursuit of furthering the Great Patriotic Cause of Dapperness™. This "internet bloggery" thing is killin' me!

Last year, I invested in a new cutting edge, vacuum-tubed ARC 3270 Speedomatic automated computation machine, but now it seems to be on the fritz. And besides, I barely have enough room in my den for the "Human Sacrifice Volcano" for my upcoming Tiki Party, with all this mathematical computation junk everywhere. Where will I playfully rotisserize the "virgins"?

See what I mean? No room for a volcano!

So, I purchased a new computer. Something a tad smaller. I'll still have to hoof the punchcards to the local internet uploading interface command center, but it has to be done. It's my duty to you, the Un-Dapper™.

Behold... the future in Portable Bachelor Pad Automated Computing:

The LRC-4590A. Sleek and sexy. Able to compute at rates up to, but not exceeding, 17 calculations a minute, and with a memory of 1K. Now I can spread my Dapper™ seed even faster with this Pup! I just jammed all the important parts into the den AND have plenty of room for a wet bar AND a volcano.

See the sacrifices I make? It's all for YOU, so don't let me down, Gents. Oh, and speaking of sacrifices, King Pupu Platter is interviewing for Tiki Party Virgins to roast, so send in photos of girl friends, wives, mother-in-laws, or anything human or animal that looks good in a pâ`û heihei and coconut bra. Aloha!