THE HEDONIST JIVE GUIDE TO PODCASTS

The smartest thing I’ve ever done – well, the smartest car audio thing I’ve ever done – was to drop $125 on a car stereo about two years ago that included a plug to hook my iPhone into. That doesn’t sound like much, you say? Well that’s likely because you don’t (yet) have an iPhone or that anachronistic, so-last-decade totemistic “iPod”. If you did have one of these Apple fetish objects, you’d know that once you can power one of these things and their nearly unlimited music/podcast-carrying potential via the mere battery in your car, the one that already comes with the car, your life changes. Changes. For the better, I might add.

Now I am consuming audiobooks at a feverish pace, and moreover, I am well-versed in the available world of podcasts for Apple devices. I set a pretty high bar when it comes to my personal entertainment, so rest assured that anything recommended in this “Hedonist Jive Guide To Podcasts” has been vetted and thoroughly researched for entertainment or enlightenment value. Granted, you’ll need to share my tastes in many regards for this list to be of any meaning or value to you – but I reckon you’re on my blog this very moment, so you're already making a statement of some kind about your high degree of sophistication and worldliness. Let’s proceed, shall we?

THIS AMERICAN LIFE – I’m starting with the easy one, the one everyone listens to already either on NPR or via its weekly podcast. I don’t miss a one of them, but it wasn’t always this way for me. Full write-up on this show’s wonders and my journey toward them, by me, is right here.

MIKE AND TOM EAT SNACKS – Only 4 episodes in, and this is already my second favorite podcast. Of all time? Maybe. Michael Ian Black is one of the finest comedians currently mining the comedic genre, and has been for some time. He and an equally funny fellow previously unknown to me named Tom Cavanaugh host a new weekly program centered around a snack foodstuff that they’re both trying again, often for the first time since childhood. Episodes have included riffs on Cheetos, Keebler Fudge Stripes, Slim Jims and so on. If I had just read that description, and you’d written it, I probably wouldn’t download this thing, so you’ll have to trust me that the snack portion of each show is extremely funny, and everything else is even better. I am in awe sometimes of how quick-witted, well-timed and verbose certain comedians can be, and these guys are among the best I’ve ever encountered.

DAN CARLIN’S HARDCORE HISTORY – Dan Carlin is a former TV reporter and radio talk-show host who has fully embraced this new medium and made it his own. While his “centrist” political podcast Common Sense is also recommended with some slight reservations (it’s a little overwrought at times, and like all centrists, a little mushy when it comes to solutions to some of our more plaguesome problems), HARDCORE HISTORY is recommended with full honors. This amateur but exceptionally well-studied historian brings a rich & detailed perspective and gripping narrative to historical events like WWII’s Eastern Front, the fall of Rome, the Punic Wars and much more. Way better than a college history class, and there’s no follow-up essay required.

FREEDARKO PRESENTS: THE DISCIPLES OF CLYDE – Pro basketball’s only my second favorite sport, way behind baseball, but I’ve noticed that there are some hilarious and sharp people out there who’ve made the NBA their unrivaled passion, and talk about it with style and panache. Take the collective known as FREEDARKO. They’ve got two excellent books on hoops out now, both required reading, and their podcast is pretty great as well. Imagine the smartest, nerdiest Jews you know knowing more about the NBA than any other topic, and imagine them having the ability to riff about NBA arcana for well over an hour each show. Would you listen to that? I sure do.

WTF WITH MARC MARON – Comedian Marc Maron’s podcast is one of iTunes’ most popular, and I’ll admit it’s a little hit and miss with me. Sometimes it depends on his guest, whom have ranged recently from Henry Rollins to Patton Oswalt to Sarah Silverman to Tom Scharpling. Most are comedians like Maron, and what’s usually funny is how often these 40-minute interviews end up being psychotherapy sessions for Maron himself. He’s a very admittedly messed-up individual who’s “always all up in his head”, and I can’t count the number of interviews that begin with him making an apology to his guest for some long-ago slight. It’s worth downloading a few episodes to at least see if you can hang with it.

CATO DAILY PODCAST – Here’s where the figurative off switch flips for dozens (a dozen?) of Hedonist Jive readers. This is a daily short podcast on the issues of the day by the libertarian Cato Institute. I listen to it religiously, because there’s nothing like being preached to when you’re already converted.

THE SOUND OF YOUNG AMERICA – Another hit or miss, guest-dependent entertainment podcast, though I’ll admit I’ve warmed to host Jesse Thorn over the years. This show is also on NPR a few times a week, distributed by Public Radio International, and the podcast version also has things not on the radio version – like expletives. Interviews are short, tight and usually quite funny, and Thorn does a great job prepping for his guests, who are most often comedians or comic writers, but who can also varyingly be authors, actors or candlestick makers. It shows no signs of slowing down and continues to attract some real first-rate emerging or established talent.

THE NEW YORKER OUT LOUD – A 15-minute episode of out loud is like a little sprinkle to throw on top of one of these other, longer podcasts, and I usually find it well worth downloading each week. It usually takes a story in that week’s issue of the New Yorker and interviews the author in more detail than the story was able to go into. While it’s certainly a promotional podcast for the magazine, it never comes off that way. I actually have not bought an issue of the magazine for two years, and yet I listen to this almost every week. So there you go.

BASEBALL TODAY/NBA TODAY – Finally, these two ESPN podcasts are for limited audiences, with the limitation being your absurd reverence for blather and minutia connected to the professional sports of baseball and basketball. Baseball Today comes out every weekday during the season (6 weeks! 6 weeks away!), and is hosted by Eric Karabell and Seth Everett, who, after a rocky start, are actually an awesome team together. No one knows more about the MLB – not even me. Even they don’t know as much about baseball as Ryan Russillo does about the NBA. NBA Today comes over thrice a week, is about a half hour a pop, and gives even people (again, like me) who don’t watch enough live hoops all the crutching they need to catch up and stay informed. Because it’s so, so important that we stay informed about millionaires playing a children’s playground game, isn’t it?

Let me know what your favorite podcasts are in the comments, please. It is in fact possible that I missed a good one or two.

CIGAR CITY BREWING – “GUAVA GROVE”

This is one of those “suitcase beers” we talk about in this forum from time to time: a beer I purposefully dropped major coin on while traveling. and tucked between yesterday’s socks and jeans in a suitcase to bring home from a work-related excursion. I found the “GUAVA GROVE” from Florida’s newly-celebrated CIGAR CITY BREWING at the Whole Foods Beer Room in New York City. If you haven’t been to this store and you’ve found yourself in NYC the past two years – shame on you. It not only has a wide selection of rare micros and deep catalogs of the East Coast’s major craft brewers, but there are at least 4 taps from which you can partake in this liquid nirvana. Even at, oh I don’t know, 3pm – if you want to.

Anyway, CIGAR CITY GUAVA GROVE arrived in my suitcase with a fair bit of hype attached to it. It has been categorized as a saison or farmhouse ale, which I suppose I can get behind in a stretch. I’d go with “funky, yeasty sour fruit ale” and invite a new category if I could. It’s tangy. Incredibly tangy. A Belgian-style tropical fruit ale, heavied up on the grapefruit flavor, and the guava as well, I’d imagine. Very caramel/creamy and pouring a deliciously thick dark orange. It’s a flavor I will definitely remember to the end of my dying days, and well worth the double digits you’ll be spending to throw it in your bag. 8/10.

THIS IS A TEST - SF BEER WEEK '11 OPENING NIGHT

Folks, there's an axiom I've become unfortunately privy to as I've aged. Back in my late teens and 20s, this axiom went something like this - bad hangovers, even awful ones, could be laughed off, because the previous evening's festivities could be said to have been "worth it". Yet now the axiom has been mercilessly flipped. It's hard for me to imagine a hangover that would make whatever amount of beer I'd had the night before worth it. Hangovers (I'm talking bad ones, not the I'm-a-little-bit-sleepy ones I still indulge in from time to time) are never worth it. I actively avoid them. I'll dis-invite myself from an evening of revelry if needed, or volunteer to drive, or do whatever it takes to not have that queasy, head-throbbin', I'm-pretty-sure-I'll never-drink-again feeling. Last time I felt that way was after the 2009 Pacific Coast Brewing Holiday Beerfest, the one I documented here. I banned myself from all beer festivals after that - and for 14 months, I truly and sanctimoniously stuck to my guns.

Friday night, the opening night of SAN FRANCISCO BEER WEEK, was my test. 35 brewers were on hand to pour their wares, many of whom brought "barrel-aged", "rare" and "collaboration" treats to mark the occasion. I just wasn't gonna miss out on that. Thus, a test. I needed to prove to myself that I could do this thing, try some amazing specialty ales from across California, and still bounce out of bed the next morning ready to seize the day. I'm happy to report that the evening, and the subsequent Saturday, was a smashing success. I've now got my festival game face on again. The secret? Well, there are a few secrets I've learned:

1. There's nothing wrong with pouring out a mediocre beer - just don't do it in front of the brewer;
2. Drink plenty of water every half hour or so;
3. Eat a big pulled pork sandwich;

4. Follow that up with a burrito at LA CORNETA near the Glen Park BART station afterward

You do all those things and, like me, you'll be a festival warrior and a big hit with the family the next morning ("Daddy, I thought you were going to be in bed all day and ignoring us like last time"). The festival, which was held at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, happened to coincide with some of the most incredible February weather ever recorded, and thus it was short-sleeves under the stars and lots of good vibes, happy people and beer flowing all night long.

Though the crowd definitely was heavily beer-dorkified, including the usual contingent of trivia-spouting, bearded, t-shirt wearin' aficionados looking to run elbows with their brewing superheroes, there was also a large smattering of (young, attractive) women, couples on dates and grizzled beer-loving old-timers. Here's a story that sets the tenor for our craft beer-loving times: I was talking with some friends and another couple, and we noticed the pitch of the crowd behind us growing in volume, and whirled around to find a crush of humanity around one individual, with tons of cameras and iPhones being held aloft to snap a picture with this deity. We were quite intrigued. I just read that morning that a bunch a A-listers from Hollywood were in town to film all weekend, folks like Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and so on. Would be pretty cool if one of them deigned to "beer down" with the common people. So I volunteered to navigate the crush to see who it was. I get over there, and - oh, whatever - it was Vinnie from Russian River Brewing. Seriously. I've seen people act this way around Snoop Dogg, or the baseball player Randy Johnson when I've seen them in public, but....the Russian River guy? Wow.

You're probably wondering about the beer I tried. Yeah, let's talk about that. There were some whoppers. My only goal was to make sure I tried the debut of ALMANAC BEER CO.'s "Summer 2010 Blackberry Ale", which wasn't simply the debut of this beer but of this brewery, which happens to be helmed by my pal Damian Fagan. This evening was their coming-out party, and this barrel-aged fruit beer, a Belgian golden ale with some saison characteristics, was excellent, and was completely gone before the halfway point of the night. I decided, given the circumstances, the crush of humanity and the inability for careful critical consideration, that I'd rate everything with a plus, two pluses or no plusses at all. Here's the rundown:

DOUBLEPLUSGOOD

• "BREWER'S GUILD IMPERIAL COMMON" - a collaborative, high-ABV common beer between multiple San Francisco-based brewers (21A, Speakeasy, Social Kitchen etc.) that blew me - and apparently me alone, judging from the comments of the friends - away. It's pictured at the top of the post.
• DEVIL'S CANYON - "BOURBON-BARREL AGED SCOTCH ALE" - From Belmont, CA. No bottles, no brewpub. A definite up-n-comer.

PLUSGOOD

• ALMANAC BREWING - "SUMMER 2010 BLACKBERRY ALE"
• FIRESTONE WALKER - "DOUBLE JACK"
• SIERRA NEVADA - "2x4" (a blend of two Belgian-style ales)
• DEVIL'S CANYON - "RYEDENTITY CRISIS"
• RUSSIAN RIVER - "SUPPLICATION" (they were pouring right out of the corked-and-caged bottles, tons of 'em)

NO PLUSSES (which doesn't necessarily mean bad)

• LAGUNITAS - "SAN FRANCISCO FUSION" (brewed for SF Beer Week)
• BJ'S - "WHISKEY BARREL IMPERIAL STOUT"
• DRAKE'S BREWING - "HOP SALAD" - (not nearly as good as it used to be, at least not tonight)
• BEACH CHALET - "PRESIDIO IPA"

So we're off to a good start for SF Beer Week, a series of events I've barely participated in before due to reasons aforementioned. Tonight's an "up and coming brewers" event that I'll be very much in attendance for. Report and ranking shall be forthcoming.

MID-Q1 2011 BEER REPORT

I figure you’re an important person in a hurry; so am I – so – wheeee – let’s take a brief glimpse at a set of beers that Hedonist Jive encountered over the last six weeks & see what we make of ‘em, OK? You’ll notice that we chose pretty well these past few weeks, as almost everything I was lucky enough to imbibe landing in the upper two quartiles. We’re pretty tough graders around here, too. Let’s meet the beers of mid-Q1, and find out just what in tarnation is going on with them.

THE OUTSTANDING

FIFTY FIFTY BREWING – “RED IS THE NEW BLACK IPA” – This Truckee, CA brewer is so far ahead of the curve that they’re not only already done with black IPAs, an annoying trend most brewers are just picking up on, they’ve created my favorite drink of 2011 so far. I know it’s bothersome when beer reviewers rave about something you can only get on draft at a tiny brewery hundreds or thousands of miles from your home – but hey, would ya rather I keep this information to myself? Who knows, maybe your travels will take you to the mountain town of Truckee before you know it. If it happens, do whatever you need to do to taste this incredibly balanced and spicy IPA. There are few beers that make the mouth water just from thought alone – this is one of them. A hoppy crimson magical blend that we’re gonna call a 10/10.

THE BRUERY – “COTON” – Certainly one of the most intensely boozy ales I’ve ever consumed, tipping the scales at 14% of its volume in alcohol – and yet another spectacular triumph from The Bruery. Exceptionally balanced “old ale”, perfect for dessert, redolent as it is in sweet caramel, brown sugar and dried fruit. Had heard that some folks didn’t like this one too much, but there’s really nothing I can find fault with in this near-perfect elixir. 9/10.

SOUTHERN TIER – “HEAVY WEIZEN” – It has been well over two years since I had my first wonderful bottle of this, and I still have yet to try or even find another “imperial hefeweizen”. It I had, it almost certainly would be a pale shadow of this beauty. A full-bodied, creamy, sweet and hot 8% ABV hefeweizen – something truly unique and special, and just as amazing as it was in 2008. 9/10.

CLOWN SHOES BREWING – “HOPPY FEET” – I’d been wanting to drink a beer from CLOWN SHOES BREWING just on name alone, a name which strikes me as only slightly less ludicrous than “Ska Brewing”. This first one I’ve downed from them is a stone-cold winner. Hoppy Feet is a black IPA with an overwhelming foamy head. Hoppy, and with a malty caramel taste to beat the proverbial band. Best non-yellow/orange IPA I think I’ve ever had. 8.5/10.


THE VERY GOOD

BROUWERIJ VAN HONSEBROUCK – “BACCHUS” – Bought this Flanders red ale completely blind, with no information going in, and came out of ingesting it a happier and overall much better person. It’s a chewy amber-brown sour ale, with a heavy maltiness and tastes of cherries and woodiness. Absolutely delicious. 8/10.

EL TORO BREWING – “WHISKEY CHIP STOUT” – Well how about this one. The brewer that everyone from the 1990s knows as “those guys who make Poppy Jasper” are still kicking, and have brewed the best beer I’ve had from them. Check this out – it’s a whiskey stout that has less than 6% alcohol, and yet retains virtually all the flavor of a big barrel-aged stout. You sacrifice some body to get it to taste this good, but none of the flavor at all. Well played! 8/10.

SIERRA NEVADA – “ESTATE HOMEGROWN WET HOP ALE” – Ever eaten out the inside of a hop cone? Neither have I, but this might be what that’d be like if said activity could be made to be pleasurable. Very smooth, absolutely bursting with hops and pine resin. Totally refreshing and challenging at the same time - what a fresh hop ale should taste like. 8/10.

MISSION BREWERY – “SHIPWRECKED DOUBLE IPA” – Really impressive piney, resiney, big IPA from San Diego. The backbone is totally rocking on this thing, with the hops, large and up front as they are, still taking a sit-down compared to the big juicy malts. This is a nice fine and definitely worth dropping a few (not many) clams on. 7.5/10.

EL TORO BREWING – “EXTRA HOPPY CITRA POPPY” – The “citra” hop is hot hot hot this past year, and EL TORO are riding the lightning with this amber ale/pale ale combo that has a sharp bite. I dig it. They nailed it from many angles – maltiness, smoothness, fruit-forwardness and refreshingness. I reckon I need to pay more attention to this brewer’s tap-only stuff. 7.5/10.

STONE BREWING – “VERTICAL EPIC 10-10-10” – Careful readers may recall we tried (and failed) to review a draft version of this “controversial” curveball beer here. This time we enjoyed a bottled version, and thought it was great. Imagine a Belgian IPA crossed with a really yeasty champagne, and you’re getting sorta close. White grapes, hops and things that come out of barrels. All good. 7.5/10.

SIERRA NEVADA – “GLISSADE” – I can’t remember the last time I asked the barkeep for a maibock, but this was on draft at a restaurant we visited in Truckee, CA and I couldn’t keep ignoring it as I had been the past x number of months. It’s very much a “spring ale” with faint hints of pilsner malts, light and very fruity and crisp. Done really well, and something I’d drink 100 times over Sierra Nevada’s standard-issue pale ale. 7.5/10.

THE BRUERY – “HUMULUS SESSION ALE” – A 4.5% “session” ale from THE BRUERY, a superb brewer who generally brews big or not at all. And not a surprise, but this pale ale is really, really good. Super grainy and quite bitter, with radiant hops and loads of flavor. Drink six, and walk out feeling like you’ve only had three. 7/10.

ANCHOR BREWERY – “OLD FOGHORN” – It has been so long since I had one of these I wanted to see how it held up in this new decade. Well, I’d say. It’s a “lighter”, more approachable barleywine, creamy and with a distinct toffee flavor holding things in really nice balance. 7/10.


THE MIDDLING

LONG TRAIL BREWING – “CENTENNIAL RED” – This is a special anniversary beer from a Vermont brewer whose wares I’ve enjoyed before. It’s a hoppy Red ale, nearly 8% in alcohol and quite malty. Has the faint whiff of distant yeasts and spices of unknown origin. Suffers a bit from a thin body, and alas, does not really pack the hoppy punch nor flavor I've come to expect from these imperial red ales of 2010-2011. 6.5/10.

MOONLIGHT BREWING – “WINTER TIPPLE” – Enjoyed this “winter” beer as February temperatures were pushing into the low 80s in San Francisco and the rest of the country was dying beneath snowstorms and extreme weather events. I didn’t like 2010’s version quite the way I have past vintages. It’s a pretty straightforward winter warmer – light, caramel-dependent and barely carbonated. Moonlight, a superstar brewer, have far more stellar creations than this one. 6.5/10.

LOST ABBEY – “DELIVERANCE” – Thankfully only sold in a little thirteen-ouncer owing to its 12.5% alcohol content, “Deliverance” is a blend of the brewery’s “Serpent’s Stout” and a brandy-barrel aged “The Angel’s Share”. Both of those beers are knockouts; this one not so much. No doubt you taste the brandy in a big way, along with chocolate, caramel and a little too much syrup. It wasn’t a bad experience, but the price-to-quality ratio was a little too skewed for me to give this any more than a 6/10.

ISLAND BREWING – “AVOCADO HONEY ALE” – This one’s been retired and put out to pasture, and maybe not a moment too soon. It’s pretty much what it sounds like, and to be fair, this Carpenteria, CA brewer almost pull it off. Avocado is light, and honey is more the story here, and it’s a very fruity and frothy and a little bit daffy. Three people tried it, no one especially liked it and we collectively bestowed it with a 5/10.

THE LAME

FIFTY FIFTY BREWING – “BART (Barrel Aged Really Tasty)” – Sort of sad to have to bookend this set of reviews with two FIFTY FIFTY beers, but this one’s truly as bad as the other one is good. It’s a blend of their barleywine and their overrated imperial stout (the one that sells for $23+, even at the brewery itself). Overly sweet and hot, it’s truly a mess that evokes all your worst fears that come when you imagine a haphazard blending of two uncomplimentary beers. 4/10.

HIPPIE FEAR, HIPPIE LOATHING

There’s a new-ish set of compilation CDs devoted to lost 50s-60s-70s novelty records called “TWISTED TALES FROM THE VINYL WASTELANDS”, put out by a label called NO HIT that appears to specialize in this sort of shenanigans. Truth be told, a lot of what they compile wasn’t considered a “novelty” at the time, but appears as mirthful to the 21st century modern man because of our refined, ironic distance from our generational forbears. I was only moderately interested in these collections when I first heard about them, until TWISTED TALES VOLUME 4 – “HIPPIE IN A BLUNDER” came out. Whoa, now here we go. An entire 33-song collection of anti-hippie songs, almost all of which were recorded in earnest and with extreme fear and loathing of the hippie threat. I needed to get involved with this CD – fast.

Is “HIPPIE IN A BLUNDER” something you’ll listen to repeatedly? I doubt that you shall. Yet you’re going to want to hear this collection of Southern-fried hippie panic at least a few times. There was a genuine backlash to our the youthful uprising going on across America in the late 60s, and as surely as it manifested itself in the Goldwater and Nixon presidential campaigns, it also showed up in country music. This collection includes multiple pro-Vietnam war anthems, like the outstanding “Ballad of Two Brothers” by Autry Inman, or another corker called “Hanoi Jane” by Leon Rausch. The southerners looked at my San Francisco brethren with a mixture of humor and disgust, and many of these songs express a contempt that’s hard to imagine in current times.

That said, LSD and “the evil dope” were pretty scary to the quote-unquote establishment at the time, and “Twisted Tales, Volume 4” includes plenty of histrionic warnings against those as well. I am hoping you’ll do what you need to to secure this longhaired platter.

 

IN PRAISE OF THE G CHANNEL

I’m old enough to have been dazzled by the advent of cable television when it first came around, and proud enough to call myself one of its early paying customers (well, my dad was). Around 1977 or so we visited some family members in Southern California, and they subscribed to two of the brand-new “movie channels” that were just hitting the market around that time – ON TV and the Z CHANNEL (the latter of which was legendary among Los Angeles film buffs, and immortalized in this excellent documentary). A visit to a family friend in Morgan Hill, CA that same year introduced me to HBO. I looked at the printed guides they had sitting around their respective houses, and I was amazed. Keep in mind that until this time there were only two ways for the common man or woman to watch a film: in the theaters, or in the rare instances when it played later on network TV (ABC, CBS, NBC) or a UHF station. The former would severely censor the films and cut them up to insert ads; usually the latter would only show old black and white films, or “creature feature” late-night monster movies. Neither ever showed the sort of raw, personal, director-centric 1970s films that were then making waves across the entertainment industry – “Chinatown”, “Klute”, “A Woman Under The Influence” and so on.

The channel guides for ON TV, HBO and Z CHANNEL listed film after film, domestic and foreign, playing at all hours of the day. Not all of these programmed 24/7 at the time, but it was a far cry from anything we were getting at home. I wasn’t quite a film buff yet, but I was about to be. We moved to San Jose the next year from Sacramento, and one of the first things we did was hook up to our local cable provider, GILL CABLE. Gill offered the ability for us to subscribe to HBO and another new network at the time, SHOWTIME, and later added something called THE MOVIE CHANNEL. My parents weren’t ready to spring for those, so we settled for an in-house movie channel provided by Gill that initially played one movie a night at 8pm, seven days a week: THE G CHANNEL. Starved for TV options in an age when my alternatives on any given night were “Donny & Marie”, “The Love Boat”, “Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley” (which we still always watched) and “Mork & Mindy”, I started watching anything and everything the G Channel put on. Combine its nightly riches with some great 1970s-style permissive parenting when it came to TV and movie viewing (thanks mom & dad!), and a film lover was thus born.

I’m sure this wasn’t the first film I saw on the G Channel, but it’s the one I remember the best – “IT’S ALIVE”. I was 11 years old, and almost certainly too young to see this bloody horror film, but I huddled up with my parents to watch this 1974 Larry Cohen film one night anyway. Those of you as old as I am may remember the film’s excellent tagline – “There’s only one thing wrong with the Davis baby – It’s Alive”. The film opens up with the birth of this demon seed baby in a hospital delivery room, and it immediately savagely claws and cuts the entire hospital staff to death, all filmed from the “baby’s” perspective. It freaked me the f*** out. Nightmares, visions, night terrors – the whole nine yards. But it did soften me for many horror film blows to come. The G Channel mixed up arthouse fare with ridiculous B movies, each always showing at 8pm, always showing by itself for one week only.

The Hinman family responded to this innovation in film delivery with gusto. If we didn’t watch films like “BARRY LYNDON”, “ANIMAL HOUSE” and Robert Altman’s “A WEDDING” together once a week, I at least always found the time to do so by myself. I’d watch anything. “The Spy Who Loved Me”, “Grease”, “The Last Waltz”, “A Lion In Winter”, “All That Jazz”, Woody Allen’s “Love and Death”, “The China Syndrome”, “Life of Brian”, “North Dallas Forty” – you name it. I particularly remember way more than one viewing of the awful disco-sploitation film “Thank God It’s Friday”, which came out a few months after disco was pretty much dead and buried. There was also a low-grade horror film called “Tourist Trap” that I watched multiple times one boring summer because it starred Tanya Roberts, who has recently come off the final season of “Charlie’s Angels” as the replacement Angel for one of the ones who’d quit. By this time The G Channel wasn’t just showing movies at 8pm anymore and had a schedule more like HBO’s, if not with HBO’s content breadth. They’d put up what they call a “slate” in the industry – an on-TV sign that would say something like “You’re watching the G Channel – next film at 4pm”, and I’d sit there and wait. And wait. My film addiction was formed in 1978-79, and I have the G Channel to thank.

Only people from the San Jose area got Gill Cable, and that area was quite a bit less than half the size it is now. So I searched online this week for relics from the G Channel and Gill Cable, and found almost nothing outside of some discussion board reminiscing. If anyone in the Hedonist Jive reading audience saved a printed, monthly G Channel Guide – well, I’d like to scan it for you and share it with the people. Please share your G Channel or early-days-of-cable-TV memories below while you’re at it.

ITALIAN CRAFT BEER DELIVERS AT LAST

Been hearing a lot about “Italian craft beer” the past couple of years? I don’t blame you if you scoffed. Is there anything more dejecting that going to a nice Italian restaurant, deciding that you want to forego wine (as you often do), only to find “Peroni” and “Moretti” as the only choices on the birra part of the menu? Mamma Mia! Well, in preparation for my first-ever trip to Italy in a few months I decided to get on the Italian craft beer bandwagon in a hurry. When I was at EATALY in New York City last month, I had the opportunity to buy a couple of Italian imports that I’d never seen before, and that are most definitely pretty hard to come by in the US of A.

The first of the two I stashed in my suitcase is from the Italian brewer I've read the most about - BIRRA DEL BORGO, from Borgorose, Italy. Their EXTRA RE ALE is outstanding. It's nearly the perfect cross between a Belgain tripel and a souped-up American IPA, with all the yeasty zestiness of the former, and the bright, hoppy character of the latter. It's even a little soapy, and it comes off as a good thing. Loaded with flavor and mouth-tingling yeasts, and super aromatic to boot. It's as good as anything from Northern Europe, Old Europe, New Europe, you name it. A real find. Birra Del Borgo Extra Re Ale - look for it on your grocer's shelf. 8.5/10.

HOPS AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

Well, I think we know what 2011's most disappointing beer is so far . SIERRA NEVADA's "HOPTIMUM" had a two-weeks-old reputation as an absolute destroyer of an IPA, a "whole hop cone" India Pale Ale that was going to clock in at 10% ABV while it did some serious clock-cleaning of its own. Yet on the whole - eh, I don't like it so much.

HOPTIMUM is massive - a big, oily, intensely sticky-pine IPA that tastes of booze and lacquer. Compared to other palate-whompers I've had in the past - like DRAKES' DENOGGINIZER or SOUTHERN TIER UNEARTHLY - this just comes off as a bridge too far. Caramel malts are present in spades, but they are not balanced with the hop attack at all. You're left with a warm, almost hot feel to the thing, without the flavor or even the aroma to back it up. I cry "uncle". I went,hat in hand to five different beer stores to finally nail a bottle of this one. I daresay you should refrain from doing the same. 5/10.

BOOK REVIEW: "SPRAY PAINT THE WALLS - THE STORY OF BLACK FLAG" by Stevie Chick

I took a break from heavy non-fiction this month to instead lay into the story of one of the heaviest rock and roll bands of all time, the almighty BLACK FLAG. This could have been an awful book - I had to read a chapter in the bookstore just to make sure I wasn't getting into some Vice Magazine or Behind The Music-style retelling of what I knew to be a pretty bewildering and wildly interesting saga - and once assured, I actually downloaded it onto my new Kindle (!), making for some real cognitive dissonance whilst reading of this bootstrapping, pioneering punk rock band on a 21st-Century piece of technology.

Stevie Chick's "SPRAY PAINT THE WALLS" is a better-than-solid unwrapping of the legacy left by a band who punished themselves to create some of the most roaring, nihilistic musical art of all time. More than anything, it's about guitarist, band founder and prime mover Greg Ginn, who's one of the only people involved who gave the author zero to work with and completely ignored this project while it was being written. After reading this, what was once fairly obvious became 100%, no-doubt-about-it truth: Black Flag was Greg Ginn's band, and he ran it like a personal fiefdom, with psychological power plays and summary figurative execution of his bandmates his stock in trade. It's not like it's something to be mad about or anything - I mean, it's just the story of a rock and roll band, not a nation or an oppressed people - but for a band this important to my life personally and to that of many others, it makes for pretty riveting reading as you see how Ginn's decisions and hang-ups made the band what it was.

Now, granted, I never saw Black Flag play, which grates to this day. There's one good reason why - by the time I was old enough to actually pay to go see them, around 1984 or so, me and my friends though they pretty much blew. And guess what? They did! Though the book still makes a valiant effort to describe thinly-produced plod-metal records like "Loose Nut" and "In My Head" with the same level of reverence and detail it does the amazing 1978-81 stuff, it's pretty clear that the author shares my bias that the only Black Flag worth engaging discussion in is everything up until "MY WAR" came out, with everything after that being an interesting story and that's about that. Black Flag was a total joke to us as they were hoofing it around the country those last two years, with the straining, sweating, whining, "life-is-pain" magnum opi they'd play while dressed in dolphin shorts to baffled punks looking to slam and stagedive. Granted, that confrontational , two-steps-ahead approach to music creation is what makes them interesting to read about, but certainly not to listen to at the time.

Henry Rollins fell far deeper under the shadow of Ginn's neuroses and ego than I'd ever contemplated previously, but it makes sense. When he was recruited to join Black Flag in 1981 - a great move, by the way, as there's no doubt that Rollins was a terrific frontman, if only my second favorite vocalist of theirs after the mighty Dez - he seemed like a confused but goofy punk kid with something of an attitude about him. Shortly thereafter, after moving into Ginn's parents' house and indoctrination into the punishing Beefheartian daily practice routines that Ginn mandated for any Black Flag member, he turned into "Henry Rollins", the musclebound, longhaired nihilist who could give physical presence to Ginn's admittedly absurd I-hate-myself lyrics. I mean, it seemed to work at the time. Their "DAMAGED" record from '81 is, of course, a masterwork of demented rock and roll art, and one of my favorite records of any era. But the Rollins that emerged from that - the funny guy you see on TV - is probably a lot more like the guy who entered the band as well. The guy in between may have been pretty  friggin' intense, but I almost feel like he was "Stockholm Syndromed" a bit by Ginn after reading this book.

Black Flag made way too many missteps along the way, even in their glory years, when the fury and squall of Ginn's guitar was absolutely magical and like nothing before or since. Think "TV Party". Think "Louie Louie". Think Ron Reyes as a vocalist, the band's strong EP "Jealous Again" notwithstanding. And later on, contemplate the damage that marijuana played on Ginn's ability to craft a song anyone would want to listen to. This book, without going too deep on it, makes it clear that Ginn, who was already completely lost in his art, became a dope smoker of the highest order, sometimes too baked to play & who had to have everything set up for him by the rest of the band so he could shake his hair and lose himself in some minutes-long improvised lead. Yikes.

I saw Ginn's stoner/instrumental trio GONE play live very shortly after Black Flag broke up, probably in late 1986 or early 1987, and that was exactly my impression. There were only 5 people there to see them open for fIREHOSE on the latter's first tour, which should tell you something about how Black Flag were perceived by most people by that point, with their important records and most goodwill long, loooong behind them. Ginn came up to where we were sitting - it was too boring for us to stand - and inches away, he confrontationally shook his ass-length hair directly in our faces as he weedly-weedlied out some pompous solo. It was either a good-hearted call to action to help raise us from our lethargy and transport us to the astral plane, or because he was totally baked beyond belief. It was pretty funny, and to this day it's the only time I ever saw him play live and is the mental picture I get whenever I think of the guy.

Back to the book. Early on Stevie Chick almost lost me when he started in on the whole (paraphrasing here) "California is a land of sea, surf and good vibrations - but there was a dark side lurking underneath the sunny exterior" method of describing how violent punk rock came to be in Southern California. Yet he rights the ship very quickly, and in short order, does an excellent job describing the Rodney's English Disco era, the town of Hermosa Beach, the Masque era and on and on into Black Flag's rise as the parent-terrifying kings of worldwide punk rock. There were some terrific stories I'd never read before, many of which are told by first singer Keith Morris, who's always been a favorite of mine, a total clown prince with a quick mind and the classic SoCal wastoid personality. Various Minutemen, Meat Puppets and other leading lights are interviewed, with a surprising load of interviews with & Black Flag tales by Masque founder Brenden Mullen, whom I'd always read "never booked Black Flag because he didn't like bands that weren't from Hollywood". Read this book and you'll definitely get his contrary take in spades. He convincingly claims he was even asked to be in the band at one point (!!).

Once the book got going, I absolutely devoured it on my Kindle and iPhone (dork!). Sure, its material includes the source data for everything I once considered important in this world, as the music that poured from Southern California during this time was among the most powerful influences on, and succor for, my life, particularly in my late teens and twenties. But it really never lets down. Even when we're in the "Slip It In" era and beyond, you've got Kira giving great interview, as well as Rollins himself and all manner of hangers-on. Want to learn more about what NIG-HEIST was? This is your book - the 'Heist gets a lot of play. I'd recommend this to anyone who's read my review this far, because obviously you know what a special band Black Flag were, all missteps and badly-produced records notwithstanding. I'd imagine this will be the last word on their complete saga until Ginn emerges to tell the tale his way. Now that will be a hoot.

"HOUR OF THE WOLF"

I discovered the films of Ingmar Bergman way back in college with a life- changing viewing of "THE SEVENTH SEAL" in an undergrad English class, but I can't say I've done the finest job of barreling through his pantheon in the intervening 24 years. That's not to say I haven't seen a bunch of them - in fact, just for S&G's, let's make a rank-ordered list of all the Bergman films I HAVE seen, some of which are among my favorite films ever, all of which preceded my viewing of "HOUR OF THE WOLF" the other night:

1. Persona
2. Scenes From a Marriage
3. Cries and Whispers
4. Autumn Sonata
5. The Passion of Anna
6. The Seventh Seal
7. Wild Strawberries
8. Saraband

Ouch. That's one every three years, for 24 years, from someone who has long purported to be a "huge Bergman fan". That's even weaker than I expected. With that in the back of my mind, I loaded up the Netflix streaming queue with many of the ones I hadn't seen, and decided to start upping the pace a little. "Hour of the Wolf" was the first in this project.

This black and white gothic psychodrama features several of the key ensemble players that Bergman used through most of the 60s and beyond: Liv Ullmann, Max Von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin and Erland Josephson. It sprang from a script that was eventually broken into two films, the masterful 1966 "Persona" and this slightly less masterful meditation on mental illness, marriage, aging and how "two people become one" after years of being together. And it is definitely creepy.

Von Sydow's character, a man wracked with guilt and shame and who is aging less than gracefully - basically, he's turning into a reclusive basket case who is too scared to go to sleep for fear of visions - is haunted by not only his past but these visitors to his waking hours (?) who torment him with his sins and temptations.

Ullmann, who plays his wife, is either an accessory to his madness or simply a helpless observer - with Bergman it's often hard to tell. That's why films like these, which leave the viewer with a profound sense of unease and paranoia, have been dissected in film schools and media forums for decades. Because Bergman was so masterful at close-ups - especially of Ullmann - and at juxtaposing jarring music with his imagery, his films take on this gauzy, mythic quality where the images linger long after you've forgotten the deeper meaning of what he was grasping for. Often with Ingmar, it was all about him anyway.

I'm not going to call this one of his masterpieces, but I'll also say that I pondered it for a week afterward. Even as I type this I'm trying to figure out the best ways to both warn the unwary and to excite those whose film palates are thirsting for experimental adventure. Put it this way - if you loved any of the films I mentioned in my all-too-brief list of the Bergman films I've seen, then you're going to have a soft spot for "Hour of the Wolf" which certainly qualifies as his most "traditionally" scary film. I'm going to move on to the purportedly shiny happy "Smiles of a Summer Night" next.

“THE ABYSS” 2010 – MANNA FROM THE GODZ

I went especially out of my way to imbibe a glass of DESCHUTES BREWERY’s perennially fetching imperial stout “THE ABYSS” a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I’d do just about anything to drink what has become one of my favorite beers ever created. I was in Las Vegas for work, I was sick with a cold and totally run-down, and yet I remembered the time in early 2009 when I went to Mandalay Bay’s restaurant “The Burger Bar” and they had a fresh keg of 2008 ABYSS on draft. On draft! I hopped in a cab, full of blind faith that the same restaurant/bar might actually have this beer again two years later, only a week after the announcement went out that ABYSS 2010 was being shipped to bars and bottle stores across the USA.

Well, yeah – they had it. And it was amazing, of course. Some people have talked about past batches of this beer being “infected”, like the 2009 version that I reviewed here and rated 9/10. If that’s infection – baby, infect me. ABYSS 2010 comes on strong with a thick-foam creamy taste, and more so than last year’s, has a rich chocolate taste as opposed to the more espresso-black, bitter coffee taste of its predecessor. It’s a beer that’s already reached legendary status only a few years after it first hit the market, and I implore you to try and land a bottle (at least) during the next 4-8 weeks they’ll be available. After that – well, there’s always next year. 9.5/10.

THE GREATEST 20-MINUTE ROCK SONG OF ALL TIME

It’s a very short list, actually. There’s the HAMPTON GREASE BAND’s “Halifax”, and then there’s everything else. How did I come to worship this epic-length, multi-part guitar onslaught/Southern-fried Zappa boogie barnstormer? It all started with CLAW HAMMER, a band that I called my favorite in the early 90s and whom I befriended around that time as well. I was their road manager on a North American tour in 1993, and among the many bands they turned me onto via the tape deck during those six weeks (embarrassingly, I had barely heard BIG STAR before this time), it was 1971’s HAMPTON GREASE BAND that rang the most true to my still-forming rock and roll consciousness. Claw Hammer had copped quite a few moves from this barely-heralded Atlanta band, and because of the Grease Band’s exceptionally low profile in the interregnum, there really wasn’t anyone to call them on it – so they very proactively offered up their thanks, praise and the wearing of this influence on their proverbial sleeve by covering the band’s “Hey Old Lady & Bert’s Song” on their first album.

It’s “Halifax” that I come back to the most, however. It opens the Hampton Grease Band’s only record, a double album called “MUSIC TO EAT”, in spectacularly non-commercial fashion. In 2004, I wrote this about “Halifax” on my old blog:

“….just may be the single best 19 minute, 42 second song ever created. Ostensibly about the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, rumor has it that the band selected it based on the old blindfolded pin-into-the-map trick. The lyrics read like a combination Canadian travel brochure/history lesson created over a bongload of really good weed, and they're delivered in the exceptionally bent jester/pirate/mad scientist voice of Bruce Hampton. Song cycle-loving Johnny- and Jill-come-latelys such as my favorites the FIERY FURNACES are still learning from the twists and turns this number takes. It's a good 7 or 8 killer songs wrapped up in one, full of frantic fretboard runs, an outrageous stop-start guitar solo, loads of homegrown Beefheartisms, and a heartbreaking melody at its start and finish. It's a frostbitten sea shanty for the ages, and I'll play it every 3 months on my headphones until I die”.

I fully recognize it’s not for everyone. The band says in the posthumous liner notes for the “Music To Eat” CD that their record was the second-worst-selling product ever put out on Columbia Records, after a yoga record (!). Even Captain Beefheart fans, whose numbers are multiplying after the man’s recent death, may find “Halifax” too fusion-y, too long, too wacky, too obtuse . Me, it’s one of my favorite songs of all time. I’ve posted it for you to listen to and download here.

Play The Hampton Grease Band, “Halifax”


Download HAMPTON GREASE BAND – “Halifax”

“EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP”

I’m about as big of a fan of “street art” as I am of golf, but I’d heard over the past year that “EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP” was a great nutcase of a documentary, a real con job that proceeds like a straight-up doc, yet has you wondering until well after the end if you’re the one being played. It concerns – and was likely conceived by – the British street artist Banksy, an admittedly very talented artist whose canvas happens to be public and private buildings and spaces, as well as the crew of quote-unquote artists who are also practicing this graffitic form. Actually, though, it’s really about a hanger-on who follows these guys around, a Los Angeles-based Frenchman named Thierry Guetta.

Guetta starts filming all the modern players in street art culture – the guys who, in the dead of night, hang “Andre The Giant Has a Posse” posters and the like all over cities like Paris, San Francisco and New York – and in the process, realizes that he has enough material to make a documentary on it. But he’s a total boob, a sycophantic imbecile – a funny guy with a big heart, sure, but who has a camera and a ton of raw footage and no idea how to put it together. After he gets the reclusive and world-famous Banksy to agree to be filmed, he decides that his mission is complete, and he can assemble all of the footage together into a true documentary. Banksy sees his absurd finished product, however (a product I don’t believe actually exists), and decides to instead start documenting the rise of Guetta himself, who has himself decided to become a street artist, and who copies the work of all of his street idols.

Here’s where it gets interesting. What’s not in dispute is that Guetta renamed himself Mr. Brainwash, or MBW, and actually got a real cover-story feature on his art shenanigans in the LA Weekly. Mr. Brainwash also had a real art installation at an LA warehouse, where his derivative and imbecilic artworks were seen by thousands, thanks to the LA Weekly cover feature. What I’m fairly certain of, after watching this excellent film, is that the entire process – this documentary, the Mr. Brainwash art show in LA, "Mr. Brainwash" himself – were conceived, managed and filmed by Banksy, as a prankish way to make a sideways statement about the co-optation of street art by the mainstream. That’s it. And while that “statement” might seem pedantic and trite, this film is anything but. It’s a total hoot. Hedonist Jive says check it out.

HOPPY BREW YEAR (COUGH)

If my paltry Twitter following is any indication, those of you that do choose to follow @jayhinman are mostly interested in the beer talk, judging from the many @beerguy23 and @thebrewdudes and @sudsluver "follows" I've got going on. So I'll give you what you're looking for, my friends. It's either a new batch of beer reviews, or some more books about North Korea & atheism. Wait, what's that you say? I thought so. Here goes:

THE OUTSTANDING

DOGFISH HEAD - "BURTON BATON" - These just started showing up in the San Francisco Bay Area the past couple of months. I'd had it before, even reviewed it before, but loved it more than ever. It's an oaked IPA - yeah - and it truly has hops and oakiness held in perfect balance. Warm and comforting and just a pleasure to behold (and drink). 9.5/10.

THE BRUERY - "LOAKAL RED" - (pictured above) First, I can't thank Rational Realist, a.k.a. The Beer Rover, enough for procuring this beer for me. He had to snatch it from some local store in California's Orange County and then bring it back to his domescile in San Diego before sending it to me. A true patriot and hero. It's a delicious oaked red ale. Tastes like toffee, almonds and the inside of an oak barrel, along with some citrus at times. It has an amazing, relaxing smoothness to it, and I made this my New Year's Eve ale and all was right at the tail end of 2010. 9/10.

UNIBROUE - "TRADER JOE'S VINTAGE ALE 2010" - Clever beer punters know to pick one of these up every year - it's Canadian beer maestros UNIBROUE masquerading as a Trader Joe's house brand. It's soooo good this year. Man. Sweet molasses and brown sugar, and a little smokiness makes its way in the strong flavor. 9% alcohol and packs a mean punch. Totally fantastic strong dark ale. 9/10.

TWO BROTHERS BREWING - "THE BITTER END" - Had this once before, reviewed it on my blog even, but returned to Spitzer's Corner in New York City again just to make sure the first time wasn't a fluke. It wasn't. An incredibly drinkable pale ale with a liberal dose of hops, and if it was bottled in my home area I'd call this my go-to "weeknight beer" from now on. 9/10.

BOULEVARD BREWING - "BOURBON BARREL QUAD" - Ahh, now this one was a real beast, a nearly 12% ABV quadrupel-style monster from Kansas City that's malty, sweet and lightly boozed. Maple, spice and bourbon. Really exceptional, as we've come to expect when this brewery goes big as part of their "Smokestack Series". 8.5/10.

THE VERY GOOD

THE BREWER'S ART - "GREEN PEPPERCORN TRIPEL" - I'm not even sure how to look for a peppercorn in a beer, but man this is a really, really good one. 9.2% alcohol with an immense yeasty, citrus tang. Very juicy and sweet with slight bitterness. Lemon juice. Hops. An excellent aftertaste that lingered til I went to bed with dreams of another one of these in my future. 8/10.

FREE STATE BREWING - "OATMEAL STOUT" - Enjoyed this on tap in Overland Park, Kansas during a recent business trip. A really silky oatmeal stout with a great chocolate aftertaste. Better than most of these by far, and a nice wake-up call for me to this Kansas-based brewer. 8/10.

AUBURN ALEHOUSE - "PU240 IMPERIAL IPA" - Picked up this bomber of big brassy imperial pale ale on a whim, and I'm mucho glad I did. Piney and very strong double IPA, smooth but quite aggressive. Great discovery. 8/10.

AVERY BREWING - "IPA" - Yeah, just your basic no-frills IPA from Colorado's Avery Brewing, and like everything they touch, it's better than most everyone else's. 7.5/10.

SAMUEL SMITH - "YORKSHIRE STINGO" - Was I a little disappointed in this ale, despite my high-ish score? I was, I was. Draft Magazine gave it their highest-ever score of 100 points, and annointed it a 21st Century masterpiece. Me, I liked it - quite a bit - an "old ale" that tastes like it, with hints of stwed fruit, plums, oak and maybe  - just maybe - even a little figgy pudding. 7.5/10.

STILLWATER ARTISINAL ALES - "CELLAR DOOR" - Big-tasting wheat/farmhouse/saison that has an equally huge aroma - must be the sage in the mash. Yeah, I think I do really taste the sage in this (drinking it as I write this post). Clear, highly carbonated and tasty - and like their other two beers I've tried, not enough to seperate as far from the middling herd as I'm sure they'd like. Still a work in progress. 7/10.

GRAND TETON BREWING - "PURSUIT OF HOPPINESS" - A dry imperial red ale, way more malty than hopped-up and one that can easily be "chugged" if you're so inclined. A brown caramel beer with a strong wheat backbone. Not one half bad. 7/10.

PRETTY THINGS - "ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN" - A big, malty and bitter brown ale from one of my new favorite American brewers. Tastes of sour cherries and smoke, with a bit of a bite. It's something to be considered and not slammed, and unlike the Two Brothers Bitter End I drank right before it. 7/10.

THE GOOD ENOUGH

WYCHWOOD BREWERY - "HOBGOBLIN" - You've probably seen the tap handle for this English brown ale, it's got a weirdo looking goblin fella on it, very ornate & with warts on his face. Bravo for that. The beer, hmm, well - it's OK. A fruity, plum jam-like brown ale that I enjoyed whilst it was in my hand, but still scored a 6.5/10.

THE LAME

BOUNDARY BAY BREWING - "CABIN FEVER" - One of my favorite brewpub experiences was visiting this Bellingham, WA brewery in the late 90s - amazing food, amazing beer, cool chuggin' hippie band playing, and just a great vibe all around. Tried their winter beer this year and could not recapture the vibe. Tons of flavor (caramel and burnt sugar, mixed with booze), with alcohol very apparent. Supposedly only 7% ABV, and unfortunately something of a mess. 5.5/10.

TENAYA CREEK - "HEFEWEIZEN" - (pictured here)  I have to go to Las Vegas every January for work, and every January I try a different Tenaya Creek beer with middling-to-poor results. Not surprisingly, this is really basic, over-carbonated and watery. Few discernible tastes outside of the faintest whiff of a German hefeweizen. 5/10.

BIG TIME BREWERY - "PERSPECTIVE IPA" - I used to frequent this Seattle brewery when I was in grad school up there, and tried this on draft during a recent visit. Didn't like it. A light-bodied, chalky IPA that coats the back of the mouth with its foul chalk dust. No thanks. 4.5/10.

LA JOLLA BREW HOUSE - "PARIAH" - As well it should be. A totally crap IPA. 3.5/10.

TOO BIZARRE TO RATE

STONE BREWING - "VERTICAL EPIC 10-10-10" - Have you tried this one yet? I have an unopened bottle sitting downstairs, and after the glass I had the other night, it might stay there forever. Is it wine? Is it a Belgian-style beer? An IPA? A white wine Belgian IPA? I could not get a handle on this to save my life - so I'm going to just postpone any bashings until I bravely go for that bomber sitting downstairs and work on my description a little better. This might be a masterpiece for all I reckon, much like how truly great art is usually recognized years after the fact. Right? Right?

"THE LOTTERY"

2010 was the year that "my side" of the debate over how best to educate America's children began to be articulated in places beyond libertarian and conservative echo chambers, and strangely enough, it was a series of movies that seemed to move the debate the furthest. I still have not seen the much-heralded "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN", made by the same folks behind the Al Gore global warming scare film "An Inconvenient Truth", but it was the topic du jour among many of the liberal parents we know well & whose kids our son goes to public school with. All of a sudden it became OK in 2010 for Democrats, "normal folks" and the like, to say questioning, skeptical and even disparaging things about teachers' unions and the stranglehold they have over the declining state of American government-run schools. That film, along with the unceremonious forced resignation of DC School superintendent Michelle Rhee, a hero to many across the political spectrum for her no-nonsense stand against educational bureaucracy business-as-usual, seemed to have helped push many former agnostics into the school choice/radical school reform camp. It's about friggin' time.

For the small number of people who saw "THE LOTTERY", which I enthusiastically watched several weeks ago along with a lesser school-choice documentary called "THE CARTEL", the sides are obviously very clearly drawn. This is a masterful documentary that focuses on the school enterprise zones that have been tentatively set up inside of Harlem, New York City, as well as the desperate parents looking for any kind of alternative to the dead-end public schools their children are "zoned" to attend school in. Every one of these parents is African-American, and they are strivers, several of whom had zero opportunities of their own growing up in the same exact neighborhoods, and they see wasted lives of crime, illiteracy and menial work for their children without an alternative to the stultifying schools that the educrats would otherwise choose to force their kids into.

Thanks to forward-looking programs pursued by Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, and through the efforts of educational choice superstars like Geoffrey Canada and Eva Moskowitz, Harlem has a series of charter schools that emphasize educational rigor and straight-up results. They don't emphasize tenure, teacher grievances and the bloating of administrative staff - these are for-profit schools that must demonstrate results for a long-neglected, very poor student body, or they will unceremoniously lose their charters. Parents, naturally - but perhaps surprisingly to white liberals who once thought that school reform efforts was being run by greedy Wall Street Republicans and their fat cat friends - are desperate to get in, but they must undergo a lottery, since the demand for the few slots is so small.

The film follows these four families as they try to wend their way through the process of getting into Moskowitz' Harlem Success Academy, along with hundreds of other families who'd love to find a way out of Harlem poverty for their children. This school and others like it in the district are profiled, and it's dumbfounding for me and for many of the parents to see the schools' own ambitious charter writ so clearly, and in such marked contrast to that of most government-run schools - To get every child in the school into college. Period. Whatever it takes. In low-income, African-American Harlem this is a big deal, and you desperately root for each family as you learn more about the schools and families themselves.

Of course, the neighborhood activists and the teacher's unions are none too pleased. Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, mouths the usual do-nothing status quo platitudes, and various protesters-for-hire from Acorn (Acorn!) are bussed in from other parts of the east coast to do her and her cronies' bidding. The director of this film, Madeleine Sackler, is obviously trying to shine a light on just how obstructionist the keepers of the status quo can be to helping ambitious families from getting a quality education for their children. After all, one chink in the armor of the government-educational complex and that might be enough for the whole thing to come tumbling down. It might actually (gasp) introduce competition, experimentation, the profit motive, the ability to fire bad teachers, the ability to shut down bad schools, the ability to do away with one-size-fits all "teaching to the test", and so on. This is anathema to those holding the keys to the complex, and it's one big reason why more than half of the African-American boys in the United States aren't graduating from high school.

Not all of the families in "THE LOTTERY" actually win the lottery. It's heartbreaking for the ones that don't. I thought this was a terrifically-paced documentary that should pick up thousands of new converts to the good fight, and as well it should.

BOOK REVIEW: “THE MORAL LANDSCAPE” by Sam Harris

The first of the big three “proud atheist” books I read was Sam Harris’ excellent “THE END OF FAITH” from 2004, a book that I reviewed here, and then added some thoughts to here. That led me to Christopher Hitchens’ “GOD IS NOT GREAT”, and once I’d completed that, I was pretty much done with atheist books and had no need for Richard Dawkins’ “THE GOD DELUSION”. Nothing like preaching to the converted - pun very much intended. I was very excited to see Harris’ big follow-up “THE MORAL LANDSCAPE” hit the shelves several months ago – an argument for how science can help mankind solve moral and ethical dilemmas, rather than religion. Yet after completing it, I found it to be a book-length explanation of an idea that could have easily been a nice essay in The New Yorker or The Atlantic or something, and came away somewhat frustrated that I’d squandered so much time on it, as happens when one reads an unsatisfactory book all the way through.

It’s not that I don’t agree with Harris’ central thesis nor his ideas, not at all. The book is a somewhat rambling defense of the fact that science, in the form of prove-able hypothesis of brain activity and scientific studies of how human beings define “things that are good and right” in their brains, is approaching a moment in history where it can rationally settle moral arguments about what is good/bad for humankind. This is something that we’ve left to religion for millennia – “murder is bad because the Bible says so”; “thou shalt not commit onanism because a priest said so” and so on. We haven’t completely overcome this, of course, but Harris rightly envisions a time when science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the most fulfilling and rewarding lives possible.

Yet the book needlessly seems to be written completely on the defensive, despite what to me is pretty straightforward and exceptionally reasonable on its face. Harris spends the first half of the book essentially making the same points in dozens of different manners, always coming back to the central thesis. Like I said, I could have seen this make for a terrific article, but I wouldn’t recommend that you cuddle up with this for an intense week of reading like I did. I didn't learn a whole lot, and unlike his last full-length book, wasn't left with a new arsenal of argumentative firepower to use against the forces of darkness and unreason.

NEGATIVE GUEST LIST & MY CHEATER SLICKS BLATHER

A few months ago I was asked via email to contribute some "Cheater Slicks memories" for an Australian fanzine (print! a print fanzine!) called NEGATIVE GUEST LIST. I was more than happy to oblige, and in the brief interim, editor Brendon Annesley sent me some back issues of what is a pretty crazed, 80s-style cut-and-paste garage punk magazine. I like how slapdash the thing is, how utterly nonsensical it is in parts, and how it looks even less sophisticated than my own crude fanzine efforts twenty years ago.

Annesley and his crew have a strong taste for the bleeding and noisy edge of garage-oriented punk rocknroll, and thus, their new issue, #19, with a great CHEATER SLICKS overview written by the band's drummer Dana Hatch. It's punctuated with other interviews and recollections from Larry Hardy, Merle Allin and yours truly. Annesley emailed me on "deadline day" and reminded me I promised him I'd write something about the band, so I quickly coughed up this hairball with my morning coffee, a story of the best Cheater Slicks show I ever saw. If you're interested in ordering the magazine, more info can be found here.

There was a particular Cheater Slicks gig in my hometown of San Francisco that stands proudly as one of the most jaw-dropping rock and roll experiences ever witnessed by man or beast. I’d tell you that I’d seared the October 10th, 1995 date of the blessed event into my brain if I thought you’d believe it – but nah, I looked it up on the information superhighway just now. Most transcendent rock experiences are usually recounted as “The First Time I Ever Saw…” (nope, I’d seen the Cheater Slicks play twice before) or “The Day The Band Got Into A Fistfight On Stage, and Then Inexplicably Kicked Out The Jams” (none of that). This was just a show – a show from the era’s most incendiary howling garage cyclone of a band, whom had probably played a dozen such shows on their “Don’t Like You” tours that year and the year before.

The Cheater Slicks told me what the secret sauce of the evening’s magic was when, mouth agape, I asked them what the fuck had just happened. They’d played Portland, Oregon the night before, see, and had left that city at 3 in the morning for the long drive south. No one slept during the entire ten hour drive, despite trying, and once they arrived in San Francisco past lunchtime, no one could find it in themselves to catch even a wink of sleep. So this pissed-off, bedraggled, unshaven and unshowered trio of sleepless rock miscreants suffered through the indignities of the soundcheck; the turgid, crushing hours of the interminable pre-show wait; and of course, the de rigueur hideous opening bands before unloading it all on the stage.

They arrived at their anointed hour angry and a little unsteady, and it showed. Both Shannon brothers slashed at their guitar strings like they deliberately wanted to snap them, and I remember Dave Shannon taking every opportunity to turn his back to the audience and crouch in front of his amp to emit high-decibel squeals, hiss and feedback. Just because it would hurt, is how I read it. A lot of the time he wasn’t even really playing, per se, but was instead just letting the thing feed back at top volume and shaking it violently to vary the tone. And Dana Hatch – good lord. That guy is a Neanderthal skin-basher even on a bad day, but tonight, with eyes bleary and throat raw, he was a friggin’ possessed animal. One crazed, ear-splitting number after another, with no breaks for tuning nor audience banter nor nothing – “Trouble Man”, “Wedding Song”, “Feel Free” and especially, whoa: “Sadie Mae”. It was one of those shows where strangers in the audience turn to each other after a song and laugh in amazement – then share a high-five before buckling up and settling in for the next firebreather.

Something tells me the Cheater Slicks slept well that night, whether on someone’s garage floor, a moldy futon, or in the competitively upscale environs of a Motel 6, three disgustingly unkempt men to a bed. They earned such comforts with their valiant and heroic efforts in San Francisco that night, and it’s one of those live shows I’ll never forget.