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.