LET THE FUCKING BEGIN

Alternate title: Commence to Fuckin'.

To our loyal Bloomington readers - of which I suspect there are none - Tremendous Fucking is ready to tune up for its upcoming Global Domination Tour with a show this Thursday (June 2) at Second Story. Showtime is 10:00 PM and our high-decibel audio colonic will be the evening's final performance, so count on us hitting the stage circa midnight. I should note that bands with talent will also be on hand to entertain you, including perennial Bloomington favorites the Sump Pumps and Goodhands Team.

The cost is four American dollars. Pay it, fuckers.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: IT'S NOT JUST FOR SENATE MAJORITY LEADERS ANYMORE

Move over, Bill Frist. Don't worry, I won't steal any of your camera time, nor will I cut into your keynote address at the Inbred Bible Thumper convention this weekend. But I have a message that is every bit as urgent as your plaintive ass-kissing in preparation for 2008.

For those of you who don't know - and I will assume that to include everyone - I have been drafted into service by a Prominent Local Band known as Tremendous Fucking (or "TremFu" for PG-13 purposes). The band is rather ass-kicking, although I can assure you this has little to do with me. The Obligatory Bands You Know Analogy would probably the Jesus Lizard and Trenchmouth knife-fighting for the right to sodomize the Pixies. Band rules require pseudonyms, so I am to be known as Grover Cleveland Steamer, a name that combines my two greatest loves: political history and scatalogical humor.

This band tends to go through drummers like Spinal Tap, so it may be more appropriate to call me Mick Shrimpton or Stumpy Joe. In any case, please patronize this band soon, i.e. before they kick me out in August.

Our ass-blasting new album, Thanks for Nothing, is available for the entirely reasonable cost of five American dollars from Higher Step Records. For those wishing to celebrate our entire catalog, please consider shelling out a few more hard-earned dollars for the debut album How's My Fucking? on the same label. Or if you're really feeling punchy, email us for a "How's My Fucking? Dial 1-800-TREMENDOUS" bumper sticker.

Ginandtacos.com will soon be providing information on our exciting, continent-spanning World Tour, on which our live performances will answer questions such as "How many times can the f-word be used in 20 minutes?" and "What's that smell?" Until then (and if you're a huge tool who can't shell out $5 to support the rock) satiate yourself with mp3s of our multi-zirconium hits Now Look What You've Done and Just Like Burt Fucking Reynolds.

Dear England: What the fuck is wrong with you?

While we here at ginandtacos are still confused by the logic employed by three amateur film makers utilizing fluorescent lights and gasoline to make lightsabers, those of you in the United Kingdom aren't sitting on your laurels. It would seem that you have become insanely jealous of the special breed of stupidity that has until recently called the United States home.

Not to be outdone by American drunken, ridiculous behavior, two men in London seem to have become stuck in the mud.

Apparently, in the middle of some midday bender this British fellow decides that he desperately needs to walk to the edge of the Thames. Because, you know, they were going to frolic in the water... or something. Obviously my first reaction to this story was that these two men were clearly American tourists. However, this was apparently native British idiocy.

Thats right, it is the kind of idiocy where after one drunken man decided to walk to the river and get stuck in the mud, his friend figured he was in possession of special "but I can walk ON TOP OF THE MUD" powers. Yes, he proceeded to go out after the first guy. One can't fully understand this reasoning, but one nearby houseboat resident described them as "definitely drunk" and proclaimed the situation to be "pretty funny". I am glad that at least on this point we are in agreement.

Use the force young Skywalker- oh, and some gasoline and fluorescent lights.

As citizens of the United States, the authors of Ginandtacos.com have always prided themselves on living in the coutry that is one of the world leaders in bad ideas. Whether that be Prohibition or electing George Bush a second time, we have always been on the forefront.

While we in the United States sat idly by and only used gasoline for powering sport utility vehicles and disposing of the occasional incriminating document, a British trio has taken creative liscense with this flammable liquid and used it to create "lightsabers".

I will be the first to admit that I am not the most avid follower of Star Wars movies, but I don't recall lightsabers looking like they were on fire. Despite this, I am fairly certain the logic went something like this:

Although it seems sick and wrong to laugh at these two amateur "filmmakers" injuries, I am not sure if they have left us with much choice. I mean honestly, they filled a glass tube with gasoline and then exposed it to open flames. Perhaps in England this qualifies as lightsaber, but in the rest of the world it is called a bomb.

That said, I hope that authorities don't eventually release the footage of this "scene". I really think that it is in my best interest not to see this happen.

Movie Review: Star Wars III - Return of the Exhaustion

Diehard Star Wars fans hate the new trilogy. It's important to realize why this has come to be. It's not the normal revulsion that comes with the release of the next blockbluster hitting movie theaters - the hate is deeper than the normal cultural laments that go with a "Independence Day" or "I, Robot" debuting to 3,000 screens. It's also not the mild betrayal one feels when a childhood icon is cashed out a second time through - be it Your Favorite Alternative Band Going Back Out on Tour or Your Favorite Childhood Cartoon Characters on Ice. For us, Star Wars has been all about action figures and soundtracks that the cashing out part of it doesn't even register - and besides, didn't Lucas already cash out by re-releasing the first three with 'new footage', and didn't we line up to see it?

Why is it then? Speaking as someone who fits the category (I adore the first three, and hate the first two parts of the new trilogy with a deep, deep passion), all I can compare it to is when you see a person you used to date and care about from a long time ago again and wonder "were you always this crappy? Were you this crappy when I was with you?" For people in their mid-to-late 20s, Star Wars was our childhood, and we care about it deeply. It wasn't mindless entertainment for us, nor was it another semi-good transitional object - we believed that there is something Excellent about the original trilogy; in fact it defines a lot of what we think of as movies.

I've always found theories about the popularity of Star Wars as a 'nostalgic film' for the mode of Buck Rogers and Boomer movie serials lacking, as people my age have no idea about the latter but adore the former. To us, for the original Star Wars to actually have been cheap, corny sci-fi mixed with some serial westerns made for a quick buck would completely knock out a supporting beam of our lives. Hence, the fact that the new movie has some good moments in it is a cause for a cultural celebration.

Less is more.

A surefire sign that either I'm getting old or movies are really starting to suck is the noise factor. It's what I couldn't stand about the endings of the past new Star Wars and the end of the third Matrix - there's a point with which past it's nothing but loud explosions and cliché. Something important needs to get blown up, there are fireballs, some underdog dies heroically saving someone else, there's a showdown, nobody is the audience is really sure what is happening, and then all the characters get medals.

This is nothing new; the problem with these movies is how digital heavy they are. When working with models and puppets, it takes time to set up, and there is an imperative for restraint. When working with computer special effects programs, all you have to do is click on a mouse-button to draw another ship. As such, there is nothing stopping Lucas and company from filling out the screen with as much complexly moving and acting junk and noise as possible. As they are all created independent of the narrative, it doesn't advance any kind of thematic element. It's not a cinema aesthetic, it's a video-game one.

A good part of the first hour and a half of the movie is spent in this mode. Why have 5 ships shooting at each other when you can have 500? Why 10 robots? Why not 1,000, all doing their own thing? Though it sounds awe-inspiring, it is in practice mind-numbing. Watch the space battle - there's isn't a part of the screen with nothing on it. It's like watching 12 television sets all tuned to different channels side by side. Awful stuff.

But of course we didn't come here to see Christopher Lee doing backflips or to hear the strategy behind deciding that, my favorite line in the movie, "Master Yoda will take an army of clones to reinforce the Wookies." (!) We want to see Anakin turn into Darth Vader, the fall of the Jedi, and the (second-to-)last battle between Obi-Wan and Vader. That, I'm surprised to say, works pretty well.

Wait, more bad news

There are some more down points. Rumor has it that playwright Tom Stoppard was brought in to touch up the dialogue. I doubt he had anything to do with the cringe-inducing love scenes, but as a friend pointed out, but he may have made the final Obi-Wan / Anakin scene work. It's seems obvious to me that several people touched the script as the corruption of Anakin makes more or less sense depending on whom he is speaking with.

< (spoiler! spoiler!) >
And, getting back to the original problem of "was I duped as a kid?" was Darth Vader always that lame? That was sad, after watching the perfect surgery scene, to have him come out all frakenstein-y and speaking the same lame lines as Anakin was forced to read.
< / (spoiler! spoiler!) >

A good movie hidden in there somewhere towards the end.

There's an old Hollywood rule: Your movie can be awful as long as the last 15 minutes are excellent. Case in point: You'll forget how awful the the previous time was spent once Lucas gets the ball rolling. He appears to want to tell a story this time around that is independent of how much rendering and teraflopping his computers are capable of crunching. Though this may just be me, Ewan McGreggor takes over the Obi-Wan part perfectly, and watching him handle Anakin at the end is worth the price of admission alone. The feelings of dread and trying to find dignity in defeat are actually there.

I actually liked this movie more than I'm letting on, but it's one of those movies where you want to list off your compliants as you are walking out the door. It may age better than I'd expect it to, and with dvd chapter marks to skip over the cringe, could be a worthwhile experience. If this movie was the first to come out, nobody would notice it - as it is the last to come out, it's a nice farewell to old friends.

ELOTES DEFINED

Alright, in an effort to avoid being that guy - the one who makes obscure references with the hope of puzzling readers - let's talk a little more about the Elotes Guy.

There are two places in the world in which a person can walk down any street in summertime and be handed a hot ear of corn: Mexico and Chicago. Elotes are simply roasted or boiled ears of sweet corn. The men who purvey them from rolling carts emblazoned with that word are called eloteros. Chicago loves its eloteros. They are one of the things that make us, well, not Detroit.

The city frequently tries to regulate them to death or eliminate them, believing that street vendors carry a ghetto, third-world connotation. Balderdash. Eloteros are as harmful to the community as the ice cream man. Yes, I understand that a rolling wooden cart piloted by a struggling immigrant is likely to experience some lapses in city food hygiene codes. But it's corn, water, salt, and butter for god's sake. There's not much that can go wrong there.

Fr. Chuck Dahm of St. Pius in Logan Square (but you knew that was coming) has led the fight to save the eloteros from excessive regulation. The Chicago Reader has called the debate over their survival The Elotes War. We like things that are phrased in terms of military metaphors.

Lest they miss a chance to chug the Latino community's wang in exchange for political support, the Daley fellows appear willing to let the Elotes carts be. But we must remain vigilant soldiers - Minutemen ready to serve in the War should it become necessary.

Viva Elote!

MEXICAN STREET TACOS: THE ELOTES GUY WOULD BE PROUD

We have already enriched your lives to the tune of several recipies (and historical primers) for classic gin cocktails. Now let us turn to the gastronomic soulmate of gin: the taco.

I want to emphasize two ironclad facts of taco preparation up front:

1. Tacos are not easy to make (well). They appear to be rather simple, with only a few ingredients and limited preparation time. But the cooking process is deceptively tricky. My techniques were developed through extended trial-and-error, not to mention several batches of horrible tacos gone wrong.

2. There is absolutely no way to make a healthy taco that doesn't taste like crap. Get over it in advance. This is not diet food. The preparation will involve beef fat rendered into liquid and copious amounts of corn oil.

Taco Basics

Tacos, like so many wonderful things in our lives, were invented out of necessity. As men and women worked in the fields in Mexico many years ago, wrapping meat and vegetable items in a tortilla had two advantages. It made the concoction edible quickly and with one hand without food falling all over the ground. Secondly, it could be made in the morning, wrapped, and stored for eating later in the day (today, this method of wrapping and storing a taco is considered a separate and distinct cooking method known as Tacos sudados - literally "sweaty tacos", which steam themselves into a soft consistency with time).

There are dozens of kinds of tacos, each distinctly different, including al pastor (spit-grilled meat, usually pork, cooked similarly to the way gyros are prepared by slicing meat from a rotating hunk of lamb), carnitas (meat fried in lard with fruit), and dorados (flautas or "taquitos"). However, the type most commonly associated with Mexican food in America are tacos al carbon, or barbecued meats. As we will see, electric griddle preparation has largely replaced the open fire in most American taquerias. Being the most basic taco type, we will focus on this recipie here. The hard-shell Taco Bell-type tacos common in America are rarely eaten in Mexico.

The first thing you need to do is start with a flank steak. Flank steak is not pretty. It has fat, and often connective tissue, attached to it. Our tendency in the grocery store is to select the nice red and fat-free piece of beef. This will result in a dry, flavorless taco. Suck it up and ask the nice butcher for a flank.

The key to cooking any lower-quality piece of meat is preparation, either marinating, aging, or dry-rubbing. Home cooks will need to rely on marinating this particular cut. The essence of any meat marinade is something that will attack the meat and break its tissue down (an acid) and something to penetrate the meat and protecting its liquid content during the cooking process (an oil). Acid and oil. This is a marinade. Acid softens, oil retains the flavor (since the oil, not the meat's own water and fat, will burn away in the cooking process).

Here is a good, basic marinade for tacos. I have found it to be effective for any meat. I also, as much as a white-ass Polack can verify these things, consider it to be, if not authentic, then at least plausible in terms of the ingredients.

2 tablespoons of corn oil

2 or 3 tablespoons of lime juice (I sincerely doubt they use vinegar as an acid in Mexico like most American recipies call for)

2 cloves of garlic, minced (fast mincing tip: peel the cloves and then just hit them with a heavy utensil)

1 tsp ground coriander seed (grocery-store cumin is acceptable)

1 seeded, chopped, and minced jalapeno pepper

Mix these ingredients well. Toss the steak (whole) into your marinade dish. Turn it over once to coat it, then cover and let stand for 2-6 hours.

Remove the steak and discard the marinade. Cut the flank into about 8 strips (approx 1/2" to 1" wide). Clean, peel, and dice one medium white potato (no red or Yukon Gold for these purposes), one more jalapeno (seeded), and one small yellow onion. So you have:

approx. 8 strips of steak

finely cubed potato, jalapeno, and onion mixed in a bowl, coated with a small amount of corn oil to facilitate cooking

Now heat up an electric griddle to medium-high heat. A frying pan really isn't going to work. Sorry. Find me a taqueria where they prepare tacos in a frying pan. I recommend the Villaware electric (usually less than $50) because it has no "hot/cold spots" and is amazingly stick-resistant.

Put a generous amount of corn oil (don't overdo it, but don't leave it dry) on the griddle and allow it to heat up. When everything starts sizzling, add the cubed potato-jalapeno-onion mix. Allow this to cook (stirring and tossing regularly) for 5-6 minutes. Look for the onion to start turning translucent. When done, either push it aside or (preferably) remove it to a bowl, covered in foil.

Add the steak strips. Allow to cook (slightly brown) on each side. Remove the strips to a cutting board and dice into small cubes. The middle should still be pinkish. You are not done cooking the steak. Transfer the meat (with its accumulated juices, oil, and other gross shit) to a bowl and cover. Re-apply corn oil to the griddle if necessary and begin frying two small corn tortillas. Then take two big spoonfuls of the meat and a spoonful of the potato mixture and begin cooking them together next to the tortillas.

Are you still with me? You're now frying two tortillas on one part of the griddle and the meat-potato mixture (which you've already cooked once) on the other. Cook long enough to cook the beef through if any of it is still pink/red when you start. Place one tortilla on top of the other and scoop the meat mixture on to the middle. Remove from the griddle.

Congratulations, you've just made a taco. Repeat until satisfied.

Garnishing tacos is a matter of personal taste. Authentic tacos will only be garnished with cilantro and onions (although anejo cheese, salsa and/or rice is also added in some traditional recipies). American-style tacos contain cheese, lettuce, and tomato in addition to other toppings. Do what makes you happy. The purpose of cooking is to eat something you enjoy. If you don't like the "authentic" toppings (I personally find cilantro to be too bitter) then put whatever the hell you want on them.

The key to this recipie is the cooking/resting/re-cooking of the meat. Taquerias cook their meat in massive batches either late at night (for the next day) or in the morning. It then sits in a little tub of its own juices and is re-cooked before being applied to your tacos. This is gross, but it is also the reason your at-home tacos never taste quite like the taqueria.

(note: Do not salt during the cooking process. While salt is commonly added to your tacos in any taqueria, doing so while cooking risks drying the meat out. Add salt immediately before eating if desired.)

Posted by Ed at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

The Ginaissance Presents: The Canon of Great Men's Martini Recipes.

"[The Martini is] the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet."

H.L. Mencken

“Martinis, my dear are dangerous. Have two at the very most. Have three and you’re under the table. Have four and you’re under the host.”

Dorothy Parker

"The martini is an honest drink, tasting exactly like what it is and nothing else. There is no sugar in a martini; no egg whites, no black and white rums, no shaved almonds, no fruit juice, no chocolate, and no spices. A martini is not served in a pineapple shell nor a piece of rolled up canoe bark, and there are no disgusting pieces of flotsam around the top. It is a clear, clean, cold, pure, honest drink ..."

Donald G. Smith

I know what you are thinking. “Mike, I like gin, but drinking a martini comes with all kinds of bullshit.” Trust me I understand. This isn’t helped by a drinking culture where all cocktails, no matter how divorced they are from gin and vermouth, are considered martinis. Taking a peek at the Martini Bar Chicago martini list and seeing things like the Red Bulltini (Absolut Citron, Red Bull, Lemon Twist) makes me a little nauseous.

But take another look at that third quote. There is something about an actual martini, a real one, that is distinctly non-bullshit. As my favorite older cousin once explained to me: “It’s just gin in a glass! I know you like gin!” It’s a way to stand your ground with a strong drink while fighting off the forces of precious cocktails (think chocolate-flavored vodka) and better-than-you conspicuously-consumed imported beer and single-malted scotch.

It is the Gin drink, and saving it from the forces of vodka in a culture gone mad is a noble task. Or as that cousin said later: “Never let me hear of you making a martini with vodka. Or anything other than vermouth. Ever.”

(save your lame argument about James Bond having a half gin/half vodka martini. First I think Bond is overrated, even lame most of the time, and second I think Ian Fleming wrote him mixing his drink with the Soviet drink of choice as literary device to question whether or not he was a double agent. So there.)

Indeed, making a martini should be an exercise in the art of perfecting a simple task. As a public service announcement, I’ll present The Only Two Martini Recipes You Need To Know About, as told by Great Men. Personal thoughts are included afterwards:

The Dirty Martini – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When President Roosevelt signed the 21st Amendment in 1933, which repealed Prohibition, he went into the oval office with a bottle of gin, vermouth, and olive juice. He then proceeded to make and drink the first legal martini. He made it very dirty.

Dirty of course, means containing olive juice. Since this is the 30s, his martini isn’t very dry; it contains a fair amount of vermouth. There is a large decline between the 30s and the 60s (and carried into the present) as to what part vermouth should be included in the martini. Perhaps the threat of a Nuclear End to Life made the thought of drinking pure gin more appealing. Or, maybe it was a deeper cultural event. As slate puts it:

I can't believe my legacy is being overturned by a born-again Methodist from Texas whose wife got him to stop drinking. Lame.

After all, the martini was the embodiment of modernism--cool, clean, pure. When Paul Desmond, the saxophonist of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, was asked how he developed the glistening, elegant sound often called '50s jazz or modern jazz, he explained, "I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini." But as modernism became purer and purer, and its buildings, art, and music all became simpler and shorn of any style, the martini had to follow suit. The dry martini had to get cooler, cleaner, starker--in short, drier. Thus began the race to the bottom, with vermouth levels falling precipitously, from a third to a fifth to a tenth to a splash of Martini & Rossi in a sea of Tanqueray.

His recipe:
 • 1 oz. Gin
 • 1/2 oz. Vermouth
 • 1 tsp. Olive Brine
This recipe may seem like a bit of an anachronism. These days you’ll have to beg, scream and shout to get a 1/3rd Vermouth martini, and it wouldn’t taste like anything you’d recognize. Most martinis are 1/8th vermouth, and if you ask for a Dry Martini it is code for “no vermouth at all.” If you go down this path, keep the 1/8part vermouth martini in mind. If Social Security can get reformed, FDR’s drinking habits can get reformed too.

Extra Dry Martini – Spanish Surrealist Filmmaker Luis Buñuel

This excellent filmmaker, most known* for his Spanish movies from the 1930s and his French movies from the 1970s, is a must see director. I’ll sing his cinematic praises another day since we are here to discuss gin. Luckily, so is he. From his autobiography, written when he was 83 years old (excellent martini advice):

"To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of a martini. To be frank, given the primordial role played in my life by the dry martini, I really think I ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative powers of the Holy Ghost pierced the virgin’s hymen 'like a ray of sunlight through a window – leaving it unbroken.’”

"Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won’t melt, since nothing’s worse than a watery martini. For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients – glasses, gin, and shaker – in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, leaving only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve.

"(During the 1940s, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York taught me a curious variation. Instead of Angostura, he used a dash of Pernod. Frankly, it seemed heretical to me, but apparently it was only a fad.)"

 • 1 part Gin
 • remains of few drops poured out Vermouth
 • remains of half of demitasse spoon of poured out Angostura bitters.

This is about as close as drinking pure Gin as you can get. In your shaker, pour a very small amount of Vermouth and Angostura bitters over the ice, shake, and then pour out the liquid. Then pour in however much Gin you will be drinking. Essentially here you are pouring gin over vermouth flavored ice, and then pouring the gin into a glass a few minutes later.

* cinema geek aside: I like his Mexican movies from the 50s the best, above all Los Olvidados and El Ángel Exterminador. There's a real sense of angry humor to go along with a man in exile, pissed. with nothing to lose. I think it's a real shame that they aren't better known, and I secretly believe it's because his latter movies are in French instead of Spanish that they are considered "better" and "more artistic", but that's a whole other story. I was in a used dvd store in LA that had a "special directors" section, which had a Bunuel's section with all of his french movies, and sitting in the ghettoized Spanish/Mexican section was a copy of El Bruto. I was upset about it the same way better adjusted people get upset about world hunger and injustice and things like that.

And there you have it – these are the only two martinis you need to choose from in your day to day drinking. I personally combine them and drink an extra-dry dirty martini, which is also allowed under the house rules. Here are some extra pointers:

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to drink very, very cheap gin straight, you have missed out on a very important lesson – keep it cold. Horrible, warm gin in ice becomes passable gin when frozen. And good gin served a little cold becomes excellent gin served very cold.

If you are home drinker (you know who you are) throw in the few bucks and get a decent shaker. Steel, not plastic – it's much better at getting the drinks cold. Keep a bag of ice in the freezer. The general rule is that you shake until the steel is too cold to hold with your bare hands; only then is the drink cold enough.

Violently shaking the shaker vertically can cause little ice crystals to form – some people find this novel, but I personally just think it waters down the drink.

Don’t be that guy who orders martinis at the bar where everyone is drinking beer. Besides being bad form, besides making you look like that guy (ie - an asshole), you will get a hurried drink that probably isn’t very good. More of an issue is getting a dirty martini in such a situation – polling the chaired members of Ginandtacos.com’s Counsel of Advisory Bartenders, we find that if a bar is not the type of bar that serves martinis regularly, chances are the olive brine has been sitting there for several months. Gross.

The Counsel also advises that the olive brine goes into the shaker with the gin. Also to swish the vermouth around by itself. Couldn’t agree more.

Enjoy.

Posted by Mike at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Cinco de Mayo: Can we get drunk and eat tacos with a clear conscience?

You might have noticed last week that all the shadiest of bars had strange vinyl signs advertising Corona with iconography reminiscent of a deserted Caribbean island. Then you look a bit further and notice that the cheap eyesore of a banner is actually advertising some kind of Cinco de Mayo celebration- or more appropriately advertising what Corona hopes to become the Mexican "Saint Patrick's Day."

Whereas St. Patrick’s Day commemorates the death of a Saint approximately 1600 years ago, one has the sneaking suspicion that Cinco de Mayo is something somewhat more modern and pressing. While the staff of ginandtacos.com is certainly not opposed to a holiday whose sole purpose is to get drunk and eat tacos, (certainly better than the corned beef and cabbage served on St. Pats Day) there is that nagging feeling that something is wrong. Although he holds the title of patron saint of Ireland, nobody really knows what Saint Patrick did. No, seriously though, the best guess is that he either raised people from the dead and/ or drove snakes from Ireland (Ireland has no native snakes). When considering this mysterious holiday named after a day of the year, but in Spanish, you get the feeling that it actually commemorates something important.

Resolving this mystery is crucial to Taco consumption in the United States. Are we to assume that we are bastardizing some sacred day by engaging in activities such as Guinness Record breaking taco consumption , or should we feel perfectly comfortable turning the fifth of may into a day of drunken taco consuming gluttony.

Some brief research seems to indicate that, for the most part, the holiday is nearly as contrived as its Irish counterpart. Prevailing opinion would have you believe that the fifth of May is Mexican Independence day. Perhaps due to the similar ring to fourth of July. Fortunately for our taco consumption, Cinco de Mayo has absolutely nothing to do with Mexican independence, which is celebrated the 16th of September.

The fifth of May indicates a far less monumental part of history. While the Spanish and British seemed to show no interest in Mexico in the 19th century, the French thought to themselves: “gee, that seems like a good idea.” Their response was to send a meager army to take over Mexico City- presumably because those swarthy Spaniards would not tell them the secret to making a good taco. The French forces numbered somewhere between six and seven thousand depending on your source. On May 5th, 1862 the French army had marched a long distance to the hills around the Mexican city of Peubla. It was here that the Mexican army defended two fortified positions and repelled the French forces.

Yeah, that’s about the gist of it.

Fast forward two years later the French had taken over the country, installed an emperor, freed the native slaves and developed Mexico’s natural resources.

French appointed emperor of Mexico Maximilian of Habsburg

Fast-forward three more years and the Mexicans (with some help from sympathizers in the United States) over throw the emperor and execute him.

Fast-forward another 75 years or so. The United States is host an every increasing number of Mexican immigrants. While the 16th of September is held for celebration of independence, the 5th of May was used as a time to celebrate Mexican culture. Quickly, cigarette and alcohol manufacturers caught on and began marketing the day as a huge party.

So, the question remains, can we get drunk and eat tacos on the fifth of May with a clear conscience? In a word, yes. Although the day actually means a little more than tacos and beer, the truth is that no one in Mexico really makes a big deal of it. More specifically, the day was co-oped by Mexican-Americans as a celebration of taco and beer consumption.

From Hispania News

How To Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

Ways you can share in the pride and heritage of being Mexican and/or embrace an appreciation for Mexican culture.

• Serve up a platter with Mexican appetizers such as quesadillas, chimichangas and queso fundido (a melted Mexican cheese fondue); all considered authentic alternatives to chips and salsa.
• Add to the main course of tacos and enchiladas by serving grilled carne asada.
• Indulge guests with sopes; a thick tortilla-like sandwich prepared with guacamole, lettuce, tomato, onions and chicken or steak.
• Last but not least, add a festive piñata and mariachi music for non-stop singing and dancing all night long!
  

To distill….eat Mexican food and have a party.

The Ginaissance presents: spice-flavored medicinal spirits, or: Gin, The Drink of Science.

"The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the empire."

Winston Churchill

The above statement is completely true. I already know what you are thinking: “C’mon guys. How has gin have saved more people’s lives than doctors? Do you know how hard doctors study? What their GPA looked like? (they certainly didn’t waste their time on webpages) Doctors represent science, which you can’t compare gin to in terms of benefiting humanity.”

Oh your weak, fragile little minds. You are trying to force a conflict here, between science on one hand, and gin on the other – but what you are missing is they are in fact the same thing. One can’t force the search for empirically verifiable theories from the search to find a better way to get fucked up for less than $5 per 750ml.

Or to put it a better way, the people responsible for your juniper-flavored hangovers are the same people extracting chemicals from plants and disproving the medieval superstitions about the body. Need examples? Well, you asked for it….

OF COURSE IT WAS DISCOVERED IN A UNIVERSITY LAB SETTING

Like most of science, we start off in the early 17th century. Specifically with a great man named Dr. Franciscus Sylvius. He was a Dutchman, whose actual name was Franz de le Boë before it was Latinized, who taught at Leyden University in the Netherlands. Like many a professor he held a vague grudge against something – the something in this case being the humoral theory, or the medieval school of thought that the body’s health is based on the balance of four elements - blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy. This theory of sickness relied heavily on interpretation and speculation, and very little on what we would consider independently verifiable science.

Dr. Sylvius would have none of it. He is considered the founder of the Iatrochemical School of Medicine, which held that disorders in the body were caused by empirically verifiable chemical reactions. This blew a whole right threw the humoral theory, as it was easier to incorporate newly discovered concepts like “circulation” and “acidity/alkalies.” He helped to discover that blood circulates independently throughout the body. He discovered a fissure in the brain that to this day is still known as the “Fissure of Sylvius.” He also took it to the streets, creating the modern clinical. In 1664 he writes:

"I have led my pupils by the hand to medical practice, using a method unknown at Leyden, or perhaps elsewhere, i.e., taking them daily to visit the sick at the public hospital. There I have put the symptoms of disease before their eyes; have let them hear the complaints of the patients, and have asked them their opinions as to the causes and rational treatment of each case, and the reasons for those opinions. Then I have given my own judgment on every point. Together with me they have seen the happy results of treatment when God has granted to our cares a restoration of health; or they have assisted in examining the body when the patient has paid the inevitable tribute to death."

He also created the first chemistry laboratory (all you kids horribly burnt in a high school chem lab accident can blame him). He did many experiments in his Leyden lab – one of them involved diuretics. He once said : “One-third of all diseases can be cured by sweating.” Lord knows what he thought about the other way to remove liquids, but we do know he spent quite a lot of time trying to find the perfect diuretic. Not just any diuretic though; he needed one cheap, so it was affordable to the masses of people suffering from kidney disorders and stomach problems. He found his solution in 1650.

Enter gin. This begins the long history of associating gin with the cheapest possible solution to a problem (not to mention having to use the bathroom an excessive amount). Fruit derived alcohol was very expensive back in those days - and nothing was cheaper than grain alcohol. Dr. Sylvius took the grain alcohol, and started searching for something else that was disturbingly cheap and also a heavy diuretic; he found the perfect match of both in “juniper-berry oil.”

The Dutch called it jenever (juniper), the French called it genievre - the later being the name Dr. Sylvius gave to his new concoction. You and I know it simply, as gin.

ALKALOIDS, COLONIALISM

Let’s fast forward. Due to a series of events, including a bloodless revolution, yields of low-quality grain not suitable for market, and the Gin Riot’s ability to overturn Gin-related legislation (stay tuned for more details later in the week!) Gin became the drink of choice for the British people as they began to build their giant empire.

The empire did come across one major stumbling block: malaria. The disease was a major problem in their colony in India. Malaria has been of the major killers throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, with no known cure in Europe. In the early 17th century, an Augustinian monk named Antonio de Calancha found a tree “whose bark, of the color of cinnamon, made into powder amounting to the weight of two small silver coins and given as a beverage, cures the fevers and tertiana [of malaria].” The name of the bark was Cinchona.

It took quite some time for cinchona bark to catch on as a malaria cure, as it was closely associated with Catholicism in an increasingly Protestant world. Also the idea of drinking an awful tasting hot liquid was a world apart from the normal medicine of the time period – where was the bleeding? What humors were involved? Eventually though, Cinchona was accepted as the standard cure.

Starting in 1817 the French chemists Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou began a series of groundbreaking experiments using mild solvents to isolate out active plant elements, acts which created the idea of chemistry surrounded around alkaloids. This would allow chemists to start playing around with plants using specific chemical elements that the plants contained, rather than having to makeshift units of plant extracts and bark mixtures. Within the first year they isolated the green pigment from plant, which they named Chlorophyll. In 1820 they isolated the active malaria fighting element in Cinchona – and named it quinine.

Hop over a continent to the British imperial presence in India circa 1870. Malaria is a massive problem for the people of India. As it us spread by mosquitoes, it was very difficult to isolate to one caste of people, and as such hit the British soldiers stationed there. Quinine extract is the obvious medicine, however in its pure form its effectiveness is matched only by its repulsiveness. Dissolved in water, it made a beverage called “Indian Tonic Water.” Tonic Water available in stores these days is sweetened and contains a fraction of the quinine from those days. So picture less sweet, and significantly more bitter, Tonic Water. Awful, right? Worse, according to Merck Index it takes 2L of water to dissolve 1 gram of quinine. You’d have to drink gallons of it!

Enter gin. The British, being the righteous bastards that they are, learned quickly that gin would take care of this dissolving issue. A gram of quinine dissolves in 0.8ml, or about 2,500x less liquid than water. Add a twist of lime, and you now have the Gin and Tonic - the perfect way to get buzzed, force indigenous people into the salt mines, and keep healthy by fighting malaria. Hence the quote from Mr. Churchill here that opened this article – the Gin and Tonic saved the British Army from malaria. Let’s see your chocolate vodka martini nonsense do that!

So there you have it. Next time you are kicking back, enjoying a fine martini, tom collins, gin and tonic, or just plain old gin by itself, take comfort in knowing that what you drink stands for the virtues of empiricism, disinterested inquiry, theories based on observation and not on faith, weights and measures, and Science.

BACK TO THE BASICS: GINANDTACOS.COM PRESENTS ITS RECIPIES

How derelict is it to maintain a website about gin and tacos without making sure that the public is properly informed about how best to enjoy these foods? Very derelict.

Come, take my hand. I am going to review the absolute basics for proper gin and taco enjoyment. You will be a better person by the end of this piece. We will focus on gin first.

I. The Tom Collins
There are countless mixed drinks that feature gin. The most common, the martini and the gin & tonic, are not worthy of our focus. Martinis have a folklore built up around them, as purists try in vain to distill the "perfect" one. I leave it to such people to debate the merits and techniques of this drink. Gin & tonic is far too simplistic to warrant our attention. Pouring two ingredients over ice requires no guide.

The perfect Collins, courtesy Joe @ The Underground Lounge

Instead we focus on the Tom Collins. Legend has it named after the Head Waiter at a particular London hotel in the late 19th Century. The Museum of the American Cocktail exhibit in New Orleans also suspected that its name derives from the use of a sweetened form of gin known as "Old Tom." Since we do not have access to archaic Victorian liquors, here are the basic ingredients of a modern Collins:

dry gin (Hendricks is superior for this purpose)

club soda (not tonic water, as some recipies erroneously claim)

pre-made Tom Collins mix (for efficiency) or lemon juice sweetened with extra-fine granulated sugar at a 1 oz to 1 tsp ratio (for authenticity).

Extensive field testing (and I do mean extensive) has proven the superior ratio of these three ingredients to be 1:1:1. It seems overly simplistic, but it is accurate. Produce the cocktail by filling a shaker with ice cubes and 1/3 cup (liquid measure, of course) of gin. Shot glasses are poor measuring devices. Use measuring cups to get this perfect, otherwise the ratios will be off and the flavors imbalanced. Pour in your gin, and let it rest for a moment. The alcohol will melt the ice and add just a bit of water to the mix. Then measure off 1/3 cup of the remaining two ingredients. Shake vigorously. Your intent is to get the sugary syrup in the lemon juice (or pre-made mix) to become aerated and frothy. This is the key to getting a light, sweet drink rather than one with a thick sugary residue. Pour into glasses filled with additional ice. The proper garnish is a cherry with either a lemon or orange wedge according to your preference. Limes are flat-out wrong.

II. Sizzurp
Three 6 Mafia said it best when they alerted a generation of Americans to the prevalence of recreational cough syrup usage: "Take that monkey shit off, you embarrassing us. I got the wet promenthazine, the orange and yellow Tuss."

This song incited a mad quest to uncover the true, authentic recipie for sippin' sizzurp. Variations abound on the internet. However, careful analysis of the group's oeuvre reveals the proper contents to be:

Robo-X (aka Tuss Ten, aka Sizzurp, aka Robitussin X with Coediene)

1 Jolly Rancher hard candy (or flavored cough drop, preferably not menthol)

1 Large Sprite from Sonic Drive-Thru (hey, you want it authentic right?) with half of the soda either consumed or discarded

Seagram's Gin

Not being men of weights and measures, the exact ratio of these ingredients cannot be deduced from Three 6 Mafia lyrics. However, an approximation would be to discard half of the liquid from the Large Sprite as noted above. Pour one (standard 4 ounce pharmacy size) bottle of Robo-X and an ample but not overpowering quantity of gin into the cup. Shake well. The presence of ice is controversial. At this point it may be best to empty the mixture, sans ice, into a large glass or other appropriate receptacle for consumption. Don't forget to garnish with the Jolly Rancher or cough drop.

And there you have it. I will consider this sizzurp recipie to be authoritative until proven otherwise.

Posted by Ed at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The Ginaissance Presents: Sir Robert Burnett, Fact or Fiction?

On October 9th, 1999 the founding members of the Ginandtacos Corporation convened in Champaign, Illinois with the goal of getting drunk and eating tacos. Confounded by rising gin prices and pretentious college students attempting to tell us that Bombay Sapphire was “good gin” we set out to locate a cheaper gin. Having been previously offended by your mainstream cheap gin manufacturers (McCormick, Aristocrat, and Gordon’s come to mind) we decided to find a cheaper gin. Ed Burmila told a story of a cheap gin named “Crystal Palace” that sold for around $4.50 a bottle with a 1 dollar rebate coupon. Unfortunately, we were informed by local liquor stores that such shit was only sold “up north.”

This did not bother us. We knew that a cheaper gin could be found. After many long hours searching all the liquor stores we finally decided on a regal looking green bottle. This gin was none other than Sir Robert Burnett’s White Satin. When we purchased this bottle we had no idea the legacy that we were starting.

As chronicled on my now defunct university website this is what could have been heard from us that evening:

• "Officer, there is a toy gun in my shirt"

• "that pizza guy drank a lot of gin and got in his car to deliver more
  pizza"
  -will he ever know the impact he had on our lives?

• "why are those people waiting in line for Joes....and there are a lot
  of them"

• "what gin could possibly be cheaper than Gordon's
  London Dry......"

• ".....He is a knight, he can't possibly make bad gin"

• "He is only kind of my boyfriend."
  

And so it began. That Christmas, Mike and I purchased for Ed a case (12 bottles) or Sir Robert’s finest, thus utilizing bulk discounts to make it the single cheapest per bottle price on gin any of us have ever paid.

Over the years many things changed, but Sir Robert Burnett remained cheap. The simultaneous dirt-cheap price and fine flavor encouraged the ginandtacos.com staff to probe deeper into the mythology of this fine brand. Since 1990 the American version of this gin has been produced by Heaven Hill’s distilleries in Bardstown, Kentucky. (Known for manufacturing, distributing and marketing a fucking ton of shitty spirits) In 2002 Heaven Hill purchased the rights to distribute the gin worldwide (excepting Japan for some reason). Kentucky then became a premium source for London Dry Gin - and unfortunately leaving us with an inadequate “Heaven Hill” website to find out the history of this product.

The website seems to agree that the gin was first produced in 1770. However, the two websites seem confused as to whether a man named “Thomas Burnett” or “Robert Burnett” was the man that first developed this elixir of the gods. Our original thought was that possibly Thomas was Robert’s father, however that quickly faded into fear that Robert Burnett was actually a mythical figure and we had simply been fed lies from the Kentucky gin producers- not an altogether unlikely conclusion.

The first bit of evidence was the fact that Heaven Hill claimed that Robert Burnett perfected his recipe in 1770 when he was Lord Mayor of London. This would have been a great story- if it were true. A quick search reveals no one with the last name of Burnett to have been Lord Mayor until the 1900’s and a list for 20 years around 1770 reveals no Robert or Thomas Burnett.

Lord Mayors of London
1759 Sir Thomas CHITTY
1760 Sir Mathew BLAKISTON
1761 Sir Samuel FLUDYER
1762 William BECKFORD
1763 William BRIDGEN
1764 Sir William STEPHENSON
1765 George NELSON
1766 Sir Robert KITE
1767 Thomas HARLEY
1768 Samuel TUMER
1769 William BECKFORD second term
1770 Barlow TRECOTHICK
1770 Brass CROSBY
1771 William NASH
1772 James TOWNSEND
1773 Frederick BULL
1774 John WILKES
1775 John SAWBRIDGE
1776 Sir Thomas HALLIFAX
1777 Sir James ESDAILE
1778 Samuel PLUMBE
1779 Brackley KENNETT
1780 Sir Watkin LEWES

Obviously this information was quite disheartening. How is it that the manufacturer of such a fine product could have lied to us in such a flagrant way? Did they not realize that a simple search of the internet would reveal their horrible falsehoods? The only logical conclusion was that they were misled by the British, no doubt in an attempt to make the Robert Burnett corporation seem more regal.

Although feeling somewhat betrayed, I was not willing to give up. I needed to find out if Sir Robert Burnett actually existed. So I did what anyone in my position would have done. I signed up for a shady, temporary account at Ancestry.com.

Here is what my search revealed.

(All citations from the Times of London)
On June 2nd 1790. Robert Burnett Esq served as a steward at something called the “Constitutional Society.” This society was celebrating “His Majesty’s birthday.” Tickets for this event were 5 “s”. I have no idea what denomination of money “s” is (shilling, sterling?) nor do I have any frame of reference to indicate whether 5 of them is dirt-cheap. What we do know is that the announcement makes reference to wine being included in the price- presumably gin was an extra cost.

In October of 1795 Sir Robert Burnett is given some kind of congratulation from the mayor of London for being the Sheriff of Middlefex…and treating his prisoners well. Although I was quite disappointed to find out that Robert Burnett was not the mayor himself, a sheriff is more or less as amusing.

Do you remember Robert Burnett Esq? Well, we find out that he is the oldest son of Sir Robert Burnett, and in joyous occasion for the Burnett family is married in 1795.

I have absolutely no idea what this means. It seems to indicate that Robert Burnett the junior has been given some kind of Lord status over a county of some sort. Although I am happy to see that the Burnett family is doing so well, I am disappointed that so far the only reference to spirituous beverages has been wine served at a constitutional society dinner.

In the late 1790’s England was attempting to militarize in preparation to fend off that little bastard Napoleon. It would seem that Sir Robert Burnett the senior and Robert Burnett Esq played a substantial role in recruitment into the armed forces. Here is a printed speech Sir Robert Burnett gave congratulating his wife and several other women for their recruitment efforts.

Here is the one we have all been waiting for. Some rough son of a bitch named Stack is apparently accused of forging a will of some fellow from the East India Company. Stack claims he is innocent, and that the other accused, a shady individual named Blakely (who had several aliases) forged the will in an attempt to pay of a debt to Stack. It is unclear what actually happened but it seems that a bar tab might have been involved.

Regardless, Robert Burnett comes to testify on the behalf of Stack, who apparently owned (owns?) a bar. And guess who one of his liquor distributors was? None other than Robert Burnett. We now know that Robert Burnett not only existed, but primary sources put him as a distributor of liquors. I am fairly certain that, in the 18th century, when you were selling liquor to “public houses” you were not simply a middleman, you were producing the stuff. Now we are talking.

Although the Burnett family pops up several more times, this is the final entry I am going to give you. In 1819 Sir Robert Burnett has passed away and his estate is being leased. This is the advertisement. As least it can be said that while he lived, he lived well.

To summarize, we now know that

• Robert Burnett Jr. and Sir Robert Burnett were active in politics, however neither were mayor of London.
  
• The Burnett family was very active in military recruitment
  
• Most importantly, that the Burnett family dealt in liquors.
  
• Finally, Sir Robert Burnett had a pretty damn nice estate.

Unfortunately, none of my research resulted in specific reference to gin. This is primarily due to the fact that the only available source to me was the Times of London, although there might have been advertisements for Burnett’s Gin in the Times, they did not come through on the search. Someone with more experience in alcohol oriented history could possibly do better.

When contacted, Heaven Hill Distilleries did not respond to allegations that their history of Robert Burnett was inaccurate.

As a final note, when calling Ancestry.com to cancel my trial membership I was asked why I no longer wanted the service. Not wanting to say: "because it costs 100 dollars," I simply informed the fellow that it didn't suit my needs. When asked what those needs were, I politely informed him that I was doing research on important historical figures as they relate to my company- Ginandtacos.com.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN GIN HISTORY

(Editor's note: this represents the first part of the Ginaissance series, ably described in Erik's May 6 entry)

We are all well-acquainted with the powers and benefits of gin; to recount them here, even during The Ginaissance, would be superfluous. Instead we cordially invite you to take a walk down memory lane with us as we look at some of the highlights in the history of gin and its soulmate the taco.

Did you know that gin was responsible for Richard Nixon's Presidency? I bet you didn't. But it was.

The hotly-contested 1968 Democratic primaries culminated in a showdown in California between the brother of recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy and peace candidate Eugene McCarthy. Due to the growing unpopularity of the Vietnam War, the incumbent Lyndon Johnson (possibly the biggest prick in the history of politics, but that's another issue) declined to seek another term.

As the McGovern-Fraser reforms had not yet been instituted, primaries were still irrelevant to the nominating process. That is, the primaries were popularity contests and nothing more. No actual delegates were assigned based on primary results. So the Democratic front-runner, Robert F. Kennedy, didn't simply have to fend off the challenge of McCarthy and his army of "Clean for Gene" college volunteers - he also had to win the primaries convincingly enough to impress the delegates to the Democratic Convention, the majority of whom were predisposed to support incumbent VP Hubert Humphrey.

Winning California would do just that. In one of the first primary elections that became a full-scale political war, Kennedy edged McCarthy by just a few percent when all the ballots were counted. Clean Gene and his army (think Howard Dean before Howard Dean) were resigned to defeat and comfortable with the fact that, if not McCarthy, at least it wouldn't be Humphrey. And it sure as hell wouldn't be Nixon.

Enter gin.

Sirhan Sirhan, after shooting RFK. Not pictured: Tom Collins

A slightly fanatical Palestinian immigrant to the U.S. named Sirhan Sirhan had his heart set on killing Robert Kennedy because of his pro-Israel policies. The Sirhan family had fled their home in Israel after the Balfour agreement carved out the Jewish state after World War II. So Sirhan had a bit of a grudge. The problem is, he was also a brooding coward. He tried to kill Kennedy on several occasions but lost his nerve. He planned once again to commit the crime on the night of the California primary. He arrived at the Ambassador Hotel to take RFK out before the election results were in, but he once again chickened out.

Instead of abandoning his plan, he retreated to the hotel bar and, in an act that changed history, downed four Tom Collins in an hour. Now, as men who have frequently downed four Tom Collins in an hour, ginandtacos.com can assure its readers that this is a sufficient amount of gin to prompt an assassination. And it did just that. Sirhan's liquid courage, combined with the Kennedy team's use of celebrity bodyguards that evening (I wish I was making that up), sealed Kennedy's fate. Sirhan emptied a pistol into him, scoring one shot to the head, and he died early the next morning.

The rest is history. The Democratic party tore itself apart at the Chicago convention, with a sizeable assist from Richie Daley, and nominated the virtually unelectable Hubert Horatio Humphrey. The ironic thing is that the nation was so virulently Democratic at the time that Triple-H almost beat Nixon anyhow. But he didn't, and the nation got Nixon, wage/price controls, 8 more years of Vietnam, and Watergate.

Without those four Tom Collins, Sirhan probably would have went home, struck a bunch of tough-guy poses in the mirror, and cried himself to sleep. The nation would have had eight years of RFK and potentially different outcomes in Vietnam. But hey, that's all hypothetical. Good job, gin!

Postscript: Sirhan Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death, a sentence that was commuted in 1972 when California abolished the death penalty. He still resides in California State Prison at Corcoran, and as of 2004 he has been denied parole 13 consecutive times.

Ginandtacos.com: Heading face first into the Ginaissance.

When I was 16 I got my first proper job. I got the job in the winter at a shop that sold Outdoor clothing and ski equipment, which, as summer rolled around quickly became an outlet for patio furniture and home gyms. It was at this job that I first became fully acquainted with the concept of the "lunch break." Back in Des Moines, Iowa, we had a chain of fast food taco establishments known as Taco John's. One of these purveyors of fine Mexican food at a fair price happened to be a block away from where I worked. This, of course, resulted in many a taco consumed on breaks. My life, unbeknownst to me, was about to change- a friend of mine found employment at a Taco John's across town. The first day our work hours overlapped, I decided to drive to his Taco John's instead of the one nearby. I returned to work nearly an hour later with a huge bag full of overflowing "custom" fast food tacos at a heavily discounted price. When my boss began yelling at me for taking such a massive quantity of time for lunch, I calmly explained to him that my friend worked at the Taco John's across town and gave me a large discount...and would he like a Taco? He proceeded to eat the taco and never question my lunchtime outings again.

Brian Hannan eventually quit that job (as a result of an increasing quantity of nausea in him and his friends from the constant taco smell on his person) but the memories of discounted tacos live on...that’s right Brian, if you actually read this, I am talking about you.

Fast forward to the Christmas season of 1999. I was drunk at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party in Tucson, Arizona. (For all of you who know the story, yes it was the one where I tried to urinate out the patio door in my parents’ room in the condo where we were staying and needed to be led to the toilet by my mother) I was approached by two other college students who spent far too much time working on their websites and far too little time working on their schoolwork. The concept was that we could increase our procrastination threshold, and celebrate "Gin and Tacos"- two things that the three of us held dear in our hearts. Thus, Ginandtacos.com was born.

Five and a half years later, we at the Ginandtacos.com Corporation have noticed that our attention to Gin and Taco related content has begun to wane. Aside from the ever popular Gin Reviews and the always insightful Taco Doctor there seems as though we have been lax in our duty to provide the viewing public with all their gin and tacos oriented needs.

We at Ginandtacos.com believe that the time has come, and hence we bring you.....

THE GINAISSANCE!

That’s right, starting on Monday the 9th of May Ginandtacos.com will post a weeks work of daily Gin and Taco oriented content. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do.

In the meantime, I encourage all of you to share your favorite gin and or taco oriented memory.

"CHA!" SAID THE POWER FORWARD

For the past year, there's been an amusing real-time experiment in "god bless the internet" taking place at the hands of a bench-warming NBA player named Paul Shirley. A former Bulls backup, he now plays for the league's best team, the Phoenix Suns.

Shirley is basically that guy who flunked out of college his freshman year because he played too much Goldeneye except that he happens to be 6'11". Like all good nerds, he decided to start a blog. Except unlike every other blog on Earth ("God, my mom is such a bitch", "No one likes me", "I hate Bush") his blog is about...well, all those things that don't make it into NBA promo commercials.

The crux of it (and the league has repeatedly tried to censor him) is that he would write long entries about how half the players in the league play stoned on any given night and how an alarming number of Your Favorite Stars can't string three words together without getting another stripper pregnant. Sample: "I am not going to suggest that the Miami Heat just went to some local titty bar and hired the whole roster as their dance team. Instead, I will simply say that I was impressed with their dancing abilities." It was good, good stuff.

Anyway, this phenomenon went to a new level for me in his April 24 entry when he talks about going to a Local H concert. Mind you, his team is in the thick of the playoffs. The life of an NBA player is presented as either A) playing basketball or B) attending high-priced NY/Miami/LA nightclub events with one's entourage in an appropriately ostentatious Hummer. Not Paul Shirley.

Kobe Bryant: "I'm attending Beyonce's private birthday party at '21' in Manhattan."
Shaq: "I'm spending extra hours in the film room preparing for the next playoff series."
Paul Shirley: "I hope they play 'Son of Cha' tonight."

Ginandtacos.com salutes you, Paul. You are officially our favorite undeserving millionaire.

We should all get to be this cool.

Monday May 16th, Thomas Frank will be in town to support the paperback edition of his excellent "What's the Matter with Kansas?", a book I could (and will) go on at length about if asked. Here's his schedule:

Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 5:30 - 7:30, featurinng a "Lecture, discussion, and book signing."

Hideout, (a local dive bar/small indie-venue for you not in Chicago), 9pm.

Yes that's right. I'd like to think that this is a particularly Chicago (where he lived for quite some time) kind of cool - "First I'm going to address the Council on Foreign Relations, then I'm heading off to the Hideout." Could you imagine the afterhours that are normally planned for speakers?

Let's pretend that I've suddenly become a giant author whose punditry and thoughts were high in demand on the national level. If I were to address a prestigious gathering, I'd like to think that I would then avoid having the big money afterhours downtown and instead tell everyone gathered to head to Delilah's or Ola's Liquors, but I can't be sure one way or the other. But I now know that Thomas Frank would, and that makes me very happy.