It has been such a long time since I have been at Michel and Jimi's Barbershop that I'm starting to feel guilty about having their icon on my page. I have been tied up in the business of making ducats for myself and my feudal masters at a Fortune 50 corporation (and I still say that with pride). Consequently, I have had to reluctantly decline kind offers to appear on the radio. But I'm feeling like I want to mix it up with my partners, so mebbe I will. Starting today.
Speaking of Obama's Beer Summit.
The definition of a blockbuster is any event that has people lined up around the block and then some. But in Russia and Poland they were called breadlines. Try to get into a Neil Diamond concert. Go ahead, I dare ya. Anytime people really want something badly, they'll line up for it. But that doesn't mean what they get at the front of the line is all that valuable. Sometimes it's just rare, and people think they ought to have it with more frequency. Then you get it, and look at all the suckers still in line behind you and you laugh derisively. Suckers!
So it, this is one of those occasions where people are lined up in droves to hear any scrap of racial wisdom, reconciliation, fisticuffs whatever. I find it difficult not to piss on the entire situation as really beneath the three of them, none of whom serve the situation well. You see America has yet to find its 24/7 raceman, its Dr. Phil of race relations. And it's always some fool like Rodney King or George Allen who gets put in the spotlight, has their moment and then disappears. And still people line up because they're not satisfied.
Remember Ice Cube? Three years ago he convinced the guys at Fox, yeah Fox, to air a show he produced called Black White. This show did a riff off an old Eddie Murphy joke which was to put a black man in whiteface and a white man in blackface - actually whole families, and engage them in an extended game of bait and switch. Prime sociological experimentation, like post-modern performance poetry. You will note that this program was canceled due to a lack of ratings.
Why?
Because once you get your bread at the head of the line, you're not hungry any more. And in the end, most Americans are not hungry for race. They just want to rage a little bit, have somebody say, yeah right on, and then get on with their lives.
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Anyway I'm much more inclined to consider the comic ramifications of the beers deployed at the summit. According to my sources, the menu had:
Biden: non-alcoholic Buckler beerCrowley: Blue Moon
Gates: Sam Adams Light
Obama: Bud Light
Not surprisingly, the only man there with a nickel's worth of taste was Gates himself. But that Gates has some taste in beer at all is a bit surprising. I'm going to have to ask my man if this is Gates' regular brew or if he did a little research before ordering. Quite frankly, it's probably the ideal beer to order at the White House, if you must have a light beer. I am a personal fan of Sam Adams Light and I say that without question it is the best America light beer, period. Big thumbs up for Skip.
Blue Moon? What the heck is that? A new beer out of the Coors factory that I've never heard of. Their marketing makes it sound, well, way more sophisticated than Coors. But since I haven't tasted it, I really can't say. I give Crowley a 'meh'. I should have expected a Rolling Rock, a righteous East Coast blue collar cop beer.
Biden does more to poison whatever scrap of dignity he has at every opportunity. I find it difficult to subvert the impression that he's a recovering alcoholic and has made this point to drink the near beer to squelch any idea that he's backsliding. But my information tells me that he's a somewhat moralistic teetotaller. He had drunks in the family and swore off the stuff completely. Either way, when invited to a beer summit you drink beer, you ballless wonder.
Obama is doing what Obama does. Meticulously crafting his image. I'm sure that he polled his staff to figure out what beer to drink, and they told him it should be Bud Light. When he went on the trail last year he drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Pure political craft.
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Wait. This just in. As I look around there is conflicting reports about Skip's regular beer. I'm hearing Red Stripe and I'm thinking yep, that sounds more like the Skip Gates I think I know.
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As for me I've changed my brands over time. When I first started drinking beer in my late 20s, I basically drank Bud in a Bottle and Coronas. Then I tried to get sophisticated with my beers, first going Mexican to Tecate and Dos Equis, and then going European with Becks and Grolsch. By the time I was 30, I was pretty much only ordering Grolsch and Red Stripe, beers for BAPs and Bohos the world over. When I moved to Brooklyn I started in with the Rolling Rock and Ginger Beer and Heineken, doing that bohemian culture vulture thing. Then when I moved to Boston I was all about Sam Adams and Bass Ale. By the time I was 35 and living in Atlanta, I was pretty much back to Coronas. But I also did Mike's Hard Lemonade and Red Dog. But I did spend some time in the UK and developed a taste for Tetley bitters and Hooch. I couldn't find either in the South so I did Mike's instead. People couldn't believe I liked Red Dog, but I did. It was a good beer. When I moved back to Cali in my late 30s, I picked up on Tequiza for a hot minute, kept up with the Mike's. But Corona was the mainstay. These days when I find myself at a bar that has Newcastle, I always get it. Other than that it's Sam Adams Light.
Now. to put all of this in perspective, I buy probably one six pack a month. I prefer bourbon and y'all should know that. But I find myself having a lot more Bombay these days. Tonight I'm hanging out in Redondo Beach at Kinkaid's. I'm going to have a bourbon summit there at 7:30pm. Now that will be worth checking out.
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