Starting this Sunday, PBS airs a new three-part documentary by Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz). Apparently not all the Beachbum’s friends are in low places, because he was recently sent a preview copy. This time Burns co-directed with Lynn Novick, but all the usual Burns trademarks are there: compelling archival footage, equally compelling [...]
Odds are that Tiki restaurateur Stephen Crane — professional gambler, serial husband, and owner of The Luau, a raucous midcentury movie-star hangout — didn’t own a library card. But that doesn’t faze Emily Griffin of the Crawfordsville, Indiana, District Public Library. Since September, the reference librarian has been researching Crane’s life for a library exhibit [...]
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, soda fountains were not only as ubiquitous as saloons, they were as dangerous. Soda jerks served sweet treats variously containing cocaine, lithium, morphine, opium, chloroform, and ether; no wonder bars found themselves competing with soda fountains for customers, who became even more powerfully addicted to soft drinks than [...]
As far as we’re concerned, America’s true Thanksgiving holiday is today. On December Fifth, 1933, our forefathers repealed Prohibition, ending the War On Drinks. So let us give thanks that we live in an age that does not prohibit us from cocktailing when the mood strikes. And in an age like ours, when does it [...]
Our pal Kevin Allman found this 1960s newspaper ad featuring two of our favorite things: Don The Beachcomber’s and Don Rickles, both on offer at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. The Beachcomber’s stayed open till 3 a.m., while Rickles (billed as “the provocative potentate”) started his last set at 5:10 a.m. Don and Don [...]