You know what? I tried. As I was sitting at one of my neighborhood haunts, I had a come-to-God moment. I was sitting enjoying a beer for what it was, a concoction of malt, hops, yeast and water, being subjected to the restraints of the English language as a distributor rep talked to a guy that looked vaguely like Malcolm Gladwell. I heard all of the buzzwords you hear: malty, good mouthfeel, hop complexity, barrel-aged. Good googligly-moogigly! I wretched. I felt a piece of me die inside, but also another part come alive.
Maybe it's coming from a blue-collar community? Generations before me got drunk solely for the purpose of escaping the grueling day-to-day. If I worked in a factory for 12 hours, slept for 7 and had to deal with a wife and kids, you'd be damn certain that at least an hour or two would be spent in a gin mill to take my mind off of the every day. My grandparents lived in a simpler time. Cars were made of metal and would take a monumental shift of plate tectonics to really fuck you up. You could get lit-shit, get a warning from the sheriff to be safe driving home and still make it home. James Dean ate shit because he was driving a Porsche 550 Spyder. If he was driving a Chevrolet Bel-Air or Nomad, he'd be 86 years old and playing shuffleboard in Palm Springs. Or he would have died younger for another reason, seeking help for his troubled soul. Regardless, grandparents would bomb down the road in metal missiles and come home to play parent. Consequentially, it made the Baby Boomer generation worse parents because they didn't know what to do with themselves... they couldn't be hard-asses like their parents were but they were also taught the world revolved around them. THEY were the first snowflakes, but I digress.
Have you ever tried to be something that you were not? I have on more than a few occasions. One of them would be my experience with a local social club. By no means am I a fancy man, however, in the past I have dressed up beyond my paygrade because my girlfriend's (at the time) family belonged to a prestigious social club in Buffalo. I'm a guy that until today had 3 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of shoes, random ties and some button down shirts. The rest was soccer jerseys and tshirts from breweries I liked. Needless to say, I felt like a donkey at a horse race, especially with social standing. My grandparents were blue collar, who lived in a mobile home. My dad was AWOL and my mom wasn't doing so well either. As time progressed, I found my place. I was (am) an escape hatch for the mundane. I'm nothing fancy but I know how to get down and have a good time. That's my milieu. My shtick.
Most people are coming here for the banter. A raw portrayal of a functioning alcoholic in the modern day and age. Where most gentiles steer away from the raw sewer of life, I embrace imperfection. Imperfection is marrow of honest living. So, I vow, if you're looking for beer reviews, I'll suggest Beer Advocate or RateBeer. This is the real deal, Alex Jones and Americana shit right here.
Love you assholes.
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