Thanksgiving

Amid the actual and proposed wreckage of the Trump Administration, I'm finding it a bit hard to be thankful. After repeated exposure to the Trump-whore and the self-destructive lizard brains who, blinded by their anger, know no better than to support him, I am made unspeakably joyous by term limits.

Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, the world hasn't ended. Not yet.

There's still that sweet moment where we clock out of work and have yet to assume our domestic responsibilities. We are free. In that sweet, fleeting instant, we have both a job and unstructured time.

And in that time, we are able to enjoy this, the golden age of beer-making.

Owing to modern distribution channels, we have access to a world of fragrant nectars unimagined in my adolescence. Sam Adams' Summer Ale. Their Porch Rocker. New Belgium's 1554 and spectacular Trippel. Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Leinenkugel's reliable Sunset Wheat and Berry Weiss and Trader Joe's (!) PLZNR.

A special shout-out goes to Leinenkugel's and Trader Joe's for keeping their beers affordable—even for those of us not in the one-percent. 

Drink deeply but responsibly, my friends.

There is likewise a world of frozen food out there as flavorful as it is nutritious. Number-one are Sweet Earth's artisan bowls, meatless concoctions drawing their inspiration from points the world over. 

Best is the Moroccan Tagine. Twelveth-century traders likely dined on something very similar before they set out for India or the Far East, with the region's exotic spices (allspice, cinnamon and cloves) providing a singular mix of tang underlain with sweet.

Yes, it's vegetarian. But membership is not required for consumption.

Lastly, there is the consumable known as human companionship.

Having lost my father and mother and now shepherding my long-time mate through the ugliness of early-onset Alzheimer's, death is no longer something that happens to other people.

The death of a loved one lends a whole new meaning to words like permanent and void; one I never came close to understanding when I was young.

Those who remain take on special importance.

It might be the hoariset of clichés, but before you complain about another family gathering and the attendees bounty of annoying habits and irksome opinions, be thankful you have somewhere to go.

A group to belong to.

An invitation to answer.

It is not guaranteed to always be so.

Sober Advice from a Brewmaster

“Getting rich is life’s big booby prize. If you have to choose between do you want to be happy or do you want to be rich and you pick rich, you’re a sociopath.”

Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams Beer

Jimmy Page Made Me a Beer Snob!

As a young man growing up in the wide-open seventies, it was everywhere. But I just wasn’t that into it. Other guys talked about it all the time. How much they got. What it was like. And how good they were at getting it.

But it wasn’t that big a deal to me.

I mean, I had my share. It wasn’t like I lived in a monastery or anything. But I just didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Thanks to the passage of time, I now understand why I was so ambivalent about beer. And what did you think I was talking about, anyway?

American beer had long since lapsed into mass-market mediocrity by the nineteen-seventies, using the same marketing strategy that made McDonald’s the nation’s most-popular restaurant.

Brewers had for decades dumbed-down their beer to appeal to the broadest-possible market. They removed the distinguishing characteristics—its personality—until it was inoffensive to everyone.
But at the same time, no one was especially passionate about it. Which is why by the end of the seventies, imports like Beck’s and Heineken had carved out a tidy little niche for themselves.

Adding to import's cache (at least on planet La Piazza Gancio) was a picture in Circus magazine of a bleary-eyed Jimmy Page clutching a bottle of Heineken, surrounded by voluptuous groupies. That was all I needed to know. It was the beer Jimmy Page drank. The faint affection I had for Old Style, Schlitz and Budweiser disappeared immediately.

Celebrity associations aside, imported beers just tasted better. They were hearty, with hops selected for flavor and texture and not what advertising campaigns euphemistically referred to as ‘smoothness’.

They also had a higher alcohol content, which was a definite plus to a college-age male.

I was fast becoming a beer snob.

At least that’s what friends called me when I expressed my disdain for Pabst Blue Ribbon. But imported beers were expensive, and college kids and cash find themselves together as often as I do with Megan Fox and Scarlett Johansson.

This often meant drinking domestics while dreaming of imports. Would this be a good time to ask if anyone recalls an O'Jays song called Your Body's Here With Me (But Your Mind Is on the Other Side of Town)'?

But with graduation came disposable income, and with disposable income came the kind of beer my taste buds craved. Beck’s. Beck’s Dark. Guinness. Pacifico. And with the 1971 revival of Anchor Steam Beer came the long, slow ascent of micro (or craft) breweries. Small-volume brewers dedicated to producing quality, not quantity.

By the nineteen-nineties, liquor store shelves were packed with their offerings. And I was grateful. The American beer drinker has never had it so good. Alcohol-infused nectar like New Belgium’s Blue Paddle pilsner, Sam Adam's Summer Ale and New Mexico’s Monk’s Ale even make right-wing conservatives tolerable.

Granted, there is an element of fashion in all of this.

Just as I had rejected my father’s Hamm’s and Blatz, kids today reject their father’s New Glarus and Goose Island. Pabst Blue Ribbon in particular enjoys a revival that is unfathomable to me. But time marches on, and every generation must distinguish itself from the one that came before.

But I won’t drink it. And neither, I’ll wager, would Jimmy Page.