Episode 80: Spike Lee, Liquid Smoke, and Prodigious Peppers
Spike Lee/Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images
This week: Director Spike Lee instigates debates (and dates)… We go back a long way, baby… And we learn about a prodigious pepper. Plus a childish joke from actor/author/comedian Patton Oswalt and a tune from Allo Darlin’.
Icebreaker: Patton Oswalt Actor-comedian Patton Oswalt sells us a precocious joke. (Oswalt’s comic memoir Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland is out now.)
Small Talk: The Pepper to End all Poppers Richard Lawson, staff writer for Gawker, tells us about the creation of a bigger, better heartburn delivery system.
A History Lesson With Booze: Smoking Ladies and the “The Hawkins Ordinance” This week back in 1908 women in NYC were barred from smoking in public. Hear about how they won back their right to kill themselves, then celebrate your right to partake of this vice:
“The Hawkins Ordinance,” courtesy of Abraham Hawkins, bartender at Dutch Kills in Queens, NY:
In a shaker over ice, add:
- 3/4 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
- 3/4 oz. honey syrup (four parts honey / one part hot water)
- dash of bitters
- 1 1/2 oz. blended scotch
- 1/2 oz. Islay scotch (the smokier the better)
Mix, then strain into a glass (no ice). Step outside into the freezing cold, stand around a concrete ashtray, and get lit.
Guest of Honor: Spike Lee It’s been 20 years since Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” alternately dazzled or struck fear in the hearts of movie critics. A new book revisits the making of a film that’s now considered one of the greatest ever made. Hear Lee tell Rico about riots, teaching, the question only white people ask, and the power couple he indirectly brought together. (And then check the extended cut of this interview, in which the conversation also turns to Rashomon and J-Lo’s backside.)
One For The Road: Allo Darlin’ - “If Loneliness Was Art” Allo Darlin’ released their self-titled debut album last summer, which features this charming love letter of a song from a lonely gal to an even lonelier guy. Best listened to while marking a calendar and making the future happen.
Music On This Week’s Show:
Sea & Cake - “The Argument”
Aphex Twin - “Boy/Girl Song”
Tipsy - “Liquordelic”
The Blank Tapes - “Smoke & Mirrors”
Duke Ellington - “Love Is Like a Cigarette”
Public Enemy - “Fight the Power”
Allo Darlin’ - “If Loneliness Was Art”
There’s a problem with the download. It’s showing up as MB and cuts out around 12:05, partway into the closing song.
01/23/11 8:46 AM
Hey man - Thanks for the heads-up. It’s obviously a technical glitch, which’ll have to wait ‘til Monday morning to fix. Check back then and redownload from this site. BTW, you’re only missing about 15 seconds of the show, but it’s funny, so worth coming back for…
Another name for the cocktail - The Smokin’ Sullivan or the Smokin’ Lady