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night of a dozen cocktails
Posted by squirrley on 20 Feb 2005 | Tagged as: home, play
I was out at the Frostbite afterparty (volunteers and musicians, it was fantastic!) till 5 am on monday morning, and the incident caused me some thought: it was superfun, but what has worked me up into such a frenzy headlong rush that I feel the need to stay out all night? I decided I just wasn’t getting enough of my own artistic time, or fighting for it, and that’s why I fused immediately to the musical nebula when it approached my orbit. So I’m trying to make some more space for artistry.
That said, here are some photos from my debaucherous Thursday night. Scarlett (an awesome friend to have), signed me up with her as a judge of the Rendezvous cocktail contest. Rendezvous is some sort of celebration of Yukoner spirit and the gold rush mentality (?), and features events like flour packing, chainsaw chucking, and dog sled races –I haven’t exactly figured it out yet. But one of the very first events, sponsored by Bacardi (which gave the women little tiny skimpy chest-hugging bat-devil shirts while the guys got rugby duds although I went for a rugby shirt) is a cocktail contest. Basically, it involved dressing up in full Klondike era regalia, and then parading from bar to bar around town, consuming free drinks, food, and occasionally bribes. Some of the bars really went all out –party games, inflatable air guitars (worthy of the inflatable museum), in some cases setting the hot drinks on fire. A few highlights:
Our first stop at the Westmark. Note the presentation: tropical drink hewn straight into a coconut! (also, this photo is for V&V and the wall display of ‘photos of Shirley with large fruity drinks’ from Ottawa days @ the fishbowl)
This is Barney from the 98. The 98 has been around a long time, long enough to have been grandfathered out of current day liquor laws. The ‘98 closes early but opens at 9 am (hence the famed ‘98 breakfast club, which is actually largely a liquid breakfast club …)
The ladies are showing Barney some appreciation by leaving large lipstick marks on his cheeks.
Barney is a fascinating fellow — the tattoo on his arm was done the old fashioned way (sterilizing a needle with a lighter then dipping it in ink and piercing the flesh) when he was 16 and working as a merchant seaman. He worked all up and down the Beaufort Sea.
He adorned our cocktails with genuine miniature Winchester(?) swords–his son in law got a set along with a full-sized ceremonial sword and scabbard when he retired from the RCMP.
The server at Sam n’ Andy’s also got fully into the spirit of the evening. A can-can dancer in the summer season, she told us how once she made a mistake when swooping into the audience to pick a participant for the show. She selected a small man. As she realized when she was no longer blinded by the stage lights, but already upon him, he was really quite old, in his eighties or even nineties. He was light as a bird to spirit onstage, but when he set about to fulfil his role, of claiming her garter, he came at her with his teeth! “Hands, hands!” she whispered in a stage hiss, but he was already tottering towards her proffered knee (displayed up on a chair). Her knee bashed his face, or his face bashed her knee, and the man reeled back, clutching his teeth.
This shot is from a bar which will remain nameless, since in flagrant violation of the anti-smoking ban, they attempted to bribe the judges with genuine Cuban cigars — Monte Cristos. Yum!
Ciao!