An American Lion

This is where Norman Rogers practices the manly art of curation.

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The Frisky Mole Boy of Groton

Norman Rogers recounts the summer he spent hiding from the stern love of his father and living as the world-famous “frisky mole boy” in the Groton, Connecticut sewer system. The Frisky Mole Boy of Groton seduced the women of the town and solved crimes, all while subsisting on a steady diet of depravity and confusion.

Rampage of the Innocents is my unfinished but brilliant Historical Romance Novel (now, with more sex and violence for my teenaged readers)

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    An American Lion

    Entries in Beer (25)

    Sunday
    Jul182010

    Never Give Up Your Hillbilly Lifestyle

    Somewhere, hidden in this picture, is nothing to do with moonshine or making hard liquor in the woodsI have never understood why the government just doesn't let people make their own alcohol. What's the harm of it? If they poison themselves, so be it. I would rather have limitations on salt rather than alcohol, any day.

    Police raid moonshiners in a New York basement in 1925

    A growing number of Americans are thought to be getting involved in moonshining - distilling illegal liquor. Traditionally hidden in the backwoods, stills are now going into production in cities across the nation, as Claire Prentice reports from New York.

    Against the backdrop of the recession and the current craze for artisan produce, illegal distilling clubs and "kitchen-sink" operations are popping up all over the US, from California to New York and Pennsylvania.

    Making and selling moonshine is outlawed in every US state and the police treat distilling liquor without a license as a serious crime.

    But while official figures are hard to come by, experts believe as many as a million Americans could be breaking the law by making moonshine - also known as white lightning and white dog.

    "There's been a huge increase in the number of people making moonshine," says Max Watman, whose book, Chasing the White Dog, chronicles moonshine's colourful history.

    Granted, it's not as profitable as the manufacturing of crystal methamphetamine, which is slightly more dangerous, but still.

    If we can survive the earnest pretensions of the microbrewery, I think we can survive a little white lightning. This is what gave us NASCAR, after all, and, who knows? Maybe this new breed of moonshiner can give us the iPhone equivalent of NASCAR, courtesy of a busted hub cap filled with pure moonshine.

    Moonshine, a love story told with little figures

    Ah, the smell of hard liquor in the morning. Throw another piece of wood on the fire and hope to hell the Revenuers don't show up before this batch is done.

    Thursday
    Jul082010

    Yes, But Salt Can and Will Kill You, Mr. Will

    Don't let me rain on the parade here, but these cheap shots against regulating the use of salt are off base:

    Daniel Okrent's darkly hilarious "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right -- and condemned the nation's fifth-largest industry -- in order to make the nation more heavenly. Then all hell broke loose. Now that ambitious government is again hell-bent on improving Americans -- from how they use salt to what light bulbs they use -- Okrent's book is a timely tutorial on the law of unintended consequences.

    Salt is a silent killer, overused in food and not widely understood by the American people. I'm not for banning salt; I'm saying it should be regulated and used sparingly. Nothing is making fatass nation more miserable than salt.

    Anyway, Will gives us this:

    After the first few years, alcohol consumption dropped only 30 percent. Soon smugglers were outrunning the Coast Guard ships in advanced speedboats, and courts inundated by violations of Prohibition began to resort to plea bargains to speed "enforcement" of laws so unenforceable that Detroit became known as the City on a Still.

    Prohibition agents cherished $1,800 jobs because of the bribes that came with them. Fiorello La Guardia taunted the government that it would need another "150,000 agents to watch the first 150,000." Exemptions from Prohibition for church wine and medicinal alcohol became ludicrously large -- and lucrative -- loopholes.

    After 13 years, Prohibition, by then reduced to an alliance between evangelical Christians and criminals, was washed away by "social nullification" -- a tide of alcohol -- and by the exertions of wealthy people, such as Pierre S. du Pont, who hoped that the return of liquor taxes would be accompanied by lower income taxes. (They were.)

    Ex-bootleggers found new business opportunities in the southern Nevada desert. And in the Second World War, draft boards exempted brewery workers as essential to the war effort.

    The many lessons of Okrent's story include: In the fight between law and appetite, bet on appetite. And: Americans then were, and let us hope still are, magnificently ungovernable by elected nuisances.

    And he reminds me of my deep and abiding love for the du Ponts. Bless them, they were and are great Americans.

    Wednesday
    Jun302010

    Butterbeer Tastes Like Ass

    This is ButterbeerAfter some scientific work done right here in my own home, I can pass some judgement on to you about a product that millions of people are going to consume just because it doesn't really exist.

    "Butterbeer" is a drink made popular by the Harry Potter series of fiction books. Apparently, when the students want to get hammered and forget about their problems with wizard academia, they get drunk on butterbeer and shoot off guns (or wands) and then they, you know. Drink some more.

    The popularity of the books, and the opportunity to market something that people can gorge themselves on, was just too great, I guess:

    Immediately after The Wizarding World's June 18 opening, butterbeer was one of the most searched-for terms on the Internet. A butterbeer recipe on MuggleNet.com got 3,445 hits when the park opened, up from an average 350 daily views before the opening, according to MuggleNet.com spokesman Andrew Sims. Now the recipe is averaging 1,200 daily views.

    Even DISboards.com, a site for fans of Disney World, has a separate thread for comments related to Universal's butterbeer.

    Universal would not release its butterbeer recipe, but press materials describe the drink as "reminiscent of shortbread and butterscotch."

    We mixed up our own butterbeer here at the house. We downloaded the recipe and followed it religiously. Well, that's really not accurate. I substituted A-1 sauce for two of the ingredients we didn't have on hand. The results caused Miranda to throw up on the couch. Don't worry. The couch is fine.

    Byron drank some and said it was acceptable in mixed company. He's the second biggest Harry Potter fan in the house, however. We are evenly split--I don't care for the books because I don't read fiction. Miranda, Peej and Byron all love the books and cried the day that they all reached the end of the series. Boo hoo. I wish I had blogged about that. It was pathetic. You'd think that their collective innocence and their childhood ended at the same time.

    Anyway, I tried to keep this a scientific research endeavor by trying to inject some cold-blooded science into the process.. That failed miserably because Peej drank some and pronounced it lovely. I'm not sure if a drink can be lovely, but I thought it tasted like a cream soda gone horribly wrong. And, no. It wasn't the A-1 sauce. That's what made it palatable for me.

    Had it not been for the A-1, I think it would have tasted like old Christmas Candy.

    Wednesday
    Jun302010

    Trading While Impaired

    If they tried to ban someone in this country for trading on a binge, they'd have to ban everyone:

    Britain's financial regulator has fined and banned a former broker for manipulating oil prices by buying more than 7 million barrels while on a drinking binge.

    The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said it fined Steven Perkins, a former employee of PVM Oil Futures Ltd, 72,000 pounds ($108,000) and banned him from working in financial services for at least five years for carrying out trades without the authority of clients or his employer.

    The FSA said Perkins bought huge volumes of Brent crude oil in the early hours of the morning on June 30, 2009 after drinking heavily for several days and then lied repeatedly to his employer to cover up his actions.

    "Perkins' drunkenness does not excuse his market abuse," said Alexander Justham, director of markets at the FSA.

    "Perkins has been banned because he is not a fit and proper person to be involved in regulated activities, and his behavior posed a risk to the proper functioning of the market."

    The trades landed PVM with a loss of $10 million last summer. The company is the world's largest independent oil broker, executing trades on behalf of clients but not carrying out trading for its own account.

    I believe this sort of thing is still commonplace, although I wouldn't know since I haven't been able to do any significant in-person trading for quite a while (thanks to my conviction in 1994 on insider trading). I remember waiting for certain individuals to "find" the bottle of brandy in their desk drawer and start trading. Certain individuals wouldn't start dealing until they were good and drunk, and even then you couldn't get anything out of them until they were blotto.

    I'm not much of a drinker. The only "binge" I would go on involved Sour Patch candy. I'd eat that and get sugared up but retain most of my good judgement.

    Friday
    Jun252010

    The Hillbilly Drinks Budweiser?

    Bill Clinton drinks Budweiser next to a shirtless manBudweiser? My God, man. If that's all they're serving, then pull a greenie out of the special cooler in your limo and tell everyone you don't know where it came from.
    Thursday
    Jun172010

    This is No Way to Sell Beer to Drunks

    Skinny girls in orange mini-dresses do tend to stand out in a crowdHave a gander at the latest from the World Cup:

    It was, the authorities claim, a gimmick cynically designed to capture the attention of the world's media - and, if so, it was wildly successful.

    When 36 young women wearing orange mini-dresses associated with the Dutch brewers Bavaria entered the stands at South Africa's Soccer City Stadium for the Netherlands versus Denmark match, the cameras, predictably, turned towards them en masse, capturing shots that would grab the attention of picture editors worldwide.

    The reaction of those in charge was swift and ruthless.

    All of the mini-skirted ladies were ejected from the venue and two were arrested on charges of organising "unlawful commercial activities". Meanwhile, a spokesman for the tournament's governing body Fifa said it was looking into "all available legal remedies" against the brewery.

    I think you would have a hard time making the case that this was unlawful in the United States. I think that someone would be able to weasel their way out of it and get away with it. Guerilla marketing is what I call it because there were no guns used in this ambush. They are serious about making sure no one makes money from the World Cup, I guess. I don't know. Part of me doesn't get how hot chicks in orange mini-dresses could sell anything other than...orange mini-dresses. But that's me. I'm numb to this sort of thing. Advertising doesn't work on me anymore because I'm old. I've seen it all.

    Thursday
    Jun102010

    Drink Your Ass Off and Sell Your Soul

    Don't Buy or Sell It's CrapI'm not savvy to what is, and what is not, a viral marketing campaign. I would like to think that I could spot such a thing but I'm lucky if I can tell when someone is not entirely on the up-and-up when I'm reading my E-mail. I've been getting the "you've won the Euro lottery" SPAM on a regular basis now. I never entered the Euro lottery! Why would I be winning it? If I give you my telephone number and my bank account, will you put the winnings in there and let me know about future prizes? How come the $4,555 that I had in that account suddenly disappeared (that's my mad money account for U.S. travel expenses)? None of this is making sense.

    Smirnoff is having a hard time selling their crap beverages, so they've resorted to nonsense:

    The premise of the game is simple: hand a friend a sugary Smirnoff Ice malt beverage and he (most participants have been men) has to drink it on one knee, all at once — unless he is carrying a bottle himself, in which case the attacker must drink both bottles of what Mr. Rospos described as a “pretty terrible” drink.

    Amid suspicion that the trend is an elaborate viral marketing campaign by Smirnoff, which the company has denied, new icing photos are posted daily on various blogs,Twitter and Facebook — including scenes from graduations and weddings — and sent directly to a Web site, BrosIcingBros.com. The speed with which Mr. Rospos and a group of his friends from high school adopted the game mirrors the rapid spread of Bros Icing Bros from the Web to backyards, living rooms and cubicles around the country, exploding from obscurity in May into a bizarre pastime of college students, young professionals and minor celebrities that counts among its targets the rapper Coolio, the actor Dustin Diamond and members of the rock band The National. A campaign online aims to ice Ashton Kutcher, who often serves as a kind of Kevin Bacon of Web memes, linking disparate areas of the Internet in fewer than six degrees.

    The game has exposed the mercurial line between guerrilla advertising and genuine social media trends, raising questions about how young consumers can know when they have co-opted a brand for their own purposes, and when that brand has co-opted them.

    “Guys who would never buy Smirnoff before are even buying it now to shield against attacks,” said Kevin Wolkenfeld, a junior at the University of Central Florida in Orlandowho documented the phenomenon for the school paper. (According to the rules, the only way to block an attack — besides simply refusing to participate — is by carrying a bottle.) Most players — a widening swath of the campus, he said — would probably stop “if it turns out they’re being used to market a drink they really don’t like.”

    I'll tell you what will shield you from attacks:

     Heineken

    Just drink greenies. And, anyone who tries to "ice" you? Smack them in the gob.

    Saturday
    Apr242010

    I Do Love the Greenies

     

     

    Hey, Google deleted my blog. You know, the one for Scuddy's Bar.

    Here's what I believe happened. Thanks to the Iranians, who were upset that a post on that blog received thousands of hits because it detailed how to dismantle and damage their riot control vehicles, Google was bombarded with complaints about the blog--you know, where people click on "this is SPAM."

    Well, that blog was where I would put the occasional extra post or things like this. I use a service called Posterous to autopost things, and I have been experimenting with it for months. I love Posterous. I loved my Scuddy's Bar blog.

    I have fifteen or sixteen other blogs, so screw you, Mr. Autobot Drone, working for Google (it's not the company's fault; it's the fault of the peon who works for them). In order to celebrate the demise of that blog, I shall tip back some greenies and watch the sun set, which isn't for a few hours, but that's never stopped me from celebrating the end of the day early.

    Sunday
    Jan242010

    We Should Probably Put an End to Drinking on Planes

    I’m all for getting a buzz on. Don’t get me wrong. But, in this day and age of strip searches, security line bummers, and people freaking out about flying, why do we still allow drinking on planes?

    A jetliner flying from Washington D.C.to Las Vegas was diverted to Denver International Airport on Saturday after a passenger tried to open a door on the plane while it was in flight.

    Federal sources told NBC News that the man allegedly was intoxicated and was subdued by other passengers.

    DIA spokesman Jeff Green said that United Flight 223 was diverted to Denver at 4:45 p.m. Saturday, and police who met the plane at the gate took the passenger into custody.

    Green said the police were interviewing the passenger Saturday night but did not know if the man would be charged.

    Yeah, they’ll probably just give him a Mulligan and the whole thing will be forgotten.

    Meanwhile, the idea that drinking on a plane is still accepted practice—is that even viable anymore? Has anyone else posited that there are just some old traditions and practices that have to fall by the wayside if we’re to be a safer, more alert, and more security conscious people?

    I have long adopted the belief that, if a terrorist wants to kill you, they’re going to kill you. But you have it as your responsibility to try and stop him if possible. You are the best guarantee of survival you have. You are obligated to help stop these insane people. That goes for everyone else who screws up on a plane, and writes things to the pilot or defecates on the service cart or goes after some poor Jewish kid with prayer boxes hanging on him. You have to help straighten them out.

    The government has a responsibility to serve as a common sense gatekeeper. Don’t let the dude with Semtex and a Glock on the plane, please. Don’t let the nervous man with the boombox that no longer works with the red and blue wires hanging out of it and running to the seat of his pants get on the plane. Don’t let gramma and her special pair of stainless steel knitting needles on the plane.

    Are we now at a point where we have to end drinking on planes because we have too many stressed and freaked out people who can’t conform to basic travel responsibilities? It is NOT like the old days. This is a new time and era. This is a time when, and I’m surprised it didn’t happen, an air marshal probably could have or should have outright killed the man in question.

    Friday
    Jan222010

    Time to Crap Yourself, Dude

    Thanks to Brian Ross, I’m now in a tizzy:

    American law enforcement officials have been told to be on the lookout for female suicide bombers who may attempt to enter the United States, law enforcement authorities tell ABC News.

    One official said at least two of them are believed to be connected to al Qaeda in Yemen, and may have a non-Arab appearance and be traveling on Western passports.

    The threat was described as “current” but not imminent, said the official.

    “They have trained women,” said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

    Separately, Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe,” its second-highest level, days before London hosts major international meetings on how to deal with militancy in Afghanistan and Yemen. Britain’s threat level had been labeled “severe” for several years before being lowered last summer to “substantial.”

    American officials say a U.S. air strike on Christmas Eve against suspected al Qaeda training camps is believed to have killed many, but not all, of a group of suicide bombers being trained in Yemen.

    The man accused of attempting to explode a bomb on Northwest flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents there were a number of other people who trained with him in Yemen.

    “There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins — that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Clarke.

    Everyone knows Brian Ross is clued in! Oh noes! He’s never wrong about anything.

    Look, I hate to point this out, but if that Nigerian 419 scammer turned lonelyhearts terrorist says “clean skins,” he means white people. What I want to know is, who is condemning this man for his blatant racism? Wait, that takes me off on a tangent I don’t want to go off on.

    Look, if he says that they “may not be men,” then he means virgins. He means dudes who have not lain down with a lady as of yet. Guys who can’t score. He’s not talking about women. Women are too smart to fall for that al Qaeda bullshit. Women can convince men to do just about anything. Men cannot convince women to do anything, unless they’re American college girls, and then they can be convinced to kiss each other and flash their breasts.

    Anything beyond that, forget it. I don’t put a lot of stock in this. I think that this fellow was just a plant, a patsy if you will. This is what happens when you are reactive, and when you don’t have a strategy. You can be led down a lot of blind alleys. This is what happens when you tie your military in knots fighting costly wars of occupation when, really, they should be rested and going to wherever you want them to go to disrupt enemy operations and throw the terrorists back on their heels.

    We are not going to win a war on these people until they are paralyzed and afraid to make a move. We are not going to accomplish anything unless they are reeling and confused about what our next unpredictable move against them is going to be.

    God, I need a greenie right now.