Dandy Scotch Brawlers #22

What’s up with that crazy Korean TV show? Is Dandy Dan finding love on his kitchen table? Is Johnny Walker Red the best booze for your buck? Tune in and hear. With music from Gwen Stefani, Lou Reed and Mongrel.

Download the episode here or subscribe in iTunes here.

Robert B. Parker, RIP

In the past 15 years  I’ve spent a lot of time running my mind around Boston with a private investigator named Spenser and his enforcer pal Hawk. I’ve spent a few days in Paradise, Maine, too, hanging out with a failed baseball player turned alcoholic police chief named Jessie Stone. Point of fact I was in Paradise Monday morning (Jan. 18), likely around the same time as novelist Robert B. Parker sat down for his last working day.

Parker, of Cambridge, died yesterday, after 77 years of life and more than 50 novels. Parker is best known for his “Spenser for Hire” series (37 books) but he also created the worlds of Jessie Stone, private detective Sunny Randall and taciturn Old West lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Parker was found dead at his desk, probably in mid sentence.

On Monday morning I finished “Strangers in Paradise,” a Jesse Stone novel published in 2008, which I started about 10 the night before. Earlier in the month I read Parker’s Western “Appaloosa” and reread “Cold Service,” in which Hawk takes a couple of bullets and Spenser helps him recuperate and take vengeance. (I dogeared a page in that one because I wanted to show my wife a scene wherein Spenser and his love Susan were having dinner at Upstairs at the Square.) I’d have to sit down and catalog to be sure, but I believe I have nearly all of Parker’s work, save a few juvenile novels and the book he wrote with his wife Joan about her battle with cancer several years ago.

I’m a fan. My Parker collection is the only part of my personal library left unculled over the 15 years and nearly as many address changes since I graduated college. Spenser and Parker took me to  Boston’s mean streets and Henry Cimoli’s gym; I took them to Maine, New York, New Hampshire, New Orleans, Paris, El Salvador and Niger.

Dandy Scotch Brawlers #21

The gentlemen of DSB, sans one, enjoy some Tennessee whiskey and chat about blue kitties,fictional dead Nazis and cupcake schemes. Music by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler and the Zombies.

Download the episode here or subscribe in iTunes here.

Dandy Scotch Brawlers #20

After a holiday hiatus, we hit #20 with a bottle Tamdhu scotch during the years first snow storm… with sexy results.

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Dandy Scotch Brawlers #19

In this episode of DSB, we’re down a Dandy and sweetly sipping (which?) Jefferson bourbon. Eventually, it devolves into cats. Music by Langhorne Slim, Only Son, Josh Redman and Nas.

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Exploring Manchester Masonry

I was humming the song from the “Stonecutters” episode of “The Simpsons” as Dandy Rob and I ascended the marble staircase to the top floor of the Manchester Masonic Temple.

As discussed in episode #18, we were at the Masonic Temple ostensibly to attend a micro-brew tasting fundraiser for a local nonprofit. And while Dandy Rob and I were certainly attracted by the beer, on this night I think we were both much more interested in the mysteries of the Masons. And as luck would have, the Masons were in a mood to share, if not their secrets, than at least their ornate Victorian-esque temple.

Serving as tour guides were these two Masons dressed up in their finest:

Dandy Scotch Brawlers #18

On a very special episode of the Dandy Scotch Brawlers, we cast aside whiskey for a bottle of Sam Adams “Utopias,” a bottle of beer that retails for $150 and is 25% ABV. Topics also include Masonry, Manchester elections and we pledge to make some bacon infused bourbon.

Download the episode here or subscribe in iTunes here.

Busty frauleins and cheese curds: Greetings from Milwaukee

While the rest of the Dandy Scotch Brawlers were busy recording episode 17 recently, I was, alas, in Milwaukee on business. But lest any listeners think I was avoiding my bi-weekly responsibility to get snockered and otherwise abuse my body, I submit the following photographic evidence documenting said abuse:

A city with German roots, Milwaukee has a number of establishments that serve beer in steins. While at the Old German Beer Hall — “Where every day is Octoberfest” — I drank this full liter (appx. 34 ounces, or slightly more than two pints) of Hofbräu Dunkel, a delicious dark Bavarian concoction served by this busty fraulein:

EXPLODO!

Watching Transformers 2. The only film where you get to hear somebody shout “Yay! Here come the Jordanians!”

Important lessons to follow

Dandy Scotch Brawlers #17

On this episode of the Dandy Scotch Brawlers, Kelly fills in for Dandy Will, while we discuss Marge Simpson’s debut in Playboy, ruminate on the eternal question of who would win in sword fight: Connor McCloud or Qui-Gon Jinn and we gloat over our new status as Google Wave testers. The drink: Auchentoshan Scotch.

Download the episode here or subscribe in iTunes here.

Yummers