Old Friends

I have decided to seek out some old friends. The ones that made me feel passionate and alive. It's probably a typical midlife desire to possess a sense of nostalgia for youth or some such. But you see I started to neglect these friends and we drifted slowly apart. And it was my fault. They weren't sophisticated enough. They were sort of rough around the edges. Your mother wasn't really that cool with you hanging out with them. But, deep down, they were good. Self-destructive tendencies and all. They made you feel alive, hit you on a pre-verbal level. The guys that played jam-band music.

Now I've had music in my life ever since I can remember. Both my parents love music. Mom sang in the church choir and loved listening to classical music. Dad loved listening to jazz and bluegrass. I got a little sunoco transistor radio when I was in the 3rd grade. I saw my first concert sometime around the 7th grade. It was a Beach Boys concert at William and Mary Hall. There were 10 of us, including my dad the chaperone. All I remember is that I knew every song. And how those harmonies made me feel. So you see what really got me was to see a band live. To see how they performed the song live. Not like it was on the radio. Different. Back then, your songs had to be a certain length to get played on the radio stations. So you could go to the concert and and they would play the songs with solos and extend them out.

It was the heyday of the jam band. The Allman bros., Lynrd Skynrd, and the Dead. The grandaddies of them all. It wasn't until I was in High School that I went to my first Grateful Dead show. A buddy had moved in across the street from Northern California and seen some of the Day on the Greens that Bob Graham used to put on in San Francisco. So we talked our folks into letting us go. The parking lot was a circus. Smell of sweaty bodies dowsed with patchouli, sensimilla, tobacco and flat beer with stir-fry and a cool night breeze nowhere to be found. But the music, played live, was transcendent. Electrified bluegrass/jazz/world music. Jerry actually got up and walked across the stage. I know people that still trade that tape (Hampton, 1977). And while I was too late for the Allman Bros. band (Duane had just been killed in his motorcycle wreck), I owned my very own copy of Live at Fillmore East. And Skynyrd had just broken into the mainstream. They were from Florida too. And they jammed. Nobody wanted to admit to listening to that "Redneck" music, but everybody loved watching the show. Duelling guitars, B3 organs, thick bass, and smack-you-in-the-gut drums that you could feel in those huge venues. Or better yet, outdoors in the Stadium.

So, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go back in time, be a retro-redneck, and catch up with those old friends. No matter what mom says.

Fat Bastard

Ok, I'm a beer drinker. Rich, hoppy beers with a bite to them. I will even drink a Budweiser, if that's what you have on hand. I don't do "lite." Period. I can tell you where the beer is going to hit your palate. What the finish is going to be like. I know the beers that I like and will drink them two or three nights a week at my local.

My Dad, on the other hand, drinks wine. He's the kind of guy that will shop every liquor store for 30 miles around to save a dollar on a case of wine. He knows what he likes, and he drinks it by the case. So, due to his influence, I've decided to take a "step up in the world." You know, polish up the image. Be a little more...sophisticated.

So, as I shop for my grass fed beef steak (pan fried with shallots, butter, and a little fresh ground pepper), my green beans for steaming, and an idaho for baking, I decide to branch out and have some wine with my steak. So after picking up a loaf of chewy Russian black bread I squeak on over to the wine aisle. I'm always squeaking in the grocery as I always get the one buggy with the one wheel that only turns one revolution to every six of the other three wheels.

So, here I am squeaking over to the wine aisle. I know I like red wine. Probably a Merlot or Shiraz, because I've had them at Dad's house and have actually liked them. Now, I have to decide where the wine is going to come from. Beer is put on the shelves in alpahbetical order with the froo-froo beer being on the one end and the domestic swill being on the other. Not so with wine. Wine is divided by country, by region, and by grape. Whoo-boy. Ok, let's try the Australian thing. Dad drinks the Australian thing. And I find it and it's twelve dollars a bottle. Unnhhh. No wonder he buys it by the case. Ok, maybe not. Find a little table wine. I found out that that's what they call the "less expensive" wines. Ok, at least it's not the Ripple or Richards Wild Irish that we're all familiar with from high school. It's segregated in it's own little gulag out in the center. Where everyone can see you buying the cheap stuff. So I squeak on over to the cheap wine island over next to the Luscious In-House All Vegan Salad Bar and start perusing my options. Let's see. There's Chateau Neuf de Bob. There's Fred's Hand Picked and Bottled Table Wine. And then I hit it. You must understand that one of my all time favorite beers is called Fat Tire Amber Ale. I just like the name. It's a full flavored "cult beer." It has enough hops to cut down on that malty goodness and keep it from tasting like a fresh baked dinner roll. But here, right here, in the cheap wine gulag archipelago is a name I can get my teeth into. Fat Bastard Merlot. The little placard reads thus:

Tasting notes: Intense dark ruby color, aromas of stone-fruit like plums and cherries, combine smoothly with cedar and toasty aromas. On the palate its generous, round and juicy tannins are well integrated bringing harmony and complexity.

Well, I like the idea of an intense toasty tasting wine and the name has won my heart. There cannot be any pretension of grandeur in a wine named "Fat Bastard." So I wheel on home, butter up the idaho and throw it in the oven (@425 for 50 minutes, don't forget to pierce the skin with a fork half-way through to let the steam out) and proceed to decork the wine. You know, to let it breathe a little in the bottle. (That's what my friend Mike the bartender told me to do. You don't need to decant it if it's like less than a few weeks, errr, years old.) Well, wouldn't you know it. They don't even bother to put a real cork in it. Ok, this has my name written all over it. Because everytime I use my swiss army knife corkscrew on a bottle of wine the damn cork breaks. And then you're forced to push it down the neck of the bottle and pick pieces of cork out of your teeth for the rest of the night. Of course you can always pass it off as sesame seeds from the crackers and cheese you served while waiting for the idaho to get done. It's a lovely dark red color. Swish, shwish, sha-wish. Yeah, it's pretty intense. Taste's pretty bold. Why, yes, I believe that will do nicely.

You must understand, when I bought wineglasses they actually should have been labeled wine buckets. I mean they are big. Koi would have no problem calling them home. By the time I get that little steak cooking, the beans are steaming, I'm on my second glass of Fat Bastard Merlot.

And I am now hammered.

And here's the secret of wine drinking. You get hammered very quickly on something that is 14% alcohol by volume. If you sit there and take good, strong swallows as you would with, say a good amber ale. You are hammered by your second glass.

Flashback.

10th grade health class where the Alcohol Safety And Prevention guy is giving you the lowdown on how 1 beer equals a shot of liquor or an 8 oz. glass of wine. Remember my koi pond glasses? They can comfortably hold 12 oz. of fluid. And in this case, it was that bold toasty goodness of Fat Bastard Merlot.

Cheers. Fat Bastard Wine New Belgium Beer

Land of the Free

I've recently started noticing the new censorship movement here in the United States. And when I say censorship I'm sure it conjures up images of jowly guys who wipe their brow with white cotton handkerchiefs while they exhort crowds of people to burn books in the public square. You know. The people that want "Catcher in the Rye" taken out of the public schools because it has swear words. Or that a book depicts a race in a way that we don't view them today because the book was written in a different age when society wasn't as enlightened as it is today. Just take a look at the ALA List of 100 most challenged books.
TOP 100

The people that want to ban these books are the nice woman in the pantsuit and the coiffed hair standing next to you in line at the grocery store. The buddy you're talking to about last weeks game. Your friends and neighbors. Why do they want to silence authors, photographers, painters, and musicians? Because they don't have the time to sit there and listen to an album with their kid. They don't want to have to take the time to monitor what their kids watch on tv, if they're there in the first place. Although most of the people who want to ban art actually have a parent at home. (going out on a limb here). Their best friend tells them that the schools and teachers are trying to corrupt their children. So, they're concerned. And then someone tells them that it threatens their way of life. And then, without having ever read or even seeing the book they join the movement. To save their way of life. To save their values. Instead of taking the time, they've followed the path of least resistance. Everyone else thinks that this is bad. Therefore it is bad and shouldn't be allowed. Not "my child shouldn't read this." Not, I should take this time to teach my child about our beliefs. No, no one's child should read this book. No one should have an opportunity to start a dialogue with their child about their beliefs. It's like they want the government to be the spam filter for them. They don't want schools to teach their kids critical thinking because the kid might just turn that critical thinking around on them. And then where would we be? Maybe with a lot fewer fearful people whose beliefs won't hold up to the first challenge that they face.
Fear and ignorance, the biggest threats to a free society that have ever existed.