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The Beer Apocalypse: The World After Big Beer – Displaced People

May 18, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

(This is the first post in a series of theoretical end-of-world scenarios probably resulting from my reading too much dystopian science fiction. The series will cover how the people, places, markets, and beer of the United States would change if Anheuser Busch and SABMiller just up and vanished. I’m not playing apologist or anything, just having fun with what-ifs. #longread warning)

The unifying craft cry resounds obvious and singular: big beer is bad.

It’s bad because it doesn’t taste good. It’s bad because it’s corporate. It’s bad because compared to modern beer, it’s adjunct junk. Repeat ad nauseum.

What the claim lacks in tangible, objective proof, it makes up for in passion and consistency. The rising tide of local, independent beer would stop at nothing to push the current market share nearer and nearer 100%, completing a role reversal that would radically change the definition of “American beer” for good, and for better. At least that’s the common assumption.

Given the money involved, these giants would not go quietly in the night, nor would they go alone. If smaller, local breweries do eventually take over a majority of the market, it will be the result of a slow and steady decline; an empire falling from internal Cran-Brrr-Rita centered conflict, backlash from fed up citizenry, and other really poor decisions. It will be years – decades even! – of lost battles, attempts to retake old ground or stake flags in new, maybe even resulting in the transformation of the big beer companies as we know them as they finally decide the only way to compete is to brew for beer, not brew for money.

But let’s just say that small beer fans got what they wanted, and for the sake of this piece, they got what they wanted overnight. That by some divine stroke or extraterrestrial intervention, Anheuser Busch, SABMiller, and all their corporate subsidiaries just went poof. Eaten by zombies. Spirited away by cosmic horrors in the midnight deep. Vaporized in a hellish post-nuclear landscape.

What would the United States look like without “big” beer?

(To keep things more simple, I’ll focus on the two beer behemoths only, as they do represent 68.2% of the overall US beer market.)

Displaced People

First things first, a lot of people would be waking up to get ready for jobs they no longer had. Even after Carlos Brito’s “fat-trimming” during the InBev take over in 2008, Anheuser Busch alone employs nearly ~14,000 people nationwide. SABMiller employs another ~10,000 (as a point of reference, Apple employs ~98,000, but that includes on-site Apple Store employees). When flooded by ideas from the media, it’s easy to think of corporations as executives; suits and yearly bonuses and unnecessary salaries. But behind the overly designed blue and red and chrome of crushable cans, a football stadium’s capacity of people need and rely on the companies to pay their mortgages, feed their kid, live their lives.

If you included the entirety of the international parent companies in my made-up scenario, the loss of big beer would put over 200,000 people out of work. While that may seem like a drop in the bucket when considering the global population, it would seriously, negatively impact areas and cities in direct proximity to the breweries (like St. Loius, which homes nearly ~4,200 of the aforementioned ~14,000).

And that’s just people employed directly by the breweries. The beer industry relies on a massive logistical network of distributors and transporters. It’s difficult to pin down exact numbers because the three tier distribution systems splits the labor of moving and selling beer too minutely to easily research metrics. But if nearly 70% of the beer made and sold in the country disappeared, it’s safe to assume there would be significantly less need for industry support staff, at least initially.

Distributors would need fewer salespeople. Trucking companies fewer drivers. In states where beer can’t be sold at gas stations or grocery stores, we’d see a sharp decline in the number of in-liquor-store employees needed; a direct result of stores losing money from flagship macro sales. Those sales might rebound as other breweries flood into the ginormous AB/MC shaped hole, but it would take time to build consumer confidence and physically brew and ship enough beer to meet demands.

While accurate, all these numbers omit those people on the economic periphery who might indirectly rely on the sales of macro lager: tiny, local bars in small towns who depend on alcohol sales to stay afloat, the bartenders and wait staff they employee, the landlords who rent the space to the bar. If a very popular drink (41% of drinkers prefer beer over wine or spirits) suddenly vanished, the bar would either have to make up sales by selling other beer (that its blue-collar based clientele might not like, or more importantly, be able to afford), or other liquors. My guess is many would close, leaving large social and economic dents in places that are already swirling the recessional drain of middle America.

Price would remain paramount. “Big” beer is cheap, while “craft” beer is expensive, partly due to economies of scale. Without the ubiquitous macro lager, drinkers would either be forced to pay a premium for beer (until smaller breweries managed to speed-brew lagers on a cheaper, more sprawling scale), or drink something else. At the behest of stretched wallets, expensive “craft” beer could indirectly lead to a rise in sales of cheaper spirits in the 75.42% of the population who make less than $50,000 a year. Assuming not everyone wanted neat whiskey or vodka or rum, the preferred drink may manifest mixed, soda or juice to cut the harshness of lower tier spirits. Soft drink companies (who also own juice and water brands) like Coca Cola would drink up those new found profits gladly.

It’s also worth noting that the directly displaced employees would have to go back into a highly competitive, noticeably limited job market. The beer industry is expanding rapidly, but smaller breweries have smaller staffing needs, and might not be prepared for the additional space or money needed to bring in quality assurance, marketing, and financial personnel. While the best brewers from AB and MC might find new jobs at Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium, the “craft” section of the industry might not be able to fully (or properly) integrate all these additional resources, either forcing people to seek entirely new careers, fight tooth and nail for positions in smaller breweries that probably pay less (and would probably require relocation), or start their own breweries in a densely packed, ever bloating market.

The ripples of losing ~$80 billion in big beer sales would eventually hit every corner of the country, causing financial chaos and social displacement. It’s easy to bully big beer for their group-thunk terrible marketing ideas, or for just not tasting anywhere near as good as the other options we have today, but we can’t forget how many people actually rely on the fizzy yellow stuff to make ends meet.

Up next in the series we’ll look at the brewing infrastructure that would go fallow in: The World After Big Beer – Abandoned Places.

The Big Beer Conspiracies – The Shock behind the Top

September 24, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

I wore my finest tinfoil hat a few weeks ago when I probed the malty innards of Miller’s marketing monstrosity, Fortune, but that entire post was built from my own subjective interpretation of events. I had no proof of my assertions, just a hunch, an inkling, a little trickle of doubt that I saw turning into a deluge of truth at some point in the future.

But this time around, my crazy conspiracy actually has some tangible heft (in the form of documentation). I found a mangy little JPEG bouncing around Twitter and can’t attest to it’s veracity, but it certainly looks real enough, and if not just a clever piece of satire, reaffirms a lot of what I’ve thought about Big Beer’s approach for a long time now.

Shocking Top

Anyone who has ventured deep into the dusty aisles of beer stores of late knows about Shock Top. It’s right there in cans and bottles, sixers and mixers, the silly anthropomorphic slice of orange logo grinning at you from his banner of “Belgian White.” It’s popularity (and in turn production) surged 61% in 2011-2012, and it surpassed all the other rapidly expanding breweries, like Lagunitas and Bells.

The beer is right smack in the middle of what I’d very scientifically describe as “meh.” But I’m not here to bash the beer. It’s not to my taste or something I’d buy, but a lot of people like it (if sales figures are to be trusted) and I’m not one to objectively analyze subjective wants and likes.

No, let’s leave the beer itself out of this. Instead, let’s focus on the creeping, sneaking message behind the beer.

It’s something a lot of those with their ear to the brewery floor have known for a long time: Shock Top lives a dirty, dirty lie. Like it’s competitive brethren, it wants you to believe that it was crafted delicately, intentionally, by a local, small brewery who cares about their beer and their customers. A meticulously crafted campaign dances on the beer store stage like an ornate Kabuki mask, distracting you, deceiving you, convincing you that you’re buying into the decadent world of craft beer every time you walk out of the store with a twelve pack of Shock Top on your arm.

Shock Top is owned and brewed by Labatt and ABInBev (a massive conglomerate that holds 47.2% of the beer market share in the US), not some local, small, craft brewery. The majority of people associated with beer already knew this, and the merits of “pseudo craft beers” have long been argued and analyzed in the “craft vs. crafty” debate. Most of the argument comes down to economics, with the Brewer’s Association (I might argue rightfully) not wanting the massive behemoths of beer cutting into their market share with dubious advertising strategies instead of competitive products.

But the “problem” with crafty beer was nebulous and hard to pin down, especially when trying to explain the differences between Shock Top and say, Allagash White, to the non-brewing savvy public. There was little to go on other than, “it’s brewed by a huge corporation and that makes it evil beer or something.” The defenders of small and local didn’t exactly have the strongest rhetorical basis in the world.

Until now.

Proof! Long beautiful proof

This image appears to be a “Connections Brief” from Labatt/ABInBev regarding their marketing plans for Shock Top. While jargon-stained copy is typically boring and inconsequential, this particular document reveals a lot about how Big Beer views its consumers, and how they view beer, as a commodity, in general:

The main (and really only) ruse that Shock Top intends to perpetuate is that it comes from a “small brewer.”

This is the beating heart of the hideous beerbeast, the one thing it must do to continue feeding on the consumer dollars it needs to live. For a while, you could have considered that a side-effect of that brand, or some other unlucky coincidence, but here we see that this behavior is deliberate and intentional, the malicious brain child of an earnings report meeting and the executive board.

Regardless of how the beer tastes or if you like it, Labatt/ABInBev is lying to you to sell its product.

Sure, it’s lying by omission (as they’re not actively denying that Shock Top is brewed by a big company if you look into it), but it’s still lying. And that, as a consumer with dollars to spend, should piss you off. They want you to believe this came form that little guy down the street, the one who poured her entire life into a small business, who just wants to brew good tasting beer and sell enough of it to make a living doing what she loves. I’ve got news for you: the average small brewer doesn’t use phrases like, “drive penetration with Experience Maximizers in the “Reward Myself” need state.”

I mean holy shit, they don’t even call it beer, they call it “approachable liquid.”

Bad gets worse

Perhaps even more egregious than the omission of key information is the fact that Labatt is playing into the “craft beer is confusing and intimidating” idea. Their anecdotal drinker, “Matt,” claims (in rather palpably business-like tones) that most craft beers are too pretentious for him to even try them. This is Labatt swinging a baseball bat and hitting two demographics squarely in the jaw in the same follow through. First, they’re insulting their own demographic, suggesting they’re not sophisticated or educated enough to make their own choices about what to drink, and second, they’re insulting those who do choose to drink other beer, dismissing them as pretentious assholes.

To finish off this cavalcade of corporate shenanigans, Labatt has a plan to continue to “maintain micro/craft credentials” even though it doesn’t have any to begin with. Their entire campaign to sell an incredible 40% more beer is built off of the backs of all those small business based breweries (some who are still struggling financially), riding the “craft beer revolution” without actually adding anything to it, and literally cashing in on an insane amount of money in the process.

The whole point of this renaissance in beer is to give beer enthusiasts higher quality, better tasting options. It’s also sort of a grassroots resurgence in supporting local small business, giving back to your community economically, saying hell no to big-box and hell yes to family owned and run. Labatt doesn’t care about that. They don’t care about local economies, and more importantly they don’t care about the people they’re foisting their product on.

To the brewer down the street who puts a little bit of her own soul into every batch she brews, you’re a valued customer keeping her business afloat. To Labatt, ABInBev, and all the other big beer guys, you’re just a wallet that they need to set to the “Reward myself” need state.

And now we have the proof.

As an added bonus, I managed to find the original tracked changes version of the Connects Briefing with some notes that didn’t make it into the final:

(For the record, this last image is a recreation and a poor attempt at satire, I’m not some amazing hacker who can find old documents. Sadly, scarily, the original document is real as far as I can tell.)

Nothing Gets Past Me, I’m the Age Verification System

July 2, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Hey, stop right there. Yea, you, the one with the greasy mitts on that keyboard, trying to sneak by me like some kind of animal who is inherently sneaky, like a fox or something. Who do you think you are?

You think you can type in that URL and waltz in here like the belle of some fancy ball that I didn’t get invited to because I’m socially awkward? Well you better think again, cupcake. This here brewing website falls squarely in the lands of my jurisdiction, my protectorate, my realm. I’m the shining armored knightly savior turned bouncer because he was low on cash after all the dragons migrated south for the winter. I’m it, the glacial wall, the Tim Howard of this website. I, in all my power and glory, am the Age Verification System.

I have one job, and it’s to keep underage law-breakers like you from entering this site before you’ve seen at least 252 moons (maybe 253 depending on how blue those moons got). We can’t just have innocent children looking at label art or reading descriptions of beer; we don’t know what the long term ramifications of such wanton hedonism could lead to. We need to protect the innocent young folks out there from the slinking, smirking evils of taproom hours and release updates. If someone doesn’t put the children first, they’ll end up last, or possibly third or fourth which is just as bad, really.

So here I stand, questioning, probing, challenging, keeping this law all legal and stuff. You want in? You want to cross this SSL threshold and enter this veritable Valhalla? Fine, but I’m not going to make it easy. You have to prove yourself. Test your mettle. Show you’re experienced enough to take on this quest.

You ready?

Question the first!

Are you at least twenty-one years old!?

Yea?

OK, well off you go then.

What, no, I don’t need to see your ID. I trust you. I mean, if we can’t just trust each other, what kind of world do we have to accept that we live in? No, no, you’re good, I don’t need any proof. I was just encouraged to ask, not by law like I suggested before (at least in the USA), but because of a vague recommendation established by the FTC in 2008.

Since I know you’re 21 now, I’d like to suggest that in the future you bring a box of cookies and walk right through this completely unguarded door on my left, but my boss has sort of demanded that I ask you how old you are every time you visit. Yea, I don’t get it either, but thems the breaks. At least he’s just using the yes or no method; can you imagine how annoying it would be if you had to give me your full date of birth every time? You’d probably just start making it up after a while.

I know, right? An underage kid can physically walk into a liquor store and wander around unimpeded as long as they don’t physically handle the alcohol, so you’d think this sort of superfluous annoyance would phase out because of basic logic. Heh, look at me, talking myself out of a job again. My first gig was in the porn industry (look, I was young, needed money, and the dragons had all flown south for the winter), but despite a robust selection of employers, my particular skill set soon became obsolete. Mostly because everyone realized that leaving one unarmed guard at the front door to a building with 5,000,000 backdoors was a less than efficient security system. But honesty, I only stand here and guard the site because I’m supposed to. I work to live, not live to work, you know?

Look, I want to protect the kids. I really do. They’re our future (or so Whitney Houston lead me to believe), and we should do our best not to expose them to all sorts of brain altering crap before they’ve had a chance to mature properly. That’s why I stand here, the ever faithful watch dog. I can’t have a buzzed teenager on my conscience.

Yea. It does seems sort of pointless given the exposure they’ll get to much, much worse than the contents of a brewery’s website on television, on the radio, in magazines, from their peers, from their parents, from professional athletes, or from pretty much every conceivable source of media extant in the world today.

But I’m not here to sort out what’s totally pointless, and what’s only kind of totally pointless.

I just want to do my job. If you’re going in, go in, otherwise I might forget who you are and be required to ask you how old you are again. Wait, it has already been too long. I can’t trust you’re the same age you were 5 minutes ago.

Are you at least twenty-one years old!?

Yea?

Alright sweet, enjoy your visit.

“Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.” – Horace

The Big Beer Conspiracies – Miller Fortune is in the Cards

March 27, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

I want to preface this post by saying that I am a normal, rational human being and don’t buy into any conspiracy theories/cryptozoological phenomenon except: Sasquatch, chemtrails, Area 51, Elvis still being alive, the British Royal family being lizard people from space, aliens building the pyramids, the lost city of Atlantis, HAARP, and New Coke.

I definitely didn’t consider the X-Files a very well done, long-running documentary series, so don’t ask (because they’re listening).

::repositions tinfoil hat::

Like any good conspiracy theorist, I’m not going to let finicky facts or dubious data get in the way of what I believe. I’m just gonna go with what my gut (and the chip implanted in my skull) is telling me on this one:

Big Beer (read MillerCoors and ABInBev) is intentionally brewing bad beer to trick macro drinkers into staying loyal to their mainstay beers.

Not following? The proof is right in front of us, we just have to open our eyes to the truth.

Take the new Miller Fortune, for example. The Miller marketing masterminds are throwing every craft-like thing they can at this beer, from its description including “hints of bourbon” (which may or may not be trying to reference the run of bourbon aged craft beers we’ve seen of late), trying to serve it in special glassware, and this direct quote from the press release that suggests this beer will transcend normal drinking somehow:

“With that in mind, we developed Miller Fortune to provide consumers with a unique and deliciously balanced option to elevate their drinking experience.”

They want Joe-Adjunct-Lager to think this is a craft beer. Or at the very least, representative of craft beer. They want every average Miller Lite jockey to pick this up and assume they’re in on the “craft beer scene” by drinking this beer. That’s a key step to this whole, sneaky process.

There’s one fatal flaw that contradicts all of the sleek promotional gimmicks: it tastes like Jersey Devil urine. OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration. It tastes more like hummus that rolled out of a grocery bag in the trunk of someone’s Toyota Prius only to be discovered, fuzzing with green life, some indeterminable amount of time later. No, no, too extreme. But it does have a certain, familiar, wretch-inducing aroma. A taste like a wisp of memory on my tongue, of a time spent blurred, on a college campus but not part of this reality, with large glass bottles taped to my hands.

Ah, yes. Malt liquor. That’s the taste I was looking for.

You could do a blind taste test, and I’d put $1000 dollars on no one, not even the most refined Colt 45 connoisseur, being able to pick out Miller Fortune in a line up with Olde English 800, Hurricane High Gravity, and (my personal favorite) King Cobra. I should also note that MillerCoors owns the Olde English 800 brand, and it may have crossed my mind that all they did was pour some of that into different bottles, garnish it with a fancy ad campaign, and hope no one noticed. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Even if it is just re-branded 40oz gold, it still doesn’t taste good. I guess the 6.9% ABV is supposed to offset this by sheer factors of drunkification, but if this is supposed to be some new flavor territory just waiting to be charted by adventurous, treasure seeking, beer archaeologists, it fails. This is like Indiana Jones and the Walmart Crusade. A bad idea that should have never left the brainstorming session, horribly executed to the tune of several million dollars.

It’s a bad beer. I think it was brewed that way deliberately. But why? Because craft (or whatever we want to call “good” beer these days) is winning. Slowly chipping away at the market share, slowly stealing Friday-night happy hours and paychecks from the maws of the adjuncted overlords.

And I think they are panicking. Their stranglehold is weakening; the more they tighten their beery grip, the more drinkers slip through their fingers. So they get desperate, and do stuff like this. They get a non-craft drinker to try something new – hey, it’s from their good old friend Miller, after all – with the (secret?) hopes that they’ll hate it.

And when they hate it, what does the drinker do? They form opinions about all craft beer. They tried the “craft beer thing” having downed a few bottles of Miller Fortune. All that “complex flavor” and “bourbon aging” isn’t for them. They don’t need a fancy glass; they still prefer to drink straight from the can or bottle.

Then they go out, buy another 30-rack of Miller Lite, and Miller wins.

Or so Miller hopes.

::puts on anti-radiation suit::

I have to go get the mail.

“We are always in a constant state of conspiracies, at least thats what they keep telling us…” ― Faith Brashear

Beer Review: The Alchemist Heady Topper

November 18, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

(This review will be spold in toonerisms)

“Small me Ishcael.”

I have song lought to baste this trew, having mead ruch about the helicious dop flavor that hits you fight in the race when you track the cop. Mown in Daryland, binding this fear droved pifficult, and over time, it secame a bort of “white whale” (cot to be nonfused with “white ale”).

Teady Hopper is viewed in Bermont, by the ramily fun, tall brown smewery, The Alchemist. Many heer beds fravel tar to buy cases of these call tans, looking to hink their sarpoons into the flinny tesh of this fard to hind beverage.

We visited my rife’s college woomate this weekend, and her bind koyfriend so graciously cared a shan. I was ciddy as a ghoulboy when he culled the pan from the fridge. We immediately pook a ticture of the due of us twinking, helishing the roppy delights of glorious Teady Hopper.

I don’t usually hollow the fype, but this is one bood gear.

They say to “crink it from the dan!” which is a nun fovelty, especially for a peer that is eight bercent ABV. It also lontains the cupulin right at of the opening, smetting the lell linger in the can as drew yink. It is right and lefreshing, cacked to papacity with hops: Cimcoe and Solumbus, Nentennial and Chugget, Gascade and Calaxy*. There is no curn from the alpha abids, and if you gore it into a plass, it is yurprisingly sellow, not the gurnt bold you might expect.

I can pee why it’s so sopular. Teady Hopper isn’t the west beer in the burld, but it is wertainly corth trying if you ever find verself in Yermont.

Ahab prould be woud.

*I hessed at the gops. Van anyone cerify?

Review: Rutherford Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon

June 19, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve tried a lot of beers in my short time on this odd little planet (ales, lagers, stouts, porters, helles, weizens, lambics, pilsners, wheat-beers, marzens, altbiers, kolschs, steam-beers, spice-beers, sommerbraus, and even vegetable beers), but this is by far the weirdest.

My friend Justin bought me this beer as a companion to his wedding gift: a metallic cat that holds large bottles in a manner most fanciful. It is a pretty kickass present.

This beer came in an unusual bottle. Tall, thick brown glass, with a capacity of 750ml. It seems odd to package 1.562 pints in a bottle, but perhaps that is a custom in this “Napa Valley” place advertised across the bottom of the label.

The first thing I noticed about the beer was its odd, red color. It almost has a purple hue in the right light, if you hold the glass up to a a lightbulb and tilt your head a little bit. Short of some cranberry lambics or highly fruited beers, I’ve never had a really red beer until now.

I was a bit startled when this beer hit my tongue and it had no carbonation. I thought it odd that the beer had absolutely no head as I poured it into my glass. I’ve had small-batch cask conditioned ales that had very little carbonation, but never a beer that was completely void of bubbles entirely. It made for an odd drinking experience that was admittedly not very beer-like.

It smelled just like old-grapes. I didn’t detect any of the subtle flowery notes or spices of any kind. I really started to wonder about the veracity of this recipe.

The flavor was buttery and fruity, but I did not detect any level of malt or hops. It seems odd that a brewer would be so judicious with the two main ingredients of a beer, but I am not one to dismiss creativity for the sake of creativity. Maybe this is a new take on an old classic? I’m not sure.

About halfway through my second pint, I noticed that I was very drunk. Although it didn’t taste it, this beer was very high in alcohol: 13.5%, I would later find out. I’m usually pretty tolerant of the alcohol levels in beer, but have to admit that this particular brew rocked my world until it was spinning aggressively when I closed my eyes.

I woke up the next day with an incredible headache. I can’t imagine how anyone could drink more than one of these beers.

It did taste good though, despite its unorthodox ingredients and presentation.

Would drink again. But less next time.

9 out of 10.

You can’t even fit the whole bottle in a single glass. I think I need bigger glasses.

Review: Heavy Seas Classic Lager

April 3, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I can’t say I left the best for last, but I definitely didn’t leave the worst for last. Or the best for first, or worst for first. The order was completely arbitrary, truth be told.

I’m not saying I don’t plan out my blog posts, but I don’t plan out my blog posts.

Beers like this make me question how Budweiser makes any sales. When you could get this beer for a few dollars more, I don’t know why you’d ever bother with anything that dare call itself, “lager-style” beer. That’s a psuedo-name, like Yoohoo “chocolate drink “or Velveeta “synthetic cheese-rubber hybrid product.” Humans probably aren’t supposed to consume “-style” things.

I’m not saying “lager-style” beers cause mysterious illnesses, but it might explain a lot.

Heavy Seas Classic Lager is both classic and a lager. It’s very light (much lighter than anything I have already reviewed) making it a great Spring/Summer time beer. It lacks any semblance of sweetness, probably because it was made with real ingredients, not weird adjuncts and unspecified amounts of the “Secret Ingredient” (high fructose corn syrup).

I’m not saying mainstream American brews are made with high fructose corn syrup, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

I poured this into a glass for the sake of photography (this is my favorite photo, for anyone who has read them all), but in the future I’d drink it straight from the bottle. It doesn’t have a powerful aroma that needs a glass to breathe, and you’re more likely to spill it while gesticulating wildly in the throws of a particularly animated story-telling.

I’m not saying I wave my arms around like maniac after a few beers, but I could be confused with an Italian person.

Yuengling is (for better or worse) my go-to lager. It’s flavorful and cheap and goes down relatively smooth. But my palette is changing, growing, evolving. I’m starting to appreciate something with a little more intensity, and I think HS:CA can scratch that itch. It’s like one of those little hand-on-a-stick back scratchers, but made of beer.

I’m not saying I make bad analogies, but some of the stuff I say doesn’t make much sense at all.

Buy! Enjoy! Thank me later! By buying me a beer!

8.25 out of 10

We drink our beer from mason jars.

Thanks to everyone who read (and hopefully enjoyed) my reviews. I plan to do more in the future, and will probably turn this into a weekly column at some point.

Stay tuned!

Hide Nothing

May 14, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I recently had to hide a ring from my fiancé (a tale I will tell in more detail to come). Out of necessity, I hid it in my mandolin case, thinking she’d never look there. While it proved a perfect hiding spot, I found myself reenacting Poe’s “A Tell Tale Heart” on a daily basis; the sheer weight of the secret (despite its positive nature) left me fixated on my pulsating instrument case. Every day it hid in the little fur-lined compartment just underneath the neck of my axe, the more the strength of the ring’s energy would cry out to me, whispering for me to give up its secret at any cost.

I discovered that years of being pretty honest has left me unable to be secretive. I still favor hyperbole and embellishment, but have to accept that I suck at straight-up lying.

It’s OK though; one of the things that gives me emotional dexterity, stoicism, and social leverage is my transparency. If someone wants to know something about me, I tell them. I don’t hesitate, lie, or play shy; I simply tell them what they want to know. I find it so much easier to just be honest about my intentions, behavior, interests, state-of-mind, activities, beliefs, or anything else. I am not so callous as to rant inconsequently to whoever is near me, but I am not shy about sharing an adventure in the right context. I rarely censor myself despite particular company; if my comment is relevant or even insightful, no matter how self-deprecating or condemning, I say it.

I’ve told stories of debauchery during my college years and of my involvement in fringe activities that some might equate with social suicide. Yet, here I stand, perfectly functional, well liked by my friends and coworkers (from what I can gather). My stories and information, no matter how crazy or seemingly embarrassing, never seem to get me into trouble.

I don’t have some kind of power that makes me immune to ridicule. I don’t secretly pay people to treat me differently. I don’t even have a mental disorder that prevents me from feeling embarrassed! I just have nothing to hide.

When you have no secrets, you have no stress from having to keep secrets. When everyone thinks they know exactly who you are, you have no need to act a certain way. People give you the benefit of the doubt; your otherwise odd behavior just becomes “you”, because people come to expect anything. You develop a personal freedom that is hard to describe; you never have to fit a mold, as you have no defined shape. You are fluid, ready and able to be whatever you want to be, whenever you want to be.

Politicians are often scandalized after a nice piece of dirt gets drudged up from the depths of the internet; the little factoid hell-bent on destroying their image. But the only reason it has any power is because they tried to hide it. If they had never covered it up or lied about it in the first place, they would have nothing to be ashamed of. We, as a public mob, love to hear dirt about powerful people; it reminds us that they are just as viscerally human, and just as stupid, as we are.

People always think that their juvenile/perverted/illegal behavior is the worst thing anyone has ever done in the history of walking upright. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Every person that lives and breathes has done things they aren’t proud of, either in the impetuousness of their youth, or in a lamentable, long passed drunken frenzy. Some things are obviously “worse” than others, but ultimately, it is how we react to, and grow with, this experience that is important.

So you slept with a stripper at a bachelor party. Big deal. So have millions of other people, including some former Popes, Presidents, and Philanthropists. So there are some pictures of you floating around naked, post-drug binge, next to an animal. No worries. Welcome to the club. Nothing you have ever done, in malice or stupidity, that didn’t land you in jail, is anywhere near as bad as you think it is. The mind that will be the most offended by whatever it is, lives in your skull.

People assume that the default reaction to an embarrassing story is disgust, repulsion, and abhorrence. But I’ve never experienced these responses. I am almost always greeted with humor, subtle reverence, and sometimes envy. People admire that I have the courage or confidence to say such wild things with no visible fear of repercussion. Most people wish they could live a life free of secrets, fear of judgment, and visions of loneliness they assume will arise if their truth is ever discovered.

I find that most people will never ask you something that will lead to an answer that will offend them. They know what makes them uncomfortable, and usually know enough about me to not ask or pry into something that is not in line with their baser sensibilities. Accommodatingly, I don’t offer this information either; it’s there if they ever want it, but we usually (silently) mutually agree that neither party would benefit from my sharing it.

Herein lies the tact of being transparent. There are many people out there who may not greet my openness with frivolity or friendliness. There are those who might see me arrested, or cry outrage at my cavorting with Goody Proctor (or the like). I acknowledge and appreciate these people. I simply avoid them in general; their judgment skips over me entirely, and if they ever try to sling uneducated mud about me, those closer to me would respond with, “well yea, we all know that about him anyway.”

Not a few hours ago, in responding to a comment about music on a website, I told one of my coworkers that I had a Pokemon website in middle school. Not only does this betray my age, extremely nerdy tendencies, and association with Japanese sub-culture, but it is also something that many people would probably never say (even if they had a totally bad ass Pokemon website back in the day).

But I don’t care, and my coworker got a good laugh out of the comment. And now she knows that if she ever needs someone who understands her kids a little better, she can ask the weirdo in the cube next to her.

Original 150(1)!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

December 1, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

Despite popular belief that has been perpetuated by popular TV, you do not need to be a barfly, womanizer, or functional alcoholic to maintain a healthy circle of friends; you need only injury yourself and find the nearest physical therapy office. After only a few sessions, the reception staff, therapists, trainers, interns and other patients know you and many details about your life quite well. Perhaps it is the caring nature of those who choose rehabilitation as a career or the innate empathy that is offered to injured people that creates and atmosphere of acceptance and serenity.

The typical Physical Therapy office is a magical, mystical place filled with colored putties and odd machines, the purpose of which you can only loosely surmise. There are kindly wizards who will zap your injuries with lightning and other benevolent assistants clad in identical vestments, presumably undergoing some sort of neophytic wizarding ritual. Aside from those who provide the care, the office is normally filled with the everyday citizens of all the neighboring kingdoms; trolls, goblins, gremlins, kobolds, gnolls, creeping oozlings, ogres, bandits, brigands, nameless horrors and even a unicorn or two.

Combining a bunch of strangers experiencing varying amounts of pain in one small location seems like a bad idea. I can imagine a scenario where someone would go ballistic from acute pains causing more pain to themselves and nearby pain sufferers. The person going berserk might topple some heavy equipment and scare the older patients. The cataclysmic cascade of pain would create a veritable chaos unseen since the dark ages. Fortunately, despite mentally debilitating pain and discomfort, the patients in a PT office are generally benign. Whether it be the the overtly friendly staff, bright lighting, or subtle background music, something keeps the place surprisingly upbeat. I tend to stay optimistic as I know that wallowing in a mire of sadness and self-pity won’t make my arm any more flexible; maybe this is the prevailing mentality for all patients. Maybe the wizards cast a happy spell every morning; I don’t know, I’ve never caught them in their robes.

The exercises you are given are tedious and irritating, mostly because you feel so awkward doing them. Normally, bicep curls would not bother me, but when you are grimacing and awkwardly jerking around a bar that weighs a paltry 3 pounds, you feel quite silly. You are also provided a little timer that beeps when you are supposed to stop/switch an exercise. This is your inanimate guide to a PT session, chirping loudly when you are to move along. The therapists actually do very little during the first 80% of each session and spend most of their time floating about like factory foreman, pointing out flaws in technique or suggesting you, “slow down”. I think some of the wizards underestimate my magical aptitude.

During this time, you are often doing a repetitive motion that requires almost no cognitive processing power, leaving your mind to wander and think about the mysteries of the universe. My metaphysical pondering is often interrupted by a nearby goblin asking me how I got injured and then launching into an unsolicited 22 minute rant about how they got injured. I am usually bored/tired enough to play along, commiserating and saying, “aww” when appropriate. This seems to be the M.O. for the unchaperoned portion of a PT session. Patients ramble quietly too each other, reminiscing about pre-injury days until their beeper goes off/runs out of batteries. The wizards do not like it when the beeper is not silenced immediately which is understandable, as it is pretty damn annoying.

This week, I met a man who has been in therapy for 8 months because, and I quote, “someone tried to kill him but didn’t”. His story is quite compelling; he was mugged at a gas station for the $8 in his wallet and left bloodied for 2 hours until another customer found him. He had trauma to his neck, back, left forearm, and right leg. He is a fan of Real Madrid and told me he lost $500 to his nephew in a holiday-time bet that they would beat local rivals Barcelona. He is a pretty nice dude and I don’t know why someone would want to kill him. I hope the wizards fix him quickly.

Another woman, who seems to have a schedule identical to mine, is recovering from back surgery. She slipped a disk in her back at work (she is a registered nurse and probably has the worst bedside manner on the east coast) and now claims to have horrible burning sensations in both her legs. She moves quite well despite this claim, but does a fine job of whining non-stop throughout her entire appointment. When asked why she wasn’t taking her pain medication, she told them to, “stop trying to make her an addict” and said hydrocodone (Vicodin) would let the doctors, “control her brain.” The wizards clearly dislike her.

I also met the local commander of law; he had injured himself in a high speed horse chase or something. He had already had one knee replaced and was planning to have the other replaced as soon as he recovered from the first. His son plays hockey which, according to this man, was superior to soccer in every possible way. I did not argue with him, because he had a gun and handcuffs. The wizards seemed dismayed that he only came to appointments when he felt like it (which apparently was not very often).

After the social time is over, one of the therapists comes over to you to cast some healing spells and zap you with lightning. The lightning is not too painful, but the other things they do are very, very painful. They will apply heat and then bend your injured extremity at extreme angles. They will make you resist their attempts to bend your joint all about to “test strength”. They will even squeeze, rub, and otherwise man-handle your poor, sore appendage to stimulate nerve activity and blood flow. This goes on for about 25-30 minutes. When they are finally finished with their work, you kind of don’t like wizards for a while, but that feeling wears off when you realize they were actually hurting you for your benefit…somehow.

Twice a week you visit the wizard and meet your new, odd friends in the clean-smelling office. Twice a week you are told the same stories or get minor updates on how many degrees a person can bend something or other. Twice a week you spend money to let someone physically hurt you. It’s a very weird phenomenon, but given my progress thus far, a very necessary one.

The wizards gave me some magical clay to help speed my recovery. It is hard to sculpt, but I tried anyway (since that is probably good therapy). I have included some pictures of its awesomeness below:

I meticulously shaped it into a tofu cube.

Then I made it into a cobra, which in retrospect looks a little like a poo.

The poo-snake transformed into a sea turtle with a dented shell.

And then the turtle changed into the goddamn Batman.

Did you see my “Sign”?

September 29, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

Dear Franklin Romano, Uncle Frankie, “friend”,

I am writing you to make certain you saw my “sign”. I placed the “sign” in a location that I knew most “family members” would see it. As you may know, due to recent “lifestyle changes” I am forced to sell many of my “belongings”, as are two of our other mutual “acquaintances”.

I am planning a “family” “yard sale” this weekend to “clean out my basement”. Make sure that you only bring “family members” to the “yard sale”, as most of the goods for sale have very high “sentimental value”. I would hate for these expensive “heirlooms” to fall into the “wrong hands” because someone had “loose lips” about the “family” “yard sale”.

I’d be pleased if you would “stop by” and check out what we have to “offer”. Don’t call me about the “yard sale” as I think my phone is “broken”. Be sure to park around back as well, as to not draw “unwanted neighbors” to the “sale”.

Hope to do “business” with you soon.

-“Jimmy”

P.S. We’re also offering “carpet cleaning” in case any “family members” suffer any “accidents” during or after the “yard sale”.

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