Simon has what sounds like a great drink recipe. The recipe leads me to the "getting loaded ritual", something that pot doesn't really have any more; I mean you can buy it from some loser at the Post Office these days. In my old days "scoring shit" had a sort of ritual that made getting loaded sort of exciting. You "knew somebody" who had "good shit" (there was only two kinds in my youth: good shit and bad shit). We (always "we" because it was part of the party) would drive to a darkened street that contained six or eight cookie cutter apartment buildings, locate the address, then go around the block six times "checking for the heat" before parking a block away from our "connection's" pad. Now, this is really cool. We'd walk up a flight or two of stairs to the apartment. The "connection" would answer the door. The connection always wore sunglasses, I mean that was the deal, nobody would deal with a connection that didn't look cool at midnight. After a pause, he would let us in. He always had this mysterious piece either sitting on the floor or on the arm of a chair; the mysterious piece usually wore shades too. What the tip off was to "really hip" as opposed to just "cool" was if she was nodding her head in time with Chet Baker or Shorty Rogers jazz records playing softly in the background. Some really cool connections had their shade masked chick answer the door and just stare at us for a minute while allowing us to check out her body, (while moving slightly in time with Chet and Shorty in the background) now that was insane; I'd always rather deal with a connection that had a hot babe answering the door. Buying good shit while I had an erection was the coolest. The connection never introduced his chick and she would never speak to anyone either, we would always presume the shit our connection was going to sell us was so strong that it rendered women speechless, and therefore an easy lay. In those days we bought it in nickel bags ($5) or "a dime" ($10 baggie) and without much conversation he'd look at us and inquire, "nickel"? Then, and this was always so cool, he would go to the hiding place for his stash which was something like inside the leg of a kitchen table. So we'd help him turn the table over and he'd unscrew the leg and pull out a nickel bag from a literal treasure trove of "good shit". Then we'd all sit around and take "hits" from his own personal shit, tell a joke or two and leave.

That was the "pot" ritual. The drink ritual as described by Simon is much more sociable and actually just as much fun. It would be even more fun if Daiquiris a la mode de Simon were illegal and you faced five years in the pen for drinking them.

But you can't have a total ritual anymore.

It's the Republicans.