A TREATISE ON MAN-CHILDREN, SPORTS MANIA AND THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

In my heart, I know that the amount of mental energy and actual time I spend following professional baseball – more specifically, the San Francisco Giants – is preposterous. In Christopher Hitchens’ recent autobiography HITCH-22, he makes several typically withering asides about the hours of wasted life and squandered intellectual capital spent by some of his friends & associates watching soccer, or any other children’s game played by a team of highly-paid adults. I can’t say I disagree. I mean, I know people who have freed up a great deal more time in their lives for literature, music, family, film, exercise or what have you, simply by eschewing sports. I even went through a phase like that myself in the late 90s, when my beloved Giants made the ’97 playoffs, and I didn’t even watch a single game. I sure got a hell of a lot done that week – I was in grad school, getting married and doing a bunch of other very, very important things. But when I moved back to San Francisco in 1999, my dormant sports mania went haywire again with the flip of a mental switch, just as it had most of my sentient life up to that point.

There’s something screwy in our DNA that causes us to revere the most athletic of our tribe, and to take a collective interest in their accomplishments. We bizarrely reflect those accomplishments as somehow representative of the cities in which they are achieved. Of course I was raised to be a Giants, 49ers and Warriors fan. Those were my “home teams” (even though I grew up in Sacramento and San Jose). I clutch the 1978 Giants and the 1981 49ers to my figurative bosom very dearly – at the time, those teams and their races to first place were defining events, defining struggles, in my life to date. (Tough life, hunh?). I am proud that other than that brief period in the late 90s, I followed every San Francisco Giants box score each morning from 1977 up to the present day, along with somewhere between 50 and 100 radio or TV broadcasts per year. Mind you, this has been in some years with flat-out awful teams, which makes the very few good years – like 2010 – so psychically rewarding.

But before I start frothing about the team, I want to get back to the absurdity of it all. For me, if I’m going to get into a sport or a team, it’s all in – or nothing. For instance, I jettisoned any interest whatsoever in football years ago – because it took up too much mental space from baseball. I don’t think I can name 5 guys in the NFL right now. Brett Favre? Yeah. Ladanian Tomlinson? I think so. That guy from the New York Giants who shot himself? Yeah, that guy. That’s about it. College sports, I couldn’t care less. Yet when the World Series is over, it will be hockey time. And NBA time. I’m in, all the way – blogs, websites, deep dissection of the daily sports page, podcasts, what have you. If I don’t know the minutiae of every player on my chosen teams – his stats, his playing time, how he did last game – I feel like I’m not doing my “job” as a sports fan, and I worry. And that’s just crazy talk, isn’t it? I marvel at the luxury of time that allows me to do this, and fret at what is being lost in my short time on the planet as I engage in this completely ridiculous man-child pursuit.

Then again, let me admit that it is what it is. “I’m just as God made me”, as the “twisted old fruit” desk clerk says in This is Spinal Tap. That brings me to the San Francisco Giants. These are salad days for the long-suffering Giants fan. We have a totally “loveable” team, as much as athletes can be loveable, who are doing remarkable things, particularly on the pitcher’s mound. I don’t think there are two sports personalities I like in this world more than Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval, despite “Pablo Strand-'em-all”’s propensity for inning-crushing double play balls. (For my guide to pro baseball players from a few months ago, click here). They are overachievers, cobbled together after years of miserable play by faded veterans (which still continues to this day), led by a 23-year-old catcher named Buster Posey, and with a just-barely-21 tobacco-spittin’ country boy pitcher named Madison Bumgarner getting a chance to start in the playoffs. No egomaniac jerk-offs like Barry Bonds, no clubhouse downers like Jeff Kent – and the one that we did have, a failed September experiment named Jose Guillen, was decidedly cast away by management for the duration of the playoffs under the guise of a faux “neck injury”. I love that they cut their losses that way, which has allowed an unlikely hero, the chrome-domed Cody Ross, to emerge this Fall.

The Giants are one win away from the World Series, and they’ll have two chances to get it in Philadelphia this weekend. San Francisco and the greater Bay Area will go absolutely berserk if they do. Admit it, we’re a race of man- and woman-children, hardwired to be this way, and only the truly disciplined among us can overcome this faulty wiring in our DNA. I’ll tally up the lost days and missed opportunities on my deathbed – meanwhile, this is way too fun to miss right now.

LAGUNITAS BREWING’s “LUCKY 13”

Could have sworn I tried this imperial red beer once before, but since I had no real recollection of it and had recently read a glowing review, I decided to throw down for a bottle and give it a go. Petaluma, CA’s LAGUNITAS BREWING already make a jaw-dropping imperial red ale – the, get this, LAGUNITAS IMPERIAL RED – so it stands to reason that another similar formulation might do the trick. Slap a cute girl and a horseshoe on the bottle, mix up the vats a bit, and bingo! Let’s find out how it came together.

LAGUNITAS LUCKY 13 is, as expected, dominated by malts, and has medium hops. A thinner body that expected takes this down a small notch, and gives it a generally less-than-robust sort of feel in the mouth, commonly called “mouthfeel”, wink wink. Taste is light caramel and even a faint woodiness. Drinkability is high, which is pretty standard with all LAGUNITAS beers. They don’t play in the deep end of the pool, but neither are they flailing in the shallow end. I do like this one – I do. I could and will drink it again. Not quite that IMPERIAL RED, which is in a class by itself (which I understand might be defunct??!?? - noooooo), but quite strong. 7.5/10.

WITTE NOIRE!

That’s right, one for me, and another one for me! Have you seen any of these beers in better beer stores that say “The Brewmaster’s Collection”? Would you believe it if I told you they were “unique expressions of the brewmaster’s art”? Well they are. It’s a series of beers put together by DE PROEF out of Ghent, Belgium. I just looked at this lineup, and I’ve had just about all of them – and not one has been a dud. I don’t think I quite realized until last week what a stunning collection of beers they are, honestly. That’s when I tried WITTE NOIRE, an “imperial amber wheat” that blew me away. Allow me to explain.

DE PROEF really have earned the hallowed right to use highfalutin hyperbole like “unique expressions of the brewmaster’s art”. This plumtastic, pruney mouth-rager is outstanding, and well in keeping with the experimental Belgian tradition. It’s a dark amber beer, almost “chesnut” really, and it has this very grape-like, dark fruit (plums) intensity along with a tangy wheat flavor that you might find in a souped-up hefeweizen. They say that there’s even some smokiness going on, and sure, I can buy that as well. It got just as high marks from the two folks I split it with, and I recommend it highly for you to imbibe this evening. 9/10.

WET HOT AMERICAN HEAVY METAL ADOLESCENCE

Here's a re-post of some misty watered-colored memories from my youth, originally posted on my old Agony Shorthand music blog back in 2006.

Cathartically recounting one's ridiculous adolescence has certainly been a cottage industry for years, & my tales are likely not much different than anyone else's. Yet I still can't believe how metal-obsessed my junior high school (John Muir Junior High, San Jose, California) was circa 1979-82, and what ripe material I keep pulling from my memory banks even today. It was a time where the kids who smoked cigarettes on the fence outside the school were the "stoners", also known as "burnouts", and their musical direction set the tone for nearly everyone else's. Except, that is, for mine, and that of a few girls and the odd 13-year-old John Muir attendee who wasn't totally obsessed about rawk. A few anecdotes:

• There was this dude right out of metal hesher central casting named Bobby Garcia, a total badass who started all sorts of fights & would give you a surprise grilling on your musical taste to see if it was up to snuff. He and his pals would go hang out & smoke Camels in an open field with a couple of dirt piles near the Almaden Plaza mall that everyone called "Stoner's Cove". I'm pretty sure very few of these supposed stoners had actually discovered pot yet. In a school with very few blacks, Bobby still made it a point to tell the handful that were around, that, in his words, "AC/DC, Rock and Roll, Disco Sucks and so does Soul". I always loved that, and repeat it whenever I get the chance. Note that AC/DC preceded even rock and roll itself in the couplet. AC/DC were huge at my school - they were the be-all & end-all for most kids, and if you didn't like 'em, you'd better damn well pretend that you did.
• One time Garcia and this other mental giant whose name I forget chased this nerdy guy named Bob Zettlemoyer (I'm serious!) down after Zettlemoyer incorrectly claimed to be an AC/DC fan. With fists held above his face as he was pinned down -- I watched this myself -- they said, "Name two people in AC/DC! Name two, motherfucker!!". It was heartbreaking to watch as a trembling Bob answered "Bon Scott" (technically correct, but everyone knew Scott drank himself to death a couple years earlier) and -- uh oh -- "Led Zeppelin". Ouch. They "whaled on his ass" right then & there.

• The chief radio station of my peers - listen to it or you suck -- was KOME. The station cranked a steady diet of Scorpions, AC/DC, Led Zep and The Who, and had the most inane radio personalities imaginable, totally perfect for the sexually pent-up 13-year-old male demographic. The station is deservedly famous for the tag line, "Don't touch that dial, it's got KOME on it", but I'll admit I never actually heard them say it. Late nights belonged to this clown named "Dennis Erectus", who would go off about his lust for Nancy Reagan in a stupid, unhinged voice that predated Bobcat Goldthwait, and then crank the beastly faux metal til everyone had gone to bed. Erectus' routines would then predictably be played out at recess by every would-be stoner looking to impress the chicks and the fellas.
• Ms. Tossel, my 8th-grade English teacher, assigned everyone in class to conduct a poll of some kind - mine was "What's your favorite kind of music?". The choices I listed were "Hard Rock", "Easy Rock" (think Air Supply, Ambrosia and the Little River Band), "Soul", "Disco" and "New Wave". Of course the latter was a sop to myself, and no, I wasn't calling it punk yet (besides -- I really liked new wave). Final winner, out of roughly 40 kids polled? Hard Rock, of course, though I "interviewed" a disproportionate number of girls and almost got "Easy Rock" to squeak over the top. New Wave came in dead last. I remember having to stand up in front of class to read off the results and discuss my methodology (full regression analysis, discrete variables, etc.), and afterward, this total Cheech Marin-voiced Latino tough guy named Enrique ("Kiki") Salcido asked me what style I had voted for. When I sheepishly intoned that I had in fact voted for "New Wave", he looked stunned and incredulous, and asked me (remember his Cheech Marin voice), "No way Hinman -- you're a ponker???!?".

Naturally I could go on with self-referential tales such as these, but we all have them in some form or another. I actually missed nearly a decade's worth of schooling in "classic rock" because of my visceral hatred of my schoolmates and my reactionary decision to not listen to anything they liked. Therefore I thought (at the time) the Stones sucked, AC/DC sucked, Sabbath sucked, Led Zep sucked etc. The Pretenders? Adam and the Ants? Well, Adam and the Ants kinda ruled, didn't they?

FOUR NEW MUSICAL REASONS TO BELIEVE

In case you hadn’t noticed it, the musical paradigm of our age is now the song, as opposed to the album. I was brought up in a time where, if you were a fan of a particular artist, it was their upcoming album (LP) that you sat on the proverbial pins & needles for. An occasional 45 might slip in and fill the sucking, howling void, but everything was centered around anticipating that 10- or 12-song collection that the band had been working on the past year. Now – not so much. And truth be told, I like the new reality a great deal better.

Musical enjoyment is really all about the song, anyway. Not to get all Jacques Derrida on you, but the album is a “twentieth-century construct” that we all simply got used to. Some bands or artists did a good job using this construct to create albums that felt as if each song were part of a larger whole, yet even my favorite records – “The Velvet Underground and Nico” or “A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die” or “The Ramones” - could easily be said to just be one long winning streak of great song after great song. So now that the people are trawling the internet for single-song downloads, or buying songs at 99 cents a pop on iTunes or Amazon or eMusic, it has reshaped the music consumption experience, and is saving me and you a great deal of money to boot. My favorite method of musical discovery these days is downloading the crap out of stuff that looks interesting, and throwing it all into my iTunes “To Listen To” folder. Once I get to 40 or 50 songs, I actually do the listening, and I then pick out the gold. And the god’s honest truth is that there are some friggin’ bands popping up every week that continue to make rock music extremely exciting for this curmudgeonly codger.

Take the MYELIN SHEATHS for instance. This Canadian pack of raw yet melodic robo-power punk sound like they might individually be creeping up on 19 years of age, and this song “Everything is Contagious” from their forthcoming album just totally explodes in a gooey mess all over your headphones. Love it, and that album’s going to be a must-buy when it hits the digital shelves in a couple weeks (no, I didn’t say the album was completely buried yet). Atlanta’s BARRERACUDAS are similarly fantastic, but are frolicking in a totally different slice of the pie. Their tarted-up Johnny Thunders guitar screamer “New York Honeys” is right out of the UK glam/NY Dolls playbook, except it’s from this past year and it’s kind of hilarious, as a lot of the strutting, preening hard-glam stuff is. I like it when the singer warns us to “Look Out” before the song’s even three seconds in. Now that’s confidence.

READING RAINBOW are from Philly, as I understand it, and this track “Wasting Time” is a wonder of chugging, harmonic convergence. Boys and girls holding hands and singing their lungs out under a sparse, garagy blanket of sound. Finally, the veterans and most well-known of this bunch are THEE OH SEES from San Francisco. Noise for noise’s sake is a huge pet peeve as my ear canals become more sensitive and as my BS detector continues to sharpen, but these guys & gal leaven any tendencies they have toward needless free-form freakouts with an absurd sense of 60s pop melody. This is a sha-la-la song of the highest order, and I command you to take note of it.

That’s it – see you on the other side of the weekend.

Play MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”


Download MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”

Play THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”


Download THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”

Play READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”


Download READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”

Play THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”


Download THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”

AUTUMNAL BEER REPORT

The Hedonist Jive has been indulgent when it comes to all manner of fine ales this past month, and yet we’ve had a hard time keeping you up to date with many of the elixirs we’ve been chasing and nabbing. “Our bad”. There was that SIERRA NEVADA “Fritz & Ken’s Stout” that was so god-bless-America amazing that we had to interrupt all the other things we wanted to post about to give due kudos to, but in between that and today and in the weeks before all that, well, other beers have been tried and rated. Let’s meet them all, shall we?

THE OUTSTANDING

STONE BREWING “LEVITATION ALE” – I can’t believe it, but I’d never had this 4.4% alcohol marvel before. I loved it. It is a superlative red ale. Malty and delicious, absolutely perfect for a night when you’re settling in and know you’re going to need more than one beer. It’s just one of those ubiquitous yet under-the-radar STONE beers (like their basic IPA) that blow nearly everyone else away. The perfect “session” beer. 9/10.

THE VERY GOOD

WACHUSETT LARRY – My pal Aaron Goldfarb from the Vice Blog – whose very funny book “How To Fail” is about to hit the shelves in a few weeks – not only gave this a superlative review on his blog, he personally bought me this bottle in Massachusetts and hand-delivered it to me last time I was in New York. This was made by WACHUSETT BREWERY in “Mass” for Boston’s PUBLICK HOUSE, whom longtime readers may recall we raved about here one drunken night. This is a “sipper” of an IPA, pouring a copper color and bursting out with a fruit-packed citrus taste, leavened with some fresh, piney hops. Strong aftertaste – the kind you like. Really, really enjoyable. 8/10.

 FLYING DOG BREWING “RAGING BITCH” – This appeared at my local Whole Foods for about 5 minutes, so given the reviews I’d read I went for it with gusto. A very yummy Belgian-style IPA. Hoppy, citrusy and super yeasty. That’s about all the review I can give – they only come in 12-ounce bottles (sad face emoticon). I’d buy this again for sure. 7.5/10.

TELEGRAPH BREWING “WHITE ALE” – I was totally floored by this beer when I had it fresh in the Santa Barbara-based brewery in 2008, but had yet to buy one of their elaborate corked bottles and try it that way. It may not be a world-changer but it’s damn good. A tangy, chamomile-like witbier, one that’s exceptionally carbonated and bottle conditioned. Enormous head. Fruity, zesty and definitely tart. I continue to be a huge fan of this Central California Coast brewer. 7.5/10.

MIDNIGHT SUN “SOCKEYE RED IPA” – These Alaskans all of a sudden have their beer available in Northern California, and most of their stuff is really good. This is a malty, lightly-hopped red IPA. Light and fruity with some caramel and a good bite on the finish. A big step beyond solid. 7.5/10.

HOLLISTER BREWING “ALTERED STATE” – I was in the Santa Barbara area this past weekend for my Aunt’s memorial service, and used the occasion to stop in at this much-loved Goleta, CA brewery. They are located a mere mile from the University where I spent four years of my life from 1985 to 1989, and what a revelation they would have been had they been around back then (I do remember Tim Slater giving me a “Sierra Nevada Pale Ale” in 1989 while we were soaking in a pool, and it totally rocking my world). Anyway, this is a Dusseldorf-style altbier, or “sticke”. Sweet malts, chewy amber, and quite refreshing. A great first choice while I waited for my fish tacos. 7.5/10.

HOLLISTER BREWING “HIPPIE KICKER IPA” – The brewery had two IPAs on draft, and I asked the server which one was better. I was stoked he said this one, because the name alone had me ready to hand over my credit card. It’s a super-hardcore IPA, folks – whoa. Bitter and dry. Piney and sharp. Huge bite to it. You could call this a “double” or a “triple” IPA and no one would blink. It’s hard to believe how mainstream the eye-watering IPA is these days. 7.5/10.

ETNA BREWING “BLACKBERRY BLONDE” – This one’s from a tiny town from way up in rural Northern California. I bought it at a hippie market in Mt. Shasta City, CA, simply because I was on one of those obsessive beer quests for things I’d never had before that I’d never see again. And lo, it was good! A really light pale wheat ale with some sweetness from the blackberries, I’m guessing. It’s see-through and had no head. It’s made to be refreshing and to not give you too big of a buzz to interfere with your chores or what have you. Very enjoyable and recommended. 7/10.

THE MERELY DECENT

SPEAKEASY BREWING “BOURBON BARREL-AGED PAYBACK PORTER” – I’m not a big fan of this local (San Francisco) brewer and I’ve tried to give them “constructive criticism” over the years on my blogs to no avail. This one’s quite decent enough, though. I tried it before a (National League West Champion) Giants game a week ago right there at the olde ballpark, and found it to a be a thin and smoky porter, with only the faintest hint of bourbon barrel aging. If this is what their weirdo, crazy “imperial” version of Payback Porter is like, I’m glad I haven’t spent real cash money on the basic version, though this one’s definitely OK if you encounter it on tap. 6.5/10.

NINKASI BREWING “TOTAL DOMINATION IPA” – Total domination? Puh-leeze. Total begrudging acquiescence maybe. Great fruity smell, and tastes stronger than its 6.7% alcohol, but this creamy, hoppy IPA is one of those “good enough” beers that one can run into at just about any brewery. 6/10.

MT. SHASTA BREWING “MOUNTAIN HIGH IPA” – Only a few months ago this crew was still known as “WEED ALES”, as in Weed, California – home of the Hi-Lo Café and a great spot to stop in on your way to (or home from) the Pacific Northwest. The bottle cap still even had their “Drink Legal Weed” (haw haw!!) slogan on it. So now they’re MT. SHASTA BREWING. They make a sharp and piney IPA with a pleasingly deep malty backbone. A little chalky, though, and at the end of the day it doesn’t come together all that well. I could drink it again, but given the cornucopia of other India Pale Ale delights, I likely won’t. 6/10.

SCHLAFLY BREWING “RESERVE IMPERIAL STOUT 2008” – I’m contemplating this very beer as I type these reviews, and color me severely disappointed in this one. I was at the Whole Food Beer Store in New York City two months ago, and I whipped out this list I was carrying in my iPhone of beers I needed to buy. Based on some respected blogger’s musings, this was one of them – and I’m guessing $14.99 is the minimum I paid for this, But truly, this bourbon-barrel aged, sharp-ass imperial stout is no big deal. It is a 10.5%-abv monster, and in Missouri that might impress the locals, but from where I sit this thing is just missing a lot of the chocolate/caramel oomph it needs to put it over the top. If you want a lesson in how it should be done, like I said last week – take a lesson from FRITZ & KEN. 6/10.

NINKASI BREWING “BELIEVER DOUBLE RED ALE” – After the Hedonist Jive and Hedonist Beer Jive spent the better part of the last two years praising every “imperial red” ale that came across our lips, it’s actually something of a relief to find one we don’t like. I bought this in Oregon over the summer, mostly because I was so blown away by these guys’ TRICERAHOPS double IPA. This one just doesn’t have the warmth and the depth of flavor of some of the newer amped-up ambers out there, and the hops seem super muted. Not horrible, but I still choose to not believe. 5.5/10.

THE LAME

UNION ALES “PINEHOPPLE IPA” – After I was done tasting the aforementioned HOLLISTER BREWING beers, which were great (or shall we say, “very good”), I headed into downtown Santa Barbara to try this new brewery near the train station, one that wasn’t even in town last time we came through (and we go here over other year on vacation – when the weather is ON, this is one of G*d’s Chosen Places). Well, the brewery was total doucheville on this Saturday night at least, with the lowest-common-denominator sub-sports bar clientele imaginable. And in case you were wondering, a pineapple-infused IPA is pretty awful. Super weak, off-taste, and I couldn’t scramble out of this place fast enough. 3/10.

STILLWATER ARTISINAL ALES' “STATESIDE SAISON”

Once a new beer gets rolling on the hype train, it’s either get on board quickly, or run the risk of missing out. This sport, while perhaps not the sport of kings, is among my favorite pastimes: chasing the big ones from market to market, from trade partner to trade partner, from sea to shining sea. O what a life I lead! So it was with the beers of STILLWATER ARTISINAL ALES. This Maryland-based duo made up of a homebrewer and a beer fiend are itinerant brewers in the nascent MIKKELLER tradition - so don’t go looking for their brewpub or even their kettles next time you’re in Baltimore. Beer making continues to evolve and take on new roots and branches, and this tentacle in particular got a huge reaction out of the gate. I ran down to my local beer store and picked up bottles of STATESIDE SAISON and CELLAR DOOR, both farmhouse ales in the “Belgian tradition”.

STATESIDE SAISON is the one I unloaded into my glass first. It’s a 6.8% ABV, brewed with US- and New Zealand-grown hops, with a ridiculous amount of foam. I was taken aback right off the bat with the amazing taste - fruity and juicy, with just a slight whiff of funk. It was refreshing, and it tasted just fantastic cold. Lemon and pepper could be noted in the aftertaste. As it got warm, I daresay I was a little less interested, and made a vow to drink this a little more quickly next time. A great debut from this new brewer, and if I ever run into these guys I’ll clap ‘em on the backs and assure them they deserve the hype they’re getting. 8/10.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING AT ME, YOU’RE LOOKING AT COUNTRY

Most guys I know, if they’ll cop to enjoying country music at all, it’s usually the most rough-hewn “outlaw” country of the late 60s and early 70s, as exemplified by WAYLON JENNINGS and JOHNNY PAYCHECK. It might sometimes stray into slightly more commercial country like WILLIE NELSON or GEORGE JONES, or to acts with a bit of quirk like PORTER WAGGONER. Everyone loves Hank Williams, and most everyone digs Johnny Cash. Women that I know seem to hate country music with a vengeance, except for the lunatic fringe who believe that Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts et al represent aynthing more than a tangential, Southern-accent connection to the country music of yore. I think we can ALL agree that country music in its best forms died around 1975 or 1976, with the arrival of Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbit and the Oak Ridge Boys, and the godawful crossover of country with dance music and rock. Country since that time certainly has had acts that have made good records, but to my ears those have primarily come from the modern “No Depression” sect of bands or acts who took their cues from the 50s, 60s and early 70s, or who’ve gone in a more folkie direction a la TOWNES VAN ZANDT.

This is all my way of saying that while many of us have universalist standards for what is or isn’t good country music, when we like the form at all, some of us – say, for instance, me – allow ourselves to indulge in different sub-fringes of classic country music and call it “the best”. In my case, I am a total sucker for strings, backing vocals and the slicked-up “countrypolitan” studio sound that many of the top female artists of the 60s employed. For me, LORETTA LYNN’s version of “Hello Darlin’” is probably the greatest country music song of all time, notwithstanding Hank Williams’ entire oevre. A song like WANDA JACKSON’s melancholic “Back Then”, rather than striking me as purely syrupy schmaltz, comes off to me as a syrupy, schmaltzy, beautiful tearjerker that I could listen to 100 times in a row. I’ve read enough books on 1960s country to know that this was the era when the songwriters really took over, and men like Harlan Howard, Shel Silverstein and Tom T. Hall wrote dozens of well-crafted hits during this time and duly have their place in the Country Music Hall of Fame as a result.

I’m also a fan of some of the drunken hellraisers (check out the awesome Johnny Paycheck and Merle Haggard songs I've got for ya), trucker music (Dave Dudley!), some of the more offbeat male singers (JIM ED BROWN is a particular favorite) and some of the less-countrypolitan women like Jerry Lee Lewis’ little sister LINDA GAIL LEWIS. Here’s a collection I put together of 17 of the best country songs, all from the time I think country music was peaking in roughly 1965-1975. It's perfect for dragging into iTunes, as everything is saved in the .m4a format.

Let me know if I missed any knockouts, and hope you enjoy.

Track List

1. As Soon As I Hang Up The Phone – LORETTA LYNN & CONWAY TWITTY
2. Pop a Top – JIM ED BROWN
3. Skid Row – MERLE HAGGARD
4. Back Then – WANDA JACKSON
5. I’ve Lived My Life – DOLLY PARTON
6. Motel Time Again – JOHNNY PAYCHECK
7. T-H-E E-N-D – LINDA GAIL LEWIS
8. Loser’s Cocktail – DICK CURLESS
9. Pack Up Your Sorrows – JOHNNY CASH & JUNE CARTER
10. Singing My Song – TAMMY WYNETTE
11. Blanket on the Ground – BILLIE JO SPEARS
12. Hello Darlin’ – LORETTA LYNN
13. Hello Saturday Morning – LEE HAZLEWOOD
14. Put It Off Until Tomorrow – BILL PHILLIPS
15. Big City – MARGIE BOWES
16. I Got Lost – DAVE DUDLEY
17. I Don’t Want To Throw Rice – DOLLY PARTON

Download “If You’re Looking At Me, You’re Looking At Country” 17-track CD (this is a .zip file)

Another way to get this one is to download each track individually - they're all labeled and easy to import. Thanks to Jeremy Nobody for this labor of love. CLICK HERE to do it this way.

“GREENBERG” – LIFE IS WASTED ON PEOPLE

My title comes from the most fetching line of this 2010 film starring Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig. Stiller plays a neurotically depressed social misfit (the titular Greenberg) who, not surprisingly, doesn’t do too well with people of both sexes. When his former band mate – probably the only person in the film who can truly tolerate him – wistfully muses that “youth is wasted on the young”, Greenberg replies, “I’d take it a step further – life is wasted on people”. Great line, one of this very flawed film’s better moments. I honestly thought I’d enjoy this a lot more than I did, seeing as it came from Noah Baumbach, the director of the excellent weirdo dramas “Margot at the Wedding” and “The Squid and the Whale”. Yet “GREENBERG” neither made me squirm the way those did, nor did it have enough mixed pathos & comedy to make one ride the highs and lows so dramatically as we did in those other films.

Stiller wasn’t the problem. I don’t know, maybe it was Greta Gerwig. I thought I was sort of in love with her when I saw her in “BAGHEAD”, but now I’m wondering if she’s so fixated on being “real” in her films that she comes off as totally phony-baloney. I turned off “HANNAH TAKE THE STAIRS”, a film of hers from last year, midway through because I just couldn’t take it – but I blamed the film’s shortcomings squarely on the director. This time, though the budget is much “bigger” than that handheld nearly-home movie, she still grates on me with her I’m-such-a-complicated-arty-twentysomething act, and the thought that she’d be attracted to Greenberg at all, especially after his first bungled attempt to make some magic happen with her, is preposterous. Is this what a “real” urban 23-year-old is supposed to be like these days? Man, I’ll steer way clear of the Mission District, Williamsburg and Silverlake if so.

I guess it just didn’t add up at the end of the day. The film’s characters don’t reach any dénouement, as the French say, and no one grows or changes or figures it out. Since they’re all so unlikeable to begin with – well, there it is. Hedonist Jive says go watch some Giants playoff baseball instead.

MASTERPIECE THEATER: SIERRA NEVADA “30TH ANNIVERSARY – FRITZ & KEN’S STOUT”

One of my biggest complaints about the “beer journalism” establishment, such that it is, is that it continually churns out the same “salute to craft brewing’s pioneers” articles over and over, ad nauseum. I wrote about the phenomenon here. Beer people can be such audacious namedroppers – “oh Fritz, you know” – “oh, I talked to SAM for hours at GABF” etc. So here we’ve got the ultimate “craft brewing pioneers” beer, an ale to set off another round of dewy-eyed reminiscing about the era when lonely homebrewers pulled themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, against all odds, to launch a “taste revolution” blah blah blah. Thank you, Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing, and thank you Ken what’s-your-name, who founded New Albion Brewing way back in the Dark Ages. Without you, our lives would be severely deficient.

Which brings me back to this gonzoid 2010 imperial stout that SIERRA NEVADA BREWING commissioned from the aforementioned fellas to mark their thirtieth anniversary. It’s one of several 30th anniversary beers from a brewer who’s been living large since 1980. And it might be the best imperial stout I’ve ever had. Wait, did he just type that? After years of incredible imperial stouts rolling out from all four corners of the USA? Why yes I did. BROOKLYN BLACK OPS, you’ve been topped. This dark black pillow of a beer is perfection in a glass – well, several glasses. Several luscious cocoa and dark, burnt malt glasses. It’s a beautiful beer from start to finish, with no hot boozy alcohol to get in the way of each swallow, despite the 9.2% alcohol lurking within. Seriously, I could put my head down in this thing and go to sleep. I love those craft brewing pioneers, I just love 'em. 10/10.

BOOK REVIEW – MALCOLM GLADWELL’S “WHAT THE DOG SAW: AND OTHER ADVENTURES”

Malcolm Gladwell is one of those rock-star writers in the social sciences who commands huge speaking fees wherever he travels, gets invited to weekend-long corporate retreats to share his deep journalistic insights, and sells a bazillion books every release, just on his name alone. I read his “THE TIPPING POINT” not long after it came out in 2002 (totally dug it), and a few years ago got his book “OUTLIERS” slipped into a corporate “goodie bag” given to me at a trade show – so I feverishly read it on the plane home. It was then that I decided I’m fully on board the Gladwell train, no matter how formulaic or wide-eyed-with-wonder his writing can be at times. The guy’s on the vanguard of the deeply probing, highly skeptical wing of the social science/journalism fusion that’s been so popular of late (see “FREAKONOMICS”, “THE WISDOM OF CROWDS”, reducto ad absurdum). So I bought his collection of New Yorker essays from the past decade to further my study into the human condition, and to get a finer point on why it is that we human beings can be such a conundrum sometimes.

I’d actually read a good third of these essays before, during the five or so years I was subscribing to The New Yorker. That magazine just sat in unread piles every week, until I made the rule that I’d read one essay or story from each, and then throw the daunting stack into the recycle bin after I’d done so. If there was a Gladwell piece in there, well, that was usually the one that got read. The man knows his way around an essay, and when he takes on a topic that looks like dullsville – women’s hair coloring, say, or people who can magically calm ferocious dogs down – it’s usually time to buckle in. Gladwell usually positions himself as the rube from out of town who just has a few contrarian questions, and his simple, childlike logic leads him down a path of conclusions that upends all conventional notions of how life works.

There are times when, as I said, this gets formulaic. After a thrilling essay or two, you see Gladwell’s story/setup/surprise twist/punchline/denouement structure coming from a mile away. And yet the man will flat-out make you think differently. Think you know why Enron failed? A classic story of greed, right? Perhaps. But Gladwell has a convincing piece toward the end of this book that says that their corporate culture of hiring the smartest, most risk-taking MBAs above all other considerations may have been the true root of what did them in. There’s a similar piece about hiring people to work in your company, and how we all make snap decisions about people we meet, just on the basic of their handshake or the initial 30 seconds of charisma they showed or didn’t show – and why that’s “wrong”. Except Gladwell’s also good at making you see both sides of a quandary as well, and that piece in particular had me wondering whether I should be trusting my gut when I meet someone new, or giving everyone a months-long benefit of the doubt.

Because of its essay structure, “WHAT THE DOG SAW” is a book you can pick up and put down over a long period of time; in fact, I bought it the week it came out in late 2009 (I had just finished “Outliers” and was riding a Gladwell high) and just finished it last week. It doesn’t make it any less interesting, though, and this is one millionaire social scientist that deserves the coin and the accolades being thrown his way.

“THE WHITE RIBBON”

Despite ending with a bit of a clunk, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s 2009 “THE WHITE RIBBON” is an intense, feverishly dark look at a German village on the eve of World War I., one that succeeds on nearly all levels. The film, austerely shot completely in black and white, serves as an indictment against personal and societal repression in all its forms. Though many of the reviews I read described this film as a “how the children of 1913 became the Nazis of 25 years later”, it’s definitely more of a subtext than something overt, and likely something you’d never have picked up on without the power of suggestion from a review. “The White Ribbon” succeeds incredibly well on its own terms, and has moments of filmmaking as powerful as anything I’ve seen in years.

Since the film deals so unceasingly with repression and guilt, I’ll highlight a moment that was so intense in direction, production and acting that I watched it on the DVD three times over. The bucolic village’s pastor, an absolute tyrant who brutally canes his children and ties the putative white ribbons in their hair for months at a time when they’ve misbehaved, is in his study with his preteen son. He gives his son a lecture about a local boy who went blind, developed pustules all over his body, descended into madness and finally died – because he began to masturbate as he entered adolescence, He then shames his son, horribly, into a confession of the same. The boy, pictured here in that scene, lets tears stream down his face while trying his best to maintain composure, and the whole thing is absolutely devastating. I’ve seen Ingmar Bergman pull off dramatic scenes this good that make every hair on your body stand up screaming, but it’s a real gift, and Haneke’s obviously got it (He made “The Piano Teacher” and “Cache” as well, both good-to-excellent).

This is the sort of rules-based, “God-directed” fear and shame that drives the village into acts of silent violence, reprisal and brutal humiliation of anyone not falling into line. The film’s narrator, a kindly schoolteacher who is the sunny foil to everything swirling into chaos around him, even gets caught up in the descent into madness, before being immediately shipped off to war the second Germany decides to invade Serbia. That’s where the film stops, and where one is left to draw his own conclusions. I might have appreciated a good 5 minutes of reflection and what parents call “transition time” in getting to that point, but the film as a whole gave me hours of things to ponder, most of them mentally discomforting yet stimulating all the same. It won the Palm D'Or at Cannes last year, and I can absolutely see why.

MORE RECORD REVIEWS, FEATURING FEMALES IN A LEADING ROLE

For the first chapter in this two-part series of 2010 record reviews, click here.

GRASS WIDOW – “Past Time” CD

Took a good four or five times through my favorite local band’s new record for me to declare it not only on par with their two past efforts, but as a new high-water mark. It’s just – different, is all. Sure, the band skitters and skatters up and down chordlines and around rhythmically complex drum, bass & guitar patterns as they did on their previous LP and EP, but now they’ve added a more “baroque” element and an even more dense layer of church-like harmony. Grass Widow are truly the most 1979-ish UK DIY band I’ve ever heard (despite hailing from San Francisco and being very much of 2010), but where they were once treading mainly on URINALS territory they’ve progressed into something more 100 FLOWERS-like now. And lo, it is good. I’m convinced there will be a time in the future when this record is recalled and referred to as, yes that’s right, “a classic”. (Buy it here)

SUPER WILD HORSES – “Fifteen” CD

I totally fell for one song on this Australian duo’s debut EP called “What Started The Noise” and dismissed the remainder, and that hit-to-miss ratio holds up about the same on their debut. It treads a little too far into sugary commercial radio MOR for my tastes on about two-thirds of the numbers, and if this guitar/drums unit ends up playing Lollapalooza-type festivals in the US I won’t be surprised. That said, there are two chuggers on here that deserve special attention: the title track “Fifteen” and the song after that, “Mess Around”. Both tuff-girl pop, sparse and harmonic and lurching into garage punk simply by the minimalistic, bash-it-out instrumentation. If they were all like that we’d have something to talk about for sure. (Buy it here)

THE SPLINTERS – “Kick” CD

Here’s another one that falls in a similar camp. Oakland’s Splinters have a fantastic new Gun Club-meets-Ronettes 7” out called “Blood On My Hands”, and so on the strength of that I bought their early-2010 CD “Kick” sound-unheard. One time through was all I needed. It’s rare to find a band these days who are still finding their feet when they step into the recording studio and put out a CD, but “Kick” shows a band with all sorts of ambitions to make great garage pop, but with an inability to write a song that sticks. Like a young band, you know, one just finding their feet & trying to figure it all out. Lucky for the rocknroll-lovin’ public they put it together on their new single, so skip this one and keep an eye out for CD #2. (Buy it here)

HEDONIST JIVE TAKES A GREAT LEAP FORWARD

Though no one's called me out on it too hard as of yet, I'm certain there are folks who've read my past music blogs, my former beer blog, maybe even my politics blog - who've come over here in hopes of more of the same, only to be gravely disappointed. The dude reviews cheese??? He scans postcards his Grandma gave him??? etc.

Here's what I've done for you. Look to your right. See those labels? Now The Hedonist Jive has been customized for your tastes. You only want to read beer reviews? Click on "beer". Want music blather only? Why, there's a category called "Music" just for you. Are my watery-eyed life memories something you feel you need to read? Click on "Memories".

Hopefully this rights an early wrong and helps put the Jive at the top of your blogroll!

"THE ART OF THE STEAL"

The 2010 documentary "THE ART OF THE STEAL" breathlessly follows a scandal of sorts: the wholesale dismantling of an eccentric millionaire's will, wishes and contracts in order to snatch his incredible private art collection and place it into "public" hands. I'd once heard about this wonderfully weird art museum in a residential neighborhood 10 miles outside of Philadelphia - the Barnes Collection - from my in-laws. They told me how the hours are slipshod, how it's closed some days and open others, and how you almost always have to make an appointment to get in.

And what a collection it is. The Barnes Collection is loaded with hundreds, obviously one-of-a-kind paintings from Degas, Renoir, Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet, all bought in the 1920s and 1930s before the European impressionists and post-impressionists hadn't quite reached the exalted levels they occupy on the art chain today. Dr. Alfred C. Barnes bought them "on the cheap", comparitively, and arranged them in displays in his own home that went against the ways & mores of the traditional American museum. Once he died, all sorts of local arts types wanted to get their meathooks into these paintings, yet Barnes had a will that made it quite clear that they were to stay in his residential museum-home, and were to only to be shown to "study groups" at hours of his estate's choosing. For decades, there've been lawyers, politicians and art groups chipping away at his will, until the final insult of just the past couple of years: the collection is due to be moved to the Philadephia Museum of Art downtown - a place Barnes absolutely detested.

The documentary is a full-on attack piece on the sanctity of this violation of Barnes' wishes. Because it's so one-sided, it actually does a pretty good job, on the surface, of making one's blood boil. The scoundrels! I'm a property-rights kind of guy, but even I have to agree with the NY Times' take on this film:

"....surely there are more nuanced arguments for the move than those found here, which could only strengthen the documentary, saving it from caricature. At times the fight comes across as a smackdown between art snobs who want to preserve Barnes’s right to exhibit his masterworks however he wanted because, well, he paid for them (a curiously underexamined refrain), and vulgarians who want to turn his patrimony into tourist bait along with the Liberty Bell and an actor in a Ben Franklin getup. What remains unanswered, finally, is the larger question of whether deep pockets ensure custodial rights forever."

I had a similar question going through my head, one that definitely leads down a slippery slope. Is there something called "the public interest" as it relates to arts and culture? Would Modigliani, Renoir and Picasso masterworks be more beneficial to "society" if put in the public sphere, or because of Barnes' purchase of them, does he have full rights to hide them, deface them or even destroy them? I suppose he does indeed have those rights, and it's why I side with the documentarians - but they could have at least asked the question, you know? Hedonist Jive says 3 stars, on a 5 scale.

DORKS START YOUR ENGINES – FIFTY/FIFTY BREWING’s “CONCENTRATED EVIL”

Slap a scary skull graphic on a bottle of your high-alcohol beer, give your beer a really menacing name, and boom - you’ve just about guaranteed yourself a high level of sales to the slobbering beer dork community, before they’re even let your hallowed beverage touch their lips. People like them – I mean like ME – were trained early on to associate skulls & gargoyles & warlocks (and high alcohol content) with good, ass-whupping beer. STONE BREWING led the way on this front, with Arrogant Bastard, Imperial Russian Stout and other such gravity-defying corkers. Now there’s Truckee, CA’s FIFTY/FIFTY BREWING and their CONCENTRATED EVIL, which I picked up the other day at Plumpjack in San Francisco. Did the label sell me on this one? Why yes, yes it did – that, and FIFTY/FIFTY’s burgeoning reputation as a purveyor of the dark and mysterious brewing arts.

FIFTY/FIFTY CONCENTRATED EVIL is exceptionally limited, and I probably should have hoarded six bottles and used them as “trade bait” forthwith. Then again, maybe I’m the only one who likes this beer – and I loved it. It’s actually not an imperial stout nor overamped porter – it’s a Belgian-style ale brewed with raisins and brown sugar. Raisins! Like, how evil could that be? It’s made up of 11% alcohol – ohhh, I see…..and it reminds me very much of excellent “abbey-style” ales like ABBAYE DES ROCS TRIPLE IMPERIALE or SOUTHAMPTON ABBOT 12. Very small head, which dissipated quickly and made this as still and as silent as copper-colored dishwater. Full of robust Belgian yeasts, and very malty and sugary. The raisins, and some candy-store caramel goodness, are deep in every swallow. A little thinner than some of the actual chewy Belgian ales I’ve had like this, but CONCENTRATED EVIL is really delicious. 8/10.

BOOK REVIEW: CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS’ “HITCH-22”

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is for many of us, myself included, the premier “public intellectual” of our time. Which isn’t to say he can’t be maddening nor pompous at times, nor that I agree with him on all political subjects, nor that he’s above reproach. Yet I’ve been magnetically drawn to his writing for going on two decades now, and he’s altered my opinion or schooled me on a number of subjects. I encountered him first when I was dabbling in token Leftism in college and had a subscription to THE NATION (cancelled after the 6-month trial period), but I remember being most dazzled by him when I first read his “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” essays in Harper’s Magazine around 2000, which was subsequently turned into a fantastic book-length screed documenting the Vietnam-eta war crimes of Kissinger. He really sold me, let’s say that – and it takes a lot for me to get worked up to boiling by any frothing, angry Lefty, most of whom I learned to slowly back away from very early on. One has to write pretty damn well, and have an uncanny ability to marshal all the salient facts to your side of the ledger before I’ll pay attention – but Hitchens, I have to say, is the singular best political writer I know of, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt every time, before coming to my own conclusions.

In 2000 I went to see Hitchens speak at a small socialist bookstore in San Francisco called MODERN TIMES about the Kissinger book, and marveled how he witheringly shouted down a couple of garrulous hardcore lefties who were trying to change the subject to their pet causes (indigenous peoples or Palestine or something-or-other). It’s when it was confirmed for me that this guy suffers zero fools, let alone gladly, and why it was so interesting to watch him make his own much-celebrated break with the Left over this past decade. While his memoir “HITCH-22” is about a lot of things - it’s a life-spanning memoir, after all – the later-in-life self-realizations about his socialist years and how he rationalizes them, or not, are quite fascinating and believable in his hands, rather than in those of his many critics.

This is a man who easily sells the reader a nearly unbroken line of conscience that stretches from his early days in the Trotsky-loving International Socialists to his recent notoriety as one of the prime intellectual voices agitating for and defending the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. I find it hard to find much fault with Hitchens’ central organizing principle of full and total opposition to totalitarianism, both political and intellectual in nature, and in all its guises. He’s an atheist; he’s a passionate celebrator of literature and great canonical writing; he’s a lover of good food and drink; and he’s one of those people who flummoxes small minds on both the Right and the Left. So of course I wanted to read his memoir, if only because, having devoured nearly all of his writings over the past decade and backward into the 1980s, it’s one of the only things of his I hadn’t yet read.

Let me make an admission, too. I didn’t “read” “HITCH-22”. I listened to thirteen hours of it as an audiobook, with Hitchens himself doing the narration in his droll and sometimes cutting English voice. I’m extremely happy I did. While I couldn’t go back and scan sentences I wanted to re-read, I certainly gained for having heard the intonations and the exclamations of the author himself, in his own voice. It’s an excellent way to “read” Hitchens, and I highly recommend the audiobook if you’re at all interested in this memoir.

The book follows a somewhat linear path that starts at birth and ends in the present, with many detours along the way. Particular points of long departure are the most dearly-felt ones. HItchens’ evocative account of his schoolboy days in stereotypical headmaster-driven 1950s/1960s England are revelatory, mostly in that some of the jokes that people make about what must happen among teenage boys in all-boy schools - even in repressed England – are confirmed here, with Hitchens taking no pains to deny his own part in “buggery”. This entire section, and his angry renunciation of the command-and-control aspect of the English school, is excellent. Hitchens was also very much present as the 1960s were giving way to “The Sixties”, and described it all very well. His political conscience was formed during this era, and his piece on he and his fellow Socialists’ visit to Cuba is definitely revealing as well.

There’s a ton of detail and rumination about some central characters in his life – his traditional English military father, whom he calls “The Commander”; his Jewish mother Yvonne, whom Hitchens did not find out was Jewish until long after her suicide; his friends Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Edward Said; and yet almost nothing about his wife and his children – which, by the way, I completely and fully respect. The only review I read of this book, in the NY Times, called Hitchens out for this – as if someone could be made to shape a personal memoir to some book reviewer’s need for particular juicy details. No, Hitchens has his own code of silence on certain matters – and really, how much more exciting do you think his domestic life would be compared to, say, his near-death at the hands of Bosnian Serbs in Sarajevo, or his trip to North Korea, or his meditations on religion (which this atheist loves every minute of)?

“HITCH-22” is about as strong a memoir as I can imagine, given the trifecta of great writing, an interesting “life well lived” and a strong, well-articulated set of beliefs. About the only thing slowing Hitchens down – who ironically decided to write this book after seeing a museum exhibition in which his own death was mistakenly reported – is his current battle with cancer of the esophagus, which he announced a couple of months ago as this book was being published. There aren’t many writers, to say nothing of political writers, that I’d be sorry to see shuffle off the stage, so do your best to not say a prayer for Hitchens, and instead raise a glass for free thinking, authority-questioning, love of literature and unceasing opposition to small-mindedness .

NICOLE PENEGOR'S EYE-POPPING SUPERDOPE PHOTOS

The secret weapon propping up my 1990s music fanzine SUPERDOPE was the photographs taken by "staff photographer" - also my friend and co-worker - Nicole Penegor. We had a deal that I think worked for both of us, way back in our early 20s. I'd pay for her to get into shows I wanted photos from, and in return she'd take and personally develop said photos, getting to practice her craft and see some cool bands in their heydey. And me, I got to build an insanely lucrative publishing empire entirely on her back.

Here are some of her best:

THE MUMMIES, live at the DNA l.ounge, San Francisco 1991

THE GIBSON BROS, live at the Paradise Lounge, San Francisco 1993

THE EX, live at Epicenter Zone, San Francisco 1991

COME, live at The Kennel Club, San Francisco 1993

SF SEALS, live at The Chameleon, San Francisco 1992

THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282, live at The Chameleon, San Francisco 1991

THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282, live at The Chameleon, San Francisco 1991

COME, live at The Kennel Club, San Francisco 1993

SOME VELVET SIDEWALK, live at Morty's, San Francisco 1992