Monday, May 12, 2014

Johnny Ringo Cocktails & Southern Fried Flicks

May 12, 2014
   Had a fun weekend treating Kathy to a Mother's Day Weekend Celebration. On Friday I treated her to dinner at Cartwright's, then on Saturday we went into Scottsdale and saw the new road picture "Locke" at Camelview 5, which we both really liked (85 minutes in a car, one actor, Tom Hardy, amazing). Afterwards we went to Virtu, a hipster restaurant next to Guidon Books which John Langellier turned me on to on Friday. This time I had the Johnny Ringo Epitaph cocktail mixed up by this guy:

 
Bobby The Virtu Mixologist Mixing the Ringold Up Good

   Speaking of John Langellier and the Tempe branch of the Arizona Historical Society, they have a very large mural painted by one of my heroes:

 
A Detail from a Maynard Dixon mural at the Arizona Historical Society

   It allegedly was created to hang at the Arizona State Fair Grounds. Really a stunning piece. This is just a snippet of the left-hand corner. On Saturday morning I dropped in to Fry's on Carefree Highway to get a Mother's Day card and when I turned around I saw this:

 
True West magazine (Custer Captured, June issue), front and center IN TWO POSITIONS!

   Someone had evidently grabbed a copy of True West magazine in the upper rack and replaced it in the front rack. Behind the True West issue in the front position were 9 Cowboys & Indians. I felt bad about this, so I removed the C&Is and put them in the upper position and placed the 9 True West magazines in the front position. It was the least I could do.

   I also rented "The Baytown Outlaws" another road picture, this one a "Southern-fried" flick about some redneck siblings going up against biker mama's and a bad-ass drug dealer played by Billy Bob Thornton. It was spotty, but funny in parts, especially when the brothers go up against a Death Truck, complete with a Crow's Nest, oh, and the truck is full of black dudes with automatic weapons and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" plays on the soundtrack during the entire attack. I think you get the picture.

"We like in our writers the qualities we don't especially want in our friends—keen antennae for hypocrisy, a long memory for mistakes, a touch of cruelty."
—Sam Sacks