Old Mr. Boston

Thursday 1/31/19

"I'm Chilly Willy the penguin/I shake until I'm blue!" Remember that dude? It's cold out. Still, if you're a penguin, I feel that you should not shake until you're blue. I think you should have kind of thing under control. Ha! Hee! Achoo! Right?

New op-ed came out today in The Wall Street Journal for Jackie Robinson's 100th birthday. I'm pleased with it. I think it's radical in its way. Everyone else did their puff pieces, but as you'll note, there is no mention of race in this piece. I am so tired of race race race. So tired, too, of watching racist misandrists build their brand on saying men are bad, racists are everywhere, when they are entirely dependent--possessing no talent--on manufacturing racism and sexism and if they were offered a world of true equality and competition and a meritocracy, they would want absolutely anything but that, for there would go their ability to drum up a meal ticket. Jackie Robinson changed how the game of baseball was played on the field. And I bet you anything Jackie Robinson would want people to understand and recognize how amazing he was at his trade. Because when you get to that level, chances are your trade means a lot to you. You're not just born a great ballplayer. That's part of it, the ability you enter this world with. But it's only one part. And I don't think people have a clue--outside of baseball history groups like baseball-fever.com--what Robinson was as a ballplayer, and how transcendent he was.

Just sent out a really strong Billie Holiday pitch. Don't want to say more--someone will try and steal it. It's so bang on. I'm watching Bill Belichick's press conference right now. He started off by talking about books he loved, one being Jim Brosnan's Pennant Race, which I wrote about last year for The Daily Beast. Belichick said he read it five times. I am not surprised. This is from Billie Holiday's last recording--an airshot from right here in Boston, at Storyville (which is now the Pizzeria Uno's in Kenmore Square), in March 1959. I know Rob Gronkowski is in trouble for his 69 joke--let's get everyone in trouble for everything, right, if it suits our agenda and feeds our sickness!--but he's not a moron. He's more articulate than Brady, whom I'm listening to now. Someone should teach Brady when to use "good" and when to use "well." Seems like if you have kids and you make a big deal about rearing them, you'd want to set that example. Then again, I am floored--actually, at this point, I'm not, as I realize baselines are virtually nonexistent in this iteration of the world--by how many people whose job it is to speak on TV and radio who do not know that "anyway" is not plural. Who speak of instincts. Which humans do not possess. And qualify the word "unique."

I encountered this ad today illustrating hockey penalties, courtesy of a distillery called Old Mr. Boston. I have a friend who drinks terrible whiskies, thinking they're classy, thus making him classy late in the late in the night as he reads my work and his family sleeps. He would totally be a guy who would drink Old Mr. Boston if it was still around. I'm assuming it's not. Who needs Lagavulin when you got Old Mr. Boston! That sounds so pervy. Mmmm...just gonna drink down some Old Mr. Boston. Num num. Got me a mouthful of Old Mr. Boston. I miss a dram of whisky in my teetotaling days. And don't you like the idea that a company that made Boston gin took it upon themselves to educate their patrons in hockey violence?

Okay, I've done some research. Old Mr. Boston was a distillery at 1010 Mass Ave. The Mr. Boston Official Bartenders' Guide was a regularly consulted volume for mixologists, intriguingly, and sufficiently admired that editions now exist in digitized form, despite Old Mr. Boston dying in 1986--maybe he couldn't handle that World Series loss--after commencing life in 1933.