Unfinished

Editor's note: This article was written a year ago, to the day. The basis of the article remains the same, although characters have changed throughout the past 12 months. The story of self-discovery is an unfinished work, as the eponymous title.  Everything written in italics is a post script in 2016. Like sedimentary rock. At the end of this post, there's a post script (and post post script *INCEPTION*) regarding the hedonistic treadmill that we're all on and it's worth a read. 

In a tangent, I have taken a League 2 team to the Premier League, won the title, cup and Champions' League before setting down the controllers. My intention is not to play again until I buy myself a PlayStation 4 and the latest edition of FIFA. However, as the article goes on, I may lack the resolve to hold myself to such standards.

     "If you had one thing, what would you want?" That's a question I was asked during an interview. Outside of the glib and obvious answer of money, I took a more tactful approach. My house was replete with things unfinished. I had unfinished books, unfinished chores and unfinished projects. So, I told the interviewer, time. I have been working two jobs the past few months (as of 12/12/2016 - just 1 job) and I saw my apartment (2016 - yes, still) and relationships remain untended to. My garden of life was becoming cluttered with weeds. No one likes things unfinished. 

     If you are like me, you start things with the best of intentions. For years, I would play my soccer video game wanting the dynamically change the face of my favorite team in ways that I couldn't do in real life. Things would start out masterfully, almost like former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson would handle the same situation. I took an objective look at my squad, looked for weaknesses and tried to play to its strengths. I'd transfer list some of my higher valued players and look around for up-and-comers or old stars that could have something to contribute. Then, the wins started rolling in. Success! Then as the seasons rolled on, the ritual became tedious. How many times can I beat the same teams in the league. Then, I was Jose Mourinho - outdone by my own genius. What seems to happen - I don't know because I've never been a professional athlete, but a new manager comes in with a new ethos. They come in with a new tact and depending on the circumstances it could be quite inspiring. Some of the "old guard" may reserve judgement but people open to the message receive it and perform. Then something happens, the players' effort attenuates. Fans notice that players aren't giving their all and they ask for the manager's head. They usually get it.

     Often, I'll go to the bookstore and pick up a book on a topic that I'm interested in. I have books about a myriad of subjects and study guides and other books explaining current events. Since moving to Portland, I have fallen in love with Powell's bookstore, where I use to spend an afternoon leafing through random books in the multiple floors that make up the Burnside location. During the week, I'd listen to a podcast and become interested in a subject. That was the trend….get aroused by an idea, buy the book of the podcast guest, read it with fervor the day that I got it then set it down. Something happens though, either I fully lose interest or I get distracted. It's easier to blame work or getting caught up in a Netflix series or play mindless video games. However, while listening to an old School Sucks podcast, I heard my favorite psychologist, Phillip Zimbardo talk about evil at a TEDtalk. He had a book out called the Time Paradox, so my mission on a particular Saturday was to get a cup of coffee and head to Powell's and get that damn book.  I finished that book that week. Now, it's beginning to come to a head. Maybe it's not time I need...  

     When is it the hardest to work out? Personally, it's after a few days of not working out. Habit and discipline are necessary to complete things. I am finding that I am lacking of discipline.  When I was working out with my friends, I found myself finishing the reps and actually adding more weight. When personal trainers are trying to sell their time, they're doing it to make a living but also tapping into something that a lot of us don't have: discipline. I lacked positive discipline when I was a child. When I was younger, I did most things so I didn't have to hear anyone bitching, chores, school work, etc. While at work, between calls I check social media and look at soccer jerseys. I have the time to hone my craft and gain product knowledge. So, it's pretty evident, how do I become more disciplined?

     First, stop making excuses. Whatever happened in life can't be changed. I can lament on a childhood or relationships lost because those are done, there's nothing more I can do about it. However, those past failures can be used as a motivation to work toward better things. I like Joe Rogan's Be The Hero of Your Movie ad from Onnit. Overweight as a kid, don't wait until January 1st. Stop lifting shitty food in your mouth and start lifting weights. Do you have a job as a temp or looking for a promotion? Put the phone down and cut the bullshit. Want to learn something to make your life better? Turn off the TV and finish that book! Write a summary of the key points on the back of the front cover so if you forget something you can use it as a reference instead of having to reread the thing over again. These are still daily struggles, even after a year writing the initial article. There has been marked improvement. I am more settled in my job since becoming full-time a few months after writing this in 2015. The woman I was dating while writing this has since gone and I have dated. It's those past relationships that I've had help me in my current one. I've acclimated more to my new hometown and I work daily to remain physically fit. this past year, I joined an indoor soccer team and became more involved with jiujitsu. 

Don't ask for an easier life, ask for the strength to handle the challenges. Still true.

Post script: The concept of the hedonistic treadmill is an interesting idea. Introduced by Michael Eysenck, the idea of the hedonistic treadmill is that humans are predisposed by genetics to plateau at a certain level of happiness and the occurrence of novelty only gives it a temporary bounce. This certainly explains my attention span to my video game - get success and stop when it comes to developing a legacy, if that is at all possible within a video game. If you're working out and on a diet, you'll hit a wall after about 6-8 weeks because your body adapts. It also speaks to relationships where the first few months are amorous and no one can do any wrong. Then the first fight happens and people are either looking to bail or to work around it.

Another take away from this past revolution around the sun is that nothing happens in a vacuum. Your success is directionally proportionate with your human connections, barring the one autistic genius that creates a life-changing technology. When I heard Barack Obama's "You Didn't Build That" speech, I was mortified. Of course that entrepreneur made that business! What I neglected to think about was the supporting cast of that entrepreneur. I didn't get the idea to move to Portland, Oregon. That came at the suggestion of my best friend. That same best friend also let me crash on his couch and then told me about multiple job opportunities - most of which that has worked out. My blogging has come through another muse. It was an early release from a shit job and half a bottle of Old Hickory Whisky that made this whole thing come together. Almost 3 years later....

Post post script: This was fun to write. I got to review a lost thought and embellish it with more nuance. It was non-linear. Something like this could be a regular feature in the upcoming year....

Red, White and Booze

     "To Alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems." - Homer Simpson     

     Portland, Oregon had its first snow of the season. The Cascade Mountains see more snow, Mounts Bachelor and Hood being popular ski destinations. 2016 has been fraught with lamentations. Celebrity deaths shocked a lot of people who have macabre Celebrity Death pools. If you had Alan Rickman and David Bowie, you cleaned house with those sleeper picks. As I type this, the Electoral College confirmed Donald J. Trump's 2016 Presidential win. It's like we all went skiing, picking up speed down a black diamond course and kept hitting the moguls until we went ass over tea kettle and lost out balance. We bounce off course, away from the other skiers. Your party is worried and send out ski rescue to look for you. You awaken out of a stupor with a big Saint Bernard licking your face and a mini keg brandy around its neck.

     The beginning of the year starts with a New Year's Eve celebration that leaks into early the next calendar year. For the younger readers, it means waking up with no issue. For grizzled veterans such as myself, it takes a day to recover. More like 4 PM and hair of the dog for me. At the top of the mountain, the moguls aren't that bad - the first one being Valentine's Day. If you're single, it's the reminder that you're single. If you're in a relationship or married, it's much ado about nothing. Overpriced dinners, not being able to afford diamonds or other knick-knacks of feigned sentimentality. No one really hears about fights around the Easter table. The real hilly terrain started in November. This year was especially rough with the highly incendiary rhetoric of partisan politics.  Everyone dreaded the Thanksgiving meal, because we forgot who we actually were, not which political team we think we belong to. Even if you weren't a card-carrying member of a political group, you saw dissenters as enemies; not as people you once cared about who may have had a different outlook on life. You engaged at ever retweet and poorly made Internet memes. I know I've had a few drinks and took to social media to show my righteous indignation.  I don't want to live in a make-believe world, maybe you lot never had a beer or glass of wine and picked up a dagger to fight in the War of the Left/Right paradigm. Let's face it though. We all know of fights that start because with people that have had too much to drink. Alcohol lowers inhibitions which cause us to lose our filter and say things we shouldn't or normally wouldn't. It may escalate to fisticuffs or it may end relationships. However, sometimes, having a beer between aggrieved parties can alleviate the situation. Nary a fan of Obama's politics or policies, you may remember early in his administration, The Beer Summit, where Henry Louis Gates was arrested in front of his home outside of Boston. It was an acrimonious situation wherein both sides of the conversation were heard but not understood. One side cried systemic racism, the other was a lack of understanding and respect for the job of a police officer. Obama decided to deescalate the situation by inviting both parties to the Rose Garden to have a drink and talk it out.

     I hound on it time after time. Some people drink for the sport of it. "What can I tick off my list on Untappd?" "It's Saturday and I have no where to be. Let's piss away a sunny/rainy Saturday either in a bar or on a patio." Drink responsibly and make sure you have a ride home. However, there's a subset of people who drink "against the grain of the liquor" or those who drink as a social anesthetic. While visiting home for Thanksgiving, I invited my mom to my favorite Irish pub for a drink and catching up. When she showed up, I knew she had a few pops before visiting. I was thinking to myself, "Fuck, how bad is it to meet up with your son you haven't seen in nearly two years?" I didn't think I have turned into that much of a bore in that amount of time. At first, I was upset. After thinking it out and with the help of my aunt, maybe she was feeling ashamed or inadequate for essentially being in the same place she's been in since I left - and even before that. Maybe Uncle Jerry is 5 martinis in because his life is in a rut and he doesn't know how or why but those goddamn liberals keep wanting men to use the same bathrooms as his daughter. AND IT'LL BE A GODDAMN COLD DAY IN HELL IF HE ALLOWS THAT TO HAPPEN!!!

     We all think we have the answers, don't we? Opinions based off of facts and if you don't agree, you're a dullard and we don't have time to explain ourselves. I have no idea how difficult it'd be to come out to your parents as a homosexual, but why the dinner table while your sister is passing the lima beans? Get a full meal in you and make sure your laundry is done before you drop the microphone. I'm saying this jokingly, but why not drop some heavy news at the Labor Day party? Mention that Jennifer should never wear white after Labor Day and let that settle in with your mother. Or, even better, we can diffuse bombs before they even blow up! Whether we like it or not, it's those difficult situations that make us better people anyway. More often than not, life is not a Disney movie or a Norman Rockwell painting. We all have our differences, but that's kind of what makes us the same.

     So, the Saint Bernard is here. Cask of brandy around its collar. Take a hit and wait for help to arrive. If you're walking around feeling persecution, realize that most people don't care what your race or sexual orientation is. Most people don't care about how you vote. They've got bills to pay and a family to make happy. I do think that when in distress, most people come to the aid of people who are in actual distress.

If I don't hear from anybody, have a Merry Christmas and New Year. Chances are I'll hack out a piece before the New Year.

Riddle of the Liquor, part 4: Something Blue

     Over the past few weeks, I spent time reviewing the old Victorian-era wedding adage; Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and now Something Blue.  In "Something Old" I touched on brewerania, old pieces of advertising saved over the years of brewing and marketing. In "Something New" I covered a renewed interest in craft brewing vis-a-vis the bounty of options and styles of beer now available. "Something Borrowed" expanded on "Something New" rehashing the recent history of craft brewing as well as the story of Jack McAuliffe and his brewery, New Albion and how pieces of his brewery became either the physical or mental pieces of other breweries. Now, for the ultimate part of this series: Something Blue.

     Looking back, my first sip of beer was an O.V. or Old Vienna. OV was a sassy beer, even as a 4 year old walking with his mom down a country road. I remember a lot about that time in my life. I was living in what's technically Royalton, NY in an old farm house. I lived there with my mom, my aunt and grandparents before my mom met my former stepfather. It's super easy to look back at times with rose colored glasses. My grandfather had retired from truck driving soon after I was born but my grandmother was still working at a GM radiator plant. The girls lived at home and I felt like we were a close family unit - until my mom met my stepfather. I remember going to dinner on Friday night with the grandparents, stuffing myself on dinner rolls and fried fish.  As I write this, I'm trying to text my aunt to remember the name of the places we went. Oddly enough, some of those places still exist. Restaurants from my neck of the woods in Western New York (as well as other Rust Belt cities) can bank on tradition. We have places like Chef's in Buffalo that which is just a "red sauce" Italian restaurant with no real special flavor, yet has stayed open generation after generation because that's just where the family went for pasta. Living in Portland, Oregon - you'd be hard pressed to find places like that. Not only are the inhabitants relatively new, there's something about being the cutting edge, offering something new at every turn. Barely any tradition at all. However, Murph's back in Middleport would offer simple diner food at an easy price.  As a kid growing up, all I heard about was my grandparents taking my aunt and mom to a local "gin mill" called Brauer's in Pendleton NY. Just as you may expect - it is still operational! I wouldn't be surprised if they barely changed anything about that place. It lived in mythical lore, because my grandparents stopped going when I was a kid. After a few years as a legal drinker, I revisited Brauer's with my aunt and had a drink for Norm & Mary!

     Speaking about generational things, Labatt Blue is one of those things. My grandpa drank Genesee "Genny" beer and Honey Brown (from the same brewery.) I'm not quite certain what my mom drank growing up, O.V. for sure though. Me, though, it was either Molson Canadian or Labatt Blue. My first case of beer pilfered was Molson Canadian. Me and my longtime friend paid a comrade in the take-out portion of the grocery store we worked in to buy cases of that amber hooch. I had to drive the guy all over Lockport because he said he was ex special forces, but worked in subsidized housing and didn't have a car. Whatever. Just needed that sweet drinking juice. This would continue until my 21st birthday where I magically become old enough, as deemed by the State. My first legal drink was a Black and Tan from O'Lacy's in Batavia, NY. To this day, it is my de facto favorite Irish bar, if not favorite place to drink. Mes Que in Buffalo is close to first in my book. Anyway, money being an issue, my new favorite drink became the Labatt Blue, which is a Buffalo staple. Because Buffalo is a den of iniquity, Labatt Blue is the easiest drink to order when you're absolutely shit-faced. Or you order it because of of your draught options are scarce. But it was incredibly easy to slur out "BLOOO" in a large, noisy bar as opposed to, let's say, a Ninkasi Total Domination. A Blue isn't going to tip the scales in drunkness. A Labatt Blue is between 4 and 5% alcohol by volume. It would take an army of Labatt Blues to put you away and that's usually the case.

     Writing this now, I can look back laughingly at the past. At 33, I want to judge my 23 year old self as a drunken, depraved asshole in a perpetual hunt for pussy. Getting loaded up on cheap Labatt Blue and driving to a bar with friends to find someone to hook up with was incredibly irresponsible, but in a weird way, it was incredibly fun. Through all of it, forces greater than myself or just simply the odds didn't catch up with me and I survived those incidents without either venereal disease, a DWI on my criminal record or hurting anyone outside of a few feelings. I'm not an overly religious man nor superstitious, however I would like to think my grandparents are somehow looking after me.

     Through it all, everything is just a learning process. The hope is that through heartbreak and mistakes that we learn something that makes us better people. For the most part, I can draw a line from my 20s and 30s, developmentally. My 20s were a hedonistic era, seeking novelty. New friends, new beers, new girls. Nothing was ever enough. I even enjoyed my Dostoevskian poverty. I reveled in being piss poor, drinking shitty beers and waking up on 3 hours of sleep to grind out 12 hours worth of workday in order to party once again. Being Blue meant being the working class guy I revered my grandfather was.  Ol' Norm. A man's man. A sportsman. A hardworker. Someone you could trust for anything but someone you could also enjoy a few drinks with.  

     Needless to say, I look back at my Blue period fondly. I hope, you the reader, enjoyed this 4 part series. I know that it's not quite how I expected it to turn out, but that's kind of the fun of this website. Over the next few days, I'll let you know the direction of this website. As always, feel free to leave comments here on the website as for what you'd like to see in 2017.

Na Zdrowie, bitches.

Riddle of the Liquor: Part 3, Something Borrowed

     In this Riddle of the Liquor series, I've been exploring the Victorian era wedding tradition of a bride wearing something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Three out of those four were easier than others. What do you borrow in brewing or craft beer in general? You buy equipment, you create recipes and you sell product. You really don't borrow anything. While visiting home, I came across a book I didn't finish before I moved to Portland. The Audacity of Hops was recommended reading from a craft beer enthusiast. In that, I came across the stories of how many craft breweries got their start.

     Before reading this book, I knew nothing about Jack McAuliffe and the California connection to the craft beer. I had grown up on the East Coast and came into the craft beer scene relatively late in the game, in 2004. I thought I was ahead of the curve, but after reading about Anchor Steam and Jack McAuliffe making a splash in the late 1960s/early 1970s, I was humbled. Not that I claimed to know a lot of the "ancient" history of craft brewing, I knew of Sierra Nevadas and the Boston Beer Companies of the world, who were "second wave" brewers. Fritz Maytag (of Anchor Steam) and Jack McAuliffe were pioneers, when going up against Big Beer seemed silly and it was illegal to homebrew. If you wanted to start a brewery, you would have to have brewing equipment sent from Germany or make your own. McAuliffe, whose first foray into homebrew was during a tour in Scotland with the US Navy and finding books about homebrewing. It's a story better told in The Audacity of Hops. The brewery he started which he endured 14 hour days and limited resources but rich in brewing knowledge and product quality.  He even created a gravity brewing system, which he then lent to Hopland, now known as Mendocino Brewing when New Albion Brewing folded in 1982. Hell, there are stories of kids finding their uncle's homebrewing equipment and borrowing it to make their own libations.

     As you know, one of the key ingredients to beer is yeast. That being said, yeast is often lent out, sold or even stolen, to be put into beer to give its alcoholic kick and flavor.  Just like yeast that eats sugar, you can say our minds eat knowledge and produce a product.  After the cursory introduction into the world of beer through drinking and tasting, some of us move onto homebrewing. Most kits are bought new, anywhere from a Mr. Beer kit playing with extracts to an intermediate kit from Midwest Supplies where you boil grain to make the wort, a lot of the recipes are borrowed. The American Homebrewer Association has message boards where users share recipes, not trying to make money and occult the information, but to lend knowledge to fledging brewmasters. Not only do we share recipes, sometimes brewers become so good that they start breweries. They hire on people willing to learn the process and apprentice. Sometimes they hire people who went to school for fermentation or other engineering backgrounds and they learn the recipes and become good at what they do. Eventually, things bottleneck and a master brewer can be plucked away from a brewery for the next upstart.

     From reading this book, I learned how hard it was to get funding to start a brewery. Perhaps it's the anti-borrowed part of this article. Just like McAuliffe and other first and second wave brewers, it was impossible to get funding for breweries. Banks refused to lend money to small, start up breweries. The hegemony of Anheuser-Busch stymied growth. Despite craft beers being popular with the consumer,  Anheuser-Busch could strong arm distributors into not carrying new beers. Distribution is super important in the craft beer game.  Since Prohibition and until the homebrew/brewpub legislation was past in the late 1970s/early 1980s; breweries could not sell directly to the consumer - it had to go through a distributor.  Why is there a measly kitchen or food truck near a brewery? Laws, stupid.  We can't have people getting shitfaced without putting a burger in their belly to look like we're trying to keep drunks from getting 110% drunk. Tangent aside, banks wouldn't lend to breweries because they thought that it was all a fad. Big Brew would swallow up subsidiary suds slingers. That is a topic to be pursued in another article however. Needless to say, banks are a little more friendly but that's to say you don't have to worry about a candle because it won't burn down the house - only because of the Beer Pioneers.

     In the depths of capitalism, how much can one lend without being bitten in the hand? In any walk of business, consumers will follow their feels. Tell a good story and have a good product, people will spread the word and eat/drink your product. Borrowing things forces us to become better at what we do. If I'm giving you something that you can use and is surplus to my requirements, it typically means I'm doing bigger and better things. Giving you a tidbit to start your own batch is just good practice, because if you're good it's going to make me better. Entrepreneurs are fighters. Sometimes, it's a friend who will one up a story, which means you have to tell a pretty amazing story to keep ahead of the curve. It's because we lend, we have a plethora of choice in beer. Peach goses. Berliners. IPAs with IBUs over 85. They exist because someone gave something and someone had to go above and beyond to make the new next best.

Na zrowie!

Untappd potential

     "Boy, he can sure put them away." That was an excerpt from a little conversation an ex-girlfriend had with me when her mom noticed the efficiency I put away beers as we traveled. I said I was doing it for a badge on Untappd, "Take It Easy" or 12 beers in one day. We were traveling all day and I'm scared shitless of flying and subsequent crashing. It gave me something to occupy my time and keep my mind off the fiery wreckage that could be.

     I've used the Untappd app for over 5 years now. It was my iPhone 3, so it's been some time. The use of the application is to log the beers you drink. You can take a picture of the brew and where you drink them. You can also rate the beer based on a scale of 1 to 5. Then, there are badges, some pertaining to the styles of beer or locations of the beer. Looking at my badge collection, I have a penchant for India pale ales. I didn't grow up on IPAs. I grew up on cheap, North American adjuncts, cream ales and the such. Never did I think I'd have 100s of IPAs.

     I love the app. On one hand, I use it as a badge of honor. I am the consummate pioneer, forging new lands for things to share with the Old World. My travel has bequeathed onto me a list of beers that people that I grew up with never had the opportunity to try. There is one person on my list where I question the validity of the check-ins. I know that the Buffalo market doesn't provide such brews, so when they check in with a beer exclusive to a certain region, I have to question it. Sure - there are bottle sharing programs, but come on. I was born at night, not last night. There is the pinnacle Uber badge, for those who have had 10,000 individual beers. Not impossible, however, it would require a lot of travel.

     Potential is one thing, but negativity is another. Both can grow exponentially. Have you ever been in a lunchroom talking shit about a customer that was the dumbest one you've ever talked too? Then a co-worker one-ups you with their dumbest. Then it becomes a contest in negativity. Negativity begets negativity and before you know it, you're sitting at your desk bewildered wanting just to go home, order a grilled cheese stuffed pizza and drink a 6 pack of beer and watch sitcom TV. You wake up in the morning regretting the last night's activity. You plan on hitting the gym after work but then you meet up with your mates in the break room and start talking about the dumb customers.

    If you were to ask my ex, Untappd was an excuse for my drinking. It rewarded my lizard brain with a token for the decisions I made to drink. However, I see it as a chance to track what I've had, akin to a baseball card collection. You know, from a young age, we're told that we can be whatever we wanted to be when we grew up. Of course, you're asking 5 and 6 year olds this question and you're going to get the same, tried answers. Doctor, lawyer, soldier. I grew up in a home with beer. Albeit, it was the home of an alcoholic.

    Choice is, ostensibly, ours. Like in judo or jiu jitsu, you can use an opponent's leverage against them. We can use things as a benefit or detriment. Maybe in the first years of my drinking career, it was just about drinking and getting laid, but now it's for style points. I've been drunk more than a few times in my life and now I'm going for the Uber badge. There's smart ways of doing it, not just pounding a 6 pack of whatever I pick up at Fred Meyer's. You can go to a brewery and have a taster or a flight where you can have 5+ samples of whatever a brewery is offering.

Work smarter, not harder. Get drunker.

Riddle of the Liquor: Part 2, Something New

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiates 1:9)

     There is nothing like the Bible to act as a wet blanket on the fire of life. Why don't you just kick my dog and piss in my Wheaties? By the way, did you know that John Henry Kellogg was a doctor and ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium. As a Victorian-era doctor, he believed in wack-a-doodle ideas such as liver secretions affecting the way we act and stuck a combination of yogurt and water up his patients' bums for daily enemas. He also created Corn Flakes because the bland taste was suppose to curb sexual libido. Kooks. So, I decided to go to a local bottle shop. Peach Gose. Cucumber Sours. Chocolate Stouts. 7 hopped IPAs. What do you have to say about that Johnny Bible?

     Take a look at where you buy your brew. I'm willing to bet there is more than Budweiser and Miller there. How could that be? After the prohibition of alcohol, major breweries that survived the purged slurped up local and regional breweries. After consolidation, those larger breweries developed ways to maintain continuity of their product's taste by developing extracts from one source. They could recreate that same flavor anywhere on God's green earth. I remember asking an Irish guy while watching a Liverpool game, why drink a Budweiser in a pub? There were plenty of other beers. His response, "no matter where you go, you're going to get the same thing." That's something I can, at least, understand. I was recently burned when I got a double IPA from a 7-Eleven. Normally, that's not a place to buy craft beer - but I played the odds. It tasted like a pinecone that came out of a skunk's ass.

     Marketing has changed too. In the 1950s, advertisement showed wives burning dinner but at least there was a Schlitz for her man after a hard day's work. Feminism put a kibosh on that sort of advertisement, but in the 1980s, Spuds MacKenzie, a bull terrier, was flanked by gorgeous women and Bud Light. Now, with the craft beer revolution, you see a more artisan approach. Some of it is laughable, because a brewery like Blue Moon who had a great hefeweizen - served with an orange. They were bought out by the Coors-Molson group and who know how that is actually made. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms have changed the scape of beer marketing. We have a closer look of the bearded fellows at the brewery stirring the wort and other pictures of the product. Personally, I'm still trying to understand the essence of that approach. How it motivates the consumer to buy their product. I think it is suppose to be that we're all suppose to be artists. We're all searching for something new so we can show people that we have our fingers on the pulse of something. Much of my Twitter feed, @redefiningform, I speculate on moves that happen within soccer. Recently, Frank de Boer was released from his post at Inter Milan and I speculated that he'd go to Sunderland in the Premier League. Whether that happens or not, who knows?

     We've come a long way since apes discovered eating fruit that has fallen from the tree  ferments if you leave it there and you can get drunk. We've evolved from Babylonian and Egyptian beers. Hell, if you were to have a beer that was brewed by the Founding Fathers of America, it would taste like someone had just begun home brewing and they didn't wash out the gear and it tastes like Band-Aids. Despite what the Bible says, I believe that as long as science and ingredients provide, that we can have unlimited potential.  I believe that with yeast strains, hop strains and malts - we can have plenty of brand new beers as longs as brewers push the boundaries of what's possible.

     Next week, I'll delve into the next part of the phrase: something borrowed. What is the things what we borrow from other brewers? Other bloggers? Other drinkers? If you are a fan, I would appreciate feedback. What is something that we all share when it comes to drinking. Please tweet me at @Drunkproduction on Twitter or email me adrunkenproduction@gmail.com.

Champion of the daily grind

     Soon, it will be 7 AM. I just went to bed at 1 AM because I just got home from unloading a truck full of cheap, Asian-made wares that Asian relatives will buy in a department store and then send back it back to Asia because they have disposable income working contract jobs with American corporations to send things back. In all of the Donald Trump fervor of nationalism - this is nothing new. Yet, here I am.

     I've always subscribed to the Protestant work ethic despite my grandmother being an Irish Catholic. The Protestant work ethic is the idea that a person's duty is to achieve success through hard work and thrift. It was something that fueled my Depression-era grandparents. Both grandparents lived through hard time, had minimal education, but worked tireless hours for their daughters to provide them with a home and the ability to do more than what they had. One of my grandfather's sayings was "you've got champagne dreams and a beer wallet." Obviously, 15 plus years later, that mantra sticks with me. I left my mother's house at 16 years old because I wanted to work a summer job instead of staying home and watching my brother and sister while she worked. It was a message that was emphasized over generations - how was it not suppose to resonate within a guy named Brandon? When I moved out, I got my worker's permit for a 16 year old and had a job washing dishes within a week. You can't stop the Irish from working. The earnings were not enough for an aspiring 16 year old, so I got another job at a rival restaurant and worked the maximum amount of hours. It was New York, no one was checking in on that.

    In a previous article, I wrote about the yeoman's work. After working a 12 hour day, I would come home to a 12 pack of cheap, domestic beer, such as Genesee Cream Ale - just like my Trampa. You set two beers at the opposite sides of the driveway and you take a sip with each pass of the shovel or snow blower. There was an honesty within those sips, each earned through labor. In Industrial-era Buffalo, bars and taverns would be full of workers eating a cheap meat sandwich and a pint or two of Iroquois or Phoenix. There was a tacit agreement between worker and employer where if you were going to subject your workers to a grueling regimen, you gave them a luxurious lunch hour where they could imbibe a pint or two to deal with the drudgery of the day. The wives would trudge over snow banks to go to the neighborhood brewery or bar and fill up a gallon of beer for the yeoman to come home and enjoy the fruits of his labor.    

     A lot of us working class ilk have bought into the idea of the Protestant work ethic. It's the driving force of the American dream. Work hard, find a class braud to make children with and house them in a 2 room, 1 bathroom home paid through a mortgage and backed by a college education. However, the rules of engagement have changed. God forbid you live in a desirable plot of land - you'll end up fighting for a reasonable studio apartment that takes 50 percent of your income. Student loans leave you strapped for cash. You worry about the having children because you can't provide them the same dreams and aspirations your parents had.

     Some employers in the Pacific Northwest have beer refrigerators. As a wage slave, I find that completely amazing. Employers aren't advocating for their employees to get blitzed at lunchtime, but understand that there are holistic qualities of having a cold one with a sandwich. It's like moving into your first apartment and having ice cream for dinner. You're not going to do it all the time but it's a nice treat. You could also speculate that it may dissipate the urge to binge drink on the weekend - not letting the stress to build up for five days to explode all over the weekend. There are cultures in Europe that don't have the prevalence of alcoholism because of the normalization of the act.

 *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* Time to make the goddamn donuts (if you remember the 1980s Dunkin Donuts commercial.) I believe it is time to revise the early ideas of industry and work that the American workforce has embraced since the 1920s. Do you know what else happened in that era? Prohibition. We no longer wear suits to the office and Spot, the company dog is laying by your feet at your stand up desk. We cling to old and outdated ideas. Yes - it worked before but perhaps it's time to reinvent the wheel. I believe a majority of people want to work hard, but we've all been worn down to such a point where we're just apathetic. We have two days to recharge after five days of depleting our energy. There are small, nominal things employers can do to make their employees happier and more productive. Even if the answer is working less.

So, let's have a beer at the 1 o'clock meeting, get the creative juices flowing and let's figure this thing out.

Riddle of the Liquor; Part 1: Something Old

As I was sitting on the couch eagerly awaiting the puck drop for the 2016/17 of the Buffalo Sabres (and I'm already disappointed) season, I noticed they changed the name of the arena to the Key Bank Center. After moving from the Aud, nee Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, the Sabres moved into the Marine Midland Arena then through acquisition it became HSBC Arena. If you didn't know that HSBC was a Hong Kong based bank, it could mean "Holy Shit Buffalo's Cold" arena or "Hot Sauce Blue Cheese" arena. After HSBC's withdraw from the Buffalo market, the rights of the arena naming went to First Niagara. That bank itself started in my hometown of Lockport, NY and grew into the mid-sized regional bank it was - only to be bought out by Key. A little backstory from a hockey nerd.

Why am I mentioning this in a blog about beer? Well, it got me thinking. There's the old British saying regarding marriage where the bride has to have "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." Now, I'm not one to wax poetic about the virtues of marriage but as I sit here scouring Etsy and eBay for pieces of brewerania, that saying makes sense. Over the next four weeks - I will give you my take on the phrase and how it pertains to all things beer.

If you were paying attention and I hope you were, because if you tuned out within the first paragraph, I'm screwed as a writer - you may have noticed a word that you may not recognize. Hell, the spellcheck feature underlined it in red. Brewerania. Unlike its cousin, Hulkamania, brewerania commonly refers to any article containing a brewery name or brand name, usually in connection to collecting them as a hobby. Examples include beer cans, beer bottle, bottle opener, beer labels, tin signs, coasters, beer trays, beer tap, wooden cases and neon signs. The reason for promotional knick knacks is quite simple equation. People like free shit and if your name is on their favorite t-shirt or hat, you get a walking billboard. When I worked for a brewery doing promotions, people always asked if I had anything I could give them. I was giving you free beer, what else could you possibly want?! If your grandfather used a branded bottle opener - that opener became a behavioral conditioning  item. Every time you open a beer, you see the Iroquois logo. Then you look into your fridge and think, "almost out of Iroquois, time to stock up before we get rocked with snow."  

My first recollection of brewerania was a 6 pack of beer my mom brought back from the Daytona 500 race she went to in 1989. Every time we moved, that thing would resurface and I'd ask her, "why do we keep moving this?" Personally, I am astonished that she had the will power not to drink those - but 27 years later, that 6 pack still lays in a moldy basement somewhere. What is the actually value of that? I'm not a 100% sure, but there's probably someone with disposable income who would want a white trash relic to remember their trip when they boned a blonde woman from Hooters with neon hooped earrings and hair with enough hairspray, that if it'd caught fire, that bimbo was a goner.

My mother also had a knack for garage sales, which I abhorred. There was no bigger waste of a Saturday morning then being rounded up in a wood paneled minivan and drove around to people's homes to rummage through old shirts. I was afraid I'd run into a classmate and I'd be outed as the white trash we were. Our house was stocked full of other people's castaways. My mom thought that she would in turn run her own garage sale and make a profit but that never really panned out because we lived in the MIDDLE OF GODDAMN NOWHERE!!! 

I acquired an Utica Club serving tray - whose location is currently unknown, but it piqued my interest in collecting older pieces of brewery merchandise. Right now, my collection consists of of t-shirts and glasses. I have t-shirts from Buffalo where the breweries were only selling shirts to fund the building of the actual brewery. When traveling, I like to pick up something, like a koozie or t-shirt. If I have some extra cash, maybe I'll get a sweatshirt. As I said before, I can easily spend a day pouring over eBay or Etsy looking for pieces of Buffalo-related brewania. I'd like to find a bottle opener or an old neon sign from Iroquois, Phoenix or Simon Pure. 

In that old British saying, something old connotes continuity. There are a lot of people who view the craft beer movement of the past 20 years or so in a vacuum, as if it's a novel idea. However, it's not. It was made, not begotten. Our grandfathers' beer was a lot like out own. They were very local and locally owned. Buffalo once boasted that they had the most breweries per capita. Vermont now has that honor, as of 2015¹. Prohibition did its job, snuffing out little breweries and those large enough to survive were either absorbed by more-financially backed groups such as Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz. Having something old reminds us that there is a history beyond our spectrum, breweries starting up en masse in antebellum America. Just like in the movie, Inception, we need an anchor from out past so that we know we're in the present. A reminder to avoid the past of post Prohibition consolidation. 

For more information, visit the American Brewerania Associtation's website. Getting to know the breweries of your area is a fun way to enjoy your beer and learn more about your city or region.

Footnotes & Additional Reading

1. Beers per capita, Statista

Buffalo Spree - Two Centuries of Beer in Buffalo

Date with Distaster

As the ambulance raced through red lights, the EMTs were monitoring the heart rate which was slowing at an alarming pace. The roof began to spin as consciousness was slipping through the patient's finger tips. The gurney was rushed through the doors of the emergency room, the trauma doctors were working to restart the heart, but it was too late. Dead on arrival. It's often said that dating is already difficult in the modern age. However, it's even harder when you date or marry an alcoholic. The relationship may also be dead on arrival.

Believe it or not, there was a time before smart phones and dating apps where you usually met someone in a bar. Most of our weekends in college were spent drinking cheap beers before you head out to the bars because you're a college kid and it costed so much damn money. Hair gel, button down shirts and the like. It took a few more drinks at the bar before you could muster up enough courage to approach a group of girls and make an utter ass out of yourself. Screaming pleasantries into each other ears, you either got her number or you were going over to one of your places and smashing it.  This may develop into a proto-relationship even though with hindsight, you had nothing in common and a true human relationship wasn't even in the cards. My girl Florence sang it best...ship to wreck.

Some, myself included, would suggest that Al Gore created the internet however, pornography made it popular with the hairy-palmed college crowd of the early to mid 1990s. In the quest of community and connection, we joined chat rooms of like-minded individuals because it's either strength in numbers or misery loves company. A/S/L was common when asking someone's Age/Sex/Location. If their criteria met what you were looking for *brrriiinnnggg* direct message time. After a few parlays of conversation, you may even exchange numbers. I remember chatting with an Indian girl from New Jersey and we would have a few phone calls but the distance was too great and the desire was never there. But, life goes on and technology evolves to Yahoo Dating - which for a while was a free service. I didn't have much going on and chances were few and far between.

Experience trumps all though. I like to think about those humiliating experiences helped me develop as a good dater. I caught my stride when I hit 23. I was working at a gym and it put me in front of a lot of people. One in particular, especially. I was pretty oblivious and we actually met in a bar of all places and on St. Patrick's Day of all days. In Buffalo, Billy Shakespeare couldn't have wrote it better. Looking back after almost 10 years, things went well because we were both the same. We were the same in the way that our habits were similar. We enjoyed going out, having a few pops and seeing where the night went. Despite growing up in the home of an alcoholic, I didn't shy away from the booze or a good time. However - that relationship ran its course and to this day, I don't think the drinking affected that decision. I can look at other relationships where that was not the case. I wasn't met like-for-like in my habit. What was seemingly natural behavior for me, wasn't for others and I saw that first hand.

We met off of Tinder, which is a dumpster fire for dating apps. The premise is to have good pictures of you doing activities and having something witty in your profile. Swipe right for like, left for no. In its infancy, the app was a hook up app because it was designed after the app Grindr, which was for homosexual men wanting to hook up. It was a great business plan, but women ruined it. So - I met a woman off Tinder and didn't have that immediate gratification. We had a relationship of almost 11 months. There were some ups, but there were it also had its downs. One of those was my favorite activity of having drinks while watching soccer on Saturdays. If you're not familiar, European games are often on early in the morning, meaning you're spending a few hours in the bar downing beers. It's soccer, so you have to spice up the competition. Conversation flows and lo and behold, it's 2 PM and you have a functional buzz. Also, it's easy for me to down beers in quick succession. But, I am not a man who should have serious conversation while drunk. Fedor Dostoevsky called it In Vino Veritas but you or I would call it truth serum. After rehashing the heated debate, I learned I said some pretty hurtful things and that relationship should have ended right there. Once the line is crossed, it takes twice as much time to build up that equity. The situation repeated itself after 6 months and that was it.

Dating apps kept the flow of women coming in. Sometimes things would work out for a few weeks or even months but habits are repeated. Nothing like knockout drag-out wars but those relationships ran their course. Nothing truly sparked the imagination nor heart but I did learn a lot of things. Sometimes, I would have a few drinks like I would as a college kid, either as self-sabotage or failing to mature. I'm going with the self-sabotage angle because there are dates I went into completely sober because I didn't want to show up a hot mess. My dating routine has been watching soccer in the morning (no beer) then going to the gym for a good work out and sauna afterwards to exercise that nervous energy out. A bite to eat and a quick nap and I was game ready. I was alert and present in the moment and I enjoyed that person's presence.

I also realized the personal differences with certain regions of the US. If a girl was from the East Coast or Midwest - this activity is normal. Less so with people from the South and the West confuses and scares me. Good thing I moved there.... at any rate, if a woman likes to meet up at a bar and watch college football or professional football, I stand a good chance with them. We can spend a few hours in a bar and think nothing of it. If someone is more "artistically-inclined" 1) how did we even match in the first place? It must be my manly manliness and 2) I'm going to be able drink more and potentially look like an asshole. Compatibility is key, if I can say ANYTHING about dating. This is a blog about drinking and drinking culture, not a dating site, so if you require any tips or information - you're on your own.

Good luck out there! 

Cocktails

Is that Ron? Cripes, you haven't seen since high school and he's on the other side of the crowded room. You wave your arms like you're lost at sea and there's a helicopter looking for your raft. You look stupid doing it but he comes over and you start to catch up. You're secretly wishing the din of the crowd would dissipate because you want to see what kind of train wreck his life has become. Look at that boiler plate that's become his stomach. The kid threw for 300 yards at homecoming! I guess that's what happens when you knock up the first girl you have sex with in high school. Despite the incredible noise, you can still make out what he's saying.  How? Simple dummy - it's the cocktail party effect.

The cocktail party effect is the phenomenon of being able to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, much the same way that a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room. So, despite all of that goddamn racket you can vindicate your terrible high school existence because this is sweet comeuppance. The cocktail party effect is interesting because I think alcohol has that effect on some people. It's the hold that it has on me. For some people, they drink their ways out of reality because they've been hurt by reality. It may not mean facing deep emotional and physical trauma but just enough for a person to throw up their hands and say "FUCK IT. I'M NOT DEALING WITH THIS RIGHT NOW." Alcohol becomes that vessel in which that person can focus on the here-and-now. I know personally, I might get on a jag about whatever topic I've last head in my head before going south to Drunkstown. I'm not thinking about my mundane 9-to-5 life and unmet expectations. I'm probably not thinking about my past failings or relationship with my family or past relationships. I'm probably trying to make sure to keep my hands dry so it doesn't interfere with my video game playing. Once in a while, I go deep and drudge up some buried demons. It's brain lock; which I'll explain in another post. 

Let's take my routine for the past 7 years. It starts off on a Monday, hungover. The weekend has seeped into the week and not in a good way. It's not as though I reek of the drinks drank throughout the week, but I'm feeling those drinks. I decide to get right with Jesus and workout and eat healthy, go to the gym and abstain from the libations but then Friday, the kissing cousin of Saturday, is here to wash away all of your progress like a giant wave wipes the beach clean of your glorious sand castle. Sometimes, you recover on a Saturday; getting back on track in the gym early in the morning with a hour long sauna session. Come home, turn on the soccer game and maybe catch a few zzz's on the couch until that phone rings. Maybe it's that girl you were chatting up and she wants to get a drink? Maybe it's your boys looking to blow off some steam at the titty bar or a few cigars. Whatever it may be, you look back over the course of the week and think, "Why the fuck not?" Seventy-five dollars later, you're in bed the next morning and the only thing to stave off this headache is more. What is all of that? Where does that come from? In short, it's called ego depletion (click the link for more information). In In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Gabor Mate lays out that impulse-regulation parts of the cortex are poorly developed even before the addiction takes hold and they are further damaged after the use of the addict's drug-of-choice. It's further exacerbated by the user's motivation and capacity to choose freedom and satiating the pains from the past.

To bring this around full circle, alcohol and drugs have a powerful ability to alter the perception of the user. Even the strongest person sometimes succumbs to the powerful urges to change the focus. Why do most people relish Fridays? It gives a chance to take our minds off of whatever is causing us stress. However, no matter the well-laid intentions, we all have the propensity to err from the path we are on in life. This might be a good thing. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins talks about how there is a turning point, an ah-ha moment, where we all make a decision to turn it all around and reshuffle the deck. After a few months of boozing and bruising - I'm taking a deeper look into my motivations of why I drink and why I drink to excess. Is it the deep past? Is it the present or the future? It may be a little of everything. But, as I look back after a "career" in alcohol, I'm not ashamed of the past because it made me who I am today. I do have to change the way I think about the substance all together. To say I'm quitting cold turkey would get a rise out of anyone who know me well and deep down inside, I know I'll have a sip and I become Johnny Goodtimes, Mayor of Shitty City. Perhaps there's a more adult path I can take with beer and it's culture. That the fork in the road I'm at right now.

Until next time, which hopefully won't be too long...take care.

The Righteous Drink

3...2...1. The bell rings and all you see is a cartoonish puff of dust like in old cartoons. After being locked up for 13 years in public school, the American worker has been trained to sit down and shut up between the hours of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. When the whistle blows or bell rings, we're given our freedom back for 48 hours of reprieve. For the past few weeks, the sun has been shining and the one thing on my mind, drinking. It's a pavlovian response to stimuli. At first, it's a pretty innocuous thing. I have cut down my drinking during the week, despite the urge to pound as much liquor into my system has possible. I refrain and try to live a healthy life. However, the drudgery of the day-to-day of customer service is enough to make the strongest minds break and alcohol delivers that sweet relief. It's starts off as a few drinks but things can quickly escalate, as they often do. Fridays, I'd start off with a 12 pack of cheap domestic. I can usually pound 10 before heading off to sleep. Normally, I can wake up without a hangover so I'll head to the gym and the sauna to sweat out whatever poison I had in my from the night before. Saturday is the focal point - if I'm going on a date, chances are drinks are involved and I normally can keep my wits about me but if things go well, then it's another drink. If there's no date, maybe a few more drinks as I watch Netflix or whatever I have stored on the DVR. A hangover may or may not ensue. Sunday Funday, as we Millennials call the Lord's day, is not a righteous drink. It's well intentioned, enjoying the last few moments before the work whistle is blown at 9 AM Monday morning and that's when it jumps the shark. Deep in our lizard brain, I think if you are unfulfilled with your day job, it is real easy to drink to excess. I didn't realize it until I sat down to type this out. This is where it is an unrighteous drink. I'm not doing it for the sport of it, for the flavor or for the social lubricant. It becomes something to prevent the oncoming train that's Monday. Sure, there are many people who would love to have my job but not for the reason you think. In order to play, you have to work. We'll do things you wouldn't if you were a first grader being asked what you want to do with your life. To our own detriment, we hunch over keyboards and squint at computer screens. The weekend past was rather eye opening for me. I spent most of Sunday in a bar drilling cheap swill into my face while watching soccer. It was enjoyable at the time, but I secretly wonder why I needed this escapism. Is there a solution? Maybe finding an engaging vocation that is not only financially rewarding but emotionally rewarding? That's a start - it's overcoming the fear that change ushers in. An ex girlfriend of mine said that the song "Little Lion Man" from Mumford & Sons was an admonishment. I saw the ghost of Christmas future and I saw it all. Honestly, I wasn't happy about it in the slightest.

The Way She Goes

     One of the most influential phrases that I've ever heard was "It's the way she goes." I heard it first when I was watching the Trailer Park Boys and Ray was out gambling. When he lost, he said, "It's the way she goes." "It" was luck. A very simple logic, either it does or it doesn't. That's the way the muse works, either you're there or you aren't. Walking home from having a few drinks, I had the most brilliant idea I've ever had, but as the liquor set in - I lost it all. Something distracted me from my thought process and an hour later, I'm left wondering what that idea was.

     Has your grandmother said, if you can't remember what you were going to say, it must not have been important? I still remember being in my grandmother's kitchen when I was trying to regale her of a story of kindergarten but my thoughts came out faster than my words and I went ass over tea kettle. That's the muse and she's a fickle bitch. You could be in the zone, throwing bombs downfield and then you have a wet fart and it throws you off your game. Steven Pressfield talks about it in his book, "The War of Art" how the muse moves in and out.

     Full disclosure, I've always considered the idea of reality as a frequency and my attention, my locus, focuses on a certain frequency. The world exists beyond my focus, which may be a computer screen or a fleeting thought. However, there are actions and ideas going through the minds of co-workers in the same building, in the same neighborhood and expanding out infinitesimally. I like to make it more malleable.  I think of existence was an old-fashioned record or CD for the kids reading this. My attention is the needle or laser and it's focused on a groove in the album or CD. There is album/CD before and ahead of the laser but the only thing that matters is the laser/needle and where it is now. Let's say there is a force that skews the laser/needle to a different spot in the album/CD. The muse is the force and it moves me somewhere else.

     Where am I now? I still can't remember the epic idea I thought of while listening to a podcast regarding the intentions of extraterrestrial beings but now I'm thinking about writing an independent news outlet here in Portland. Was that previous idea suppose to happen or was it just the seed of what I was suppose to really do? I've been propelled towards journalism for quite some time, but it's been masked in escapades such as these. The topic in transhumanism is that we are the sex organs of the cyborgs. A marriage of flesh and technology. Maybe that's how thoughts work - it may not be their intended consequence but the bi-product. How many endeavors have you had where you started at Point A with the intent of Point B but landed at Point Q?

There's no ending to this. You're suppose to draw your own conclusions.

Summer Hours

Normally, I would be getting ready for bed around 10 PM, but tonight was different. The air was crisp with the smell of petrichor and a slight cool breeze. Drink in hand, I sat on the porch and wondered what could be and what was. I had a long, thousand foot gaze at nothing in particular. Another schluck of the cheap domestic beer assuaged the unpleasant feelings left behind from working a job that just didn't cut it. The din of the city and ruckus of the traffic was gone. Finally, a bit of serenity.

The days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter as we reach fever pitch towards the summer solstice. The sun is at its highest point and those who live in the lands of ice and snow (queue the Robert Plant wail in the Immigrant Song) spend at least 24 hours outside in their cabins drinking and enjoying life. In the US, Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer. Instead of remembering dead soldiers, most of us are getting shitfaced near a body of water.

I was recently chatting with a friend about the long weekend just passed and a lot of it, we were up late drinking, with a side of stinking. Looking back, I remember most of my summers in a browned-out state, memories bobbing to the top of the surface as if they were held to the bottom of a lake by hops and barley. Summer concerts, friends grilling outside, summer love, staying up late to have conversations with a friend - all of these things that we do. I often wondered if I was solar powered. After spending winters in Buffalo, trapped beneath layers of snow, I know spend winters drenched in torrential rain in Portland. It's easy to feel blue when all you see is gray. Needless to say, summers are meant to be cherished - none more than the denizens of the Northeast. Summers in Buffalo were abuzz with activity. Concerts, ethnic festivals, outdoor dining, girls in sundresses walking down Elmwood Avenue. Portland is much of the same, I just don't have the depth of experience as I do with Buffalo.

Summer is the thirst that cannot be slaked. It's like being adrift at sea and drinking salt water. No much how much you take in, you'll never be satiated. Summer usually comes on hard and fast and that's why we try to enjoy as much as it as we can. We binge on the sun because it gives us the energy to stay up that extra hour. Sometimes, we'll binge on the booze too. After all, that's what this blog is about. As with the summer sun, the line between too little and too much is the difference in wasting a sunny day inside watching mind-numbing TV and staying outside all day getting sun burned and heat stroke. In our pursuit of a good time, we fly like Icarus - too close to the sun and was crash back to earth unceremoniously. Dehydrated and hungover, we spend extra time in the shower in the hope that we absorb the water and minerals we last through a weekend at the cottage.

Moderation in all things, especially in moderation. The summer is when we seize the day because the sun has given us a few more hours to do so. To try to bottle the energy of the summer is a sin because it's the very essence of what makes it special. It's a fleeting moment in an otherwise dreary and mundane existence. So my advice is sunscreen and some extra water because snow is right around the corner.

Lazarus

"This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." (John 11:4)

It's not very often I start of with a verse from the Bible, however after reflection, the story of Lazarus in the New Testament tells a story of life after death for those of those who believe. Jesus heard that Lazarus was dying and his sisters were asking him to perform one of his miracles. Interestingly, Jesus decided to wait until Lazarus died in order to save him. Normally, he'd heal a leper and no one had to die but J-C was like "whoa guise, wanna see sumtin cool?" He moseyed to Bethany and by that time, Lazarus had been dead for 4 days. Jesus showed his moves to the believers and non-believers and some hotties that were hanging around. That's it end of story, but there's some good questions that weren't asked. 

In March of 2014, I started my blog on Squarespace to regale readers with stories of my relationship with alcohol and my relationship with people. Just as the Led Zeppelin song, good times...bad times...you know I've had may share...when my women left home with a brown eyed man...we'll I don't seem to care. Honestly, through all of my drunken chicanery, I didn't care. I didn't care about my own personal welfare. I didn't care about my bank account. I didn't care about the people with whom I was in a relationship. It was about drinks and good times. In 2015, I moved to Portland and I penned my last article on the Squarespace site and I just let the subscription lapse into the Internet ether. Lazarus died. 

No one ever stopped to ask Lazarus what death felt like. I scribbled notes as I attempted to revive the feelings of catharsis as I tried to recall those hazy, brown out memories. I definitely made new ones. Nothing ever came of it. My friend and I have been trying to get a project off the ground and that felt good. The embers were still there but they were dying without oxygen. Depending on your views, there may or may not be an afterlife. There's people who claim there is one after near-fatal incidents but what can be attributed to the release of dimethyltryptamine or DMT for short. It's a neurotransmitter that releases after a severe injury to placate the body in its terminal moments. Then there's Lazarus. This guy was dead for 4 days! See anything cool? Did you go to heaven or hell? Was it dark?

Let's assume that Lazarus was in a beclouded palace, serene and placid. At the behest of his sisters, Jesus ripped Lazarus out of that and shat him back into this meager and bleak existence. Wouldn't that be selfish of the sisters? Play your cards right and childbirth or any other myriad of ancient disease would kill them both. They'd be playing beach volleyball in heaven in 10 years tops. For selfish reasons, I'm pulling ADP out of the Internet ether into the think-world of the Intertubes. I still have to flesh out my relationships with booze and with people and also with myself.

A man needs a project. I love to drink a bowl of loudmouth soup and tell you how I feel about the world and for the next year, this is my outlet. Oddly enough, I'm writing this sober for some reason. Too lazy to get a 6 pack I reckon. I'll also be doing a 30 minute stream-of-consciousness podcast, probably drunk with an axe to grind. It's also on the docket to do a "Serious Do'" article about something in politics or society that I want to express. Maybe I'll make some shit for you to buy. 

This sickness will not end in death though. "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time as come." -Victor Hugo