The Civilizing Effects of Beer

**Editor's Note** I'm all about recycling, so here is the first post I ever published.

"Enkidu, a shaggy, unkempt, almost bestial primitive man, who ate grass and could milk wild animals, wanted to test his strength against Gilgamesh, the demigod-like sovereign. Taking no chances, Gilgamesh sent a (prostitute) to Enkidu to learn of his strengths and weaknesses. Enkidu enjoyed a week with her, during which she taught him of civilization. Enkidu knew not what bread was nor how one ate it. He had also not learned to drink beer. The (prostitute) opened her mouth and spoke to Enkidu: 'Eat the bread now, O Enkidu, as it belongs to life. Drink also beer, as it is the custom of the land.' Enkidu drank seven cups of beer and his heart soared. In this condition he washed himself and became a human being. "

From the epic Sumerian tale of Gilgamesh, circa 3rd millennium, B.C.

Let us, for a moment, take a look at this ancient story from before the advent of the written word, Dear beer lovers. After reading this, and mind you, this is just me talking here, but it only took beer and prostitutes to civilize this poor, backward creature of Enkidu. Wow! And all this time I have been grossly mistaken as to what it takes to create a civilization.

I mean really, Enkidu must have been a mess when this unknown prostitute (let’s call her Trixie) found him in the wild, living on grass and the milk of whatever he could catch. This sounds like some nightmarish celebrity diet that would be recommended in the tabloids.

STAR JONES SEZ “I LOST 36 LBS. ON THE ENKIDU DIET AND I FEEL GREAT!”

But, in spite of his appearance, cause he had to be one ripe and awful looking chump, Trixie agrees to give old Enkidu a whirl ‘cause she has a code of honor to live up to, like Angel-eyes from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. (“When I get paid, I always see the job through.”) Not only does she give him a whirl, but more than one apparently, she stayed for a week, and taught him the ways of the “civilized” world. You got to admire the girl’s grit. Would you take a scabby, homeless man to bed for money then stay for a week to teach him which was the salad fork, to not fart at the table, and what opera was all about? I know. Me neither. Could this be the first appearance of the stock character, the whore with a heart of gold? Perhaps.

But let us delve a little deeper into Enkidu. This guy may have been raised by wolves/badgers/or gorillas in the mist (not very likely ‘cause how would he have learned to milk wild animals from them) but he listens to Trixie and takes her advice to heart. She gives him a slice of toast and some beer, (well, not just some beer, it takes more than a six pack,) but suddenly his heart soars and he realizes what a wretch he has been up to this point. He goes from smelly, crazed, grass-eating hermit dairy farmer to strong, enlightened man about town. Not only that, but I’m certain that she probably had to give a crash course in the birds and bees department. (I’m sure that little tidbit of info was not a hard lesson to sell. I mean, come on, he has been alone a long time and how has he spent his time? Milking the beasts of the wild. He probably started by trying to milk her. She would then give him some step-by-step instructions using a stick to draw in the sand. Hey, that’s how I learned. What? Didn’t everyone?)

So now we have this new and improved Enkidu, transformed by a sandwich and a couple of 40’s, and what does he do with this new insight? He hops into the bath and becomes a human being. Why, you might ask, is his conversion from wild man to a suave Beau Brummel so complete? Well, isn’t it obvious? He did it all for the nookie and the beer. The same reason that so many young men leave the life of carefree bachelor for the warm, comfortable existence of married life.

Dear and Gentle Reader, make no mistake, the civilizations of past and present were not built for the purposes of mutual protection, economic growth, a reliable food source, a stable system of justice, and the furthering of the species. No, you poor misinformed fool. Throw out these textbook answers that were handed to you, enmasse, by your world history teachers and step into the light of knowledge. Go on. It won’t hurt. Civilization was founded on the premise of securing the steady supply of beer and nookie. Face it, if there was no beer and no nookie, we would all be wearing plaid shirts and khakis, and beating animals and each other with sticks. Look into your own heart and tell me it ain’t so.

I know I will not garner the esteem and respect of the learned academic community by committing this to paper, or most women for that matter, but your average man-in-the-street would at least give this theory a grudging acceptance. Let’s face it Gentlemen, women are truly the civilizing influence in society and beer is the wonderful elixir that helps to temper our more base impulses. Would Hitler have been the world-menacing tyrant that he was if his buddies had bought him a few rounds of bock and turned him loose with the St. Paulies Girl? (Lets face it men, that girl is stacked!) Would Napoleon have brought the western world into a smoking ruin with his French war-machine if Josephine had merely taken the brandy from his hand and replaced it with a cold Corona beer w/ lime and set out some decent nachos for a long weekend of getting his freak on? Would the Roman Empire still stand today if Caesar had a couple of frosty Coors to hand around to Brutus and company before they slipped off to the temple of Bacchus for the mid-March orgy? Could Moses have gotten the children of Israel out of Egypt, without all of the first-born son stuff, if he and Pharaoh had hashed things out over a couple of Guinness’s and gone on a double date with some nice Jewish girls?

The world will never know for sure, but I’d like to think that, perhaps, with a little bit more affection and maybe some cold frosty ones,We, as a species, could overcome our differences, put down our weapons of war, and live in peaceful harmony, and get down to the truly important problems of the world: hunger, poverty, ignorance, and how to make a good beer that does not compel you to do stupid things and have to pee a lot.

Doc

The First Thanksgiving; or How Squanto Got Screwed

We in America make a lot of this holiday. I think it is because we don't really have many feast days on our calender because in America, every day is a feast day. It is easy to see, as every street has dozens of restaurants and multiple gyms to work off your indulgence.

It wasn't always like this.

While this has always been a land of opportunity, it hasn't always been a land of plenty. The pilgrims figured that out when they got here in 1620. These poor sods were doomed to failure when they climbed aboard the boat. When they left England they brought a motley bunch wholly unsuited to settling a new land. Would you set off for the wild with two tailors, a printer, a silk worker, a shopkeeper, a hatter, and several merchants, as well as lots of guys who listed their occupation as farmers but at the time that only meant that they owned land, not that they knew how to farm it. They packed a drum, a trumpet, sundials and candle snuffers, and one dude by the handle of William Mullins went to the trouble to bring 123 pairs of shoes and 13 pairs of boots. I think his wife may have had some influence on his choice of baggage. The reason they stopped where they did is because they had run out of beer on the boat and were afraid to go any further. Not a single one of them could shoot or had the slightest idea how to acquire food. They were screwed from the start.

But they lucked out.

Sure, the pilgrims tried very hard to meet their neighbors, but every time they saw them, the natives fled. Make no mistake, these were smart natives. Most of the pilgrims had died off. Of the original 102 that had gotten on the ship, 54 remained, most were children. They got a lucky break and in February met a local by the name of Samoset. While Samoset wasn't from this neck of the woods and couldn't understand most of what was said, he did have a friend who knew the English language well, and with any luck his buddy could hook him up with a few of the new widows who were a large portion of the Plymouth settlement now.

Samoset brought his friend, Tisquantum. The pilgrims couldn't pronounce that, so they called him Squanto for short.

Now here is where the mystery comes in, as all good tales need a little mystery. Why would the newly named Squanto bother to help these idiots? They couldn't have had much to offer him unless he was really in the market for a slightly used sundial or candle snuffer. Squanto had every reason to dislike white people and resent their presence in his homeland and yet he helped them survive and thrive.

What could Squanto possibly hold against them you might ask? Well Squanto had gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop from white people before. In 1605 he hopped aboard a ship captained by George Weymouth. If he did this of his own free will or not is a matter of conjecture. If he did it because it sounded like fun, that denotes an adventurous spirit. If he did it because he was at the point of a sword, I would think that would reflect poorly on Mr. Weymouth, but then the world is full of bastards.

Regardless, he spent nine years in England doing odd jobs until 1613 when he signed on as interpreter for a gent named John Smith. No sooner did Squanto get home than Thomas Hunt, one of John Smith's lieutenants, decided to pack up some fish, corn, as well as Squanto and nineteen of his fellow tribesmen and ship them off to Malaga, Spain and put them all up for sale. This is the second white bastard that Squanto had run into.

Some local friars decided that Squanto and his buddies needed some religious instruction and took them off Mr. Hunt's hands. After a while, the resilient Squanto made a break for England. He lived with a Mr. John Slany for a few years, one of the few non bastards that Squanto ran into. From there he caught a boat headed for Newfoundland. He bummed around there for a while looking for a lift to North America but that never happened and in 1618 found himself back in England. Even then, travel agents weren't to be trusted.

In 1619 he finally caught a lift back to the New England coast just in time to find his whole tribe was wiped out by small pox that they had gotten from visiting white sailors. Everyone he knew and loved was dead. Then his buddy Samoset shows up and asks for him to try a double date with him and some newly widowed white women.

The amazing thing is that Squanto said yes. After fifteen years of being under the thumb of one white guy after another, Squanto decides to cut the pilgrims a break and helps them out. I can only assume that Mr. John Slany was a hell of a good guy and taught Squanto that all white guys ain't bad.

Because of Squanto alone, the pilgrims survived. He showed them how to plant, harvest, build and hunt, and he must have done it very well because any experienced turkey hunter knows that it isn't easy to bring down this fat, feathered Butterball, especially by an amateur. A turkey is perhaps one of God's dumbest of creatures who possess a brain almost the size of their eyeball, yet they remain one of the hardest creatures to bring down as they are armor plated with a coat of feathers that act as a flak jacket and are the most skittish of creatures who can be frightened off by an incoming butterfly.

Yet they had one at Thanksgiving, and from what I heard the cornbread and stuffing was awesome.

So to return to the mystery as to why Squanto would help these poor fools lost in the wilderness, it is anybody's guess. Why would he help a bunch of white people who couldn't help themselves after being treated as nothing more than an oddity and a slave for so many years? Perhaps it was because he didn't have anyone else, as his people were a fond but distant memory, and he was an outsider to all the local tribes. Here he was respected like a chief and his advice followed, after years of mistreatment. Perhaps that is what made him settle with these people.

I'd like to think that maybe he realized that we are all in this thing together, and we are here to help each other. That is something to be truly thankful for.

Shortly there after Squanto caught a fever and went to the great hunting grounds beyond, but we remember him every year as we sit down with family, or extended family, or friends, knowing that some one, some where gave enough of a damn to see us through.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone,
Doc

What Did The First Man Sell?

What could the first man have had to peddle? It is generally understood what the first woman had to sell, hence the old expression of "oldest profession in the world" and her clientele hasn't fallen off since then, but what about the first man?

After giving this some thought, these are some possibilities that have occurred to me, which I'm sure anthropologists will be confirming any day now:

"The Dream"- I'm certain that there had to be this one guy, and you probably already know at least one guy like this yourself. You know, the "Big Idea Guy". This guy comes up with a grand scheme out of nowhere, usually after a couple of drinks, and he is instantly convinced that it will work, and he sets out to convince everyone else too. What the idea is doesn't matter, just as long as he can get everyone on the bandwagon. I suspicion it went something like this:

"Oog, things are getting tough around here. You know what we need to do don't you? We need to shake the dust of this crummy little cave off of our heels and move two valleys over. I know there have got to be some chicks over there, and the hunting! Wow, there wouldn't be any need to hunt! At dark, the food just wanders into your cave and you club it over the head. Not to mention there is this kick-ass waterfall! And right next to the waterfall is this fire that never goes out, and right next to that grows this plant that you can make some mind-bending tea with! We could just lay around, surrounded by hot chicks, eat good, and drink wicked tea! That would be awesome!"

At this point, Oog suggests that the guys who live there now might not want the two of them horning in on their good thing. Besides, the next valley over has lots of big, deadly snakes.

Now the conversation can go one of three ways here. The first is very simple, as the "Big Idea Guy" continues to sell his original plan, unchanged, to Oog until Oog finally gives in just to shut him up. Now the other two options in the conversation involve the "Big Idea Guy" taking on one of two persona's that have been wildly successful throughout history.

"The Warrior"- "Oog, just look at yourself man! You are a strapping, hulking specimen of caveman! You could kick a saber-toothed tiger's butt! Those pussies in the next valley have grown soft. They wouldn't stand a chance against a motherf*cker like you man! We grew up in the poor valley and we've had it tough, and we know what it means to be mean! Besides, we come from a long line of smart ass-kickers. Hell, it was my great-uncle who suggested we come down from the trees, and your dad could stomp a hole in a wholly mammoth. What with my brains and your good clubbing arm, those chumps wouldn't stand a chance man! All we gotta do is make sure we make a lot of noise and stomp a lot as we got through the valleys. Yea! That will scare the shit out of the snakes and the snakes will head into their valley and they will beat feet, cause who the hell wants to live somewhere that is crawling with snakes? And if any of those bastards want to hang around, we can kick their asses pronto!" This has been a popular stance of Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Hitler, and street gangs the world over, just to name a few.

But the last option of how the conversation turns seems much more likely, but I'm not sure why.

"The Priest"- "God wants us to take that land because he promised it to us. If you don't help, he will kill you after making you suffer really bad. If you have any questions, face this way, hold your hands just so, and call out to my great-uncle until you find I'm right. If that still doesn't convince you, try some of this tea." The examples for this model a too numerous to site and I'm sure you could think of quite a few that I wouldn't have thought of, but you get the picture.

So what did the first man sell? Tea, and lots of it, and in the immortal words of Lewis Carrol's Mad Hatter, "Clean cup, clean cup! Move down, move down!"

Doc

Goliardic Poetry

I've been reading this old history textbook that Wally gave me. It's Western Civilization, by Jackson J. Speilvogel. As far as authors go, you've got to love a guy named Speilvogel.

Anyway, I'm up to the High Middle Ages: Crusades and Culture, and I read about Goliardic Poetry. It was the graffiti and dirty limericks of it's time.

The one poem that the book provided was this:

My intention is to die

In the tavern drinking;

Wine must be at hand, for I

Want it when I'm sinking.

Angels when they come shall cry,

At my frailties winking:

"Spare this drunkard, God, he's high,

Absolutely stinking!"*

Mr. Speilvogel explains that Goliardic poetry was highly irreverent and focused on wine, women, and song, written by vagabond students and teachers. It was the kind of thing you might find written in a stall somewhere, like "George Washington Crapped Here". Or the ever popular, "Here I sit, all broken hearted, I had to shit, but only farted".

Or the most common of all, "For a good time, call this phone number". It has been my experience that these numbers, most often, don't really turn out to be a good time.

Doc

*I would have replaced beer for wine, but that's just me. Ed.

People I Would Like to buy a Beer

Mark Twain. Who wouldn't want to sit down to a few cold suds with America's premier Humorist?

I mean really, you have to respect a guy who owns two dozen white suits, and refers to them as his "Go To Hell" suits, because whatever the occasion, he is going to wear the same thing he wears everyday.

I was thinking of Mark Twain the other day after I read a post by Big Orange. B.O. was talking about "bearclawing", or "badgering the witness", or whatever you kids are calling it today. In the article he mentioned a website that had a speech of his that he delivered in Paris, 1879, to a group of American artists and writers.

You might call it "badgering the witness", but good ol' Mark called it Onanism, after the Bible story of Onan. Onan was forced by law to marry his brother's widow, and when he fooled around with his new wife, he "spilled his seed on the ground", so God killed him.

In the speech, Mark Twain cites several sources, all of which your dedicated editor failed to check, but are presented as I found them.

After citing Homer, he moves on to Caesar in his "Commentaries" and says ""To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor; they that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion." In another place this excellent observer has said, "there are times when I prefer it to sodomy."

After that he goes on to say:

Robinson Crusoe says, "I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art."
Queen Elizabeth said, "It is the bulwark of virginity."

Brigham Young, an expert of incontestable authority, said, "As compared with the other thing, it is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

Solomon said, "There is nothing to recommend it but its cheapness."

The signs of excessive indulgence in this destructive pastime are easily detectable. They are these: A disposition to eat, to drink, to smoke, to meet together convivially, to laugh, to joke, and tell indelicate stories — and mainly, a yearning to paint pictures. The results of the habit are: Loss of memory, loss of virility, loss of cheerfulness, loss of hopefulness, loss of character, and loss of progeny.

He also referered to a fart as the "fundamental sigh"

Anyone who can crack Dick and Fart jokes in 1879 is someone I want to have a beer with.

Doc

People I would Like to buy a Beer

Of all the people that would be cool to share a few beers with, this gent would top the rest. This S.O.B. was just flat out funny! He had to be to compete with May West, not to mention that he could out-drink all of Hollywood's best, and at the time that was saying something as most of these folks drank a fifth of scotch before breakfast.

Ah, fast times and big breasted women, as well as an endless supply of cold beer at a nickel a glass. Times were good. God Bless William Fields.

Grandpa Ray

Flannery was cleaning out closets this evening and found an old photo of my Grandma Jean and Grandpa Ray. The glass was broken and the picture was scratched from just one too many moves, but with one look, I was seven again and spending a week of the summer with them. To my knowledge, Grandpa Ray was the only one who drank in the family.

My oldest brother would sneak a few cold ones with his buddies, but of course, I wasn’t privileged to this information any more than my parents were. My dad always kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in the house, well hidden behind the flour and sugar canisters. (We all knew where it was.) He would have some, for medicinal purposes only, if his back was bothering him. He had taken a bad fall from a roof as a young man and had trouble with his back for the rest of his life. He would pour a thimble full in a highball glass with two ice cubes and top it off with 7-Up. He would sip at it as he read the evening paper while waiting for the dinner, and always fell asleep before he finished the front section.

Grandpa Ray was the only beer drinker that I knew growing up. He was a Budweiser man, and to my knowledge, never drank anything else. My Grandmother had a very, very low opinion of drinking. From my mother I learned that, at one time, Grandma liked to live the wild life. She drank, smoked, partied, and chased wild men, until her abrupt conversion to a strict Christian lifestyle. Then, much like the reformed Whore, she did an about-face on everything that she had pursued before, drinking included. And a wiser man than I once said that there is no zealot like the reformed Whore. But Grandpa Ray would have a beer now and then. Usually after coming home from a long night of delivering pizzas for Dominoes. He would sit down to a large bowl of cookies-n-cream ice cream, and when he had finished, he washed it all down with a cold Bud in a can. Grandma would complain loudly when he would bring beer home, but she would grudgingly give it room in the fridge.

At some point in Ray’s life, he saved enough coupons to trade in for a Bud Man cookie jar. It was the most whimsical thing in their house. It stood out from all the other knick-knacks that were crammed onto every level space of their house. Most were porcelain kitties or porcelain children doing something cute, or anything with a bible verse on it. It was probably the only thing in the house that Ray had that got to sit out, mind you it was in the back bedroom where no one could see it, but I think he made his point.

So here’s to you Grandpa Ray. I buy Budweiser when I can afford it, and I think it is from him that I get my brand loyalty. I think of him whenever I crack a cold one and I can still hear Grandma holler “Raaaay!” whenever I hear that familiar “fssst, crack-snap” of a can of beer being opened.

Doc

P.S. The cookie jar never had any cookies in it. I know. I checked.

A NIGHT AT THE SENET

The ancient Egyptians enjoyed a lot of things. Monument building, religion, sports, and thinking about the afterlife. They thought a lot about the afterlife. The only thing that even came close to competing for their mental free time was beer. They loved it. It was the drink of choice for the nobility and the common people, or “fellah”, alike. It was used as money (can you honestly tell me YOU wouldn’t like to pick up your check on Friday and have a case of cold ones thrown in?), in religious ceremonies (just like today, it makes the temple dancers even more attractive); it was buried with their dead (one tomb inscription said “…satisfy his spirit with beef and fowl, bread and beer.” Lord, I hope there are cheeseburgers in Heaven.), as well as enjoyed with every common meal (all of them, breakfast included. What a way to start the day!). The Ancient Egyptian word for beer is “hqt”, which is just another American word for “PBR”.

They loved beer enough to build taverns, known as a “Senet Houses”, named after one of their other favorite past-times, a board game, the oldest one known (circa 3500 B.C.). The Senet house was the social hub of the community. Everyone could be found there on one evening or another, with a beer at their elbow, and racing their opponent to the “afterlife” on the Senet board. The board consisted of three rows of ten squares, two sets of pawns, and the moves were determined by throwsticks, knucklebones, or dice. The rules for this game are a little sketchy, as like most board games, the rules are the first thing lost. The game was so popular that it spread as far as Greece, but without the religious connotations.

It is recorded that the most popular toast in a Senet house was “Here’s to your ghost!” Now isn’t that a wonderful sentiment. Much like the old Irish saying of, “I hope you are in Heaven for an hour before the Devil finds out you’re dead!” And the next time you find yourself complaining about American beer and wishing you could afford some import, think of the Egyptians. They had no bubbles, it was served warm, and you had to drink it from a wooden siphon, just to keep the impurities out of your mouth. Now that is a true beer lover my friend!

So in true Egyptian fashion, call up a few friends and invite them over for a game of Monopoly and pass around some brews. Sure, you may not have Boardwalk and Park Place, but at least you have had some fun and your “afterlife” isn’t riding on this, only your “nightlife”.

Doc

P.S.: Doc told me that he found a link to play an online game of Senet through the British Museum, but couldn't post the link. If you'd like to try YOUR hand at this ancient game, you can go HERE and try it out!!
---Big Orange

A Brief History of the Tiki

In the year 1856, a Slovenian explorer, one Phineas P. Levar, sought out the Grand Arch Duke and petitioned him to finance an expedition to the Indies, to discover new trade routes for valuable spices, and much needed liquid laundry soap. Levar had no idea that Christopher Columbus had set out on this very same journey in 1492 for the Spanish. All communication in Slovenia was still being handled by carrier pigeon, and this was a grossly unreliable system. As everyone knows, the Slovenian breed of carrier pigeon was only likely to carry the message over the next hill and flop to the ground, with the knowledge that it had done a tough job well, and even when the message arrived, very few people could speak pigeon.

Lucky for Levar, the Grand Arch Duke hadn’t heard of this much more famous expedition either, and agreed to finance it, provided that it didn’t cut too deeply into his “wenching” money.

Initially, Levar was going to make the expedition in a new-fangled hot air balloon, but the idea was later scrapped, as the weight of the firewood necessary to carry him and his team that far, was too much to get off the ground. Stymied by this first setback, Levar started the first Slovenian drawing to see if anyone could come up with a better idea on how to get there, and as a prize, offered the first load of liquid laundry soap brought back by the new trade route to the winner.

The winning entry was submitted by a merchant over the next hill, as the drawing was announced by Slovenian carrier pigeon, and his suggestion of a mule train was taken up immediately. The merchant who supplied the winning entry also made his living selling mules, and made a tidy sum on the whole deal.

The expedition set out to great fanfare and was followed to the edge of the country by the Grand Arch Duke’s royal band, consisting of three tubas, two lute players, and a harmonica player with asthma and a limp.

As this is a brief over view of the expedition, the trials of such an arduous trek will not be covered. Leave it to say that the going was rough. They were set upon by storms, flash-floods, infected water holes, disease, unreliable maps, poor diet, back breaking labor from morning till night, insect infestations, animal attacks (mostly being bitten by disagreeable mules), and a large shortage of sanitary napkins.

It was tough going.

Several chapters of Levar’s notes were lost in a short lived mutiny. It seems the men felt that no amount of liquid soap and spices would keep them from their homes and farms for any longer, unless Levar could come up with some decent toilet tissue. Levar, always quick on his feet, especially when fleeing an angry mob of his fellow countrymen, flung his valuable notes down, as a concession to their demands, from the top of a large fig tree.

How the expedition found it’s way to what is today, the modern state of Oman, is left as one of history’s mysteries. There Levar was faced with the daunting task of crossing the Arabian sea, but as has been seen so many times before, great man rise against impossible odds.

After failing to convince the locals to sell or rent a boat for the generous sum of fifty Tucats (the official money of Slovenia, about enough to buy one pack of cheap American gum), Levar was stricken with the idea of building a boat from the supplies that they had brought with them.

He set his men to work slaughtering the mules, which provided much needed food for his hungry men, as none of them would trust the local food of figs, dates, flat bread, pomegranates, and goat cheese. They were especially hesitant to consume anything that came from a goat, as all Slovenians at the time believed that goats were only used for bachelor parties and funerals.

They sewed the mule hides together and filled them with the flatulence that only a large meal of mule meat can provide, and sealed it with pine pitch. They tied these together and formed a crude raft. The finished boat was something less than what Levar had promised, as far as his men were concerned, and none but his faithful servant, Markus, would even attempt to board the craft.

All but one of Levar’s men abandoned him on that beach, but they promised that they would return home to Slovenia and tell the Grand Arch Duke what a good job he was doing, and that the Grand Arch Duke could expect his spices and liquid laundry soap any day now. No record exists of these men ever returning to Slovenia, and some learned historians have suggested that they settled in Saudi Arabia, making a killing with an ice cream and lemonade stand.

Levar and Markus sailed their raft for untold miles. Levar’s notes go to great lengths to tell of how they survived by their expert fishing skills alone. Apparently, Levar’s keen eye and good right arm were enough to throw Markus at passing schools of fish, where he would catch as many as he could as he knifed through the water, and that kept them well fed, though their first attempt a cooking them was a total failure, as the fire they built burnt a large hole in the center of the raft.

When questioned later on in life about his navigating skills and how they came to the south seas, by way of a short stop in Thailand (even then, the sex trade capital of the world), Levar was quoted as saying, “Go thata way fool!”.

They landed on an uncharted island, one of three in the area, and immediately set about negotiations with the local inhabitants for the liquid laundry soap that they had come so very far to procure. The chief responded that they didn’t have this mythical soap that the “outlanders” spoke of but they simply laundered their clothes by banging them on a rock down by the stream. Had the “outlanders” come so far because they didn’t have a stream, or a rock with which to bang clothes against, he wondered.

The chief, Wally by name, explained through the servant Markus, who was an excellent translator by the way, that they lived in a constant state of war with the other two local island tribes. The fighting had gone on for as long as anyone could remember. They, the Wallites, assumed that one of the other two tribes had this potion that they were so desperate to get a hold of. The potion was said to make it’s drinker find within himself a small piece of the stars that hung over them, and to feel deeply the sway of the ocean that surrounded them, and to know the wonderment of the tiki gods. Would the “outlanders” like to join them in their cause and go spy on the other two tribes to find out which one had the potion?

Levar thought about his options. It was a long way back to Slovenia, and there was no conceivable way that he and Markus could continue on in their search for liquid laundry soap without help from the natives, so in true diplomatic form, he stood, tall and grand, before the chief and his tribe, and announced a firm “Yeah…nice…”.

He and Markus ventured to the next of the trio of islands.

There they met the mighty Princess Snap. After lengthy conversations they learned that the Princess had many fruity potions, yet none of them had the fabled effect of the potion that the Wallites had spoken of. She swore that she would not rest and give her spirit over to the tiki gods, until she had found the potion that would set her fruity juices on fire, and she had given it to her people. She was suspect of the Wallites for the way they prosecuted their wars against them, but the people that she suspected the most were the McClains, the third of the island nations. They were said to have the power of the wire stripper.

So, with great gravity and flawless aplomb, Levar turned to his true boon companion, Markus, and said, “Lets check it out man”.

They ventured to the third island and there they met the mighty King John and Queen MeShell. They explain to Levar, that they too, sought out the mighty juju of the potion, but it didn’t provide the fire for fruity juices as the Snaps had said, nor did it provide the piece of the stars and sway of the ocean that the Wallites had said, but it did provide the wonderment of the tiki gods as both of them maintained, and also the ability to have the most common of music to transport you to the tiki world. The McClains had a medicine man named Doc, and he swore that the potion had something to do with the wire stripper, but anymore than that he would not confirm.

Levar, faced with this conundrum, turned to his companion for advice. They had spent so many countless months together, facing hardship after hardship, chin up, believing that the next moment would reward them for all their hard work to get this far, how could he not look to him when the only idea in his head was to find some mules and make a hot air balloon out of them that would sail them home to Slovenia?

Well, Markus thought about it.

He thought about it for a long time.

Then he turned to Levar and said, “Here’s what you need to do…”.

They got the four ruling members of the three islands together and said, “Here’s what you need to do…”.

Two days later, it was finished.

History will never acknowledge that Levar had any hand in creating a whole new culture. No college student will ever write their thesis on the work done by Phineas P. Levar, and his trusty manservant Markus. No large statue will ever be erected to them in some city park somewhere. Their Nobel Prize will go unclaimed. The world will never recognize them for the peace makers that they were.

For the three tribes united to create the magical potion that they all sought. The people gathered the ingredients, and a large pot was procured. The owner of this large pot was bought off with promises of some potion and a large container of liquid laundry soap.

Much like the American Indians, these promises were never fulfilled.

From this large pot was brewed a truly mighty juju. The final product was tasted at the new bar that had been built for this special occasion. The elixir that was drawn from the pot was different for each person.

The Wallites found the piece of the stars and the sway of the ocean that they were looking for. The Snaps found the fire for their fruity juices. The McClains played old music as if it had never been heard before and delighted in it. Doc wrote down the recipe, after many solemn words and several wavings of the wire stripper, which in the local language translates to Hotzsup.

Each found in it the wonderment of the tiki gods and was renewed.

Levar never found his liquid laundry soap and Markus never found his way back to Slovenia, but each found love in the collected tribes. Markus met a local girl named Qqwertaliessamilicic, which in translation means ”Joy, the window washer”. Levar settled down to a comfortable life of Grand Pooh-Bah and dated the princess from the distant island of Cleveburg, Patrice, to the end of his recorded history.

And to this very day, celebrations are regularly held honoring these intrepid explorers, who brought peace, love, and booze to a simple people. While the riches of the spice and soap trade eluded them, many happy songs by the natives record the wonderful times they had “putting the food away.”

Doc

Wally’s Transgressions

It seems appropriate that I should be sitting at the Tiki bar writing this post. Franklinton has turned in and I have the place to myself. Well, me and the crickets, and the full moon. It has been some time since I wrote anything about the Tiki bar. I have tried to limit my articles to the subject of beer, as the spirit of charter of this site is supposed to be, and only include the Tiki bar when it applied to the story I was trying to tell.

Not this time.

A scandal has rocked the Tiki bar!

Yes, Dear and Gentle Reader, The foundations of said Tiki bar have been shaken. One of the Tiki’s founding members has been caught in the most heinous act of TREASON!
All in attendance were shocked!

The story can only be told as I know it, as I’m the one who has to do the tellin’.

Saturday evening started off in the best of fashion. I arrived at a little after nine. We were fortunate to have five founding members in attendance, and the Tiki bar had been decorated with festive new lights, in preparation for the coming holiday. The skeletons with their flashing green glow added to the flood of moonlight that bathed the Tiki bar. The mood was jolly and everyone was glad to see me. The conversation was buoyant and happy. The candles were lit and the Tiki torches shone. A better night for a Tiki cannot be pictured.

The scent of newly fallen leaves filled the air. The stars themselves were ready to shake off their nightly grind and shine a little brighter, just to celebrate a good week’s work well done. The night promised nothing but good times and a lot of laughs.

Such was not the case.

Patrice came down from Cleveburg to visit, and brought some new lighting to the bar along with well wishes and regrets that she couldn’t make it more often.

Fat Wally, and his lovely wife, Ms. Snap, were there. Markus was settled in by the fire and was, for the first time in my limited memory, and not sporting a cap. John and Meshell scooted over and patted the seat next to them, so I sat down.

As I say, the story can only be told by me, as I’m the one doin’ the tellin’.

We talked of how we plan to “WINTERIZE” the Tiki bar. The new heater was brought in, with that, rough plans were made, and wood was secured. We talked of work and kids. We kept saying what a fan-effing-tastic night it was to be out.

After a while, refreshments were needed, and the Grand Pooh-Bah suggested slammers. This was a drink that I was unfamiliar with.

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“A shot of Yukon Jack and 7-Up. You hold the glass in one hand and put your other hand over the top and slam it on the bar. While the pop is still fizzing, you slam it down.” The Grand Pooh-Bah explained.

I declined.

“We have some tequila,” he offered.

“Not for me, thanks Frank.”

“How about vodka?”

“I’ll have one.” And I did. I had one. It wasn’t bad, although I think I might have missed out on some of the whole slammer experience, as mine was done with vodka, and not the Yukon Jack that the recipe called for. I was content to sip my delicious and inexpensive French beer, La Pabst.

Everyone had a slammer the first time they were offered, and toasts and cheers followed. The true spirit of the Tiki was in full swing.

It has been mentioned in a previous article that, under no circumstances, should Fat Wally be allowed to have rum. It tends to make him act up, and he really isn’t himself after that. I would like to amend the list of things that, under no circumstances, should Fat Wally be allowed to have. Let’s add Yukon Jack and Jose Cuervo tequila.

The conversation meandered. Football was discussed. Sex was mentioned, as it is a frequent topic of the Tiki bar, along with snide suggestions that Franklinton and Patrice “needed to put the food away”.

The Grand Pooh-Bah, in a very rare pronouncement, said that the driving spirit of the Tiki bar was love, and friendship. He doesn’t wax poetic like this very often, so it tends to make an impression when he does. This will come into play later.

We contemplated starting a new reality T.V. show entitled Tiki Nation, where we would travel cross country and build Tiki bars for people, and then show them how to use their new bar to full effect. Franklin would head up the landscaping, Markus would be our resident carpenter (look out Tye Pennington!), I would play host and help out with the decorations, John was to be our electrician, and Meshell would do hair and make-up, while Wally would produce it and be the flunky for Frank, Markus and John. Wally suggested that at the opening of the show we could all ride up on custom-made choppers and most everyone thought that that was a good idea. I was the only one to object. I wasn’t willing to drive, so someone had to have a sidecar, ‘cause I wasn’t willing to “ride bitch”. Markus volunteered to have the sidecar added to his custom chopper, as long as he got to keep all the great tools that it was going to take to build everything for Tiki Nation. We are trying to get the good folks at HGTV interested. We laughed and kidded each other as this beautiful fall night settled in around us.

Earlier in the evening, Wally was frying up breaded mushrooms in a deep fryer, in an attempt to add them to the regular Tiki bar fare of beer and peanuts. He was the only one interested in eating the mushrooms, and in the process of frying them, had spilled grease down the front of his ample shirt. This will come into play later in the story.

Wally decided that he liked the slammers, so he had another. Soon, the half bottle of Yukon Jack was exhausted. Wally was feeling what he thought was the spirit of the Tiki bar, and it moved him. It was not the spirit of the Tiki however that moved him. It was the bottle of spirits that he had just consumed. In his defense, this is a common misconception. Many have made this mistake, just not on the grand scale that Wally was about to embark on.

Wally’s conversation and attitude became more animated. He argued more vehemently about what football teams were going to win, how the Tiki should be run (those Republicans, always grasping for more power) and how he was really going to deliver in the bedroom when he and Ms. Snap got home.

Yes, it was that kind of evening.

Wally was tipsy and there was no going back now. With all this posturing, Wally got too warm and removed his grease stained button-up shirt, and was content to sit in his equally grease stained T-shirt. Now that he had made himself more comfortable, he decided that there was just too much mucking about with all this slammer business and he would just switch to shots. Tequila shots. And since things were rolling along so well, maybe two at a time would not be a bad idea.

Wally got loud. He became more obnoxious. He worked himself up to rude.

We laughed and snickered and threatened to marker his overbearing drunk-ass as soon as he fell unconscious. Markus has had several years of art school and a large 128-color selection of markers to choose from. He and I contemplated designs to decorate him with, while Wally settled into the Grand Pooh-Bah’s bottle of tequila.

When Wally closed one bleary eye and stared at the rapidly disappearing contents of the bottle, he made one more fatal error. The shot glasses would be dispensed with, and as no one but him seemed to show any interest in drinking more tequila, he would drink straight from the bottle. All of it. The last third of tequila went down in three gulps.

It was about this time that his saliva glands decided they were going to make themselves known. Not one word could stagger from Wally’s drunken lips without an accompanying spray of spittle. To make matters worse, he became a “close-talker”. His breath reeked of fried mushrooms, tequila, and the south end of a northbound horse. He got even louder, and despite the cool temperature, beads of sweat rolled down him.

Now, a few nights ago, there was a running joke of “God Bless America”. When someone felt uncomfortable with the subject matter at hand in the conversation, they would start in with “God Bless America”. Everyone who agreed that it was time for a new topic would sing along. It was a funny, but polite way to change the subject. We all laughed. We, as a group, could steer the conversation, and no one felt left out or was faced with a topic they weren’t prepared to talk about. I will be the first to admit that no subject is taboo at the Tiki bar, but only where it stands up to group approval. It is democracy, in its most basic form. Granted, We have a Grand Pooh-Bah, but We need at least one executive officer to get things done, or to delegate, as he sees fit. We only have one other office holder at the Tiki. That is the position of Secretary, who is supposed to keep track of rules, bylaws, minutes, and monies, and whatnot that may arise. Wally invented the position, and seeing as how no one else wanted the job, he ran unopposed and was sworn in.

He kept trying to introduce new topics of conversation to the Tiki bar. The size of his genitals, his prowess in the bedroom, and butt-f**king, only to be drowned out by “God Bless America” again and again. Markus and I kept track of how many times he had to be censored by this patriotic anthem, (a job that should have been handled by our Secretary) and at 12 we decided that it was time for an ass-kicking, or, at the very least, Fat Wally should go home.

I have never seen Ms. Snap with a more pleading look on her face than she had that night. The warm and loving husband that she had married, and had beautiful children with, was now a drooling imbecile who threatened to do bodily harm to himself and others. It was at this time that Wally was doing more leaning than standing, and found every single bottle of beer on the bar that had the least little bit of beer left in them, and proceeded to knock them into the laps of everyone in attendance, twice.

Something, way, way back in his mind must have fallen in place and made him realize, in some small way, that he was being a jerk, because he then became very affectionate. Not to his lovely wife, as would have seemed appropriate, (he was still too busy trying to convince us that when he got home, he was going to “Rock Her World”) no, he became affectionate to us all. He seemed like a man possessed. He hugged, kissed, and tried to fondle everyone there.

Have you, Dear and Gentle Reader, even had to shrug off the advances of a fat, sweaty, greasy, drunken man? I had not, and I’m willing to bet that most of the other members hadn’t either. (The jury is still out on some, I mean really, we have got a guy that used to tend bar at this really wild hangout here in town and we haven’t heard all that went on there, but I guess this place was just a den of iniquity.) What made it even worse was the fact that he really needed a shave. Not only did you have the wet ring of slobber on your face, but his 5 o’clock shadow would sandpaper a little bit of your face off every time, and he didn’t seem to mind if he used a little tongue. He would bear hug you and press his sweaty, greasy funk all over. I came home smelling like a stinky drunk’s jock strap. Needless to say, I had some explaining to do to my wife when I got home.

Then came the dancing. We always have music at the Tiki and dancing is encouraged. Most of us guys are not dancers per say, but the ladies usually take to the sand for a little shimmy and shake. Fat Wally wasn’t content with smooching and hugging, and felt like he needed to move to the music, if for no other reason than to move a little more of that booze laden blood a little closer to his head. He called for Ms. Snap to join him on the sand and they gyrated to the music, or at least, he danced as well as he could in his condition. It was more of a poorly controlled stagger.

He fell with the high-pitched giggle of a little girl. Then I helped him up and said that maybe, just maybe, it was time to go home. He fell again with another fit of girlie giggling.

“Nice,” the Grand Pooh-Bah commented, as Wally floundered at the edge of the sand.

Markus and I continued to keep track off how many times we had had to censor Fat Wally, and at 12 we threatened an ass-kicking, or a markering if need be. At 21, we called for a motion at the Tiki bar. Never before, in the whole history of the bar has this been done. The motion was laid before the members, and was carried unanimously. We organized a delegation to carry Fat Wally home. John was on his right, guiding him, Markus took up the rear with Ms. Snap, to see that he didn’t fall backwards and crack his head open like he had already done earlier in the evening, and I, yes I, was wedged somewhere in the neighborhood of one sweaty left armpit. Unlike his political philosophy, when drunk, Fat Wally leans to the left.

I weigh in at a buck-seventy-five. Wally is twice my size, to the pound. Needless to say, I had my hands full. The whole time that we are carrying Wally home, he was trying to undo his pants so he could piss. This complicated matters. Not only could he not figger out the simple fasteners to his pants, but he could not also concentrate on moving himself closer to home, where he would have to face an ass-kicking by his wife, and not by his closest friends and neighbors.

We had to pause at the road to let traffic go by, and Wally found that he had gotten ahold of the end of his belt and was going at it like a man about to beat a naughty dog. He wanted to stop on the yellow dividing lines and relieve himself there, even though there are large trucks bearing down on us. We managed to manhandle him (a word that has taken on a whole new meaning in my vocabulary) all the way to his front steps.

I knew that this was going to be the greatest trial of the night. To get Wally to place one foot in front of the other, and on different levels, enough to get him in the house. I encouraged him to concentrate, as he is still intent on pissing on the yellow lines in traffic.

“C’mon big guy,” I plead. He stumbles and his upper body swings in circles as he is grasping vainly for balance.

“Damn it Man! You are a Republican! Act like one!” I yelled in his ear. And for one brief moment, he seemed to find himself. He straightened up, and put one confident foot forward.

Then he fell to his knees and hurled like a first year frat boy. He must have been shooting for effect, as he turned his head slightly with every heave, so as to cover more ground with his upchuck.

Markus turned and never looked back as he returned to the Tiki.

John stared, with mouth wide open as the scene of horror unfolded, until he could stand it no longer and was tempted to barf himself.

I took Ms. Snap in a friendly embrace and tried to drown out the sounds of Wally emptying his gut with words of comfort, that this too, would pass. John had to look away. I called to him to be a friend and at least hold Wally’s hair back as he puked. (Wally has a buzz cut, and this was a totally unnecessary thing to say, but I was trying to add humor to a very bad situation.)

No amount of kind words or humor could convince Ms. Snap that this was anything but a complete disaster. She was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t leave her with this 350 lbs. train wreck at her front door, so John and I carried Fat Wally to the sofa in the front room and took his shoe off, as one was lost in the trip home.

John and I scampered back to the Tiki as quick as we could, before the drunken giant could raise more hell, and thanked our lucky, shining stars that that was over with for tonight and only the fallout needed to be dealt with when we got back.

We tried to have a good time, now that the ogre in the middle of the Tiki had been safely laid to rest, but, try as we might; we were still reeling from the experience. We tried to talk of other things, we tried to go back to the great time we were having earlier, we tried to wrap our heads around more pleasant things and how glad we were to be together again, but no, the memory of the awful thing that we had witnessed was too strong. Like people who have survived some horrible catastrophe and lived to tell the tale, we kept recounting how the evening had gone so horribly wrong.

That brings us to the high crime of TREASON!

The Grand Pooh-Bah earlier in the evening said that what the Tiki bar was all about was love and friendship. Fat Wally was tried and convicted of violating this one rule. None of his friends felt the love that night, despite the slobbery kisses and sweaty hugs.

His sentence: Every Monday, for a month, he has to wheel the beer bottle laden trash to the curb. He is banned from the Tiki for this coming weekend. He has to split firewood until everyone is satisfied that he is truly sorry, and when he is allowed back, he has to wear a helmet with a chinstrap to protect his head from further injury and guarantee no further damage would be unleashed on his already addled brains.

Doc

Pull Up A Chair And Have A Beer, Birthdays Are Here

Well, Dear and Gentle Reader, that time of year is upon us. The nights are getting chilly, the leaves are starting their age-old journey of falling to the ground, and the evening bonfires feel cozier. Not to mention two of my best friends have birthdays coming up. These guys have been through thick and thin with ol’ Doc, and I feel that now that they are getting a little long in the tooth, maybe I should send them something special this year.

Some of the best advice that my Dad ever imparted to me was this: You don’t get to pick your family, you don’t get to choose to be born rich or poor, you don’t really get to decide where you grow up, you don’t get to pick your boss, and with a lot of things in life, you just don’t get any say in, so pick your mate and your friends well. I have always found this to be true. I’ve chosen my mate and couldn’t ask for a better one than Flannery. She will always be the love of my life. And I would like to think that I have chosen my friends with equal care.

In the film Tombstone, there is a scene, late in the film, where Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and Texas Jack Vermillion are recovering from their last fight with the Clanton’s. Turkey Creek Jack sees Doc Holiday go into a horrible, racking coughing spell and he asks him what the hell is he doing out here. Doc responds, “Wyatt is my friend,” “Hell Doc,” Jack sez, “I got lots of friends”. Doc looks away and sez softly, ”Well I don’t.” That is how I feel. I only have a few, I love them deeply, and I aim to keep ‘em.

So with that in mind, I need to think of an appropriate gift for these honorable Gentlemen, and it needs to be just right. These fellows couldn’t be more unalike than night and day, oil and water, shinola or the other stuff, so two of the same gift just won’t do. I get to see them rarely and I’ll have to ship anything I get them, so a case of good beer seems out of the question. Besides, they know what good beer is and there isn’t anything I could tell them about it, or a good brand that I could turn them on to, and they are probably going to get their own beer for their respective birthdays, so that rules that out.

They are getting up in years, so comic books and Playboy’s don’t really have the appeal that they once did. I could get them gift cards for someplace, but that just seems cheesy. I considered a singing telegram girl, but the cost would be prohibitive and one of them is married, and I don’t think his wife would appreciate a scantily clad crooner on their doorstep. I mean really, who needs harsh words and slammed doors on their birthday. The other lives with his folks and takes care of them, and he wouldn’t like to have his ol’ mother answer the door to find some skinny hussy doing a breathy version of Happy Birthday To You like Marilyn Monroe. So strike that idea.

I have been considering a care package. You know, a box of lots of little things they might need and enjoy, just to show I care. I need ideas as to what to include in my lil’ packages and I’m looking for suggestions. I know my blog is not the center of this wonder-tool we call the web and for the most part goes largely unread, but I’m calling on all of you that stop by to contribute a suggestion. And please don’t say “Get them some over the hill gag gifts from the mall”. That crap isn’t funny to anybody. And don’t say clothes. Wives and mothers get clothes for their men. All submissions will be considered. What was the best birthday gift that you ever got? Why?

One is mid thirties, the other is late thirties, both men. One married, one single. One with children, one without, but both are children at heart. One a football fan, the other not a sports guy. One an avid reader, the other not so much.

Please help out ol’ Doc and give me some ideas.

Thanks much,
Doc

The Avatar

What Beer Goes With Capt. Crunch?

Well, I woke up this morning,
I got myself a beer
Well, I woke up this morning,
and I got myself a beer
The future's uncertain, and the end is always near

Roadhouse Blues, by the Doors, Morrison Hotel, 1970.

George Carlin once remarked, “What wine goes with Capt. Crunch? I can never decide. I usually just smoke a bong full of fruit loops and watch the mid-morning movie.” Carlin’s proclivity for “fruit loops” has been well covered by the body of his work and needs no discussion in this forum, but the joke was one that has hung with me these many years and came back to me recently as I was studying up on beer for a previous post.

I started my research of beer by going to its history, a subject that I find infinitely fascinating. Not just beer, but history in general. It is important to understand where we came from, on any given topic, to understand where we are now. My results were, to say the least, intriguing.

I found several sites that had a fairly complete history of beer, going back to the 3rd millennium B.C. It doesn’t get much older than the story of Gilgamesh. The Sumerians were the first ones to bother to write it down about 6,000 years ago. It turns out; the “culture of beer” has been brewing for some time now.

One of the most interesting trends that I found is how often beer was the drink of choice for breakfast. No, really! Contrary to popular belief, it was not Jim Morrison that originated the need to rise from bed in the morn and consume a cold beer.

I have mentioned in an earlier post that the Paulaner monks drank a strong beer (Bock, by name) to nourished themselves during their Lent and Advent seasons and would consume it for breakfast to brace themselves for the day, but did you know, in the late 1500’s, Queen Elizabeth drank strong ale for breakfast. No wonder she was the virgin Queen. She was too tuckered from breakfast. Mind you, this is just a guess, but if I started my day with strong, English ale, I’m not sure I’d have much gumption left by lunchtime to rule the British Empire. I’d need a nap, but being Queen, she could have one.*

The website that I found most informative said that Ladies-in-waiting of the court of King Henry VII were allowed a gallon of beer for breakfast alone. I don’t know if this means that they had a gallon for breakfast that they had to drink by themselves, away from everyone else, or they got a gallon for breakfast and then they had an allowance for the rest of the day on top of that. The article doesn’t say, but if that is what the Ladies-in-waiting got, then imagine if you will, what the Royalty got.

I guess what truly amazes me is the fact that, at one time beer was an acceptable breakfast, much like Lucky Charms, and as everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

John Locke, in his paper “Some thoughts Concerning Education” advises “And if betwixt these, which I call meals, he will eat, let him have, as often as he calls for it, good dry bread. If any one think this too hard and sparing a diet for a child, let them know, that a child will never starve nor dwindle for want of nourishment, who, besides flesh at dinner, and spoon-meat, or some such other thing, at supper, may have good bread and beer as often as he has a stomach.” And also “His drink should be only small beer; and that too he should never be suffer’d to have between meals, but after he had eat a piece of bread.”

This sounds incredible, but if you read on, most of the water isn’t safe to drink, being drawn from polluted streams, and pain relievers are a long way off (1897) and most of medicine relies on bleeding and leaches, or lots of laxatives or purgatives. Doctors of the time were firm believers in the idea that they could “purge” you of your ailment. Yuck! Some say that bleeding and leaches were the cause in George Washington’s death.

A website sponsored by the fine folks of the Fosters Group, one of the most informative of the host of sites I visited, had this to say: The American scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, who lived in London from 1757-1774, recorded the daily beer consumption in a London printing house which he visited. The employees each had a pint before breakfast, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint at six o'clock and a pint when they finished work.

In some of my research I’ve come across a breakfast beer brewed by Founders Brewing Company of Grand Rapids Michigan. Aptly titled, Founders Breakfast Stout, it is an American Double Stout with an alcohol rating of 8.3%. (What a way to start the Day! Should be their slogan.) The review that I read suggested that it had a very strong coffee flavor with hints of chocolate. One reviewer said that this would be a great intro/crossover beer for the Starbucks crowd. While I must admit that I am not familiar with the Founders Brewing co. or their product, it seems to me that some bright, young exec, on the way up would mention this to his boss.

One website was looking for contributions in naming their breakfast cereal, mascoted by an all white beer can with a slightly sauced look on his face and an eye-patch named appropriately Beer Can BobTM . Some suggestions include, Tootie Fruitie Beer Nuts, Marshmallow Six-Packs, Raisin’ From The Dead Bran, Green Eggs and SLAM, Keggos, Frosted Farty Fluffs, Totalled, and my personal favorite, Brewski Berries.

On a different website devoted to beer drinking one BigChris1313 of Claremont California asked his fellows if they ever enjoyed having an occasional, or not so occasional, beer for breakfast and the replies were varied but of the forty some odd responses, none were a condemnation for his early morning revelry. Most recommended a stout or porter with the morning meal and several had their own favorites for certain foods, e.g. steak and eggs, sausages and German pretzels with sweet mustard, cold left-over pizza, or buttery home fries. Only one character chided another that he was “too good for a Filthy Rolling Rock”. Several said that the impetus for having a morning beer was an early Sunday morning Tee time on the golf course. (Well it would explain the behavior of several of the golfers that I have met.)

At http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?threadid=471, They conducted a survey of what is the best breakfast beer, and of the sixty-five votes cast, stout won, hands down, with twenty-six votes. Followed by ale at fourteen, porter at thirteen, lager at seven, bock at three, and rounding out the field at two votes was old English 800, whatever that is.

Some of what I’ve read says that the way to enjoy your morning frothy beverage is to mix it with tomato juice. This seems to have its roots in farming communities at harvest time.

And to think that in the far off days of my misspent youth, that I felt guilty for the one warm, flat, domestic beer from the night before, that I had with my bowl of Ramein noodles for breakfast, in an effort to grasp a hair of the dog that bit me, (a phrase that I will delve into in greater depth in future posts) and convinced myself that this WAS NOT the breakfast of champions. How right or wrong I may have been, I haven’t quite decided yet. Let me just say “Good Morning” and “Cheers!”.

Doc

*. The rest of us peasants don’t have the time in our day for that kind of thing, unless you are Mexican or Spanish, and then a nap is built into your day and is counted as part of your lunch break, which, I must say, is the ABSOLUTE most civilized thing I have ever heard of. Any civilization that condones a nap in the middle of the heat of the day is civility at its zenith, as far as I’m concerned.

The Greeks, the Romans, the Ottoman Empire, none of them can boast that they have arrived at the pinnacle of human thought and existence, though you must give them credit, they tried, yet as far as I know, none invented the afternoon nap.

All Things Bright and Beery

All Things Bright and Beery

I was reading in the local paper (in the food section, of all things, a section of the paper I almost always skip) that Spring means bock beer, a fact I was wholly unaware of. I mean, I know that everything has it’s season, just as white wine goes with fish, and in spring a young man’s thoughts turn to love, but to bock beer as well?

Honestly, I can attest to the love thing, even though my bloom of youth has well gone to seed, but if spring is the season for bock beer perhaps I have been celebrating this season all-wrong for some time now.

The writer, Greg Kitsock, informs me that Bock is a strong German lager traditionally served during the spring and that the beer has it’s own mascot. Bock in German means billy goat or ram which is why a horned animal often graces the label. Legend has it that a Bavarian brewmaster challenged a visiting knight to a drinking contest after the knight impugned his beer. The knight was to down two tankards of beer and thread a needle while standing on one foot. (A challenge even for your average teetotaler) The knight waded through his two tankards only to fall flat on his face as he tried to thread the needle. The knight claimed that he had been knocked over by a stray goat or bock. The brewmaster was said to have replied, “The bock that threw you was brewed by me!”

I love a good legend and a funny beer legend is tough to pass up. But Mr. Kitsock trots out even more beer facts and history.

The term “bock” is probably a corruption of Einbeck, a northern German city once known for its strong brown beer.
The Einbecker Brauhaus AG there currently exports a light and dark version of its Ur-Bock (“ur” means “original” in German) to America.
Over time, the beer morphed from a strong beer that might be dark to a dark beer of no exceptional strength.
Doppel bock or double bock is stronger than regular bock, although not precisely twice as potent.
Doppel bock was originated by Paulaner monks, who migrated from Italy to Munich in the 17th century. The monks underwent a rigorous fast twice a year, eating no solid food during the 40 days of Lent and the four weeks of Advent. Their nutritious beer made these privations more tolerable.

This guy, Greg, is a wealth of information! All this time I thought that Lent was about skipping the red meat, but I can see how these guys could bide their time living on double strength beer and maybe some soup. Imagine rolling out of bed for morning prayers only to follow it up with a hearty helping of potent beer. No wonder these guys left Italy! They had to go to Germany to establish the Holy Order of the Soused! Only the Germans would accept a brotherhood that spent several weeks out of every year blitzed! What a country!

In all honesty, I can understand the dilemma that they found themselves in. Italy, known for its culture, antiquity, and wine was not the right setting for these holy men. *. They needed to find a home where wine was not the drink of choice, where a beer drinker would be welcomed, and a learned, Christian beer drinker even doubly so. I’m sure they found the mountain crossing to be tough going. It is the Alps, for the love of mike, and a good train, plane, or automobile to take them would be a long time coming. But I am sure they braced themselves for the journey and headed to the promised-land of beer, armed with the knowledge that God would protect them in their quest and reward them with a tasty dark beer with a good head.

So, in honor of these noble men of the cloth, hoist a bock and contemplate the High Holiday of the Christian calendar.

Doc

*(I am not a wine drinker myself. I never found one that I found palatable. In my mind, wine should be fruity and sweet, a form of wine that wine lovers seem to shun. I know there are dessert wines that meet these criteria but really, try asking for one at your local watering hole and pay close attention to the look that the bartender tries so hard to hide. You will be treated to variations of “This guy is fruitier than the wine he’s asking for”. As you do this, try to look at your buddies and deliver, with a straight face, the line “After a long day of: teaching, surgery, salt mining, logging, pimping, f**king your wife [no your own, your buddy’s], grating cheese, fill in the blank, I need a good, cold aperitif”. If you can do this and not receive: groans, moans, or a sound ass beating then you have achieved wine snobbery among a group of ninnies.)