Good Luck

    Leave it to Vice. Recent news has focused on the Russian Orthodox church, which is pushing to return ownership over Alaska to Russia. Their motives stem from recent homosexual activities in the state and country. It is the same church that lashed out at the Pussy Riot performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Despite the contradicting intolerance of both gays and the unruly kittens, Alina Khametova and Camille Standen conducted a tight, professional interview and ignored the obscurities within the answers.
 
    One of the many flaws that dangles from my reporting notebook is my interviewing skills. I do close to everything wrong. I frequently say um, interrupt most responses and fail to pay attention to them if I make it that far. The little reporting I have done has been with likable and knowledgeable individuals who are what I have come to consider "interview friendly." How the two ladies managed to stick to their agenda, gain information and not verbally assault the man they spoke with is fantastic. What is most impressive is not their ability to interview such a narrow minded individual but do so with a nonchalant yet smart ass tone that shouts in disapproval. They write for their readers. In the midst of the church's leader's plan the interviewer simply responds "That's nice, I suppose." It is their way of poking fun at the response without criticizing it.
 
    The authors of the article do not take the Russian Orthodox church's actions very serious. It is hard to. What I like, is their way of shining a funny light on something some people actually take quite serious. It is all a way of putting a Vice look of the world.

Tengo Sed

    Alcohol is a substance like no other. Its presence is ingrained in all walks of life. It is one of the few things that can relate the 99% to the remaining 1%, Juneau to Miami and Catholicism to Voodoo. It has been mastered and consumed by all creeds and colors and that will never change. Some of my earliest memories include family gatherings highlighted by big bottles of Jameson and my father counting out my time as I ran to grab him two Heineken from the fridge. I appreciate a good drink as I have been molded to do but one I have yet to understand is the gin and tonic. I first had one several years ago with my grandmother at her husbands funeral. Less than a sip later my hand had moved the glass aside hers and was cuing the bartender back to us. Many attempts in the years that followed proved no better. Matt Goulding is the first person to serve the drink to me in a fashion I enjoyed. Unfortunately it was not in a glass but Time Magazine. I can promise anyone who criticizes the drink will question their dissatisfaction after reading Goulding's article. 

    The story is about the gin and tonic in Spain. His descriptions of the many preparations of the drink was enough to make wonder if I have ever actually tried the concoction he speaks of.

     "You drink it for that bracing bittersweet dance between aromatic juniper-charged gin and the quinine bite of a good tonic."

    The only other time the referencing of juniper caught my attention was in Monty Python's "Life of Brian". Now my taste buds cannot help but be curious of its flavor. 

   Not only did Goulding attract me to a drink I know I do not like but to a place I once had no intention of visiting. I can see Pascual, the owner of his favorite G and T place pouring a glass that will undoubtedly change all of my misunderstandings. I also see the 38 gins and five tonics dominating the bottles than sit behind him. 

    This is one of the best articles I have read in a good while. It is vivid, persuasive and leaves my mouth watering for a "gin tonic" at 3:45 on a Sunday.