The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 32,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 7 Film Festivals
When I was seven years old my parents decided to get a divorce. I don’t remember much of my home life from this point. perhaps it is an emotional blackout, perhaps my seven year old brain didn’t care enough to file away those memories. When I go to draw water from them, the well is dry. I do remember after sometime I wanted to go live with my mother.
We moved into a well lived apartment in the on the South Side of Chicago.
Mom was free and becoming her own woman. Myself… a pudgy slab of clay. No direction and formless. Scared and excited.
Cannaryville is like the negative image of Mayberry. There are drugs and there are gangs. There are haves and have-nots. Sometimes the have-nots seem to out number the haves. However, much like Mayberry, the old neighborhood also had community. Strong bonds that stem from family and the lingering memory of what it is like to be a minority in a strange new country. (Cannaryville is predominantly Irish American)
In what seemed like a short time to me, I went from my old neighborhood of Pilsen, where I had a few friends and seemed to know my place on the totem pole, to becoming a stranger in a strange land. Needless to say I quickly became a shut in.
I remember walking in colorful Fall afternoons after school. All manner of orange leaves fell like comets to Earth.
I remember the snarls of bullies. Scraped knees and bruised fists.
After a few rounds and incidents with a few unsavory fellas I decided to give up on Me
I wanted to fit in. I had no desire to be different. I wanted to look like everyone else, talk like everyone else and find my niche. I just wanted to put my head down and be ignored.
After awhile I did just that. I stopped standing out. I stopped talking loudly. I shrunk like a wilting flower. I thought I was happy.
Then with a flash. Without warning. With little to no care of what would happen to me, a friend of my mother gave me a milk crate full of Doors paraphernalia. Magazines, pictures, albums, posters, books and VHS tapes were haphazardly thrown into this Pandora’s box of Jim. It’s like somehow he knew I was searching for something more than little league and pee wee football.
I don’t remember the first Doors song I heard or the first album I slipped into my CD player. I do remember the collective feeling I got from those first few listens… that feeling was fear. Frankly, The Doors scared the shit out of me. Their twisted carnival moans and Jim’s syrupy vocals were enough to make my hair stand on end. When you’re seven-ish and you’re falling asleep to the radio serenading you and this comes on.. It might be enough to freak you out…
Over time the fear subsided and new and original ideas floated to the surface and without trying to, I began to break the mold. Jim became somewhat of a mentor to me. The older I grew the more my obsession grew and more importantly the less I wanted to fit in with others.
Jim was the first to turn me onto poetry, way before any teacher could sink their claws in me. It was because of him that I first fell head over heels in love with the Beat poets
“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.” – Jack Kerouac
Morrison was also responsible for directing my compass toward the horizons of philosophy. His love of Nietzsche became my love. When I first read words like this I knew there was more than the racially divided neighborhoods of Chicago out there waiting for me
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
He was also responsible for turning me onto the Blues, which in turn sparked the idea that I could be a musician one day. 20 some odd years later I’m still strumming chords and beating rhythms out on my ragged drum set.
So how do you honor someone who has meant so much to you and literally shaped you as an artist and person? I have no clue. The only thing that came to mind is to tell my story and hope that it would inspire you to go search out some of those early heroes of yours and once again heed whatever message you once gleaned from them. Even if it is only for a second, relive those afternoons when you had a hero. Remember what it was like to not know who you are.
I’m sitting here waiting for the last hour to wind down on my smoked wings. I can smell the sweet hickory in the air. Like a sacrifice, it burns so it can feed the gods and in doing so it creates milky white apparitions in the sky. I’m pondering now as many ticks come and go, like random city buses zagging and zigging in fog infested nights.
What is it about BBQ that stirs my soul? What is it about fine drink that pleases me so? I kick back and wonder. Sounds ring out around me. The sickening off beat rhythm of a basketball being bounced is enough to drive any time keeping drummer mad. The random yapping of a so called dog. I hear rim, another shot and a miss.
I try to push my thoughts out, but I am not successful. They keep coming at me like a desecrated zombie, shambling toward me without care to injury or death.
Again it hits me.
Why am I drawn to smoked meats and strong drink?
Then a flash of inspiration!
A strong beer and good meal is community. A stranger in a new city may only have to find the right pub in order to belong. After the first round, he is family. Gathering around a well kept fire and chewing on the bounty of the day is enough to raise even the most foulest of spirits. Strangers become friends, friends become tribe and tribe lifts up to realm of spirit.
We often share stories after a few rounds of good spirits. This is becoming rare in the modern age of internet and “all you can view” TV. We create myth and legend around the table, something desperately needed in a time of 24 hour “realism.”
We tend to share in a BBQ setting. The normal selfishness of everyday life seems to melt away. We open our homes to others. We act, even if it is untrue, as if our bounty could never end and encourage others to take their fill, often before we’ve had our own.
We experience the outdoors in a way that most city dwellers never would. I know as well as you do, hanging in your backyard is not exactly the great outdoors. However, in some cases this option is all certain people are left with.
When done right, merriment in the form of liquor and good food reminds us that we are together on this rock. Not only are we together… we are OF it. Not the masters of it. We are not observing it. We are it. We are the thing.
You stand up and head over to the dart board. You see her. Purple top, tight jeans and stupid Zooey Deschanel glasses. Immediately you begin to ask your self why chicks think guys want to bang Rivers Coumo from Weezer?
Back down to the jeans… you get over the glasses.
Should you approach?
Should you try one of your Pick Up Artist Techniques that you learned from the TV? Let’s see, there was something about insulting her best qualities, peacock my values in her face… then we bang like weird monkeys at 3AM in the parking lot of White Castle, AFTER she gets me the double chee meal. Also, the creepy chicken rings with the powder ranch on them.
Before you notice what you’re doing, you’re walking toward her. The sounds of Rob Bass echos out of the juke box and into the very fillings of your teeth. This is it. This is your movie scene where you say something witty and cute:
You slur, “WAN eh beard.. I meaan a beer?” “What?” she says, puzzled. “Yoo wand a beer?” “Sure, I’d love one.” “What do pretty girls like?” “Surprise me!”You carefully turn around, making sure not to fall over. You neatly make your way to the bar. However, the panic has already sunk it’s teeth into your neck. Surprise me? Surprise me?! What does that mean? IPA? Amber Ale? Miller Lite? Guinness?
I’m your friend out here pilgrim, so relax my well inebriated friend. I’m here to help. I know what you want. You want to appear to be different. You want the beer to do the talking for you. Impress her. Help you break the ice. You want your beer to be suave and sophisticated, yet relaxed and non-rapist like. Most importantly, you don’t want your beer to be boring! Below are five beers that maybe you have never heard of that will delight and impress your muse.
Taste: If you are Hispanic I’ll explain it like this, It tastes like Abuelita’s recipe for spicy mole. If not, imagine a chocolatey ale lightly seasoned with chile peppers then topped with a tad of cinnamon. This beer screams summer! Perfect for a beer garden experience that you will never forget. Not too heavy, not too spicy, not too sweet… pretty much New Belgium hit the nail on the head with this one!
Stats: Brewed By New Belgium, 9.00% ABV, Chile Beer
Taste: We were drinking this during the latest episode of our podcast and it’s what I like to call a work horse beer. You can literally have this every day and never get sick of it. Deep in Color. Crisp. Light. Little bit of grapefruit and nice and hoppy.
Stats: Brewed by Victory, 5.10% ABV, American Pale Ale.
Taste: I went to the store. Took out my credit card. Bought a nice princess cut diamond ring. Got back to the bar and tried to marry this beer. She said maybe. I adore this beer, nice orange body, hints of grapefruit and tobacco. Excellent.
Stats: Brewed by Three Floyds, 6.20% ABV, American Pale Ale.
Taste: This machine is running clean. Very carbonated. Little Fruity. Subtle Belgian style hops.
Stats: Brewed by Brouwerij, Roman N.V., 8.50% ABV, Belgian Strong Pale Ale.
Taste: This ain’t your daddy’s IPA, mainly cause your dad probably likes shit beer like Bud Light. I absolutely love this beer. However, you must respect it. It packs a serious punch. Malty, almost barely wine-ish. Tons of hops. It’s a complex beauty.
Stats: Brewed by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, 18% ABV, American Double/Imperial IPA
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