Zin and the Art of Vomiting

UPDATED: With more fine wine toonage, thanks to our readers!

My very good friend Randy Fuller has a really cool blog that is not about rock and roll.  It’s about wine, but he wrote an excellent piece recently on rock and roll wines.  Actually, it’s about good wine in bottles with rock and roll labels – Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is there, so are the Rolling Stones, and even a Woodstock poster bottle.  As I said, very cool, and you can read it here.

I’ve known Randy for many years now, we went to college and high school together and even back then I knew him as a wine connoisseur. My tastes in wine ran mainly toward the red, namely Ripple Red and Thunderbird Red Label.  Randy had a more adventurous palate, seeking out the exotic and poetically named Annie Green Springs.

Any time you spent an evening with Annie Green Springs you always had to save the last dance for the porcelain maiden, hugging her inviting curves as you relived – and re-tasted – everything you had for dinner and lunch and possibly for breakfast about 18 hours earlier.  And I always found no matter how much you puke, the tender toes of Ripple still dance along your palate, even as you encounter the earthy nose of those Jack In The Box tacos you had for supper.

One very hot and humid Labor Day weekend, when I was still living at my parents’ house, Randy and I were assessing the merits of a few bottles of fine wine when suddenly I had to make room in my stomach for more wine.

Unfortunately, the door I thought was the bathroom was really the front door (now this is my own house) and my vomit settled warmly upon the front porch.  Many hours later, I was awakened by a crash and a torrent of violent cursing – from the unfortunate paper boy who slipped on the puke.  Somewhere an ex-paper boy is loading his deer rifle for a trip to the mall, and I’m very sorry about that.

Of course I have very fond memories of dear MD 20/20, the nectar of the ghetto.  Silky smooth on the tongue and available in a rainbow of colors, a typical “Mad Dog” experience was very much like drinking gasoline that somebody pissed in.  Although this fine wine had some very attractive flavors (“Electric Melon” comes to mind)  my favorite was always the down-home “Red Grape Wine,” which smelled a bit like merlot – that someone spilled in a dumpster.  Many a night I felt the warm embrace of dear 20/20, as it beckoned me to a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl Bed Spin and finally punched my round-trip meal ticket before kissing me goodnight.

Well, enough of this bullshit – if you want to read about wine go see my friend Randy Fuller at his Now and Zin website and explore the pleasures within.  You will find this is a man who knows his wine, and I’ll drink to that.

Now and Zin – the website

And these are for the connoisseurs:

MP3: “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” by Richard Thompson

MP3: “Nightrain” by Guns n’ Roses

MP3: “Talkin’ Thunderbird Blues” by Townes Van Zandt

MP3: “Ripple” from “Sanford and Son”

MP3: “My Baby Got Drunk” by Paul “Wine” Jones

MP3: “Wine Do Yer Stuff” by Commander Cody

MP3: “Thunderbird” by Slim Gaillard

MP3: “Spill The Wine” by Eric Burdon and War

MP3: “Wine” by James Luther Dickinson

MP3: “Red, Red Wine” by Neil Diamond

MP3: “Backslider’s Wine” by Jerry Jeff Walker

MP3: “Wine” by the Electric Flag

MP3: “Wine With Dinner” by Loudon Wainwright III

MP3: “Cooking Wine” by Alkaline Trio

MP3: “Night Train” by the Viscounts

MP3: “Thunderbird” by the Nightcaps

MP3: “Kiss Me, I’m Shit Faced” by the Dropkick Murphys

MP3: “Lust For Vomit” by the Pogues

MP3: “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead

MP3: “California Wine” by Dale Watson

MP3: “Mad Dog 20/20” by Teenage Fanclub

MP3: “Drinking Ink Splink” by Andrew Tibbs w/Dave Young’s Orch.

MP3: “Drunk” by Jimmy Liggins & His Drops of Joy

MP3: “Wine With Dinner (Night Cap)” by Loudon Wainwright III

Ghetto Wine website

This Wikipedia entry is also pretty hilarious