Unfortunate Nicknames - New Orleans Edition.

Saint Expedite.

I was talking to Dickey the Cock last night.  Don’t get any smirk-inducing ideas.  Richard’s totem animal is a rooster.  He has one tattooed onto each of this chiseled deltoids.  The are inked in a strutting position.  When he wants to impress a certain kind of lady, Dickey makes the roosters dance.  Everyone tangentially connected to the restaurant industry in the French Quarter is familiar with his face.  His friends call him Dickey.  His acquaintances, and people just being introduced who have less prestige than he does, refer to him by his title: Mr. Cock.  

Dickey likes to think of himself as a modern day, New Orleans-based, Eugene Debs.  Through manipulations I cannot begin to fathom, Dickey serves as a kind of informal union boss and hiring office for the city’s unorganized, but professional, dishwashers.  He collects regular dues from the dishwashers in return for keeping an eye on the market and bargaining on their behalf for better working conditions, higher wages, and increased benefits.  He is a vocal, if sometimes inelegant, advocate for dishwashers‘ rights.  “The voiceless need to be heard,” he says.

I bumped into The Cock on the steps of the Supreme Court Building on the Royal Street side.  He offered me a swig from his can of Bud Light, but I had just had a glass of ice water not five minutes before.  After exchanging pleasantries, I asked Dickey about a rumor I had heard, something about a backed up drain in the kitchen of a rather pricey eatery on St. Ann Street.  

“That was on Saint Peter, not Saint Anne,” Dickey the Cock said.  “I cannot say that the dishwasher was involved, mind you, and I don’t believe he was.  All I can tell you about the matter is that a foreign object, one that does not belong in any restaurant kitchen drain, was discovered within the plumbing of the premises about which we are discussing.”  Dickey once considered becoming an attorney.  He even had a slogan prepared for his television, radio, and billboard advertisements: “Put The Cock On ‘Em!”  Instead, he found his true calling.

From what I heard, it was indeed a very foreign object.  I heard that a diamond ring worth $40,000.00 was found wrapped in a napkin and lodged into the U-bend under a sink at one of New Orleans‘ swankiest public dining halls.  According to Dickey, it is improbable to the point of impossible that the dishwasher could have wrapped a napkin around a valuable ring, and disposed of it down the drain.  “Why wouldn’t the fool just put it in his pocket?  He could have hid it in the remoulade, since the remoulade is terrible there and nobody orders it, and then he could have swallowed it during his dinner break.  Heck, he could have put it on his finger if he was stealing it.  He wouldn’t commit to the bowels of the Sewer and Water Board.”

As it turns out, no charges have been filed against the dishwasher, nor is his further employment in question.  According to Dickey, the dishwasher has earned a two percent raise based on his dedication to duty, demonstrated by turning off the water when he noted the drain was clogged.  “It takes a sharp man with a keen sense of responsibility to be a dishwasher,” Dickey says.  “You can’t just pluck a man out of the unemployment line and expect him to be a dishwasher.  It takes years of practice, and familiarity with the traditions of the craft.  Most people don’t realize that.  That’s why I’m here to fight for the dishwashers.”

We chatted a bit more, mostly about the weather and how Lucky Dog’s hot dog carts are not required to have three sinks like every other culinary establishment in New Orleans.  

When it was time for me to go, Dickey had about a tenth of a tall boy of Bud Light left.  Remembering a past conversation about his efforts to complete his state quarter collection, I handed him the four loose quarters that jangled in my pocket when I stood up.  

“Refuse to rest while fellow men go hungry,” were Dickey’s parting words to me as he shook my hand and looked me squarely in the eye.

I told him I am an insomniac, and bid him a good rest of the night.

Late nights and pillow fights

I'm a New Englander.  We still subscribe to wise Benjamin Franklin's advice that early to bed and early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Since I've moved to New Orleans, I've stayed out much too late twice this week.  Is past 5:30 PM already?  This is no time for breakfast.

Worse than the katzenjammers, is that I've had to engage in pillow fights each "morning," and I lost both times.  I was outnumbered in each encounter.  Tuesday was against two sisters, who I figure have had a lifetime developing teamwork and strategy.  This afternoon was two dames and cocker spaniel.  Oh the humanity!!

At least it wasn't as bad as a certain, regrettable, post midnight adventure last week.

Oh, the stories I could tell if I chose to.

Sleep tight, and keep your nose clean,
WK

Telling what is open and closed in New Orleans

I was getting a tire plugged the other day.  While I was waiting, I walked around the block and discovered this nightclub.

The man who plugged the tire was done in about 5 minutes.  I asked him if the L&R is still open for business.  "Of course it is," he said.

I explained that I'm fairly new here and I still have a hard time recognizing buildings that are abandoned from ones that are still viable.  "You'll get used to it," he said.

I'm thinking about going on Monday for the red beans.  This is a traditional Monday dish, hereabouts.  A lot of bars offer it.

Tip Top Voodoo New Orleans

There's no beach in New Orleans.  The cityscape is entirely manmade, raised from the swamp with little evidence of it's prior existence.  It is paved over and impermeable.  When I saw the above object on the sidewalk, I thought it was a crab claw like I would find every few feet scattered in the dried seaweed that makes up the tideline on a New England beach.  I was on Canal Street though.

While Lake Pontchartrain crabs are reputed to be the best in the world (I discussed this in the past for a few days but don't have the patience to look up the links), I rarely see the remnants of these crabs that get boiled and devoured by the kilo.  I paused to take a closer look.  Crab claw?  No.

Look closely.  One end is covered with feathers.  It is a severed bird beak.  I didn't touch it but I let my camera record it so I could mull it over.  Why?  Why would a bird's beak be so cleanly removed and left to languish on the sidewalk.  I don't know.  Maybe it's a voodoo talisman.

New Orleans is famous for being a home to voodoo but, truth be told, I've seen evidence outside of tourist traps.  Not that I don't wish it were true.  I love drama and mystery.  New Orleans is full enough of mystery though without a layer of voodoo being overlaid on its mojo.

Soon after passing this avian remnant, I came across this storefront...

You can't read in the shadow in this photo so I'll tell you:  Tip Top is gone.  Tip Top is closed.  If you were thinking of going to Tip Top on the ground floor of the Iberville Street Garage between Rampart and Bourbon, forget it.  No dice.  No Tip Top.

There are plenty of other places, a whole city full in fact.  There's no curse, only business cycles.  Spoken like a dry economist.  When I find a severed bird beak on my front stoop and trip down the stairs, I may think differently.  New Orleans is full of surprises.

Ms. Mae's Mondays

Are you busy at midnight next Monday or any Monday?  I happen to know where something happening is going on, Daddy-o.

Garden District Pub, New Orleans.

Garden District Pub, Magazine Street, New Orleans.  A nice place.

Within a block of each other, the Garden District Pub, The Saint, and the Half Moon, all offer enticing drinking experiences.  I tend to cotton more to the GDP.  It's a no frills place, basically a hallway with a bar in it and two rest rooms at the farthest point from the front door.  The conversation is good and there's no overloud music.  It's a talking bar and a sipping bar.  Nothing fancy, just a comfortable place to cool your heels at day's end.

“I never changed anything, except my socks and my underwear.  And I never did anything to glorify myself or improve my lot.  I took what came and did the best I could with it.”

–Robert Mitchum

Garden District Pub has a website.  Read the history page on their site.  If you find yourself in the neighborhood, succumb to temptation and pop in.  This is what a bar should be.  It's old school like a cable-knit cardigan you can't bear to toss because it has served you well for decades no matter how many times the styles have changed since your grandmother gave it to you. 

I'm not a regular patron and no money exchanged hands to post this review.  They don't know I'm doing it and I doubt anyone there would know me from Adam or Caesar if I walked in tonight.  I just like it.  A tip of the fedora to Dianne and Veronica.

Cheers!

WK

New Orleans is a blessing

You may have noticed that the past few day's I haven't been writing up any lengthy reports.  I'm too busy living in New Orleans.  Words can't capture the experiences.  Greater writers than I have tried to describe what it is like to  be alive in this wonderful city and they've failed.  What dram of insight can I add?

I'm not despairing at my lack of ability.  Rather, I am reveling in it.  Bombarded with so many sights, smells, sounds, tastes, changes in air pressure and temperature... Blinkered by sudden shocks and delights and mysteries around every corner...  Besotted by kaleidoscopes and cornucopia and cacophony in the light of day and the dead of night...  I am rendered dumb by the mixture of joy, beauty and resilience that courses through New Orleans' neighborhoods, main streets, side streets, alleys and concourses.  The tap rooms and living rooms, the shops, the libraries, the front porches, the riverfront, the parks, the markets, the offices and their lobbies...all of New Orleans is soaked through with the sustaining ether that pervades every action and every moment.

Rather than write, I live for the moment in the moment.  I am delirious, dizzy and devil-may-care.  If a city can be a sinful place, New Orleans is a blessing.  I am not debauching or pursuing hedonistic, libertine delights.  I am going about my business, running errands and sharing conversations with my fellow citizens in this most delightful metropolis in the whole, wide world, a place where the mundane is magical and the miraculous is more common than pennies on the sidewalk.

If you've never been to New Orleans, everything you've heard, positive or negative, is true but bigger, better, more robust and vibrant.  If you've spent an hour here, you know what I'm talking about.  If you were sitting next to me we'd nudge each other and wink in agreement.

'Nuff said.
WK

Dueling clarinets

Well, they weren't really dueling so much as complimenting each other, each clarinetist egging the other on.  I always associate wind instruments with traditional jazz and usually the brass ones more often than not.  This isn't being fair to Benny Goodman and it certainly isn't fair to the two clarinetists we watched the other night at Fritzl's.

We've taken our bikes and the Ninja through the French Quarter but haven't really spent any time there until Thursday night.  Bourbon Street lived up to its reputation with music pouring out windows and doorways.  While it is packed with people, most of them are harmless.  Yes, it's full of tourists but so what?  Tourism is New Orleans' main industry at the moment.  

The band enjoyed themselves and so did everyone who listened.  It was a very diverse crowd and I was intrigued by the twenty-somethings enjoying this music.  A piano, a drum kit, a bass, two clarinets.  A simple set up for some very intricate and sophisticated syncopation.  While the band stuck to what I assume are Dixieland standards meant for the tourists, their artistry was impeccable and they certainly know how to put on a show.

I've been to Fritzl's before.  I like the stained wood ambience and the benches arranged into a small auditorium.  Are there better venues?  Probably.  I'm certainly interested in finding them.  The level of New Orleans musicianship is first rate whether in the clubs or on the street.  Jazz really is the pulse of New Orleans and I'm glad I'm hear to listen to it.

This afternoon, I learned who Gen. Albert Pike was.

Monday haircut

It seems impossible to get a haircut in New Orleans on a Monday.  It's probably not impossible to find a barber open for business but, as a newcomer to this fair city of inscrutable ways, it is improbable.

I have a job interview tomorrow morning so I figured a touch up was advisable to show I'm as neat about my appearance as I am about my work.  I did find one shop that was open on Magazine Street.  I walked in and nodded to the chap who was in the chair.  The barber came from out back and asked if I had an appointment.  An appointment for a ten-minute haircut (ideally)?  I said No. "Can you come back at 2:00?"  I said No, could he tell me where there's a barber shop I could walk into?  "Not on a Monday."

He didn't lie.  I drove around town in search of a barber shop.  Every one I found was closed Sundays and Mondays.  I went home and trimmed over my ears.  It's a good thing I wear glasses.  That, and I'll wear an eye-catching tie and pocket square to distract from my shaggy coiffure.

You can find a bar in New Orleans any hour of any day to enjoy a smoke and a beer over a little conversation.  You'll be hard pressed to get a haircut on a Monday though.

To be fair, it took me a while to identify a network of acceptable barber shops in Boston that were open when I was ready for a trim and had minimal waits.  I don't like to linger in the barber shop.  I like to get the job done and get on with my day.  Small talk and old magazines don't add any luster to my haircut experience.

Old Italian gentlemen have always been my preference.  Nothing fancy, get out the clippers, flourish the scissors, finish up with a straight razor and I'll see you again in two or three weeks.  I haven't done my relevant research in the twelve days since I've arrived.  There's a lesson here, one of marginal importance but, in a pinch, a man needs a decent haircut when he needs it.

As has been the case since arrival in New Orleans, I need to temper my expectations.  I'm not in New England anymore.  In many ways, I'm glad of that.  The other night I watched some drunken couples dance and sing along to a jukebox playing the Rolling Stones.  I wasn't particularly interested at the time but I now realize they were mouthing something very profound.  You really don't always get what you want, but you do get what you need.  Looking in the mirror, I suppose I didn't really need a professional haircut after all.

Today's illustration is courtesy of Lint.

H+B: Heart plus Beauty

The new Harp and Bard logo is simple in its charms. Geometry turned to expression. Typeface manipulated to express more than the sum of its parts. Granted, we are not talking calligraphy here and anyone at the design shops downtown would look down their espresso-smudged noses at this, but this is the kind of logo that displays thoughtfulness rather than the current fashion. A little native ingenuity.

Someone had to sit down and obsess about the letters H&B. He or she had to smoosh the letters together and then, in a flash of insight, see the plus sign that joins them. Some simple ruler and compass moves later, followed by an application of India ink and voila: the modern Harp and Bard.

We'll see you on Thursday for Karoake.

Dawn patrol

The air is bracing before the sun comes up. The wind blows the Littlest Ninja motorcycle this side of the Charles River on a weaving course down Dot Ave. Some dead leaves drift but there is no litter. The streets are tidy.

Dark windows unreel along my path. There's a car up ahead, its taillights two corpuscles travelling Dorchester's sleepy artery. A shadow leans against a lightpost, waves as I pass. I don't get a good look.

What's open? Destination: Tedeschi's in Field's Corner. Open all night, every night. The two countermen are yukking it up with the security guard and two customers. The guard asks me, "Sir, do you know baseball?" I don't. He looks at me in disbelief while I wonder why he would feel the need to ask this question in Boston. Because of people like me, of course. He goes back to making a statistics-heavy argument to the other customers.

My business complete, I speed back up Dot Ave, crouched low over the gas tank to escape the brunt of the breeze. In the silence that precedes dawn, the motorcycle's engine seems to purr more loudly than in the thick of rush hour. Still, no one is awakened. Dorchester slumbers one last hour before the real work begins.

Peepin Glow

I spent part of the June 12 evening at the All White Affair hosted by Lion Entertainment at the Russell Auditorium on Talbot Ave. Guests were encouraged to wear white clothes. While not mandatory, white was "strongly encouraged for the best glow effect." Most people complied. I wore a seersucker suit though it was still a bit chilly for this tropical wear. It had the intended effect under the black lights. Most attendees glowed in the dark.

The Russell Auditorium is an expansive space and the All White Affair made good use of the available square footage. Free glow products were distributed and they accentuated dancers' movements as they danced to the sounds of Mikey Million & Shortman, DJ Dexx and the incomparabale Riddim Ryder. It was a joyful and surreal experience and one that will be repeated in Boston Harbor on July Fourth.

The Peepin Glow Boatride sets sail on Independence Day. This event is open to the public. The exclusive ticket outlet is Singh's Roti Shop in Dorchester's own Edward Everett Square, across Columbia Road from KFC.

THE BIG PEEPIN GLOW BOAT RIDE
MochaVibe.com

*Please note: the electical power problems on the boat have been fixed.* This is a quote from the ad on the All White Affair flyer.

Job opening in N'orchester

An employment opportunity is being advertised in North Dorchester, in that no-man's land where people don't know if it's in the Dot proper or in Southie or in Newmarket, which is technically a part of Roxbury.

In the South Bay Shopping Center, Best Buy is looking for a floor supervisor. Though the position is managerial level, this isn't a desk job. The job description explains that the manager must be ready to spend a whole shift on his or her feet. No number-crunching or bean-counting is expected. It seems to be a shop steward kind of role within the organization with Best Buy's corporate headquarters playing the role of a union. A pertinent qualification: applicants must be at least 16 years of age.

I ran into Timmy O'Malley at McKenna's Cafe after I had finished my breakfast and he was coming in to get his. I asked him if he had heard of the job opening up at our local Best Buy. "Yah, sheesh, Mr. King," he replied, "Me and my pallies are all over this. We all put in our applications. Any good yegg can land this and run it tip-top and ship-shape. If I don't get it, Charlie will and if he don't get it, Smelly will, wontcha Smelly?" He pulled Smelly's baseball cap brim over the boy's eyes and delivered a few noogies. "You'll hire me, wontcha, Smelly?" Timmy taunted.

If you are thinking of applying for the manager's position at Best Buy, be warned you face stiff competition. The location isn't really convenient to mass transit. A bus serves the shopping center regularly, but is timetable is often a subject of debate. The nearest T station is Andrew, on the Red Line, and then its a fifteen-to-twenty minute walk to your place of work. It's a longer commute if you don't know the side streets.

Big beauties bulk up Dorchester

The most current edition of The Bay State Banner (Vol. 44, No. 29) reports that the second annual Miss Voluptuous Beauty Pageant is being held in Woburn in the very near future. What does this have to do with Dorchester?

Well, firstly, the most beautifully voluptuous ladies call Dorchester home. You know the kind. Art history majors have seen them in Rubens' paintings. They are sensuous and intelligent with plenty to love. They are strong women with big bones and ample curves. They walk Washington Street and Dot Ave and Blue Hill Avenue and all the side streets in between, turning attentive heads. They can be spotted taking out thier recycling bins at the crack of dawn. If you haven't been to Dorchester, you may want to take the Ashmont Branch of the Red Line and maybe then the Mattapan High-Speed after that to get your full quotient of Ooooo-la-la....la-la-la-la-laaaa...Ba-boom! Big, beautiful women inhabit the Dot.

The second reason is that the pageant's organizer is Dorchester's own fellow citizen Fabiola Brunache. We are not going to paraphrase the Banner's crack reporting here nor will we second guess why Ms. Brunache is holding the pageant in Woburn rather than closer to home base. We will provide a link for more information: Click Here. We will encourage everyone to see the contestants strut their stuff and show off in competition for the title they probably all deserve. Admission to the event in Woburn is free, as free as a Dorchester walkabout.

An American werewolf in Dorchester

Tonight's happy hour led me to the Dot Tavern where I was sitting next to a bearded chap with a Southie accent. We didn't talk at first which suited me fine. I was finishing up the horse racing news in the Herald and preferred not to be interrupted from my studies. After I put my paper down, the 'gentleman' gradually engaged me in conversation.

He saw what I had been studying in the newspaper so the talk started with palaver about the ponies. While he regaled me with tales of his well chosen trifectas I noticed that his eyes always wandered when a lady walked past. The woman in question could be young or old, attractive or not, blond, brunette, redhead, bluehair, cross-eyed, snaggle-toothed or super-model. If they belonged to the fairer sex, which naturally they did, his eyes would follow them from behind my left shoulder to the hairy edge of his left ear.

"I've been drinking beer all day. I could use me a nice goose right about now," he told me. I suggested he visit Gene and Paul's Meats just down the road. This grocery has the freshest meats of all varieties from any flesh-bearing, land bound animal one might wish to consume.

He said, "Naw, I don't cook. I just want me a little tickle." Then he pointed with a crooked finger at a spiky-haired, crew cut brunette lass sitting in a booth. "That's the goose I want to pluck," he said, extending his finger out then pulling it back a few times. I excused myself.

I introduced myself to the ladies in the booth. It was all, "Hello, I'm Whalehead King...it's a nice night compared to yesterday...what do you do for a living?... uh huh, uh huh...do you live close by?...do you know that the creep who keeps looking over his shoulder at us and licking his lips isn't watching me but you?"

It turned out to be last call for the ladies though the evening was still early, hours before cutoff time. I offered to escort them home but they refused. I said I was leaving anyway, and we left together, parting company at Columbia Road. The goose hunter didn't follow, which is just as well.

Dot Wisenheimer

I went to Tom English's Tavern on Dot Ave after work for a quick pint of Pabst before heading homeways. I sat at the bar next to some nondescript fellow who was nursing his own glass and I said, "Hello." and he said, "Hello."

He kept looking at me without saying anything. It was a crowded bar for 6:30 PM on a Monday but the group sitting next on his other side weren't paying him any attention. He kept looking my way so I decided to break the ice by saying, "I'm not enjoying the snow today."

He said, "I'm not enjoying the snow today." He didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist.

I took a sip of beer. It was nice and fresh. The management keeps the tap lines clean at Tom English's. With my whistle wet, I tried again, "Are the Bruins playing tonight?"

He looked at me and leaned closer, "Are the Bruins playing tonight?" he asked.

All right. I leaned in his direction and asked, "Are you just going to say what I say?"

He leaned back, the palms of his hands on the bar and asked, "Are you just going to say what I say?"

This seemed pretty pointless. I said, "A wisenheimer, eh? I've got better things to do." I picked up my beer and made my way over to the video deer hunting game. As I got out of my chair this guy acted offended and said at the top of his voice, "A wisenheimer, eh? I've got better things to do." Then he turned his head with a jerk so as not to be able to see me even though the people on his right obviously didn't want anything to do with him. I shrugged.

Over at the video game, Pierce said, "You were talking to that clown?" I said yes. He said, "Nobody talks to him when he comes in. He's not a wisenheimer, he's a @##*$#?!!!"

I didn't talk to the gentleman long enough to come up with that label. I won't be talking to him again for any length of time.

Morrissey

Rumors are flying around Dorchester that the doleful darling of 1980s college radio may be making an appearance at Tom English's postage stamp-sized stage at the end of March. Word on the street is that Morrissey, former front man of The Smiths for those with long memories, and who is performing at the new House of Blues on Landsdowne Street, will be making an appearance in the Dot the following evening. The older hep cats in the neighborhood are all in a slather to hear the voice that expressed their ironic, youthful alienation.

Morrissey is scheduled to appear at the House of Blues on March 29th. There don't seem to be any tickets still available and maybe that is what has started the current swirl of hearsay, all of it speculative. After all, if our man is staying more than a day in Boston, wouldn't he make a pop-in and performance at one of Dorchester's humble yet classy neighborhood hot spots? Tom English's fits the bill. Its the kind of stylish dive that would appreciate his presence and probably a bit of impromptu crooning. He will not only be accepted, he will be loved.

None of this report is substantiated beyond speculation overheard while playing the deer hunt video game at Tom English's. This tap room is located at 957 Dot Ave, a short walk from the JFK/UMASS station on the Red Line (helpful hint: head inland and turn left on Dot Ave). Tom English's offers Pabst on tap, convection oven pizzas and sandwiches, and hearty camaraderie. If you go there on March 30th, you may see a special show or you may just have a special night whether any cult celebrities show up or not.

The Dotusi

The Widow O'Malley's basement on Chickatawbut Street in Neponset is full of the mingled sounds of house music and boot heels. Her nightclubbing grandchildren and their neighborhood colleagues are intent on choreographing the next dance craze they expect to sweep Boston and then the nation. Who knows? At the 2012 Democratic convention we may be watching the delegates do the Dotusi on broadcast television.

Charlie O'Malley explains: "I was watching a Batman marathon on cable one night and I saw Batman dancing the Batusi. I could relate to Adam West. This is how we dance at block parties around Neponset Circle. The hand gestures and the hip shake...they're pure Dorchester. I thought about how to make it more local and express the spirit of the Dot and I got to thinking that, really, at all the clubs downtown, Dorchesterites are lords and ladies of the dance floor. By combining the Batusi with some Riverdance moves, I think we've come up with something that combines the best elements of Dorchester in a way everyone can get on board and strut their stuff."

He and his friends went through some steps for my benefit. They made their fingers into peace signs and pulled their hands over their eyes. They shook their arms like they were holding a cape. They shook their booties for at least five seconds. The whole time they were high-stepping with their feet rat-a-tat-tat on the Widow O'Malley's cement basement floor.

"Come Spring we're thinking of renting the Party Trolley to introduce this new dance to Boston," Charlie continued. "We'll start here in Neponset and then head inbound tying up traffic all the way with strobe lights, disco balls and fresh moves. We're planning on hitting Felt and Machine and then Utopia in Fenway. We'll probably stop at other places along the way. We want to spread the Dotusi wherever it will take. I think this dance has it all: blue collar, camp, highbrow, Irish, and most importantly...fun."

Strong medicine

When we introduced local beekeeper Leon Murphy yesterday, space constraints prevented us from reporting on a sideline he's developed from his hives on Norwell Street. We were eating pancakes at Saint's Diner in Codman Square when he explained it to me. In his words:

"An old, Haitian woman down on Morton Street heard that I raise bees and she came to me to purchase fifteen of them because her great-granddaughter had the croup. I didn't sell live bees at the time so I asked what she wanted them for and she gave me her recipe for croup cure. She took fifteen live bees and ground them in a mortar and pestle. Then she steeped the mash in boiled rainwater. After eight minutes she strained the tea through a cheesecloth and then squeezed every last bit of juice out of the bees. She said a teaspoon of this bee tea every hour along with rubbing chicken fat on the baby's neck and chest would cure the croup.

"I was skeptical but I sold her the bees, fifteen exactly for $2.50. Soon enough other people with croupy babies were knocking at my door. I figured, heck, I've got enough bees so I started making the tea myself and putting it into old pickle and peanut butter jars to save people the time of having to crush the bees themselves. It's not fun to do. It's worse than putting a lobster in a pot. They crunch. I even bought a mess of chicken fat from a friend I have in Newmarket and wrapped it in little packages of wax paper to go along with the tea. I charge twelve dollars a cure and I've got batches of the stuff in my hall pantry."

I said this sounded like a sound product. Leon Murphy replied, "You know what else? Even if you don't have a croupy baby it's good stuff. It's a love potion. I gave a few jars to my sister, Adelaide. She spiked her boyfriend's vodka and cranberry with it one night, without the chicken fat, of course. He proposed to her the very next day and they've been happily married for thirteen months. He's got eyes for nobody but her. There's power in my bees."

I didn't want to burst Leon Murphy's bubble. I've run into his brother-in-law a few times at Ka-Carlo's on Hancock Street. This chap is a tomcat of the first degree, flirting with the ladies and making time with whoever will answer his mating call. That said, I've also met Adelaide Murphy while she was still known by that name. Any man would love her.

Smooth Sounds of the New Dorchester

Top forty and hip-hop have their places in Dorchester. This is a neighborhood of middle-aged, middle class, working folks out to dance like it's 1999. It is also a neighborhood that pulses with the fresh and angry sounds of disaffected, disenfranchised, urban youth. Between these two extremes there is another demographic that is a little more suave, a little more laid back, a little more je ne c'est quoi, if you know what I mean. They're cocktail people.

D Bar caters to these clientele. So does C.F. Donovan's. So does the Blarney Stone and the Ashmont Grill. Other joints have upped their sophistication to lesser degrees but there's a new beat in Dorchester and it's measured in 3:4 time. To be or not to be? I would tell you after last call, but by then I've forgotten the question. There's no such thing as too much lounging. It is good for the soul, if a little soggy on the gray matter.

We were in the Twelve Bens on Adams Street when some joker played Herb Alpert and His Tijuana Brass's classic "A Taste of Honey" on the jukebox. The patrons were a bit riled as this album has never been played in the Twelve Bens and they didn't know what to make of it. There was a vote to pull the juke box's plug and it was done unceremoniously.

A younger guy sitting in the corner stood up and said, "Hold on a minute. If you don't like that, I think you'll like this. It's the same thing, only better." He pulled out his ipod and plugged it into the house stereo. The John King and Dust Bros. remix of "A Taste of Honey" came through the overhead speakers and peace settled over the bar. It wasn't an Irish lullaby but everyone got swept up with the refrain and the back beats. Everyone agreed this is the sound of the new Dot.

This is your father's Herb Alpert:


This is the new, re-whipped cream: