Why Don't You...

...take a moment on this day that is devoted to all things foolish, and join me for a little while?

Truth. That's Her Nature.

Heroes come in unlikely packages.

Birthday Country: Doesn't Look a Day Over 236

Franklin has always been one of my favorite Founding Fathers, not least because I have a feeling that on a hot July day in Philadelphia, he'd be up for something a tad more bracing than Kool Aid...

Weekend at the Waldorf

Well, perhaps not exactly the Waldorf, but certainly a place of comparable luxe and comfort.  For various reasons, some of which may in due time be disclosed, Mr. Muscato and I have hied ourselves up the road to Dubai for a silly minibreak (a term I first encountered in the diaries of Miss Bridget Jones and have always liked).

Having arrived mid-afternoon (following a dramatic escape from the confines of the office), we have already steamed away our troubles and are now, as the snap attests, doing our best to distance ourselves from the cares of the world in our nearly favorite kind of place, a good hotel's club lounge. If things are quiet around here for a bit, blame the excellent and caring staff of Mr. Hyatt's little hostelry...

Escape from Bitch Mountain

Hell of a week, kids, and no mistake.  This is the season when The Home Office comes out to the Sandlands and wants to be entertained, meaning that this week I have had to throw two vast parties, one of which had what was absolutely without exception the worst background-music band that ever tried to carry off a cover of "Sweet Child of Mine" (which would have been horrific enough, but was all the more so because I had very carefully gone over a sample setlist of things like Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin).  The only saving grace was that (a) the Home Office execs were by that point more or less blotto and (b) the lead singer had what the immortal script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail described as Vast Tracts of Land, which very much had our lead VIP visitor in their thrall.

So, to turn to brighter thoughts, Mr. Muscato and I (that's his elbow)  are running away for the weekend to see the Bahrain Boys, and I write this from the cosy confines of that most civilized of modern creations, the Airport Premium Lounge.  As you can see, we're already feeling much better.

Yes, it's a Good Day...

...or at least it was 79 years ago today, when the good people of Utah (of all places!) cast the deciding vote that ratified the 21st amendment to the U.S. constitution (Ohio and Pennsylvania chimed in the same day, just for good measure).  The 21st repealed the 18th, and our long national nightmare - 13 years without a (legal) drink! - and the foolish experiment that was Prohibition was over.

Naturally, I've had a little anniversary celebration.

I'll never forget how shocked I was as a child, riding in the back seat of my Aunt Edna's massive sedan in some unfamiliar part of town (the East Side was a mystery in our hometown, mostly), when she and my grandmother Muscato looked amused as we passed a faded storefront.  "You wouldn't believe it now, but once upon a time that was the most popular place in town."

"Why?" asked I, looking at the weathered facade and unpromising shop windows.

"In the back," replied Aunt Edna, blithely piloting her royal blue Pontiac Bonneville at her habitual 15 miles per hour, "was the speakeasy!"

"Oh, my," exclaimed Grandmother, throwing her hands up as she did when especially pleased by something, "It was grand!"

And the two old ladies went on to extol the virtues of the place, its tiny tables and Italian proprietor, its potent gin ("most of it was perfectly safe") and excellent band ("Oh, how we danced!  And on Saturday nights, they had a colored singer!").  This, from a pair of respectable sisters-in-law whose idea of Wild Nights was an extra glass of Riunite Lambrusco or a second Old Fashioned.  It was the first time I had ever imagined that anyone I knew could break the law (a state of innocence dented here, but shattered permanently after Uncle Alfred had his Little Accounting Troubles in '72 - the ones that meant we didn't see him until '79).

I'm willing to bet, however, that even at their maddest moment of Roaring Twenties excess, the folks who frequented Batista's - the grandparents Muscato, Aunt Edna and Uncle Russell, and their ilk - would have frowned on orgies.  What can I say?  It was that kind of town...