boundless opportunity

However, deep within the fertile soil of the new renaissance there writhes already a turning worm…

Picture this:

In lieu of the idyllic, stable upbringing I’m sure you all enjoyed, you pampered lapdogs, pretend that you were raised instead by a stern, joyless great aunt, who ascribed to the John Harvey Kellogg school of childhood nutrition. For every meal she would prepare, and insist you eat, a homogeneous vegetarian mash that she called ‘rootmarm’.

Now, there was nothing wrong with rootmarm. It contained all the whole grains, vitamins, oat proteins, fiber and carbohydrates a growing what-have-you needs, and indeed you grew strong and sturdy. But every day, at every meal, there was the same steaming trough of mottled rootmarm. Gradually, within you The Madness grew.

Then one day she accidentally spilled a thimbleful of salt into the mix. Your head swam, your taste buds sang, and angels formed from mist about the room. Life, redolent with fertility and beckoning experience, unfurled before your dilated eyes and you escaped into the great unknown, kicking your great aunt deep between the buttocks on your way out.

When they finally found you, mere weeks later, you were squatting in a dilapidated flophouse surrounded by your own filth, chewing a massive chaw of pickled ginger and you had sold your kidneys for a sack of tarragon.

That, my friends, is the worm that turns. That is the fly in the ointment. For too long we were starved of flavor, starved of passion in our beer, and already, so quickly now that the spirit is back, we have begun to lose control.

It is a disturbing yet undeniable fact that a great many of the new brewers are out to be nothing but different, nothing but iconoclastic. They hop their beers and hop their beers until it burns through bulkheads like when you bag one of Ripley’s badguys, and they mistreat ale conditioning until the flavors push you around like the Hell’s Angels doing concert security.

For anyone who didn’t get that first reference, James Cameron has made much better movies about Marines than ‘Avatar’. Look into it.

We must not forget, here in the midst of an American beer revolution, that most revolutions fail after they succeed because they merely go against something, and have little better to replace it with.

NEXT TIME ON BEER SCHOOL: I’m not sure yet. Probably something about beer, but you never know. Life can be weird that way.

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This column is also about shitty movies.

Now I really love that. Come children, down the gully hatch of the “shitty good time” we go!

Just a stone’s throw away from Terrible is a movie. Past the avenue of the mediocre B-picture, through the Day-Glo pastiched swampland that I call the “Nineteen Hundred and Eighties”, and hiding underneath that crumbling highway overpass tagged with the enthusiastic graffiti “Good Idea!”, there’s a puddle. Look closely.

It is a puddle formed from the dripping backsweat of a mentally challenged Anime fan. He stands by himself in the vast desert of his own imagination. Watch this ogre’s meaty thighs as they slosh apace against one another, dribbling creative, life giving juice into the Oasis… the Oasis is called Robot Jox.

What can I say about this movie? Well, it’s from 1990. It’s low budget. It took years to be released because it buried the basement-budget studio financing it. And it’s directed by Stuart Gordon, the quiet lunatic that made Re-Animator, the film I’ve seen more than any other.

Sure, but what about the movie? IT IS EVERYTHING YOU WANTED WHEN YOU WERE NINE YEARS OLD AND STUPID. Ok so like there’s no war anymore so everybody fights by piloting these giant claymation mech warriors and they’re huge and they go all like GOOOSH and KRAKAKAK and WHAAAOOOMMM! The main character is Achilles (played by Gary Graham who isn’t Glenn Scott who isn’t one of the Carradines) and he fights some Russian dude who is soooo mean. Oh and his dad (Achilles’s dad, I know I’m getting ahead of myself!) is like this awesome fat cowboy who is like actually a bad guy who kills the super smart Asian doctor. Every American state is like its own country now and stuff so like there’s politics and Soviets (I don’t like them) and there’s like a secret weapon that Achilles has. Oh and if the soviets know about it they can beat him and take a bunch of land. Oh and Achilles’ dad is the spy. KRBOOOOOM!!!!

Oh and it also stars another character played by Kid who is way better when ‘n Play isn’t around. I don’t know why all the guy characters kept hitting on him.

Honestly, there is an alternate universe where Robot Jox was produced properly as a high-budget, high-concept science fiction allegory with equal parts intrigue, thematic interest, and special effects driven action. The universe we’re in is the one where a director I love tried to make a kid’s movie out of a script written by a guy who respected his own adult-oriented short story. The result is what my grandmother referred to as a “clusterfuck abortion”. Thanks Grandma.

Having said that, there is something so goddamn charming about this shitty little movie. It’s ambitious WAY beyond it’s ken. Stuart Gordon has always had that characteristic; he simply doesn’t understand that it’s not enough money for how ambitious his story is. The fantastical (and childishly dumb in design) Robots themselves are actually a total blast to watch. It is really surprisingly good claymation that is honestly more engaging than Transformers 2.

Actually, that’s my recommendation. I couldn’t sit through Transformers. I watched Robot Jox twice.

The childish joy you will experience watching this comes, I suspect, less from the appeal to the child in you than the child in the film. Sure, there is the joy of sheer camp value, and sure, I get my rocks off going through the movies I kept seeing the covers for in the video store as a little boy. But honestly, the movie’s naivete and ambition, its mix of bright colors, miscalculated regurgitations of concepts you’ve seen done better elsewhere, some good acting, some BAD acting, the fun of the actual fights themselves, and a political subtext which surpasses Rocky IV in subtlety all serve to make Robot Jox an honest way to kill 83 minutes.

Robot Jox … it Robot Rox.

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So, with the last article having given you all the tools necessary to appreciate beer (surprisingly easy, wasn’t it?), it’s time to take a bald eagle’s eye view of the state of beer in America, a vibrant portrait redolent with flavorful goodness. With that lofty intention in mind and my determined, handsome expression conveying a sense of gravity and purpose, I mount the dais and take to the podium to deliver… the Beer State of the Union. The assembled notables fall respectfully silent…

My fellow Americans… ericans… ericans… (dramatic reverb)

Beer was alive and thriving in early America. Beer was the only vice the Pilgrims allowed themselves without having to sew letters on their bodices. Large German enclaves retained their rich brewing traditions. Hordes of thirsty Irish needed it to fight off the shakes.

It was then that new American beer styles began to appear. There was steam beer, maize and barley beer, Dr. Vanderhoven’s revitalizing Opiate Arsenic Beer Tonic, and everyone’s favorite, the most popular and lasting contribution, the American lager; a blond, light lager with a clean finish. It was an exciting time.

Then it all went to hell. Why? Because of the Jews. It’s always the Jews. The Jews killed the dinosaurs.

But not really. Really it was those meddlesome do-gooders of the religious revival and their damn Prohibition. Once Prohibition was done salting the fields, pretty much the only thing that took root again was the American lager, typified today by brands like Coors and Budweiser.

So what happened? With Prohibition repealed, why didn’t beer culture start anew, why was the market dominated for so long by the same style, the same brands?

Perhaps it was because the American lager was so tasty, and so well suited to American prosperity. I mean, let’s be honest, nobody but nobody spending a day out in the glorious American summer sunshine wants to reach into the ice chest and pull out a pint of tepid ale spiced with coriander. If they do they should be watched closely because they’re obviously prone to inappropriate behavior and will likely pull their wiener out on the jumbotron.

But still, for years and years beer in America stagnated. Boring stuff. People started hating American beer. The taste hadn’t changed, but the brands collected negative connotations. First off there was the advertising schema: a dead-eyed bottle-blond tit parade interspersed with talking horses, talking frogs, and talking chameleons. Scintillating. Then there were more personal associations: What did you see scattered all over the trailer court? Sun-bleached Coors cans. What did that high school bully set down on the hood of his blue Charger before he beat you senseless in front of everybody? A Budweiser tallboy. The time had come for a change.

And then there was the advertising

And change it did! Funky free-thinking innovators, probably sporting long hair and goatees, took to their garages and started producing interesting, challenging beers; beers that tasted like something long-forgotten, something half-remembered, like a wonderful dream that you can’t recall but haunts you long into the afternoon. Beers that tasted like choice and freedom.

America! Fuck yeah!

So as a long chapter in American beer comes to an end… end… end…

Another is already being written… en… en…

In the bars and liquor stores, and on the palates of our great people.

Good night, America, and God bless. (prolonged standing ovation, grown men weeping openly)

NEXT TIME ON ‘BEER SCHOOL’: The fly in the ointment…

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The problem often falls into one of two categories: a lack of focus on your subject (see Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein versus Dracula: Dead and Loving It), or a lack of respect for it (see the complete works of Friedberg and Seltzer… and by “see” I mean “for instance,” no one should actually see them).

The greatest parody comes from a certain appreciation and understanding for what you’re making fun of. That’s why Roasts are so damn funny, and “spoof” should be considered a dirty word.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone like to walk that line. In films like Team America and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, they make it work by wrapping the things they love around the stuff they’re making fun of. Hence puppets spouting right-wing rhetoric and children singing Broadway songs about Canada. There’s a certain genius to it, and it’s made them both a lot of money.

So, I was curious to see Trey Parker’s first film, Cannibal: The Musical, from 1996 (shot in 1993 when he was still a student at University of Colorado at Boulder), available for free on Hulu.com. Would it be a freshman misfire, or the first step on a path that brought us marionettes shitting on each other?

And, honestly, I was pleasantly surprised.

The film is based on the true story of Alferd Packer, a prospector in the late 18th-century and the only man ever convicted of cannibalism in Colorado. Packer tells the story of leading a group of men from Utah to find gold in Colorado. Along the way his beloved horse disappears and he takes the expedition off course to find her, eventually getting snowbound in the Rocky Mountains, the end result being Packer gets arrested for eating his companions and sentenced to death by hanging.

It’s all told in a mixture of comedy, ranging from wordplay to slapstick, and song and dance that feels like an uber low-budget “Oklahoma!”, which the film cites as a template in its opening (and fanciful) scroll.

The whole effect is fun and cheesy and, while some of the jokes fall flat, it garnered several genuine laughs from me. And, between the “period” costumes that make everyone look like Al Borland, Japanese Native Americans and sprinklings of extreme gore, the film’s so earnest and fun you can’t help but get swept up in it.

And, most of all, the songs don’t suck! A couple are actually kind of awesome, with titles like “Shpadoinkle,” “Hang the Bastard,” and “When I Was On Top Of You” (a love song to a horse).

But, what makes it all work is that Trey Parker and his cohorts really love the classic American Musical. And, they’ve made one complete with overture, reprise and ballet! This is truer in style than Chicago, and it’s funnier, too.

Everyone knows the difference between good and bad parody. You can feel it after the credits roll, when you’re driving home or, in this case, closing the browser window. It’s that moment of debate when you ask yourself “Was that a real movie, or was it just jokes?” Did it tell a story, did it make me care, or did I take a bathroom break without hitting pause and still not miss anything? It’s the difference between Airplane! and Airplane II.

Cannibal: The Musical is good parody. It’s truly shpadoinkle.

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However, once in a while, a film comes along that makes me happy and yet is so bad, so misguided, so entirely beyond defense, that even I’m forced to squirrel it away at the bottom of my DVD shelf and hope nobody notices.

Thus is the case with the abysmal, 1996 production of Tromeo and Juliet. Yes, it’s a film based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and yes, it’s made by legendarily bad film company Troma Entertainment. And, yes, that’s why the main character is named Tromeo.

Troma Entertainment is famous for its horrible films. Their priority is not quality or fun or exploitation. Their priority is completion. And then, profit. And, boy, do these guys profit. They’ve distributed movies like Blood Sucking Freaks, Cannibal: The Musical (the first feature by Matt Stone and Trey Parker) and Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator, and produced such video “classics” as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ‘Em High and Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD. They re-use footage from other movies, hire the worst actors in New York and live and die by the belief that you can overcome any script problems with bad puns, cheesy gore and fake boobs.

There’s a huge audience for these films, but honestly, I’ve never liked them. They were just too much cheese and not enough give-a-crap for my tastes. But, Tromeo and Juliet, man, that one gets me every time.

It loosely follows the story you were forced to read in high school: Tromeo Que (son of Monty Que – hear the rimshot) courts a whore named Rosy, until he meets Juliet Capulet at a party. Of course, their families hate each other. Juliet’s engaged to marry a suitor chosen by her parents, inexplicably named London, but still, Tromeo and Juliet fall in love, get married, Juliet’s cousin kills Tromeo’s friend, Tromeo kills Juliet’s cousin and he gets banished.

And, it’s smart enough to leave out the lame parts of the play, namely the last 30 pages. Juliet takes a potion to, rather than fake death, turn into a monster, and scares London off. Tromeo returns, kisses her and makes her pretty again, enraging her father who is a psychotic child molester. A bloody battle ensues.

And, let’s be honest, that sounds awesome.

And, on the surface, it is. The story is so egregious, you giggle when you should be horrified. The music kicks ass, with many songs written specifically for the film, and others by Sublime, Superchunk and The Wesley Willis Fiasco. And, there are inspired moments where Lemmy, from Motorhead, recites a doctored version of the play’s opening monologue, or Tromeo and Juliet goof around in Central Park and screw beneath the stone lions in front of the New York Public Library.

The onscreen high-point are the leads, Jane Jensen and Will Keenan. As Juliet, Jensen manages to remain precious while fondling a giant goo-covered penis monster, and Keenan, as Tromeo, smiles through the madness so genuinely that he manages to keep you from writing it all off as frivolous. They make a believable, charming couple. (Incidentally, Jensen also created an alt-pop album in the late 90’s called Comic Book Whore that I listened to constantly; and Will Keenan insulted my girlfriend on his website.)

The script, too, has a lot of potential, written by James Gunn, who later created Slither and PG Porn. It actually includes text from the original play and much of it is written in iambic pentameter.

And, on a totally random note, this is the only movie I’ve ever heard of where the R-rated version is 6 minutes longer than its Unrated version!

But, after a while, it’s all cheap and soulless.

Most of it is exploitation masquerading as satire. The jokes are offensive without the benefit of being funny and the visual style is flat to the point of cardboard. Lloyd Kaufman, the director and producer, just wants to get his characters in the frame, paying little attention to whether or not they’re well-lit, well-dressed, or even in focus. And, while he would claim that his film “takes no prisoners,” its comedy is too cheap and jabs too random to be enjoyed.

The cast is a hodgepodge of hipsters and Troma regulars, and most of them aren’t able to rise above the ugliness of the film’s spirit. They read the lines with earnestness and enthusiasm, but the script does them no favors and their best deliveries fall flat.
But, in the end, the real problem with Tromeo and Juliet is one of respect. The movie doesn’t have any. Not for its cast or crew or script or audience. It’s a random, mean little film that wants to have class and style while still being trashy and fun, but it gets lost somewhere between Juliet’s lesbian nurse and the over-acting priest telling two-cent molestation jokes.

Still, I’ve probably watched this movie more than any other DVD on my shelf. I know some scenes word for word, and have my bathroom breaks timed down to the second. I’ve followed the careers of the movie’s cast, purchased the soundtrack… I even pre-ordered the Blu-Ray!

And why do I keep coming back? I really have no idea. While that goes against all my rules of liking something inexplicably, I still do.

The only way I could get my wife to watch this movie was to win a bet. When I finally got her to sit down long enough for me to push play, she fell asleep twenty minutes in. And, you know what, I was so embarrassed by what was happening onscreen, I didn’t bother to wake her up.

I just smiled and giggled and shook my head all by myself.

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The time arrives and there is a buzz in the air, it’s (Prom/March Madness)! Boys look dreamily at (girls/college basketball analysis) while girls hope against hope that this will finally be the year that (the perfect guy asks them to Prom/March Madness is canceled). My best friends pressure me into spending money I don’t have on (a tuxedo and limo/an online bracket pool) and I agree, despite the fact that I have no (female prospects/clue about college basketball) and because apparently this only happens (once/once a year/). Eventually all of the hullabaloo engages me, my excitement mounts and even my (mother/wife) is begging me to (temper my enthusiasm/shut the hell up) about (the prom/my bracket).

It's that time of year again

Getting the Girl/Filling Out My Bracket

Time passes swiftly and I realize that I am running out of time, if I don’t (ask a girl to the prom/fill out my bracket) soon, I’ll be the only guy (at the prom/in my pool) who spent a mountain of money to do nothing but hold his junk. So I start by picking the best looking, most popular (girls/teams). Then after (realizing that I just started puberty/looking at a way too predictable bracket) I change my mind and start looking at some of the less highly regarded talent. Then I see the perfect (girl/team)! The kind of Cinderella that might just actually (say yes/win a couple of rounds), the kind of choice selection who has been overlooked, but who in my opinion is just as good as the (cheerleaders/#1 Seeds). So I (ask her/change my bracket) and to my surprise (she actually says yes/none of my friends laugh at my picks).

Looking for the Cinderella, courtesy of fashions.org

The Games Begin/The Limo Ride

The big day arrives and my (mom takes a bunch of pictures/ friends call in sick to work) while Brian hides a flask of my father’s single malt scotch in his jacket. We make our way into the (limo/sports bar) and I get way too drunk, way too fast. The games begin and I appear to be doing quite well because (my date is still laughing at my playful innuendo/my morning teams have done pretty well) .  Then, just as I think that everything’s coming up Milhouse, my (date tells me what a great friend I am/first round teams start dropping like pigeon crap on a convertible). We exit the (limo/sports bar) and I start worrying that I’ll never (get laid/win my bracket).

The official birdshit of America's Brackets

Things Go Poorly, But is There Still Hope?

So we’ve finally reached (the inside of the fancy hotel/the sweet sixteen) and things are looking pretty bleak. Most of my buddies are grinding on (the dance floor/printed copies of their brackets) while I am engaged in funny but ultimately damning (conversation/justification) with my (date/other buddy with a failed bracket) about the value of a clean colon (lifelong obsession) and my general failures in regard to activities requiring more than one person. But then I see it (My dates shoulders start to bounce to the rhythm/My grinding friends don’t have that victorious 12 seed that I picked in their brackets)! So I dance! As time goes by my friend’s (dates need a rest/favorite picks lose a couple of games) and I’m the only one who is still dancing, mostly because of all of the booze, but also because (my date actually looks happy/my 12 seed selection is winning at halftime).

And now we dance by Slightlynorth (Flickr)

The King Gets Lucky While I’m Drinking Beer With a “Friend”

Then when I’m sure the time is right, I (go in for a kiss/overtly brag about my genius #12 seed pick) only to be shot down completely at the last possible moment by a dick basketball player who I hardly know that (whooped at me before the kiss, embarrassing my date/hit a 3 point bucket while time expired to beat my #12 seed). So I slowly sit down in quiet shock and embarrassment while my friends point at me in a strange combination of howling laughter and disguised pity. As I try to regroup, to pick myself up, to look for any tiny ray of hope that this disastrous event will go my way, the (prom/tournament) comes to a close. As expected the (Prom King/#1 Seed) ends up with (some bimbo using his pecker for a handrail/cut up basketball nets and a trophy) and I am on the way to an after party with my (date/bracket) in hand, trying to find some way to end the day on a positive note.

As expected the King gets lucky (by lintmachine)

It Ends

The whole group goes to (Justin’s house/the Brass Elephant Bar) and a surprisingly awesome party ensues. Dave does a (Keg stand/46 year old cougar) in the corner, Chris gets a (bottle broken/unexplainable rash) on his foot and Steve gets his ass kicked by (his date/a Samoan truck driver). The soothing cold feel of a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor numbs my pain and fogs my brain, while the stain on a model train is drained into a sink that says, “Not only are you rhyming too much, but those brownies Andy gave you were filled with all natural THC!”

The morning comes, my mind is once again my own… ish and I take my (date/bracket) home. We walk toward a door and just as I think the whole thing will end up with a polite (hug and a smile/toss of a paper bracket into an industrial dumpster) gumption strikes me and I (sweep my date around and plant a firm kiss upon her waiting lips/dip my bracket in lighter fluid, tape it to a bottle rocket, send it skyward to the tune of Waltzing Matilda!). Satisfaction fills me, my (Prom/March Madness) experience suddenly feels pretty great and I can tell by the (look in her eyes/unexpected saudade) that I will be (seeing more of this girl/doing this all over again next year.)

Holding hands by mikebaird

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But, if at any point someone turns into a zombie or breaks out into song, it’s at the top of my Netflix queue.

The difference is that there’s nothing popular about the latter. Sure, there’s an audience out there for them, but they aren’t big money audiences and they don’t win awards. To make an unpopular movie takes either passion or hubris. Or, if I’m lucky, it’s both.

Hence, my life-long affection for Fred Dekker’s 1986 Horror/Sci-Fi/College Comedy/Cop Action/B-Movie Homage Night of the Creeps. This is Dekker’s first movie, so there isn’t much opportunity for hubris in the film’s brisk 88 minutes, but man, is there passion.

This is a construction paper scrapbook of one man’s love for the movies. It’s got an alien invasion, a love triangle, a ’50’s setting, a zombie outbreak on a mountain road while a woman gets attacked by an axe wielding maniac, and that’s just the prologue!

Then we fast-forward to the 1980’s, where we meet Chris, played by Jason Lively, older brother of my childhood crush, Robyn (oh, and some chick on Gossip Girl), who sees the girl of his dreams and decides she’d only go for him if he was in a frat. He and his best-friend J.C., in an attempt to join said frat, accidentally release a cryogenically frozen body that carries alien slugs in its head that turn people into zombies and, needless to say, blood is spilled, brains are eaten and a boy becomes a man.

This movie is just bursting at the seams with cinematic joy. Chris is the original “dorky yet charming,” his lady-love is classic ’80’s hot, his best-friend is one of the most awesome best-friend characters ever put in a movie (seriously, as a writer, I’ve blatantly stolen the character more times than I can count), and then we mix in Tom Atkins as an alcoholic detective with a secret, a vendetta and a goddamn catch phrase (“Thrill me”).

The plot of this movie is like reading my Christmas List from 1987.

And yet, despite all of its awesomeness, the great explosions, the world-class one-liners, the bad-ass finale and the little-people in alien suits, this is not a very good movie. I’d spent my whole life believing it was fucking Citizen Cane, until I sat my wife down to watch the Blu-Ray and, half-way through, found her bored and myself embarrassed. As much as I love it, as a whole, it just doesn’t hold up.

The script isn’t nearly as cohesive as it should be, there are entire scenes that just plain don’t work, and, despite a short running time and enough plot to fill a space-ship, it really drags. It makes strengths out of stuff that usually bugs me – cheesy special effects, stereotypical baddees and a dream sequence (I really hate dream sequences) – but, it can’t overcome the too-long tracking shots, the hideous music, schizophrenic lighting and a painfully slow epilogue.

But, a lot of this can be chalked up to the simple fact that this was the director’s first movie. That he was truly learning on the job and, from what I’ve read and heard on the commentary, he had different opinions about pacing and style than the producer. But, there I go again, defending a movie I love, despite its flaws.

This movie is a classic example of potential over product, and I’m totally okay with that. Because, in the end, I’d rather watch a 26 year-old guy swing for the fences and land a double than a dozen Michael Bay movies slip past the infield. (That metaphor quite doesn’t work, but I won’t miss an opportunity to take a stab at that jack-ass.)

Night of the Creeps isn’t a great movie, but fuck if it isn’t worth your attention, your respect and, at the very least, your time. You can call it shit, but you can’t call it lazy. And, I’ll take that over “the feel good movie of the year” any day.

P.S. Dekker would go on to make Monster Squad. Now, if you call that one shit, you and I are gonna have a problem.

P.S.S. That’s me in my Night of the Creeps t-shirt. Suck it, haters.

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Step 2: Read the following rabid, frothing madness:

Beer drinkers of America, REJOICE!!!! HAAHHHHHHHHHH (crowd noise)! For it is a funtastic, fantastic, phantasmic time; a mystical, magical, mythical time; an exciting, ecstatic, exothermic time to be a beer drinker in America! HAAHHHHHHHHH (crowd noise)!

Coors Light, as American as baked beans and awesomeness

Beer brands and styles are exploding all over America like the spineless species of the Cambrian, and we, imbibers of the noble barley, are the Eurypteris-es of the Silurian feasting on the endless trilobites! HAAHHHHHHH!

And if you are not a beer aficionado? Then you my friend are a damn fool. A nutless, anemic, incontinent, jabbering fool chewing your lips bloody while you smear your own bedclothes with linseed oil you found in the garage. Because you like the smell.

But fear not! You, like countless others, can become an instant beer connoisseur just by following (blindly, religiously, with the unquestioning faith of Indiana Jones stepping off a cliff onto an invisible pathway) these instructions:

First put away the linseed oil before you get the vapors. While you’re out there in the garage, crack open daddy’s beer fridge (if daddy doesn’t have a beer fridge in the garage, get a job and move out of Utah) and grab a cold Coors Light (that’s right, beer snobs: I said Coors Light. We’ll save the discussions about microbrews, Trappist techniques and how being a beer snob is the ultimate in pretentious bullshittery for later). Next open that there Coors Light and take a sip.

Emily Webb from "Our Town"

You know that play “Our Town”, the one where this small-town girl dies and gets to invisibly visit her surviving relatives, and is amazed at how much joy and love flows right under the surface of what she thought was a life so boring she’d have to double-fist herself just to experience some sensation? Well let me put it this way: your invisible ghost is going to be so pissed if you ever taste a Coors Light in the afterlife.

Because there’s so much to enjoy, right there in that ubiquitous can! Pay attention to that boring domestic lager before you swill it down and you will find a medley of flavors. There is a cloying sweetness from the malt, there is an herbal half-bitter taste from the hops, and there is a sparkling, effervescent texture from the carbonation. Plus (unlike many microbrews I can name, beer snobs) the flavors are all in a careful balance.

With that done, I hereby offer you a diploma: you are now a beer connoisseur. That’s right! That’s all it takes! You don’t need to know about specific gravity or secondary fermentation. You don’t need to recognize every single goddamn short-lived local beer currently sweeping the hippy girls off their Birkenstocks in Northern California. All you need to be able to do is TASTE THE BEER YOU’RE DRINKING, and NOTICE WHAT IT’S LIKE.

Please do not think I am telling you that Coors Light is the greatest thing ever. In fact, in my very next article I’ll be tackling the topic of the state of beer in America, and Coors Light will be mentioned in a less flattering vein. Sort of a State of the Union address, but about beer and way more funny.

At any rate, if you take one thing away from this article, let it be this: the image of Emily Webb voraciously double-fisting herself.

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The Captain, an American soldier named Steve Rogers, sets off to put right what Dr. Vaselli once put wrong, and ends up battling the spoils of her foreign work, the Red Skull. I’m not sure why Rogers came out looking like a cover model while the Red Skull looks like a character from Nip/Tuck, but Skull doesn’t seem very pleased about it. Their battle ends with Cap’n US grabbing onto a Nazi missile aimed at the White House. He rides that bad boy like a West Hollywood Slim Pickens all the way across the pacific, choosing to divert it a few feet from its intended target and aiming it into a Washington state forest. It’s best not to pay very close attention to this, because the logistics read like a question on the AP Math test.

Anyway, the missile crashes, plunging Blue Boy into the ice and freezing him long enough to be thawed out in the 1990’s, where he wakes up, steals a car and meets up with his depression era sweet-heart. She’s now in her eighties, while he still looks thirty. They have a surprisingly touching exchange before he takes up with her twenty-something daughter in an oddly incestuous turn, and spends a lot of time watching television and brooding about the events of the last fifty years.

The Red Skull is still alive, hears of Cap’s return and unleashes his daughter to bring him in, igniting a chase that takes them all to Italy (because, apparently, Germany was too obvious) and involves kidnapping the president.

For an action/adventure movie, it contains very little action and even less adventure. Plus, our boy spends most of the time running around sans tights, looking like a character from Melrose Place, wondering where the time has gone. So, really, this is less Captain America and more Rip Van Whiny.

Plus, I’ve never read the Captain America comics – he was always a bit too Batman-meets-Lynyrd-Skynyrd for my tastes – but after watching this movie, I really have no idea what special powers this guy is supposed to have! He gets shot twice, and ends up in the hospital, so he’s not invincible. He throws people around, but when he punches someone, they’re more than likely to get back up. In the end, the only thing this dude seems good at is riding in a car, then convincing the driver to stop because he’s “gonna be sick,” only to lure them away from the car long enough to steal it and leave them on the side of the road. That’s gotta be the lamest super-power ever, and he uses it… twice!

Really, what makes this dude worthy of the name Captain America? Because he wears red, white and blue? If you change the cowl to a beret, he could just as easily be Captain France. He really likes the President, but then, so did Tony Blair.

No, a real Captain America would stride into danger, armed with a Marlboro and a bottle of Coors, wearing Levi’s and chewing on a buffalo steak. He hasn’t shaved in forty-eight hours, but he still smells of Aqua-Velva. He raises a handgun to the Red Skull, while his lawyers, publicists and life coaches take notes; and, just before sending the red menace back to hell, he crosses himself, takes a bribe and sings the refrain from “You Give Love a Bad Name.”

Now, that’s my kind of super hero.

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The man counting his money while I slave over a hot blog! (image by reway2007)

Did you know that digital sales of blogs out grossed paper blog totals by more than 6000%? Well I did, but did I tell myself that? No! I did not. I just sat there smiling, counting the millions of dollars that rolled my way while my poor fingers blogged until they bled! Oh and what about the Internet? Did you know that all blogs are written on the Internet? Well I didn’t, and my current deal didn’t include Internet based blogs. That’s why I haven’t been receiving any residuals. In fact, I haven’t seen a dime from any of these fucking blogs! What do I think I am, a tree? I can’t live on sunlight and fertilizer Mostie, and I don’t grow fruit! I write blogs! Pay me!

Of course when I complained to myself, I insisted that the blogs make me no money, and that I am only writing them to have the satisfaction of entertaining my friends and readers. But I’m a knuckle-humping liar! Blogs this awesome have to make money, and I want my piece of the pizza!  So I offered myself Pizza.

Once offered a pizza party, I decided to renegotiate. (courtesy of Jogos Pizza)

It was the combination of pizza and the clause that allowed me to stop kicking myself in the nuts that ended the strike. So I am proud to say that as of March 9, 2010 I stopped; and I couldn’t be happier! So the strike is over and more sports related fun is forthcoming.

Thanks for your patience.

Mostie.

DXHWKUCKCS47

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