May 1st is the Kentucky Derby. Other than watching the big hats and drinking a mint julep (damnit, my plants aren't big enough to use yet), do you have any relevant activities or traditions involving this event? Someone mentioned betting pools including bids on DFL (death fucking last). Any wagers? Mint Julep We also have Cinco de Mayo coming up next week. Margaritas, ay ya ya! Spoiler That site also recommended a jalapeno pineapple marg. Sounds tasty. Do you have a killer recipe or spin on this favorite? Happy Friday, idiots. I just ate a burrito so now it's naptime. Later.
From everything I read, Essential Quality is a lock to win. I like Rock Your World and Midnight Bourbon. I'll probably bet something on those through Bovada. I still have a small balance there from some Super Bowl betting. Like $60 or something small time. I know fuck all about horse racing, but I always like watching the Derby - the pomp and circumstance, back stories and hearing the race call. It's always exciting.
Everyone should read "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" by Hunter S. Thompson in memory of that magnificent bastard, then chug some Wild Turkey and shoot some guns. https://sensitiveskinmagazine.com/hunter-s-thompson-the-kentucky-derby-is-decadent-and-depraved/
I don’t have any Derby traditions, or even much more than a passing interest. I’m not particularly into horse racing, and my family and friends didn’t run in the type of circles that had the Derby on their radar. That said, oddly enough I associate the Kentucky Derby with Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale. The year my dad died, I was helping clean out the house on Derby weekend. I tried Bigfoot for the first time that weekend and loved it. I was drinking it while sorting through my dad’s stuff and just happened to have the race on in the background. An odd connection but there it is.
That was me. And I'm happy to say that this year I'll be getting back to doing the annual Derby party that I cater for which will include a bunch of 40 something's shipping their kids off to wherever so they can get obscenely day drunk on very expensive bourbon and throwing money around betting on horses. I just made the 'traditional' mint julep bacon today, the briskets are rubbed and resting in the fridge, and the cask-aged whiskey will be placed on top of the smoker tonight for the traditional opening shot when the fire gets lit at 4:30am signaling the start to another season of BBQ.
Everything Hunter wrote was golden. A brilliant madman. It also reminded me of a story about Kurt Vonnegut's brief career with Sports Illustrated: "He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn’t good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950s, he was employed by Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that had jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, “The horse jumped over the fucking fence,” and walked out, self-employed again"
I called the Oaks. I bet 5,10:8,14 on the Oaks Derby double. I believe the oaks podium was 10,12,11. It's the first time I've wagered on Oaks Derby double. We'll see what tomorrow holds.
To me, Thompson like Hemingway was a hack more concerned with telling you how awesome he was, than covering the event or issue he was supposedly writing about.
I feel like most of Thompson's articles could have been titled "Here's what I did instead of what the magazine paid me to do." His gift was being interesting enough to keep getting away with that for decades.
That's what I found so brilliant about Hunter...he didn't give a shit what his assignment was, he was going to have fun on the editor's nickel and whatever happened was the story. I'm fully aware that 75% of what he wrote was probably just flights of fantasy, but I don't give a damn. It was entertaining and usually funny.
To be fair, his stuff was wildly entertaining for me at the time. So it served its purpose. I should go read IHTSBIH now and see if it’s still funny
Tucker's real gift, IMO, was that he could tell a story. Forget the actual content of the story, he could tell it, and take the reader along for a ride. That is the key to so many entertainers. Look at Norm MacDonald as a prime example. It's all in the delivery.