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A recurring dream:
I receive a letter from my law school. "A recent audit has uncovered a discrepancy in your transcript," it begins. I learn that I am three hours short of the required credits for a diploma, and my law license has been suspended, pending the completion of the course credit.
So I go back to law school, but for some reason, I cannot bring myself to finish the coursework. I don't fail the one class I need to pass - I am, after all, a licensed lawyer - but instead, I just get a series of incompletes, always dropping the class shortly before the drop deadline, then taking the class again the next semester, then dropping the class again, and so on, ad infinitum.
As the cycle continues, I live alone in a small apartment in Austin, wondering why I can't resume my old life . . .Okay, it's not Count Floyd scary, but this seems to be what passes for nightmares in my fiftieth year.
I used to be pretty good at interpreting dreams, but this one stumps me. Am I worried about life after retirement? Is this a metaphor for purgatory? (Eternal law school as penance for my sins?)
I'm tempted to order my law school transcript to count the hours, but what if the dream turns out to be true?
I think I'll wait for the audit and hope for the best.
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Two Mondays ago, I went with my friend and co-worker Brian to Spec's Downtown and got the Divine Reserve No. 14. A friend of mine at Saint Arnold Brewery told me the Saturday before release day that the beer would be available at Spec's that Monday when it opened at 10:00 a.m.
"So if I get there at 10, I'll get some?" I asked.
"No, you'll be too late," he said. "The line starts forming at about 8:00."
I wasn't going to wait in line for two hours on a workday, so I decided to get there at about 9:40 and take my chances. When we got there, there was no line out of the store. When we went inside, however, the line stretched the length of the store and then back into the deli section. I pegged the line at about 150 people.
So we waited with the other Saint Arnold enthusiasts.
It wasn't so bad. I've noticed that people in lines are not nearly as antsy as they used to be now that everyone has a smart phone. Looking up the line, I could see that there was little conversation, just a series of heads canted at forty-five degree angles towards the screens of their phones, thumbs skittering over their virtual keyboards.
I tried to avoid joining this virtual waiting room, keeping my phone in my pocket. Instead, I chatted with Brian and admired the fine cheeses on display where we were standing, wondering how they sell the esoteric varieties before they go bad. (After all, how many wheels of high-end Muenster cheeses do downtown Houstonians eat? Apparently, more than you'd think.)
At 10:00, the line started to move. I learned that the first guy in line - who had been waiting there since six in the morning - got a case of Divine Reserve No. 14, and a gift card for the brewery's new restaurant. The rest of us were limited to two six packs and two bombers.
A side note. Maybe it's just me, but there sure seems to be a nostalgic vibe in Saint Arnold's various marketing strategies that takes me back to my dissolute youth. Their goofy and charming tie-dye Bentley is a throwback to John Lennon's Rolls-Royce; the line to wait for the Divine Reserve reminded me of the days I would stand in a parking lot for hours waiting to buy Rolling Stones tickets; and the bombers evoked the drink-it-all-before-it-goes-flat large bottles of Miller High Life in the convenience stores on the wet side of the county line.
I'm sure there's a artisanal explanation for why they like to bottle some of their beers in bombers, but for me, when I see a bomber, I am instantly transported into a brightly-lit Seven-Eleven standing in front of the refrigerator case with three guys, each of us in three-quarter sleeve concert t-shirts, buying bombers at the tender age of eighteen and then piling back into our piece-of-junk car and driving out to a city park to drink and listen to Zeppelin eight-tracks and celebrate our new-found maturity.
Hmm.
Now that I think of it, the bomber bottle actually may be my Proustian madeleine and I'll now write a remembrance of growing up in Seventies Texas.
(Or not, since it's basically already been done.)
Anyway, as Brian and I approached the front of the line, we saw Brock Wagner, one of the founders of Saint Arnold, happily shaking hands and chatting up the line. I like Brock - close readers of this blog may have figured out that I play basketball against him many Saturdays, and that he has given me some valuable insights into the brewing and tasting process. He's also about my height, a good sport, and a relentlessly annoying rebounder after his missed shots. We play about even, mostly because I offset his speed and athleticism with my sheer bulk.
He's a fortunate guy, doing something he loves and making money doing it, but I don't ascribe his success to luck. From what I've learned, he had a solid business plan, he grew the business at the right pace, he manages the company and its employees with exactly the right combination of authority and deference to creativity, and he is a relentless marketer. His being at the Spec's at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday morning to greet his faithful says a lot about his work ethic.
So I got to the front of the line and Brian and I each got the maximum allotment. We went back to the courthouse to resume our day, and I did not sample the beer until much later.
Did I like it? Let's put it this way: if it was one of the Fifty Beers, it would now be holding the belt. It's sneaky-alcoholic at a 10 percent ABV, but it doesn't hit you that hard. Nice spice, the expected citrus finish, smooth drinker. Worth the wait.
Congratulations, Brock!
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I am debating whether to go to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker this year. Not the big $10,000 buy-in tournament, but one of the smaller tournaments with a much smaller buy-in.
I was originally planning on playing in the Senior Tournament this year, but it fell on the same weekend (June 6) as my daughter's high school graduation, and since I love my daughter, deferring my debut in that tournament was an easy decision.
(Unless you ask my friend Bert, who remains convinced that I should have blown off the graduation and went with him to Vegas. He argued, "She's going to college. That's the graduation that counts. She won't miss you. C'mon!")
There are other tournaments throughout the month, however, and making the trip is just a matter of setting aside three or four days and reserving a room and using a voucher I've got from AA.
My poker skills have improved lately, now that I am playing regularly with a group of guys in Bellaire who take the game both seriously and in good fun at the same time. I'll make a decision soon and report back, but I am leaning towards . . . going.
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Speaking of Las Vegas, one of the great books about that strange and miraculous town is Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I first read in high school after seeing some of his pieces in the Rolling Stones I read in the Lewisville Public Library. I am second to few in my admiration of Thompson's writing style and moxie - a terrifying combination of sheer recklessness, utter self-confidence, and loving contempt for his targets of disdain. I so wanted to be Hunter Thompson when I was a kid.
Integral to the Thompson mystique was the work of his illustrator, the great Ralph Steadman. Steadman's pictures were the perfect companion to understanding Thompson's stream-of-consciousness writing. If you're not familiar with his work, there's a documentary about Steadman that you should check out.
I owned three or four Steadman t-shirts in my dissolute youth that left people thinking that I was deeply impaired just by my wearing them. At right, you can see my favorite of those shirts. I wore that shirt out during the late-Seventies and lost it during one of my college moves. I bought another one about four years ago and I don't wear it enough, mainly because I live in the suburbs and I don't want to scare the straights.
I bring up Steadman and Thompson because this week's beer is the Flying Dog Brewery's Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA from Frederick, Maryland, and the label is by Ralph Steadman, depicting ... well, a raging bitch. If you are not acquainted with Steadman's work, this is a pretty good introduction - the dog on the label is frigging demented, an animal you do not want to encounter unleashed in your neighborhood.The tasting note (I guess) is by Steadman:
Two inflammatory words… one wild drink. Nectar imprisoned in a bottle. Let it out. It is cruel to keep a wild animal locked up. Uncap it. Release it . . . . Stand back!! Wallow in its golden glow in a glass beneath a white foaming head. Remember, enjoying a RAGING BITCH, unleashed, untamed, unbridled - and in heat - is pure GONZO!!
(Quick explanation: Josh picked this out, but didn't take his usual picture. As such, the beer in the glass was already half-gone when I realized we hadn't taken the picture yet. So this is what's left as I sit here typing in my office.)You can see from what remains of the beer that there was a substantial head. The flavor is a classic IPA, 8.3 percent ABV, aggressively hopped, with a wheat-citrus taste and some honey aromas in the glass. I liked it just fine. Not enough to prevail over last week's Black Chocolate Stout, but it's definitely worth drinking.
And yeah, the Steadman label is a gimmick, but for this one of the Fifty Beers, it was a gimmick that hit close to home.
After I'm done here, I'm going to put on my Heart of Gonzo shirt and finish the pint glass in the backyard, listening to this song, trying to remember what it felt like to drink a bomber of Miller High Life in a parking lot, pushing my hair out of my eyes, laughing at sophomoric guy jokes, and fantasizing about my own trip by convertible into Las Vegas with my attorney, Dr. Gonzo, chasing the American Dream through the end of the Seventies:
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101; to Los Altos or La Honda… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning . . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave . . . .Man, I wish I could write like that.
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