Noooo, Not My Beer!!

Connie lamenting the loss of Beer (and Richie).

Bobby was just as sad as Connie (and me) about the beer (and Ritchie).

"Not my beer!!!!", I screamed to the heavens like Richie's mother screaming for her lost child in La Bamba, "You can't be a pain in the ass like all the rest!!!!"  

I was pissed as I left the UPS facility, unsuccessful in my attempt to pick up the beer.  "This two hour pickup window is bullshit, I have things to do", I thought.

It all started so beautifully a few weeks earlier with a facebook message asking me if I wanted free beer.  Naturally I was skeptical because the question is ridiculous (and obvious) at face value.   Certainly there was a hook, a non-monetary price to be paid for something like this.

"Of course I want free beer, asshole." (That's the appropriate response to another guy when asked a stupid question).  "What do I have to do?"

"Nothing", the guy said.  "The beer will be sent to your house and all I need in return is a few lines of text saying how great this gift service is."

"I'm in", I said.

Reflecting on this random gift of kindness made me think of similar gift services, or clubs, I had been a part of in the past.  I could think of two off hand and started dreading my free beer shipment immediately:

1. Columbia House CD Club
2. Wine Club(s)

I joined Columbia House around 1990 and have only stopped receiving threatening letters in the last couple years, I assume because they went bankrupt in 2015.  If you're around my age you probably remember this scam, but here's a little refresher on how it worked:

For the price of ONE PENNY, you received 12 CD's, with the stipulation that you would buy a certain number of CD's moving forward (15?).   The first shipment was glorious and it was hard to comprehend how they could give away that much music.  This was before the digital age and a CD might cost $20, which means I had $240 worth of music sent to me for free!

The second month wasn't as great as you only received 5 CD's and had to return any you didn't want to keep.  That was easy enough the first time.  I sent them all back, which meant I was still obligated to buy 15 moving forward.  The next month the same thing happened, and I noticed I was being sent artists I had no interest in.  As I recall I checked one "genre" box on initial signup, like R&B.  It turns out that meant they would send you every piece of crap ever made in the R&B genre, not anything you actually liked. Instead of Bobby Brown I got "Hi-Five" or "Jagged Edge". It wasn't long before sending the CD's back became tiresome and overwhelming,  at which point I did nothing and collected a large music library for the price of one penny.  I may have purchased one or two additional CD's, but I think I may still be a fugitive of the law.  Lest you shake a finger at me, take a second to reflect on your similar experience with Columbia House.

The wine club experiences (I've had several) are an adult version of the Columbia House scam except you get alcohol instead of music and the genre becomes "red" or "white".  You get monthly shipments of wine you thought you wanted when you tasted the good stuff at the winery, but it's often not what you thought. It makes sense I suppose, they have to sell the junk just like a chef has to get rid of two day old fish and pawn it off as seafood medley. As a bonus there's usually a "members only" bottle as part of the package.  When Coppola made the first shipment I was thrilled to receive the "Director's Cut" until I went to the grocery store for some lunch meat and saw the EXACT  same bottles being sold in bulk at the front of the store right next to Bud Light display.   I promptly bought a case, I'm no fool.  Our friends knew we received the "exclusive" director's cut and now I could pawn it off as a special gift at our next dinner.

The first sign the beer had arrived was a UPS tag stuck to my door.   Even from a 40 foot distance, we all know what that tag means.  I walked up to the the door and saw exactly what I expected: The box indicating "we will try to deliver again tomorrow" was checked.  "(Filthy curse words)", I exclaimed, "I won't be home between 12:30 and 4:00 tomorrow".  I figured I could login to UPS.com and change the shipment date and time so I ran upstairs.

"Incorrect Password".  "(The worst curse words known to mankind)", I screamed repetitively.  After several tries I managed to figure it out and planned to pick up the box the next day.  Upon arrival I ran to the door to get my free beer and pulled on the handle, which didn't budge.  I looked up to see that there's only a two hour window for pickup, and those two hours didn't coincide with the current time of handle pulling. (It's hard to describe the words I used at this point).

By the time I got my free beer home, I already hated it, and I hadn't even seen it yet.  When I opened the package I wasn't surprised to see generic looking bottles arranged into a "beer medley" of shit.  The bottles were generic and lacking imagination, one a plain blue label with the words "Dry Hopped Pale Ale".  They (whoever "they" are) didn't make the slightest effort to fool me with a "Director's Cut" misdirection or a "Limited Edition" ego stroke.  Just bland, boring, pain in the ass beer coming from a club equally as bad as the others.   I drove 20 round miles round trip (twice) to pick up a bad beer medley when Bevmo is 4 miles away with the exact selection I want and zero PITA factor.

My first instinct was correct, there was a non-monetary price to be paid for this free beer.  I'll never get those minutes back I spent traveling to the UPS facility, and god only knows how many additional minutes were taken off my life when the pickup window was closed and my veins bulged to 146% of their normal size.  As I move forward I'll do my best to keep myself away from clubs of all kinds and only buy exactly what I want from my favorite genre.  I'll try to choke down the rest of the beer, but don't be surprised if you receive a special, no label, holiday edition,  "Pacheco Brew" this coming winter season.

Me lamenting beer being a pain in the ass

A spontaneous eruption of stupidity

I call these photos a spontaneous eruption of stupidity (SEOS).  These particular photos were a natural extension of drinking beer to take the Guinness shots.  Once I was buzzed, I figured I might as well put on the headphones and sing a few tunes like any normal person would.  I remember playing two songs, an acoustic version of "Sweet Child Of Mine" and Tesla's acoustic version of "Signs".   You can tell which photos go with each song, as the the Tesla song is much more aggressive ("Hey! What gives you the right?").  The photo above is definitely when Myles Kennedy (it's true) hits a high note in the song.

I'd be a fool to say they are totally spontaneous, because one naturally hams it up in front of the camera,vand you also anticipate when the timer will go off by freezing your expression.  Whatever the case, you should know this is what your face looks like when you sing in an empty house or shower.

On a larger scale, I reckon SEOS is what informs my photography the most.  I regularly get random ideas in my head that make me chuckle, and I'm off to try and capture the sentiment.  It's great when there's somebody else to model, but often I'm by myself so you end up seeing a lot of shots of The Man In Blue.  It's fun, it makes me laugh (and hopefully you too) and it gives me a (creative?) outlet.

Now go make your own music face.

It's Not Healthy So Just Shut Up And Cram It In Your Piehole

Chef Chad Harris prepares bacon

We must have driven by the Fremont Diner 500 times in the last 17 years but we never stopped and ate until this week.  To be fair, it's only been the Fremont Diner since 2009, but we still should have stopped in before now.  It has all of the elements that make an eatery enticing to me:  Roadside, small, unpretentious, and inviting.  Well, inviting except for the ever present line of people waiting to get in which is typically an automatic turn-off for me regardless of the venue.  We went early and avoided the wait. When I tried my first bite of food I realized why that line is always there.  The food is good.  Really good.

It's called comfort food for a reason:  It has lots of fat, cholesterol, and calories, but damn it makes you happy to be eating it.  When ordering from a comfort food join, don't be an idiot and ask if the dish is gluten free because it probably isn't.  Besides, if that's the type of question you ask when you order, then you probably shouldn't stop at the Fremont Diner anyway.  A person of average intelligence should be able to decipher from the size and decor of the building that the food most likely isn't for the health conscious consumer.  It's advertised as "locally sourced, seasonal, country cooking. Our goal is to combine homestyle cooking & high quality, seasonal ingredients."  I will admit that "locally sourced" has become a buzzword in the food lexicon and it sounds pretentious.  All that means, really, is that the beef you're currently eating was grazing on the grass a mile up the road yesterday.  It's fresh, that's all.  Had they used the word "organic" I would have had to kick somebody in the balls.  That means a farmer took a dump on the tomatoes yesterday and you'll have hepatitis C, or whatever it is Chipotle serves its customers, within a week.

Once inside the diner you immediately figure out there's nothing formal or corporate about the operation.  Everything is plain and simple. The food is prepared feet away from you.  Our waitress handed us a paper menu with several dishes crossed out in pen and said, "We've been closed for three days so we're playing catch up.  We don't have the lined-out dishes today."  I nervously scanned the menu and saw a line through "Biscuits and Gravy".  We might have to leave, I thought.  "Except that one", she said.  "We do have Biscuits and Gravy today."

When it comes to ordering, there are three baseline food/drink items I used for universal comparison when I order:  IPA (beer), Biscuits and Gravy, and Pecan Pie (on a similar note my litmus test for vocal artists is hearing them sing either the Star Spangled Banner, O Holy Night, or Ave Maria).  This lets me know how good or crappy the chef or brewer is in relation to others.  My first bite told me this chef, Chad Harris, is good.

Biscuits are similar to tortillas in that there appears to be no reason why making them shouldn't be easy. The reality is that making these two things well is as difficult as it gets, and Chad has mastered it.  The biscuits at Fremont Diner can best be described as chewy.  They were flaky, and fluffy and big, of course, but more than anything they were chewy in the best way imaginable.  They had substance and complexity and weren't merely a landing spot for a ladle full of gravy, a prop used for appearances because eating a bowl of gravy by itself is too embarrassing.   No, they had purpose and that purpose was to bring me joy, in concert with the deliciously life threatening thickness of the savory sausage gravy.  I gave it my A+ Zagat rating when I whispered "Holy Shit" to myself.  Nikki's biscuit sandwich with a fresh pork patty and cheese in the middle made me say the same thing.  Like everything else, the sausage is prepared on-site.  I didn't take any photos of my food because that's what instagram is for.  Go look there, I'm sure you'll find it.

In addition to the great food, they served fantastic coffee, the kind of coffee that requires one statement and one follow-up question.  Here's how it goes:

Me:  "I would like some coffee, please."

Her:  "Cream and sugar?"

That's it.  There's no wasted conversation,  no follow-up questions or clarifying statements, and mercifully no "shots" or other condiments are up for consideration.   On top of that blissfully simple exchange, they serve the coffee in a thermos so you don't get asked every 15 seconds if you need a refill.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the prompt server who's paying attention, but I don't need a refill after every sip of coffee.  It's nice to fill up my own exactly when I need and want it.

I ended the meal with a slice of Pecan Pie.  My eyes rolled a little and glazed over when I put it in my mouth and I said "Holy Shit" again.  I contemplated ordering an IPA (which was on tap right in front of me) but I figured that might be too embarrassing at 9:00 a.m.  I guess I'll have to go back.

It's simple, stop touching every piece of silverware!