The Greatest Generation?

When I go through security at the airport, before I even get into the line, I considerately take off my belt and my watch and put them in my briefcase.  I then take out my phone and money clip and also place them in my briefcase.  It's a ritual.  It actually doesn't save me any time, because nobody else does it in front of me.  But when I get in line in security, I can self-righteously roll my eyes at all the rookie travelers in a self-satisfied way.  It's worth it.  You should try it.


And today is no different.  I'm headed to Dallas to conduct a Q&A with top Diageo executives on stage in front of 500 beer distributors in character as Cliff Claven from Cheers.  That's another story...

I wait in line, pulling up my beltless pants, wondering what the hell is taking so damn long.  Ah, at the front of the line I see an older woman dressed like my mother.  She's sporting casual wear from Chico's that any other person in any other generation other than the self-proclaimed Greatest Generation would call pajamas.  Bejeweled pajamas.  Sequins glued to a cotton blend in the shape of a playful blue dog, almost like the one in Blues Clues (but not so close as to merit a licensing fee), with the elegant caption, also in sequins:  "Wuff!"   Greatest generation, indeed.  

She is slowly, slowly taking off her pink Croks .... pink and turquoise seem to be favored hues.  This is the same generation that insisted their children, us, wear a coat and tie on an airplane because, as they haughtily put it at the time, "we're not riding a Greyhound bus, after all."  If only! I can still remember my mother, ten in the morning, a glass of wine on the dresser drawer, a cigarette dangling from the edge of her lips, "Sit still for Pete's sake!" as she knots my tie.  "You don't want to look like a low-rent, do you?" as my older sisters sat dutifully in their ill-fitting yellow dresses, ready for our 45 minute flight to Houston.  As if a little five year old blonde boy wearing a t-shirt and jeans on an airplane, (an airplane!) would be the equivalent of dropping him right square in the middle of a Dickens novel.  The popular air travel look for little boys back then was Little Lord Fauntleroy, even for middle class schmucks like me, unfortunately for me and my friends.  

But apparently my mother and those like her have put aside those airs in the ensuing years.  Big time.  In 1973 they would would beat the tar out of us for whimpering because we were scared of rodeo clowns or, say, the player piano (whole nuther story).  But they would stoically endure the tears and tantrums of their children as they squeezed us into a too-small sports coat or frilly dress in order not to scandalize the patrons of Braniff flight 2B from San Antonio to Laredo.
 
While now, a first class trip to London requires nothing from them beyond comfy pants and a  "world's greatest grandma" t-shirt.  And from what I've experienced, not even a bath is apparently required.  Greatest Generation, eh Tom?

This woman, whom I now imagine in my mind is only faking being old to get special treatment -- probably can beat me hollow on the tennis court --  is now fake fumbling through her gigantic purse for her ID and ticket, as it apparently never occurred to her before now that anybody would ever deem to ask her to present these obscure and hard-to-locate items at the airport.  At security.  At the front of the line.  A full eleven years after 9/11. 

When I finally get to the front of the line after what seems an eternity, I kind of expect the TSA agents to compliment me on the way I quickly snap out my ID and ticket on approach, how I place my shoes directly on the conveyor rather than wasting a bin, or the way I collect my toiletries in the perfect-sized ziplock bag, or how I take EVERYTHING, including tissue paper, out of my pockets so they can x-ray me, how I NEVER set off an alarm because, unlike Lulu, I don't forget the ten pounds of jewelry I'm wearing, or how my laptop is neatly symmetric with right corners in the direct center of its plastic bin.  Look at me:  I never hold anybody up.  I am efficient.  I know the rules.  I should get some sort of recognition for doing this flawlessly, week after week.  For the love of God, these agents must recognize me by now.

But no compliments are forthcoming.  Not even a "well played dude" nod.  In fact, I am treated with shabby disdain while this old bag lady in the dated unlicensed Blues Clues sweatshirt who held up the line for 15 minutes digging around for the six inch steak knife she didn't know she couldn't carry in her suitcase gets accolades for freely and gaily submitting to a TSA patdown.   Damn Tom Brokaw and his Greatest Generation propaganda. Probably the best action she's gotten in years. 

"I don't like the steak knives they give you at Tavern on the Green, you see," she sweetly explains to the TSA agent as he gropes her.  "They're greasy and don't hold an edge -- so I bring my own," she adds.  The agent nods his approval, "smart move," and allows it through, while my fingernail clippers get me thrown to the wall with a, "you've always struck me as suspicious, week after week bein' so efficient..."

Afterward, as I walk bow-legged to the area where they have benches where you can attempt to reclaim your dignity as you put belts and shoes back on, I turn to a young Asian guy who is obviously a fellow frequent flyer by the looks of his light-but-functional carry-on bag.  Do I see the flash of silver that betrays an American Airlines Platinum tag on that computer bag?  We are brothers of another mother.  I point my chin at fake Blues Clues lady, who is still gathering her things at the conveyor belt as the bags behind are piling up upon themselves, and give him a knowing glance and roll my eyes, "Ugh, old people, eh?" He looks down red-faced and inches away.

Obviously his mother never put him in a tie to fly Braniff to Laredo.  

Leaving Las Vegas

I took my two oldest sons, whom I call Dinkus and Bonehead, to Las Vegas over the Labor Day weekend to show them the largest golden nugget in the world.  Taking children to Vegas is a tricky maneuver.  They can't gamble, drink, or whore.  So you make do.  I knew the largest golden nugget in the world, while a spectacle to behold, wouldn't hold their young ADD minds for long, being an inanimate rock and all.

So I also arranged to see two talented old Mensches perform before they retire or die.  The first is the greatest illusionist to walk the face of the earth -- according to Oprah who would know -- David Copperfield.  David Copperfield was interesting..... as a boy I remember him being very serious and dramatic .... making the Statue of Liberty disappear and reappear is, after all, a serious business.  But his show was goofy and funny, something I didn't expect.  Nearing 60 years old, he's turned to humor, which knows no age.  He brought me and a few others on stage and made us disappear (sorry, he swore us to secrecy on the trick) and afterwards we met him backstage.  He truly is a master.  But his eyes are weary from performing the same tricks on the same audience for an incredible 500 shows a year.

We saw another open collared hairy chested legend of the 70s the second night, Neil Diamond.  We were the youngest people there by 20 years easily.   There was an old man next to us who befriended Dinkus.  After the third song he was in tears.  By mid-show he was bawling.  By the time Neil was singing some old Barbara Streisand ballad the old man had to be lead out by his wife.  I don't entirely blame him.   It was supposedly Neil's last concert, and this guy had seen him at the "Hot August Night" concert in 69.  It was a heart-wrenching moment.   By the way, you'll be glad to know that Neil still has it, even at 71.  The man still has more talent and testosterone in his little pinky than most men have in their entire bodies, and a full head of hair.  The show was simply fantastic.  

On Saturday we let one of my oldest friends whom I call Fancy take us to fancy lunch at the Bellagio and then let us go on the private balcony of her fancy employer to watch the fancy fountains. Very fancy.  Fancy is so fancy that I dare not mention her real name or employer as she would surely get fired for even being acquainted with somebody so un-fancy as I.  But as fancy as Fancy is, I coerced her into taking us downtown so that I could show my sons the infamous golden nugget.  Leaving the fanciness of the strip to go downtown, where the stairs in the parking garages double as urinals, was a tough sell to Fancy, but I eventually prevailed, and even got her to take a picture in front of a poster of a busty nurse holding a 24oz PBR and declaring proudly, "I like it in the can."  You can take Fancy out of Beaumont, but Beaumont, I find, sticks to you like tar and it's a tough thing to shake.

But the best part of the trip was to be found on the plane ride home.  The outbound flights from Vegas are always great for spotting train wrecks that make you feel better about yourself.  There was a pretty girl across the aisle who looks like holy hell, a real hot mess.  Thick brown hair with cheap chunky highlights piled up carelessly in a chip clip, sunglasses on, skinned knees, mysterious brown stains on her shirt, slugging her third bloody mary --  last night's makeup a fading smudge betraying a helluva good time -- a younger hung-over Sarah Palin if you will.  She catches me watching her, and I expect her expression to say, "I don't give a damn what you think of me", but what it actually says is, "damn I could  really use a cigarette."   I consider offering her one of my nicorrette lozenges, but then think the better of it .... she's the type of girl who thinks nicotine tablets are for pussies and she's right.  She pulls out a tattered copy of ..... is it Fifty Shades of Gray ?  No, not for our party girl.  The Rum Diaries by Hunter Thompson.  I am a little bit in love with her.  I imagine she's a ball of fun when she wants to be, and a real bitch all other times.  In other words the type of girl I'm as likely as not to marry.  

She seems to want to talk to the man next to her, but the guy is unresponsive.  It's infuriating.  I don't know what's being pumped through this goofball's Bose headphones, but I guarantee it's not as interesting as learning our girl's story.  If I were her seatmate, I would be peppering her with probing questions and indulging myself in her sordid life, (all the while congratulating myself on my relative respectability, naturally).  I'd learn about her wild bachelorette weekend in Vegas, how she got her bra caught in the pool drain at the Luxor, how the bride's fiance is a cheating asshole, about her ex-boyfriend's addiction to Call of Duty, about her dead-end job as a hostess at Macaroni Grill, about how she's three credits short of graduating from Addison Community College, and her lifelong dream to someday be a pediatric nurse.  About her father's early death from an ironworking accident, and how she's currently not on speaking terms with her mother because she let her cat Mysty out and it got run over.  I'd invite her to come to the ranch for Thanksgiving, and my wife and sisters would disapprove after she gets into the wine and swims topless in the pond at midnight with our dog Biscuit.  I'd learn about all these things and more, and we'd become good friends, calling each other late at night to hash out her problems.   I'd advise her to forgive her mother -- Mysty would've wanted it that way -- and I'd lend her the money to fly to Reno for their tearful reunion.  Her mother would come to the ranch the next Thanksgiving, and it would emerge that she's a licensed massage therapist specializing in gout, and she works her magic and cures my sore ankles ..... and so on.

These are the fantasies I spin to pass the time on planes when you can't turn on your iPad because you've yet to reach ten thousand feet (which is a stupid rule, by the way).  For all I know she's getting her PhD in solid rocket fuel and was in Vegas to give a speech to NASA.   But I prefer my party girl version, in need of an older savior, a respectable businessman who can guide her to her dream of being an RN.  

I follow her off the plane at DFW, and she walks flat-footed, toes out like a duck in her flip-flops with sparkly sequins.   My heart swells, it's an endearing effect.  I'll never see her again of course, and she will be forever unaware of her wannabe guardian angel.

I Can't See

There’s been a particular development in my life which has affected all other parts of my life.  I can’t see.  I’ve never been able to see far -- been wearing the glasses since grade school for that.  But over the last year or so it has developed that I can’t see up close, even and especially with my glasses.  Phone, wristwatch, remote control … forget about it, can’t see it.  ATM machine screens, gas pump readers, credit card numbers, nope. Papers on my desk, car keys, stuff in my center console.  Can’t see it.  Menus, receipts, restaurant checks, phone bills … well, you get the picture.

One surprise benefit:  I’ve abdicated any responsibility for almost everything smaller than a couch, under the auspices that I can’t be held responsible for things I can’t see.  

All of this had caused me to review my life and start making changes -- changes of the “let’s make everything bigger and simpler” type.  I gave the Rolex I got from my grandmother in 1995 to my oldest son Harrison and bought a Timex with big numbers that’s backlit.  I changed the font sizes on my computer and phone.  I hand bar tabs to whoever I’m with, feigning complete ignorance of what to do next.  I bought an iPad and have started using that instead of my phone.  

I’ve started to extricate from my life anything that’s smaller than a loaf of bread.  That’s my standard.  If it can’t fit in a bread box, it goes in the trash.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable.  At hotels, instead of taking the trouble of reading the tiny print on the little bottles, I’ll just play hair-wash roulette.   Eeny meeny miney mo, I wonder how my hair will go.  Yes, sometimes my hair smells like Listerine and sometimes it smells like lavender body lotion, but screw it.  My hair’s all falling out anyway so it won’t matter anymore soon enough.

Ruling out the possibility that I’ve been bitten by spider and will soon develop super powers, I can only assume it’s going to get worse.  But you know I don’t complain.  Okay, I complain incessantly.  So everybody keeps saying to get bifocals.  Seriously?  I’m 43, not 80.  I suppose I can get reading glasses, but that’s just one more thing for me to keep up with.  My cycle with things I absolutely need -- glasses, keys, phone, wallet -- goes something like this:  Have --> Lose --> $Replace$ --> Find.  I don’t need yet another item to get caught up in that expensive and aggravating vortex. So I will do as others have done before me, endeavor to persevere.

Get a Grip, Philly

Last week I found out that I was sued by the City of Philadelphia.  There was a hearing that I was not notified about, and guess what?  Apparently I lost. 

Okay, you may laugh.  But sometimes I feel like as a small business person, we are in the crosshairs of  governments more than anybody.  You know why?  Because when state or city or even national legislators make laws to require paperwork, they inevitably have in mind Amazon.com or Wal-Mart.  They don’t ever think of the small beer writer guy who doesn’t have time or resources to file paperwork in every jurisdiction in the country.

So I got a bill from the City of Philadelphia municipal court last week for $12,073.  To say I was surprised was an understatement.  The letter said that they had had a hearing, without me naturally, and found that my company had not filed an income tax return with the city for seven years.  With the city.  Really?  I live in San Antonio, TX.  I've never been to Philadelphia.  Why in the hell would I file an income tax return with the City of Philadelphia?  It's taxation without representation.  And having a court hearing without me and having some municipal judge file an arbitrary judgment against me for $12,073 -- it seems like a gross violation of civil rights.  This isn't Russia after all.  It feels like a mob shakedown.  What's next .... will the City of Philadelphia now try to tax me for eating a Philly Cheesesteak in Texas?  I say we dump a load of cheesesteaks into the San Antonio River.

Of course I was not aware that I was required to file an income tax return with the City of Philadelphia.  How the hell would I even know?  And there doesn't seem to be any recourse.  When I call, each department refers me to another department.  The municipal court refers me to the revenue collection bureau, which refers me to the court.  I asked to speak to the "president judge" (whatever that means) that ordered me to pay $12k or else face further legal proceedings.  I was told she would not speak to me.  I am not getting answers ... I'm getting voicemails.  The weather must be really good there right now, since nobody ever seems to be at their desk in Philadelphia.  Government bureaucrats at their best.  

But here’s the thing:  What if every city in the U.S. required you to file income tax returns if you did business with somebody in the city?  Everybody except huge corporations would be up to their eyeballs in paperwork and bankrupt.   It’s so insane it defies explanation. 

I will tell you one thing:  The City of Philadelphia will not get one plug nickel from me.  And I will have ask my one subscriber from Philadelphia not to renew their subscription to Beer Business Daily, because it’s not worth filing an income tax return for one customer.  And I will have to put on my website that if you're from Philadelphia, you're not allowed to order a subscription.  In other words, Philadelphia has lost my business.   Adios Philadelphia.

And I will say this:  It’s no wonder Philly is suffering the way it is and everybody is moving to places like Texas, where even the politicians would consider it utterly ridiculous to require every out-of-state vendor to file an income tax return with a city. 

The Miracle of Social Networking ... In a Deer Blind

On Saturday night I found myself alone.  Oh, don’t feel sorry for me.  Are you kidding?  Being alone is one of the last luxuries when you’re a man.

I was at the ranch, where I’m told we have a rash of spikes this year, spreading their vile seed around like so much poison.  Spikes are undesirable deer that, if left unchecked, can start to dominate your deer herd’s gene pool.  So during the hunting season we’ve been encouraging folks to hunt spikes.  I haven’t shot a deer in years –  I’m a terrible deer hunter, mainly because you have to sit still and be quiet and I’m not good at either of those.   Plus I have terrible eyesight, bad hearing, and I’m scared of blood.  Yeah, we’ve got a real badass over here.  But nevertheless I have nothing better to do so I decide to go sit in a blind for a few hours on a Saturday evening and see what I can scare up.

I didn’t see a single deer, probably because I had allergies and kept sneezing.  But I ended up scaring up something better than a spike, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Here’s what our deer blinds look like.  My grandfather built them in the 60s, and they’ve held up remarkably well.  They look like outhouses.  They’ve been there so long that deer just walk by them without notice.

Things were looking up when I entered the blind and found that there wasn’t a pack of raccoons using it as an eff shack – always a risk.  No spiders or wasps either.  In fact, all I found was a nice old dusty bottle of The Famous Grouse scotch, and a couple of nested solo cups, the bottom of which wasn’t too dirty.  So I settled into the airplane seat (vintage seat from a 1950s DC 3/C47 airplane ….. yeah, my granddad was a true badass), poured myself a scotch into a plastic cup, neat, and sneezed.   The scotch was hot and burned going down the throat, but it was smooth and it gave me a warm feeling in my stomach.  Then I looked out the window to enjoy the nice sunset.  Ah, nature. 

That got boring pretty quickly.  I look down and, what is this? A stack of old magazines.  The Smithsonian?  Who the hell was reading The Smithsonian in a deer blind?  That’s sacrilege.  Ah, but behind that was a Playboy from June 2006.  I thumb through it – not for the pictures, naturally, but an interview with Shepard Smith catches my eye – and I think, “Wouldn’t it be funny to take a selfy pic of me reading the Playboy, and Tweet it out with the caption:  “Deer hunting is hard work.”  Haha, get it?  I funny, right?  So I tweeted it from my @beerbizdaily account.

Well, within five minutes I get a Tweet back from my friend Eva Conner, a beer distributor from Florida who also owns a modeling agency, Michele & Group.  She tells me that the cover girl is one of their models, Kara Monaco, and she includes Kara on the Tweet.  Then, five minutes after that, I get a Tweet from Kara herself, who was Playboy’s 2006 Playmate of the Year.   “Awesome! ;)” she said.   Yes, that’s “awesome” with an exclamation point and a winking happy face, which is practically an invitation to the Playboy mansion as her date. 

Kara Monaco

So to recap, I’m sitting in a deer blind in the middle of nowhere.  I come across an old Playboy.  Ten minutes later, I’m tweeting with the girl on the cover.  This, my friends, is the magic of this modern age of social media.   This would not have happened even two years ago.  Amazing.

A Touch O' Pneumonia

So I’ve been bed-ridden for six days with the pneumonia.  Well, they call it “walking pneumonia” but trust me, there’s no walking about it.  They should call it “glued to your bed and barely able to even read or watch a movie pneumonia.”   I’ve written in these pages about it before – I get it every five years or so.  It’s usually mild (although ten years ago I got it in Denver so bad that I had to visit the hospital, and when I was 2 years old I stayed in a hospital for two weeks and nearly kicked the bucket, according to my crazy parents who couldn’t tell the truth if their life depended on it, so who knows?).

So I’m now told by my doctor that these bouts of pneumonia are a subset of a larger condition called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which basically means I can’t breath good a lot of times and sometimes it makes me sick in my chest.  Whatever.  Seriously?

I’m increasingly convinced these greedy drug companies reclassify symptoms as diseases and give them official sounding names so then they can make drugs that treat the “disease”, when really they are just treating the symptoms.  You can charge more for pills that cure diseases, rather than pills that just mask symptoms.

For instance, I have trouble concentrating on work because I am an impulsive boy and would rather not work when given the choice.  I’d rather be entertained by candy or a tree out the window or a naked woman on TV.  In other words, I am normal.

To a normal boy:  Work = boring.   Naked lady on TV = entertaining.  Right?

But at an early age I found that I can’t make a living if I just look at naked ladies on TV all day, mores the pity.  So I improvised.  I found that if I chew on a cigar, I can concentrate on my work without looking at naked ladies…. too much.   Self-medication is the best.    It’s called nicotine, and it can be found naturally in fields in Virginia apparently. 

Well now the greedy drug companies have reclassified being a normal lively red blooded American boy as now having a disease called ADD and ADHD, and they sell a synthetic form of meth called Adderal to treat it.  Adderal is basically a combination of cigarettes and cocaine for kids.  In fact, I saw a study recently that said that nicotine may be even more effective than Adderal for treating ADD and ADHD.  Once again I’m on the cutting edge of bio-science. 

You know who else is on the cutting edge of medicine?  That’s right, my old friend and longtime physician, Dr. Tonga.  Well, it saddens me to no end to report that after treating thousands of patients poorly for many years, Dr. Tonga has gone into semi-retirement.  He will still see special patients, like me, but if you wish to become a patient of Dr. Tonga, I'm afraid that he won't see you.  Sorry.

He has been replaced by a new partner named Dr. Rick.  Dr. Rick, my new doctor when Dr. Tonga is not available -- which is always since Dr. Tonga just sits in his office painting and watching Price is Right -- has a severe case of undiagnosed ADHD. He gets easily distracted.  For instance, he was looking over blood-work from the lab that I had submitted in October.  He said, hmmm, this blood-work is over six months old.  When I pointed out that it was only two months old, he pointed to the word “October” on the lab report and said, “But it was taken in March.”   I pointed to the word "October" and said, "Dr. Rick, that says October right, or am I the one who is going crazy?"  He looked befuddled, looked at the word October, and muttered something like, "why yes of course.."  I had thought of offering him a Nicorrette Mini Mint I had in my pocket, but then thought the better of it, and instead made a mental note to just carefully look over his scripts before submitting them to Walgreens. 

Anyway, I was visiting Dr. Rick because I had been bed-ridden for several days with a severe cough and fever.  A chest x-ray revealed that I had a mild case of pneumonia.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I’ve had it several times before as I said.  In fact, a doctor in Denver told me ten years ago that unless I got hit by a train or run over by an ex-girlfriend, I would eventually die of pneumonia, as my lungs are so scarred and air being so fucking important to life…..well, the lungs are my weak link.  It’s strangely comforting knowing what you’ll likely die of.

But anyway, Dr. Rick knew nothing of this history.   So he looked over my chart and said, “Obviously you are a heavy smoker.”  Well, I’m not a smoker and never have been.  So I told him that.  He was dubious.  “Hmmm” he said, clucking his tongue.  Clearly he didn’t believe me.  He then looked at my liver enzymes.  “Well,” he said approvingly, “You’re obviously not a drinker.”  Whaa?  I asked him if he was sure he had the right chart.  “Ah, yes I’d say I’m a drinker.  I’m in the business.”  He looked at me askance.  I clarified, “I’m in the alcohol beverage industry, and yes I drink alcohol quite a bit.”   He then showed me that my liver enzymes where well below the national average. 

Well, there you go.  My doctor is convinced I’m lying that I don’t smoke, and lying that I do drink.  This is why I hate medicine.  They don’t know fuck.  Just live your life.   Meanwhile, I can’t freaking breathe.  Epinephrine mist has been my constant friend.

The Lost Year

I’m not one of those men who cries a lot like some milquetoast nancy boy.

Except that now I am.   I’m apparently now one of those men who cries at the drop of the hat.  You see, starting in January I found myself crying at the end of Notting Hill and Bridgett Jones’ Diary.  Why was I watching these movies to begin with, you might ask?  Hugh Grant, of course.

As a year, 2011 wasn't a banner. I had some personal losses -- lost a dog, a horse, my dad, some good friends moved away, my oldest boy left for college, etc.  And while I know others have it much worse and I know I should count my blessings yadda yadda, I decided that it was much more preferable to wallow in my own self-pity and slip into a sort of middle-aged melancholia, initially fueled by drams of Pennsylvania Dutch.  I deserved it.

But upon reflection, perhaps my melancholia was not as much propelled by these sad events, or even by the Dutch, but by my decision to move myself and my two boys to live for a few weeks this Summer at our ranch along with my nephew and watch the DVD box set of Lost every night.  And I took to reading books like A Moveable Feast and The Great Gatsby, books from whence my own mortality screamed at me from every page.   Lost and Hemingway -- no wonder I was depressed.  What the hell was I thinking?  I knew it was bad when an AT&T commercial made me weep.  

My sixteen year old boy, Hunt, took a job at our favorite watering and eating hole, the Scenic Loop Cafe, not a stone's throw from the ranch, probably just so that he could escape this melancholia.  My nephew was taking the summer off after graduating from college before his job started in China, so he stood fast with me as he had nothing better to do and I had a credit card.  My youngest boy, at eleven, does not possess a car and so was stuck with me.  He would play video games while I worked during the day.  Then we'd watch an episode or two of Lost, go to supper at the Cafe, repeat.  On weekends it was just me and The Boy, fishing and shooting and watching Lost or sometimes a screening of Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, another uplifting movie for middle-aged men to contemplate.  A perfect mud pit of self-pity in which to wallow.  It now occurs to me that everybody who had a means of transportation took themselves away from me.  Lulu wisely stayed in town and ignored me, Hunt worked, Harrison was in Austin, leaving poor Wywy, who doesn't have a car, to babysit sad ole' dad.  We were basically joined at the hip.  I made a few new friends and deepened old relationships at the Café where we ate and Hunt worked every day.  But wherever I went, Wywy was my little buddy.  It was great for me, because I can’t imagine enduring melancholia without my little bear as a companion.  When he looks back on it, he'll either reflect on the fond memories, or...... well there’s therapy.

Last summer we got through every season of Lost except the last, increasingly enduring its wild and seemingly pointless plot maneuvers.   This weekend we decided to finish it and be done with the damn thing, because I teach my boys to finish what they start, even if I'm not so good at it.  Tonight Wywy and I watched the last episode.  It wasn’t even really sad, but I found myself having to turn away from him, oily-eyed, to keep him from seeing my eyes.  Keep in mind, this is a ridiculous TV series with fictional characters who weren’t even alive to begin with.  But there you have it.  It's done.

It’s December now and we’re winding down the year.  I’m ready to write-off 2011 and start over fresh on January 2, 2012 with a new vigor.   I don’t regret 2011.  It was a year I’ll always remember, like an indulgent lucid dream.  I got a lot closer with my two younger boys, and my nephew who I miss now that he's in Beijing, and the new friends I made.  But, now it’s time to put the last DVD back into the box set of Lost, start working 12 hour days again, regain my tennis game, and start reading chipper self-help books, like the Four Hour Workweek, or something.

But I'm not starting any of that until January 2.  Until then, break out the Pennsylvania Dutch and put in Lost in Translation.

Daddy's Bear Goes to College

Lulu and I have been taking turns weeping for the past two weeks. She’s been pulling her weight more than I have, but now that my oldest boy Harrison is leaving for college today, it’s my turn to catch up. It seems just like yesterday that the Bunny Rabbit, as we used to call him when he was a baby, was traipsing over the grass to kindergarten. As our oldest boy, as we conceived him when we were 13, he grew up when we were poor and living in different spots every other year chasing jobs. Born in Houston, preschooled in Boston, kindergartened in Austin, grade schooled in Denver, summered in Australia, brought to manhood in San Antonio. The boy is well-travelled.

We were the first of our friends to have a baby, and I remember being in my early 20s and sometimes lamenting that we couldn’t go out as much as our friends did every weekend. Back then, when he was cholic and his diaper was dirty and we were exhausted, I couldn’t imagine a day when I would be so sad that he was leaving.

My first employer, Joe Huggins of Houston Distributing Co., told me before Harrison was born that he’d buy me a Cadillac if I named him Houston Distributing Schuhmacher. To say I was tempted was an understatement. 1. Because I knew Joe was serious and he was good for it. 2. Because I would sell it immediately and use the proceeds to fix our leaky roof. Luckily for Harrison, Lulu refused, and we sold that house with the leaky roof on a sunny day.

Just about every night for the past two weeks we’ve been meeting our friends with freshmen kids going into college at our favorite local Mexican joint to have a “farewell” dinner since they are all leaving on different days. The wives all cry at every dinner. The wait staff who no speakey de engles think that we’re either a very depressed lot or the food is terrible. Last night we got some levity when the daughter of a friend said she was heading off to the Colorado School of Mines. Lulu, who was educated in Europe and so doesn’t know a lot of U.S. stuff, asked innocently, “Oh, they have a school for mimes? As in…” and she did the classic mime-in-a-box routine. The girl was speechless. “Uh, no, it’s more of an engineering school…” This sent us into apoplexy.

But today is different because today it is OUR boy who is leaving, and our boy is the best one. He’s so grown up – literally grown up, he’s 6’4’’. And so handsome and smart. I’m so proud of him. Harrison has always been Daddy’s Bear. He’s always been a self-starter and a man of action. Usually dads teach their boys how to throw a ball or how to fish, but in Harrison’s case it was the other way around. He taught me both. I would take him fishing on weekends, and he would cast for hours and hours, even if the fish weren’t biting. He had the patience of a monk. Fishing became a big part of our lives together. In addition to the thousands of hours at the ranch, we’ve been out on every coast in search of fish. In the Spring we’re hunting Tarpon off the flats of Key West.

As he grew into a young man in high school, Harrison became like a second father to my two other boys, particularly when I was traveling so much. Plus, he knew how to play sports and hunt and fish. He was the best father they never had.

What makes me most proud of Big Bear is his ability to easily make friends across the spectrum of people – jocks, nerds, emos, punks, dopers – didn’t matter, Harrison made friends with them all. I respect that trait in anybody.

I’m so proud of him. It brings to mind, or mime, a previous post about Puff the Magic Dragon: “A Dragon lives forever; but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant's rings, make way for other toys. One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more. And Puff that mighty dragon suddenly ceased his fearless roar. His head now bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain. Puff no longer went to play, along that cheery lane. Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave, so Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.”

It’s true. The little boys we knew suddenly, quite miraculously and with no notice, grow up and are no more. Our little boy is gone, replaced by a fine young man. Oh but I do miss that little boy. He was so sweet. I miss the way he’d run home from the school bus every day and leap into our arms. I miss the way he worshiped bulldozers, and later trains. I miss when he was a baby, and on Saturday mornings to give Lulu a rest I’d put him in the back of my car and drive around Houston for hours listening to 90s music, I miss teaching him to shoot roman candles at the age of two, I miss his little one piece jumpers he’d wear, I miss wispy soft blond hair that always smelled of a mixture of milk and wet puppy, I miss his wide-set baby blue eyes, I miss watching him play baseball at the fields. I miss a lot about that little boy. About 12 years ago, when I was on a trip to Chicago, he left a voicemail message on my office phone because he was so excited that he got a home run. I remember listening to that message about 20 times that night. I had saved it for years, but finally it accidentally got erased. I would give anything to have that message back. So full of excitement. I wish I could go back to that time, cancel my trip, and be at that game.

But now he’s grown up, and now we’ve done all we can do, and he must go forth and face the world on his own. But not matter what happens, he’ll always be Daddy’s Bear.


Big Bear giving pointers to Baby Bear

Sweet Lena.

Saying goodbye to his brother.

In simpler times.

Biscuit’s Philosophy of Life: Live Life, Bite a Skunk

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll no doubt recall my post on how the favorite dog I’ve ever owned in my life – and I’ve owned a lot of them -- Chica, would get in the hot tub with us and, depending on how many Paloma margaritas I’d had, would speak to me in an English accent. Very proper was Chica. Chica had sense enough to know that there was a natural etiquette to the hot tub. It took me a year to teach my youngest boy, Wywy, that doing underwater summersaults in the hot tub was de classe. Hot tub time is a sacred civilized carve-out at the end of the day, to enjoy a good cigar and a beer or whiskey, and just relaxxxxx. Ah yeah. Those were the days.

That was pre-2011. Those were halcyon days indeed. Then Thanksgiving 2010 hit, and our house was robbed and not only were laptops and a guitar and Lulu’s jewelry taken, but so was our beloved Chica. It was heartbreaking in our family, particularly for my youngest boy Wywy and me who was closest to her. Incidentally, another dog was also taken but we didn’t like her so that was somewhat of a blessing. We put up signs around the neighborhood saying:

**** LOST DOG ****
YELLO LAB
“CHICA”
REWARD
[LARGE PIC OF CHICA HERE]
Then in small print:
“Chica may be accompanied by a boxer named Baulbazaur; you can keep it as part of the reward. We have no pic of it but you’ll know it when you see it.”

After six months with no word from Chica (or Baulbazaur thankfully), my boy Wywy’s persistent hounding for a new pup finally found purchase. I find it hard to deny him for any length of time. I spoil all my boys, but my baby gets special dispensations. So I instructed Lulu to get on it. Lulu found a yellow Lap puppy on the Internet for very cheap if only airfare could be wired to the owner. She of course wired the money – to Cameroon it turns out -- while I was out of town and, to nobody’s surprise except Lulu’s, no dog was forthcoming on the flight. “But the ad said it was a Pastor’s family!” she cried pitifully. I love Lulu so much. I married the last guileless girl in America, but needless to say she is no longer allowed to use the Internet when I’m out of town. I returned and scouted out a lively pup that Wywy picked out from a local litter. He named her Biscuit.

Biscuit, while also a yellow Lab, only resembles Chica in her appearance. She is constantly gobbling up things, regardless if they are food or not. Shoes, flowers, dirt, a dropped hot dog (occasionally even a blind pig finds a truffle). When we used to sit in the hot tub, Chica would enter carefully – using the steps like a Christian – and would assume her seat by her usual jet and sit quietly. Biscuit leaps, and I mean leaps high in the air, into the hot tub right into our laps. She’s clearly not afraid of water. Then she swims constantly in a tight circle, making sure to chomp at our fingers, bathing suits, the water, a jet; and when there’s nothing to bite, she bites the air. At first I thought she was so dumb she’d swim herself until she eventually drowned, but the good Lord or Satan or whoever spawned this pup put enough sense in her to step out of the hot tub to shake water on all of us and then go roll in the dirt so that she resembles a homeless dog, or a chocolate Lab, and then leaps back into the hot tub, creating a nuclear mushroom cloud of dispersed mud, and resumes her rounds. We’ve doubled our chlorine bill since Biscuit has entered our lives.

Here is Biscuit. She’s running toward me.

The reason she’s running toward me is because, we’ve found, Biscuit has an acute phobia of being alone, even for a second, and never gets more than three feet away from Wywy, or if he’s not to be found, anybody. Oh, we all have our deep-seated fears of abandonment. But Biscuit takes it to a new level.

Part of it is Wywy’s fault. He’s indulged her shamefully. She sleeps in his bed, he invites her along on every event of his life, and basically they are inseparable. Which is kinda cute. Except when Wywy must be away, like at school, and then Biscuit clings to Lulu and me, or the yardman, or the mailman, or anybody with a pulse. This pup loves to love. And I love to love her back, except when I have to work or would like to read quietly or even when I wish to “meet a man about a horse” in the bathroom. She sits at the door and whines, which makes me nervous and keeps my equine negotiations at bay. Sometimes I just give up and endure cramps later in the day. Thanks, Biscuit.

Part of this behavior, I’m sure, is because Biscuit is still a puppy. I realize that. But Chica was never like this. This pup has a zest for life like I’ve never seen. Everything she sees goes directly into her mouth without so much as a sniff to see if it’s edible/distasteful/poisonous. With twice as much ADD as even other Lab puppies, she chases everything that catches her gaze at the moment: squirrels, butterflies, a skunk. Yes, she got sprayed on her very first outing at the ranch, and got me sprayed as a consequence. We both soaked in a tub for hours. I suspect a porcupine is not long for her painful acquaintance, or god forbid a water moccasin.

She leaps into the pool at the smallest notion – a floating junebug or leaf for instance. She doesn’t test the waters with a paw like Chica did, she just jumps right in. And her leaps aren’t horizontal, but rather straight up and out and she gets considerable air for so small a pup. And Biscuit is a bear of very little brain. On Memorial Day she was standing under the diving board and leaped in, hitting her head so hard on the belly of the board that I thought she’d drown from having a concussion. But unsurprisingly God/Satan gave her an impenetrably hard head, knowing she’d need it.

But, you know what, as much as a pain in the ass Biscuit is, she’s growing on me. Wywy adores her, and that’s enough for me. But I also find that I like her uninhibited damn-the-torpedoes philosophy of life. I find myself taking more chances lately, as I’ve been sort of cocooned for the last few months. Maybe Biscuit can teach us all something about actually living life, instead of coasting through it. Go ahead, try that new sushi roll, write something that you know will be controversial, suggest a wild new sexual position to your mate (this last was disastrous, be warned. Biscuit’s philosophy of life has limits, as she found out with the skunk and I found out with….. well I’ll tell you later). Life is meant to be lived. Live it. Go forth and … bite a skunk. You bite enough skunks, at some point you’re going to bite into a Cinnabon.

And look here. I bit so many skunks that eventually I got Lulu. Just look at them legs. Better than two Cinnabons.

Harry vs Wild

I can now ad movie star to my long list of accomplishments. We recently spent a rollicking afternoon at the ranch shooting a short film called Harry vs Wild, a spoof on the Discovery Channel’s show Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls. But instead of being a taut survivalist like Bear, the character I play – coincidentally also named Harry -- is fat, besotted, incompetent, pampered, wildly ill-equipped to be in the wild, and clearly being helped along by a disgusted film crew. He’s sort of a combination between Arthur and Captain Kangaroo. So I was type-cast, obviously. He also alternatively despises and envies Bear Grylls to the point of obsession, and tries to imitate him with some sort of faux British-Australian-Scottish-Irish combo accent. The result is pretty amusing, mainly due to JJ’s brilliant directing and editing.

Harry vs Wild is the brainchild of JJ Rubin, the son of our good friends Stacey and Jamo Rubin who we’ve known for 30 years, and my son Harrison. I’ve known JJ since he was a little pup and have watched him grow up. He’s been interested in film for some time and has already won awards for his short films, and is now heading off to USC film school.

We’ve been trying to schedule a time to do this for over a year, and finally decided on Easter Sunday. My boy Harrison and friend George Shaw helped as the crew (and George was my stunt man and body double). We didn’t have a script, but JJ would set up the scene and then I’d just ad lib, with suggestions from the boys. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, and the laughs we had were priceless.

So here it is, Harry vs Wild. I must warn you, it ain’t PG rated, more like R with some pretty salty language, so don’t let the brats watch it.

A Seasoned Beer Expert’s Epiphany: Beer is Heavy

The following was originally published in All About Beer magazine in their April 2011 issue.

I’m a middle-aged beer industry writer. It’s better than being an old beer writer, because old beer writers are always precariously close to a painful and humiliating death. And it’s better than being a young beer writer, because I got here first and got the best things. A middle-aged beer industry writer is the best kind of beer writer because he knows what he knows and he knows what he doesn’t know. An old beer writer thinks he knows what he knows, but really he can’t remember much of anything. It’s a brain cell depletion thing. A young beer writer knows what he knows but what he doesn’t know, which is considerable, he suspects doesn’t exist. But while I’m in the beer writer sweet spot, I’m old enough that my joints are squeaky and my feet are gouty. But enough gloating.

I edit and publish an industry trade newsletter called Beer Business Daily. It comes out daily. Don’t laugh, you’d be surprised how many people, after hearing the name of the publication, ask how often it’s published. BBD, as it’s called in the trade, has grown from one subscriber in 1997 – the first brave subscriber a kind quiet gentleman named Mike Hopkins who was and still is an Anheuser-Busch distributor in Brenham, Texas, (we call him Subscriber No. 1A) – to over 20,000 daily readers who, for the most part, are anything but quiet. They have opinions and aren’t afraid to share them, mores the pity. I am blessed each day with hundreds of emails in response to whatever was written in BBD that morning, often hostile. My theory is that if you aren’t pissing off at least twenty-five percent of your readers at any given time, then you aren’t doing your job. So I get quite a daily cacophony of beer industry noise each day. And from this white noise the middle-aged beer writer can tease out themes, connect dots, and discover hidden truths like a rarely situated gem – a diamond in a goat’s ass, say.

And one diamond in a goat’s rectum that recently presented itself to me in my daily email proctology exam is that – wait for it because it’s good – Beer is Heavy. Let’s take a moment to digest this truth. Tick tock. What, not so brilliant, you say? Read on.

Well, before we get into that splendid fact and its implications on the industry, let me clarify that we at BBD rarely write about actual beer. This great magazine and other venues do an excellent job of writing about the beer, a virtuous and worthy topic deserving of so much ink. No, we write about the more mercenary topic of the money behind the beer: to whom it’s flowing and from whom it’s flowing. If you leave with one takeaway from this article – and it appears so far you are likely to come away with precious few – is that in the beer business, beer is slow and money is fast. Or to put more succinctly, beer is heavy, particularly in relation to its price. This one simple fact drives nearly everything else in the beer industry: how it’s sold, where it’s sold, at what price it’s sold, its ownership structure, etc. And the relation between beer’s weight and its price is presently changing, and that will, in turn, change how beer is sold, where it’s sold, at what price, and its ownership structure.

Let me explain -- after I pour myself another glass of Infinium, a Christmas gift from Boston Beer Company. It does kind of taste like champagne, like they promised -- very refreshing and delicious. But it begs the question: Should beer out-champagne champagne? Should beer attempt to out-[insert alcohol beverage of choice] anything except beer? Or should good beer should just be good balanced representations of what it’s supposed to be? There. In this paragraph I’ve written more about actual beer than I have in my entire life. And you, lucky reader, are here to witness it. I feel all verklempt. Let’s take another moment to reflect. (Incidentally, upon reflection, also in this paragraph I’ve quite possibly infuriated an influential and powerful friend in the beer industry, Jim Koch. Sorry, Jim. As you know I’m the least qualified person on earth to pass intelligent judgment on a beer. I’ll give you this: It certainly has inspired some fascinating prose so far. Maybe the editor, Julie Johnson, will see fit to delete this ‘graph. Go ahead, Julie, delete it. I dare you....but I won’t make my minimum word count if you do, be warned).

Let’s get back to our thesis, after that shameless attempt at interesting filler so I get my 30 cents a word: Beer is heavy, heavier than money and heavy relative to its price. The fact that beer is heavier than money has implications on both the global and the local beer industries, for similar reasons. On the global stage, a clever group of bankers disguised as brewery owners have figured out that beer’s weight makes it prohibitively expensive to ship economically, particularly across mountain ranges and oceans. Therefore, rather than take a brand like Brazil’s Brahma and ship it far and wide, it makes much more financial sense to move the money internationally, which is weightless, and buy other breweries. Hence the rapid global consolidation of mega-breweries we’ve witnessed for the past twenty years: SAB and Miller, Molson and Coors, InBev and Anheuser-Busch, Heinken and Femsa, to name just a few. You can apprently use the profits from what you make on Brahma to finance buying the brewery in Belgium, and once you’ve paid down your debt from the purchase, walla! Now you’ve increased in size of your company and make more money. Not only that, when you own Brahma in Brazil and buy a brewery in Belgium, the brewery in Belgium can brew Brahma there, saving the shipping costs. Easy peasy Japanese-y. The Belgians who wish to drink Brahma either don’t know or care where the Brazilian beer is made, it appears. In fact, only in the United States do beer drinkers care about the origin of where their beer is actually brewed. That’s why Heineken is brewed all over the world for local markets, except in the U.S. where the Heineken you drink is brewed in Amsterdam at the mothership brewery. Beer is heavy, don’t forget, relative to its price. Another sip of Infinium. It’s growing on me.

Now, you know what other alcohol beverage isn’t heavy relative to its price, in the high-end at least? Wine. High-end wine is expensive, and yet it weighs nearly the same as beer. And terrior matters. So when you drink Chateau Lafitte Rothschild, you know it comes from France. In spirits, you wouldn’t drink single malt scotch from Mexico just as you wouldn’t drink an agave tequila from Scotland. And that’s okay for those companies, because the prices are such that the shipping is nearly negligible. Another sip: Liquid ambrosia.

And even within the US, there’s a thriving Internet business with domestic high-end wines, because the price is high enough relative to its weight that you can buy a case and not worry too much about the shipping costs because it’s a minor add-on. That’s why so much wine and spirits are shipped long distances. Thirty percent of wine and spirits sold is high end, so it’s a big part of that industry. I should note here that this Infinium is a piece of heaven on earth.

Not so much in beer. Craft beer is only five percent of the total U.S. beer business, albeit growing. Not much beer is sold online. The vast majority of beer, which is domestic mainstream beer, is sold the same way it has for decades: through wholesale distributors to retailers. Because the prices are low relative to its weight, it has to be sold through distributors who aggregate many brands together so it’s economically feasible to sell to your local convenience or liquor store. Beer is perishable too, and it sells at a much higher velocity than wine or spirits. So deliveries must be made much more frequently, further setting in stone how it’s sold. And of course you have state regulations that help to maintain the status quo. I can make the case as to how this regulation actually helps craft brewers ultimately with you individually, in a bar, but won’t get into it in these pages until I have more space and the effect of this Infinium wears off. Damn good beer, this Infinium, by the way.

So, what is changing? Well, higher priced craft brewers are growing in sales relative to mainstream beers like Bud Light, and more are being sold in larger 750ml wine bottles. As craft beer grows, the average price of beer grows. Since craft beer weighs the same as regular old Bud Light, the ratio of the weight of beer to its average price is going down. This changes the game a bit, in that it makes shipping smaller loads more feasible. That may increase pressure to sell more over the Internet to individual drinkers. But besides that, even in the current system, it may also keep indie craft brewers independent for a longer period of time, because there is less financial pressure to consolidate and share brewing capacity. Are you following me? If not, put down your beer, you’ve had enough.

On the other hand, even craft beer is cheaper than fine wines and high priced spirits (and they all weigh the same). So this unavoidable truth, I think but am not sure, could lead to some consolidation amongst U.S. craft brewers (we have mountain ranges, remember) and more collaborative sharing of brewing capacity between and amongst craft brewers. I smell consolidation. I smell strategic alliances. I smell joint ventures.

No? You don’t believe me? Are Bend, Oregon-based Deschutes’ fermenters that much different than Boston-based Harpoon’s that they couldn’t reproduce each others’ beers, with their master brewers help in attendance? I am confident they can do it. It’s the wrong question, actually. The right question is, would the West coast beer drinker balk at drinking Harpoon that was made at Deschutes? And that’s the trump card that comes descending down on us like a goat farting diamonds: The Consumer. American beer drinkers, as illustrated by imported beers, tend to care more than their foreign brothers about authenticity of brewing origin. And if they care enough, they’ll pay more. At that point, the weight of beer becomes less significant.

So, ultimately, it comes down to how much the drinker cares. Do you care? I’ll have one more glass of Infinium while you ponder.


Harry Schuhmacher is the editor of Beer Business Daily. He blogs at beereditor.blogspot.com and tweets at @BeerBizDaily and emails at hs@beernet.com.

Dolphin Rock

When I was a kid I had a friend whose grandfather had a ranch near town. This ranch had an unusual “feature”: a huge limestone outcropping, 100 feet high (or so it seemed to a child) that looked like a giant gray phallus dolphin coming out of the grassy ocean at a 45 degree angle to play ball with the sun. Here’s my expert rendering of it:

As you can plainly see, it is a horrifying monolith. For one, it stuck at such an angle that I was always afraid it would fall over to the ground; two, it had a disgusting cesspool at its base that bred skeeters and snakes; and three, my friend and his hot-older-sister-who-always-wore-a-bathing-suit always insisted on climbing it and peering over its edge. They called it, innocuously enough, Dolphin Rock (although I may have dreamt that later). I always imagined a more sinister name, like Devil’s Nose or Mocking Gravity.

Not only that, but this unnatural, unsteady, terrifying outcropping stood at the corner of my friend’s property, so that hippies from a nearby dope smoking camp (or something) would regularly trespass to scale the rock and drop their beer cans over the edge, and soak in the sun like lizards.

As the school week progressed I would pray that my friend would not suggest that we go to his grandfather’s ranch, because I knew we’d be scaling that god-forsaken barren rock and again I’d be humiliated in front of his hot-older-sister-in-a-bathing-suit and her hot friends who would, like my friend, just walk up the rock and dance at the top while I would crawl on my stomach like I was taking the next trench in World War I. Heights were never my thing .... I happen to subscribe to that old biddy that it’s not the height that is the issue, and it’s not even the falling, it’s the impact. The bottom of my feet never touched Dolphin Rock, but I’ve shredded the front of many shirts on it. On returning home my mother would say, “What the hell, do they drag you behind the jeep on your stomach when you’re out there?” “No,” I’d say lamely (as if that was a possibility). I could never tell her that I had climbed, nay, belly crawled a ten story high limestone rock against my will, because I knew she’d say, “If you don’t like it, don’t do it.” But I was much too insecure not to join them, having a deep need to fit in and not appear weak, particularly in front of pretty-girls-in-bathing-suits, an insecurity I harbor to this day.

I would justify my cowardness by saying to myself that I was smarter than my friend and his hot-sister-in-a-bathing-suit, because they obviously didn’t grasp simple geometry, the theory of gravity and its inverse square, and how cantilevers work, because if they had they would understand that our weight would no doubt uproot the rock from its base eventually; and without this purchase, we’d necessarily go hurling into the cesspool below to a painful and -- worse -- messy death (all the while accelerating at a mortal rate of 9.8 meters per second squared, if in a vacuum. Yes, I was that kind of dork). And the cesspool presented a whole other set of horrors for me. As a child and now, I can’t stand to be dirty. I dreaded going go birthday parties because I didn’t like seeing the other children with cake icing around their mouths and their hands sticky with Hawaiian punch. As a baby I once cried for hours because I got honey on my neck. Fodder for the shrink in my future as soon as I can afford one.

What was most humiliating was how my friend and his hot-older-sister-in-a-bathing-suit would dance around on the peak of Death Rock and stand on the edge peering over at the cesspool below as I clung shaking in fear to limestone. I still have nightmares about it to this day. At my own ranch we have a cliff that I have never gone anywhere near, yet I still weekly dream about driving my truck off it. Have I mentioned that heights aren't my thing? I get dizzy walking on the second level of malls, and don't get me started on the DF/W Terminal D escalators.

It would be one thing if there was a deep blue lagoon at the bottom to jump into.... that might be worth the danger and the effort. But to climb that terrifying rock just to look at a mud puddle -- I just didn’t see the risk-reward payoff. Even the drug-addled hippies grew bored with Dolphin Rock and stopped trespassing, which was a relief because my friend’s grandfather insisted on calling the federal Game Wardens every time he spotted one, grumbling about “damn teenagers” and “no respect for property.” It was quite a production and needless drama.

At one point, as my friend and his hot-sister-in-a-bikini were dancing around and I was clutching the rock for dear life, I remember seeing my tears falling to the chalky limestone, drying almost instantly in the sun. Here I decided that enough is enough. But I didn’t refuse to scale Dolphin Rock the next time they suggested it -- oh no, that would be the healthy way to deal with the problem. I was raised differently. I simply started avoiding my friend in class, didn’t return his calls, and ducked behind water fountains and dived under bleachers when I saw him. In other words, I simply ended the friendship due to that dreadful rock.

I realize this post makes me seem neurotic, poorly adjusted, passive-aggressive, and a little crazy. But there it is. There’s no point in hiding it now.

Farewell, O. Henry's

I was in Austin this week for a niche publishers conference – a seminar for niche trade publishers to better themselves. Since I could use some self-improvement, I attended. Turns out we’re already doing most of the things they taught, so it was more of a lesson in validation.

I stayed at the Hilton downtown, on 4th and Neches. This hotel is new – well let’s put it this way, it wasn’t there when I went to college in Austin 20 years ago. But from the moment I walked into the lobby, I had a weird feeling that I couldn’t shake. Like I’d been there before. Something familiar about the place, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Until I looked out the window of the second story conference room and saw this. It’s O. Henry’s house, the turn-of-the-century ironic writer who briefly lived in Austin in this tiny house until he stole from the bank he worked at and was uncharitably run out of town. The sight of it literally stopped me in my tracks, because the one thing I remember about O. Henry’s house is that it was directly across the street from O. Henry’s Back Forty Bar, the honkey tonk I practically lived at during my later college days. We spent so much time there that the bar’s owner, Louis, set up tabs for us so we could pay her once at the end of the month. We went there so much that Louis was invited to my wedding. We went there so much that Louis would often find us sitting on the front step, waiting for her to open it up at 3. We spent so much time there that it's the only bar my wife Lulu has been kicked out of, twice. (Lulu and Louis didn't get along very well as I remember it).

It was a run down bar in a rock house that probably should’ve been condemned years ago. Half the house was a bar-be-que restaurant and half was O. Henry’s Back Forty. Sometimes, when the wind came from a certain direction, smoke from the restaurant's fire pit would fill O. Henry's and our clothes smelled of pork sausage for days (but it had the benefit of clearing the fleas out of O. Henry's carpets and drapes). I always loved how the bar stole for its name two diametrically opposite themes: A literary satirical writer and an expression from a cowboy show on TV. The irony wouldn’t be lost on O. Henry himself. In fact the “O. Henry’s” part of the sign fell down at some point so newbies only knew it as – simply -- the Back Forty. Only veterans like myself knew that it was really called “O. Henry’s Back Forty”, or sometimes we called it Oh B-F. I think it was originally called O. Henry’s and then Louis added “Back Forty” to give it more street cred with college kids, most of whom went to public school and so had no idea who O. Henry was.

Anyway, as soon as I saw O. Henry’s house I took the elevator down and walked across the street to make sure. Sure enough, here is the plaque outside the house. Then I looked back at the Hilton, an imposing structure, on the very spot where O. Henry's Back Forty should be. What the hell?

So I rang my old friend Jeff Smith, who also frequented Oh B-F so much that he sometimes was confused with the furniture.

Me: “Jeff, it’s Harry. What the F—happened to O. Henry’s?
Jeff: “You mean the Back Forty?”
Me: (sighing impatiently)
Jeff: “Didn’t you know? Louis sold the real estate to Hilton for three million dollars. She bought a Dodge sports car which she called 'Baby Car' and then died."

Isn’t that always what happens? Poor Louis, wanted to be “Big Rich” (as she put it) for all her life and finally achieves that dream on the back of Conrad Hilton and then doesn’t live long enough to properly enjoy "Baby Car".

Incidentally, I knew that Jeff would know the story. He always kept up with the “bar characters” we befriended while in college, like the bartender/bookie/pimp Richard, No-Neck, the drunken state Senator who had to be carried home most nights, the barmaid Bev whom we all scandalously made out with at various times, (without regret, I insist). When I left Austin, I left the characters behind and didn't look back. Not Jeff. Jeff is a loyal friend to the end, even to bar characters. I think he even sent Bev a TV as a congratulatory gift when her son was released from prison.

So now O. Henry’s Back Forty is a fancy glass and steel convention hotel. They call that progress. I call it bull-honkey. At least Louis' other bar is still around, the Cloak Room. Now that's a bar.

A Dutch Christmas

I had a fantastic Christmas. I mean, it was the best ever.

Our house was robbed, our dogs ran away, our horse died, and all I got for Christmas was a replacement wedding ring that I had lost in a strip joint in Vegas. I know, it sounds like a bad country song. (I actually didn’t lose my ring in Vegas. It sat at the bottom of my pool for a week but it was too cold to fetch, and then it was just gone). Oh, and my credit card number was pilfered and somebody had a grand ol' time in Paris spending $15k in one weekend.

So why, you ask, do I say that my Christmas was fantastic? Two words: Pennsylvania Dutch. Given my string of bad luck, I thought it only fitting to indulge myself in that most pleasurable of holiday treats.

In fact, I found that Pennsylvania Dutch was the best answer to almost every question over the holidays.

-Want a drink? Why yes, I’ll have some Pennsylvania Dutch if you please.
-Want to watch TV? Yes, and be a good girl and fetch me a dram of Pennsylvania Dutch.
-Want a sandwich? No, I’m saving the calories for a Touch of the Dutch.
-Want some breakfast? Sure. Well, on second thought, pour me a tumbler of P-Dutch instead, will ya?
-Do you know where my sunglasses are? I thought you’d never ask, but yes I’d love a tall glass of cold Pennsylvania Dutch.

What is Pennsylvania Dutch? You grind up half an elf, capture the seed after pleasuring a reindeer, toss in a pair of Santa’s drawers, put it in a blender, have it blessed by an Amish elder, and Pennsylvania Dutch is what you get on the other end.

Actually it’s three-quarters bottom-shelf brandy, rum, and bourbon that quality control at any self-respecting distillery would normally pour down the drain, and mix it with one-fourth slightly curdled cream, and that’s Pennsylvania Dutch. So naturally, it’s absolutely delicious. It’s like Zeus is peeing in your mouth. The minute Thanksgiving comes around, I start buying it up by the case, because it goes fast in my town.

The only question when having a Touch o’ the Dutch is: neat or on the rocks? My rule of thumb is to always drink P-Dutch neat before noon, as if it were a glass of milk or, say, a vitamin shake; and on the rocks after noon, as then it’s more of a cocktail. But those are just my rules. I don’t pay the mortgage at your house, so you can make your own rules. What’s great about the Dutch is it’s an appropriate aperitif at any time of day, at least it is at my house where I am paying the mortgage.

And P-Dutch is a versatile mixer too -- it allows you get in touch with your creative side, if you have one. If you don't, drink 16 ounces of the Dutch and you will. Diageo kindly sent me a bottle of Godiva chocolate-infused vodka (it’s more like Aphrodite peeing in your mouth). You put a shot of that into a moderately clean glass, top it off with some P-D, and walla! You have what I call the Flying Dutchman. Two shots of vodka and it’s called the Headless Dutchman. Three shots, Vomiting Dutchman. Add a banana and blend, the Kraaaazy Dutchman (he’s gone toootally bananas!! Badda-bing). Add chocolate syrup and blend, the Tan Dutchman, An Oxymoron Drink (alternatively called "Dutch Chocolate" and "Dutch West Indies"). Add sauerkraut and blend, the Boer (do not recommend). Add strawberries and blend, the Fairy Dutchman - It's Fabulous! Forget to put the top on the blender and it leaks all over the place, we call that The Julian Assange Wiki-Dutch (har-de-har-har). And so on.

But be warned: Too much Pennsylvania Dutch and you will soon be “going Dutch” on dates on Match.com because your spouse will have left you. There’s nothing quite so pathetic as somebody who is prostrate and debauched on Dutch. But it’s almost worth it.

Gods of the beer industry (and Caroline too)

Me, Caroline Levy, Bump Williams, and Bob Lachky, talking beer in front of a whole lotta wine. Essex House NYC.