Thank You for Drinking Beer

The Miracle of Social Networking ... In a Deer Blind

2012-01-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night I found myself alone. Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Are you kidding? Being alone is one of the last luxurieswhen you’re a man.

I was at the ranch, where I’m told we have a rash of spikesthis year, spreading their vile seed around like so much poison. Spikes are undesirable deer that, ifleft unchecked, can start to dominate your deer herd’s gene pool. So during the hunting season we’ve beenencouraging folks to hunt spikes. I haven’t shot a deer in years – I’m a terrible deer hunter, mainly because you have to sitstill and be quiet and I’m not good at either of those. Plus I have terrible eyesight, badhearing, and I’m scared of blood. Yeah,we’ve got a real badass over here. But nevertheless I have nothing better to do so I decide to go sit in ablind for a few hours on a Saturday evening and see what I can scare up.

I didn’t see a single deer, probably because I had allergiesand kept sneezing. But I ended upscaring up something better than a spike, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Here’s what our deer blinds look like. My grandfather built them in the 60s,and they’ve held up remarkably well. They look like outhouses. They’ve been there so long that deer just walk by them without notice.

Things were looking up when I entered the blind and foundthat there wasn’t a pack of raccoons using it as an eff shack – always a risk. No spiders or wasps either. In fact, all I found was a nice olddusty bottle of The Famous Grouse scotch, and a couple of nested solo cups, thebottom of which wasn’t too dirty. SoI settled into the airplane seat (vintage seat from a 1950s DC 3/C47 airplane ….. yeah,my granddad was a true badass), poured myself a scotch into a plastic cup,neat, and sneezed. Thescotch was hot and burned going down the throat, but it was smooth and it gaveme a warm feeling in my stomach. Then I looked out the window to enjoy the nice sunset. Ah, nature.

That got boring pretty quickly. I look down and, what is this? A stack of oldmagazines. The Smithsonian? Who the hell was reading TheSmithsonian in a deer blind? That’ssacrilege. Ah, but behind that wasa Playboy from June 2006. I thumbthrough it – not for the pictures, naturally, but an interview with ShepardSmith catches my eye – and I think, “Wouldn’t it be funny to take a selfy picof me reading the Playboy, and Tweet it out with the caption: “Deer hunting is hard work.” Haha, get it? I funny, right? So I tweeted it from my @beerbizdaily account.

Well, within five minutes I get a Tweet back from my friend EvaConner, a beer distributor from Florida who also owns a modeling agency,Michele & Group. She tells methat the cover girl is one of their models, Kara Monaco, and she includes Karaon the Tweet. Then, five minutesafter that, I get a Tweet from Kara herself, who was Playboy’s 2006 Playmate ofthe Year. “Awesome! ;)” shesaid. Yes, that’s “awesome” with an exclamation point and a winkinghappy face, which is practically an invitation to the Playboy mansion as herdate.

Kara Monaco

So to recap, I’m sitting in a deer blind in the middle ofnowhere. I come across an oldPlayboy. Ten minutes later, I’mtweeting with the girl on the cover. This, my friends, is the magic of this modern age of social media. This would not have happened even two years ago. Amazing.

A Touch O' Pneumonia

2011-12-08T22:54:00.001-08:00

So I’ve been bed-ridden for six days with the pneumonia. Well, they call it “walking pneumonia”but trust me, there’s no walking about it. They should call it “glued to your bed and barely able toeven read or watch a movie pneumonia.” I’ve written in these pagesabout it before – I get it every five years or so. It’s usually mild (although ten years ago I got it in Denverso bad that I had to visit the hospital, and when I was 2 years old I stayed ina hospital for two weeks and nearly kicked the bucket, according to my crazyparents who couldn’t tell the truth if their life depended on it, so who knows?).

So I’m now told by my doctor that these bouts ofpneumonia are a subset of a larger condition called Chronic ObstructivePulmonary Disease, which basically means I can’t breath good a lot of times andsometimes it makes me sick in my chest. Whatever. Seriously?

I’m increasingly convinced these greedy drug companiesreclassify symptoms as diseases and give them official sounding names so thenthey can make drugs that treat the “disease”, when really they are just treatingthe symptoms. You can charge morefor pills that cure diseases, rather than pills that just mask symptoms.

For instance, I have troubleconcentrating on work because I am an impulsive boy and would rather not workwhen given the choice. I’d ratherbe entertained by candy or a tree out the window or a naked woman on TV. In other words, I am normal.

To a normal boy: Work = boring. Naked lady on TV = entertaining. Right?

But at an early age I found that I can’t make a livingif I just look at naked ladies on TV all day, mores the pity. So I improvised. I found that if I chew on a cigar, Ican concentrate on my work without looking at naked ladies…. too much. Self-medication is the best. It’s called nicotine, and it can be found naturally infields in Virginia apparently.

Well now the greedy drug companies have reclassified being anormal lively red blooded American boy as now having a disease called ADD and ADHD,and they sell a synthetic form of meth called Adderal to treat it. Adderal is basically a combination of cigarettesand cocaine for kids. In fact, Isaw a study recently that said that nicotine may be even more effective thanAdderal for treating ADD and ADHD. Once again I’m on the cutting edge of bio-science.

You know who else is on the cutting edge of medicine? That’s right, my old friend and longtimephysician, Dr. Tonga. Well, it saddens me to no end to report that after treating thousands of patients poorly for many years, Dr.Tonga has gone into semi-retirement. He will still see special patients, like me, but if you wish to become a patient of Dr. Tonga, I'm afraid that he won't see you. Sorry.

He has been replaced by a new partner named Dr. Rick. Dr. Rick, my new doctor when Dr. Tonga is not available -- which is always since Dr. Tonga just sits in his office painting and watching Price is Right -- has a severecase of undiagnosed ADHD. He gets easily distracted. For instance, he was looking over blood-work from the labthat I had submitted in October. He said, hmmm, this blood-work is over six months old. When I pointed out that it was only twomonths old, he pointed to the word “October” on the lab report and said, “Butit was taken in March.” I pointed to the word "October" and said, "Dr. Rick, that says October right, or am I the one who is going crazy?" He looked befuddled, looked at the word October, and muttered something like, "why yes of course.." I had thought of offering him a Nicorrette Mini Mint Ihad in my pocket, but then thought the better of it, and instead made a mentalnote to just carefully look over his scripts before submitting them toWalgreens.

Anyway, I was visiting Dr. Rick because I had beenbed-ridden for several days with a severe cough and fever. A chest x-ray revealed that I had amild case of pneumonia. Nothingout of the ordinary. I’ve had itseveral times before as I said. Infact, a doctor in Denver told me ten years ago that unless I got hit by a trainor run over by an ex-girlfriend, I would eventually die of pneumonia, as mylungs are so scarred and air being so fucking important to life…..well, thelungs are my weak link. It’sstrangely comforting knowing what you’ll likely die of.

But anyway, Dr. Rick knew nothing of this history. So he looked over my chart and said, “Obviously you are aheavy smoker.” Well, I’m not asmoker and never have been. So Itold him that. He wasdubious. “Hmmm” he said, cluckinghis tongue. Clearly he didn’tbelieve me. He then looked at myliver enzymes. “Well,” he saidapprovingly, “You’re obviously not a drinker.” Whaa? I askedhim if he was sure he had the right chart. “Ah, yes I’d say I’m a drinker. I’m in the business.” He looked at me askance. Iclarified, “I’m in the alcohol beverage industry, and yes I drink alcohol quitea bit.” He then showed methat my liver enzymes where well below the national average.

Well, there you go. My doctor is convinced I’m lying that I don’t smoke, and lying that I dodrink. This is why I hatemedicine. They don’t knowfuck. Just live your life. Meanwhile, I can’t freaking breathe. Epinephrine mist has been my constantfriend.

The Lost Year

2011-12-04T21:44:00.001-08:00

I’m not one of those men who cries a lot like somemilquetoast nancy boy.

Except that now I am. I’m apparently now one of those men who cries at the drop of thehat. You see, starting in January I found myself crying at the end of Notting Hill and BridgettJones’ Diary. Why was I watchingthese movies to begin with, you might ask? Hugh Grant, of course.

As a year, 2011 wasn't a banner. I had some personal losses -- lost a dog, a horse, my dad, some good friends moved away, my oldest boy left for college, etc. And while I know others have it much worse and I know I should count my blessings yadda yadda, I decided that it was much more preferable to wallow in my own self-pity and slip into a sort of middle-aged melancholia, initially fueled by drams of Pennsylvania Dutch. I deserved it.

But upon reflection, perhaps my melancholia was not as much propelled by these sad events, or even by the Dutch, but by my decision to move myself and my two boys to live for a few weeks this Summer at our ranch along with my nephew and watch the DVD box set of Lost every night. And I took to reading books like A Moveable Feast and The Great Gatsby, books from whence my own mortality screamed at mefrom every page. Lost and Hemingway -- no wonder I was depressed. What the hell was I thinking? I knew itwas bad when an AT&T commercial made me weep.

My sixteen year old boy, Hunt, took a job at our favorite watering and eating hole, the Scenic Loop Cafe, not a stone's throw from the ranch, probably just so that he could escape this melancholia. My nephew was taking the summer off after graduating from college before his job started in China, so he stood fast with me as he had nothing better to do and I had a credit card. My youngest boy, at eleven, does notpossess a car and so was stuck with me. He would play video games while I worked during the day. Then we'd watch an episode or two of Lost, go to supper at the Cafe, repeat. On weekends it was just meand The Boy, fishing and shooting and watching Lost or sometimes a screening of Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, another uplifting movie for middle-aged men to contemplate. A perfect mud pit of self-pity in which to wallow. It now occurs tome that everybody who had a means of transportation took themselves away fromme. Lulu wisely stayed in town and ignored me, Hunt worked, Harrison was in Austin, leaving poor Wywy, who doesn't have a car, to babysit sad ole' dad. We were basicallyjoined at the hip. I made a fewnew friends and deepened old relationships at the Café where we ate and Huntworked every day. But wherever Iwent, Wywy was my little buddy. It wasgreat for me, because I can’t imagine enduring melancholia without my little bearas a companion. When he looks backon it, he'll either reflect on the fond memories, or...... well there’s therapy.

Last summer we got through every season of Lost except thelast, increasingly enduring its wild and seemingly pointless plot maneuvers. This weekend we decided to finish it and be done with the damn thing, because I teach my boys to finish what they start, even if I'm not so good at it. Tonight Wywy and I watched the last episode. It wasn’t even really sad, but I foundmyself having to turn away from him, oily-eyed, to keep him from seeing my eyes. Keep in mind, this is aridiculous TV series with fictional characters who weren’t even alive to beginwith. But there you have it. It's done.

It’s December now and we’re winding down the year. I’m ready to write-off 2011 and startover fresh on January 2, 2012 with a new vigor. I don’t regret 2011. It was a year I’ll always remember, like an indulgent lucid dream. I got a lot closer with my two youngerboys, and my nephew who I miss now that he's in Beijing, and the new friends I made. But, now it’s time to put the last DVD back into the box setof Lost, start working 12 hour days again, regain my tennis game, and start reading chipper self-help books, like the Four Hour Workweek, or something.

But I'm not starting any of that until January 2. Until then, break out the Pennsylvania Dutch and put in Lost in Translation.

Daddy's Bear Goes to College

2011-08-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

Lulu and I have been taking turns weeping for the past two weeks. She’s been pulling her weight more than I have, but now that my oldest boy Harrison is leaving for college today, it’s my turn to catch up. It seems just like yesterday that the Bunny Rabbit, as we used to call him when he was a baby, was traipsing over the grass to kindergarten. As our oldest boy, as we conceived him when we were 13, he grew up when we were poor and living in different spots every other year chasing jobs. Born in Houston, preschooled in Boston, kindergartened in Austin, grade schooled in Denver, summered in Australia, brought to manhood in San Antonio. The boy is well-travelled.

We were the first of our friends to have a baby, and I remember being in my early 20s and sometimes lamenting that we couldn’t go out as much as our friends did every weekend. Back then, when he was cholic and his diaper was dirty and we were exhausted, I couldn’t imagine a day when I would be so sad that he was leaving.

My first employer, Joe Huggins of Houston Distributing Co., told me before Harrison was born that he’d buy me a Cadillac if I named him Houston Distributing Schuhmacher. To say I was tempted was an understatement. 1. Because I knew Joe was serious and he was good for it. 2. Because I would sell it immediately and use the proceeds to fix our leaky roof. Luckily for Harrison, Lulu refused, and we sold that house with the leaky roof on a sunny day.

Just about every night for the past two weeks we’ve been meeting our friends with freshmen kids going into college at our favorite local Mexican joint to have a “farewell” dinner since they are all leaving on different days. The wives all cry at every dinner. The wait staff who no speakey de engles think that we’re either a very depressed lot or the food is terrible. Last night we got some levity when the daughter of a friend said she was heading off to the Colorado School of Mines. Lulu, who was educated in Europe and so doesn’t know a lot of U.S. stuff, asked innocently, “Oh, they have a school for mimes? As in…” and she did the classic mime-in-a-box routine. The girl was speechless. “Uh, no, it’s more of an engineering school…” This sent us into apoplexy.

But today is different because today it is OUR boy who is leaving, and our boy is the best one. He’s so grown up – literally grown up, he’s 6’4’’. And so handsome and smart. I’m so proud of him. Harrison has always been Daddy’s Bear. He’s always been a self-starter and a man of action. Usually dads teach their boys how to throw a ball or how to fish, but in Harrison’s case it was the other way around. He taught me both. I would take him fishing on weekends, and he would cast for hours and hours, even if the fish weren’t biting. He had the patience of a monk. Fishing became a big part of our lives together. In addition to the thousands of hours at the ranch, we’ve been out on every coast in search of fish. In the Spring we’re hunting Tarpon off the flats of Key West.

As he grew into a young man in high school, Harrison became like a second father to my two other boys, particularly when I was traveling so much. Plus, he knew how to play sports and hunt and fish. He was the best father they never had.

What makes me most proud of Big Bear is his ability to easily make friends across the spectrum of people – jocks, nerds, emos, punks, dopers – didn’t matter, Harrison made friends with them all. I respect that trait in anybody.

I’m so proud of him. It brings to mind, or mime, a previous post about Puff the Magic Dragon: “A Dragon lives forever; but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant's rings, make way for other toys. One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more. And Puff that mighty dragon suddenly ceased his fearless roar. His head now bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain. Puff no longer went to play, along that cheery lane. Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave, so Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.”

It’s true. The little boys we knew suddenly, quite miraculously and with no notice, grow up and are no more. Our little boy is gone, replaced by a fine young man. Oh but I do miss that little boy. He was so sweet. I miss the way he’d run home from the school bus every day and leap into our arms. I miss the way he worshiped bulldozers, and later trains. I miss when he was a baby, and on Saturday mornings to give Lulu a rest I’d put him in the back of my car and drive around Houston for hours listening to 90s music, I miss teaching him to shoot roman candles at the age of two, I miss his little one piece jumpers he’d wear, I miss wispy soft blond hair that always smelled of a mixture of milk and wet puppy, I miss his wide-set baby blue eyes, I miss watching him play baseball at the fields. I miss a lot about that little boy. About 12 years ago, when I was on a trip to Chicago, he left a voicemail message on my office phone because he was so excited that he got a home run. I remember listening to that message about 20 times that night. I had saved it for years, but finally it accidentally got erased. I would give anything to have that message back. So full of excitement. I wish I could go back to that time, cancel my trip, and be at that game.

But now he’s grown up, and now we’ve done all we can do, and he must go forth and face the world on his own. But not matter what happens, he’ll always be Daddy’s Bear.

Big Bear giving pointers to Baby Bear

Sweet Lena.

Saying goodbye to his brother.

In simpler times.

Biscuit’s Philosophy of Life: Live Life, Bite a Skunk

2011-06-04T09:58:00.001-07:00

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll no doubt recall my post on how the favorite dog I’ve ever owned in my life – and I’ve owned a lot of them -- Chica, would get in the hot tub with us and, depending on how many Paloma margaritas I’d had, would speak to me in an English accent. Very proper was Chica. Chica had sense enough to know that there was a natural etiquette to the hot tub. It took me a year to teach my youngest boy, Wywy, that doing underwater summersaults in the hot tub was de classe. Hot tub time is a sacred civilized carve-out at the end of the day, to enjoy a good cigar and a beer or whiskey, and just relaxxxxx. Ah yeah. Those were the days.

That was pre-2011. Those were halcyon days indeed. Then Thanksgiving 2010 hit, and our house was robbed and not only were laptops and a guitar and Lulu’s jewelry taken, but so was our beloved Chica. It was heartbreaking in our family, particularly for my youngest boy Wywy and me who was closest to her. Incidentally, another dog was also taken but we didn’t like her so that was somewhat of a blessing. We put up signs around the neighborhood saying:

**** LOST DOG ****
YELLO LAB
“CHICA”
REWARD
[LARGE PIC OF CHICA HERE]
Then in small print:
“Chica may be accompanied by a boxer named Baulbazaur; you can keep it as part of the reward. We have no pic of it but you’ll know it when you see it.”

After six months with no word from Chica (or Baulbazaur thankfully), my boy Wywy’s persistent hounding for a new pup finally found purchase. I find it hard to deny him for any length of time. I spoil all my boys, but my baby gets special dispensations. So I instructed Lulu to get on it. Lulu found a yellow Lap puppy on the Internet for very cheap if only airfare could be wired to the owner. She of course wired the money – to Cameroon it turns out -- while I was out of town and, to nobody’s surprise except Lulu’s, no dog was forthcoming on the flight. “But the ad said it was a Pastor’s family!” she cried pitifully. I love Lulu so much. I married the last guileless girl in America, but needless to say she is no longer allowed to use the Internet when I’m out of town. I returned and scouted out a lively pup that Wywy picked out from a local litter. He named her Biscuit.

Biscuit, while also a yellow Lab, only resembles Chica in her appearance. She is constantly gobbling up things, regardless if they are food or not. Shoes, flowers, dirt, a dropped hot dog (occasionally even a blind pig finds a truffle). When we used to sit in the hot tub, Chica would enter carefully – using the steps like a Christian – and would assume her seat by her usual jet and sit quietly. Biscuit leaps, and I mean leaps high in the air, into the hot tub right into our laps. She’s clearly not afraid of water. Then she swims constantly in a tight circle, making sure to chomp at our fingers, bathing suits, the water, a jet; and when there’s nothing to bite, she bites the air. At first I thought she was so dumb she’d swim herself until she eventually drowned, but the good Lord or Satan or whoever spawned this pup put enough sense in her to step out of the hot tub to shake water on all of us and then go roll in the dirt so that she resembles a homeless dog, or a chocolate Lab, and then leaps back into the hot tub, creating a nuclear mushroom cloud of dispersed mud, and resumes her rounds. We’ve doubled our chlorine bill since Biscuit has entered our lives.

Here is Biscuit. She’s running toward me.

The reason she’s running toward me is because, we’ve found, Biscuit has an acute phobia of being alone, even for a second, and never gets more than three feet away from Wywy, or if he’s not to be found, anybody. Oh, we all have our deep-seated fears of abandonment. But Biscuit takes it to a new level.

Part of it is Wywy’s fault. He’s indulged her shamefully. She sleeps in his bed, he invites her along on every event of his life, and basically they are inseparable. Which is kinda cute. Except when Wywy must be away, like at school, and then Biscuit clings to Lulu and me, or the yardman, or the mailman, or anybody with a pulse. This pup loves to love. And I love to love her back, except when I have to work or would like to read quietly or even when I wish to “meet a man about a horse” in the bathroom. She sits at the door and whines, which makes me nervous and keeps my equine negotiations at bay. Sometimes I just give up and endure cramps later in the day. Thanks, Biscuit.

Part of this behavior, I’m sure, is because Biscuit is still a puppy. I realize that. But Chica was never like this. This pup has a zest for life like I’ve never seen. Everything she sees goes directly into her mouth without so much as a sniff to see if it’s edible/distasteful/poisonous. With twice as much ADD as even other Lab puppies, she chases everything that catches her gaze at the moment: squirrels, butterflies, a skunk. Yes, she got sprayed on her very first outing at the ranch, and got me sprayed as a consequence. We both soaked in a tub for hours. I suspect a porcupine is not long for her painful acquaintance, or god forbid a water moccasin.

She leaps into the pool at the smallest notion – a floating junebug or leaf for instance. She doesn’t test the waters with a paw like Chica did, she just jumps right in. And her leaps aren’t horizontal, but rather straight up and out and she gets considerable air for so small a pup. And Biscuit is a bear of very little brain. On Memorial Day she was standing under the diving board and leaped in, hitting her head so hard on the belly of the board that I thought she’d drown from having a concussion. But unsurprisingly God/Satan gave her an impenetrably hard head, knowing she’d need it.

But, you know what, as much as a pain in the ass Biscuit is, she’s growing on me. Wywy adores her, and that’s enough for me. But I also find that I like her uninhibited damn-the-torpedoes philosophy of life. I find myself taking more chances lately, as I’ve been sort of cocooned for the last few months. Maybe Biscuit can teach us all something about actually living life, instead of coasting through it. Go ahead, try that new sushi roll, write something that you know will be controversial, suggest a wild new sexual position to your mate (this last was disastrous, be warned. Biscuit’s philosophy of life has limits, as she found out with the skunk and I found out with….. well I’ll tell you later). Life is meant to be lived. Live it. Go forth and … bite a skunk. You bite enough skunks, at some point you’re going to bite into a Cinnabon.

And look here. I bit so many skunks that eventually I got Lulu. Just look at them legs. Better than two Cinnabons.

Harry vs Wild

2011-05-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

I can now ad movie star to my long list of accomplishments. We recently spent a rollicking afternoon at the ranch shooting a short film called Harry vs Wild, a spoof on the Discovery Channel’s show Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls. But instead of being a taut survivalist like Bear, the character I play – coincidentally also named Harry -- is fat, besotted, incompetent, pampered, wildly ill-equipped to be in the wild, and clearly being helped along by a disgusted film crew. He’s sort of a combination between Arthur and Captain Kangaroo. So I was type-cast, obviously. He also alternatively despises and envies Bear Grylls to the point of obsession, and tries to imitate him with some sort of faux British-Australian-Scottish-Irish combo accent. The result is pretty amusing, mainly due to JJ’s brilliant directing and editing.

Harry vs Wild is the brainchild of JJ Rubin, the son of our good friends Stacey and Jamo Rubin who we’ve known for 30 years, and my son Harrison. I’ve known JJ since he was a little pup and have watched him grow up. He’s been interested in film for some time and has already won awards for his short films, and is now heading off to USC film school.

We’ve been trying to schedule a time to do this for over a year, and finally decided on Easter Sunday. My boy Harrison and friend George Shaw helped as the crew (and George was my stunt man and body double). We didn’t have a script, but JJ would set up the scene and then I’d just ad lib, with suggestions from the boys. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, and the laughs we had were priceless.

So here it is, Harry vs Wild. I must warn you, it ain’t PG rated, more like R with some pretty salty language, so don’t let the brats watch it.

A Seasoned Beer Expert’s Epiphany: Beer is Heavy

2011-05-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

The following was originally published in All About Beer magazine in their April 2011 issue.

I’m a middle-aged beer industry writer. It’s better than being an old beer writer, because old beer writers are always precariously close to a painful and humiliating death. And it’s better than being a young beer writer, because I got here first and got the best things. A middle-aged beer industry writer is the best kind of beer writer because he knows what he knows and he knows what he doesn’t know. An old beer writer thinks he knows what he knows, but really he can’t remember much of anything. It’s a brain cell depletion thing. A young beer writer knows what he knows but what he doesn’t know, which is considerable, he suspects doesn’t exist. But while I’m in the beer writer sweet spot, I’m old enough that my joints are squeaky and my feet are gouty. But enough gloating.

I edit and publish an industry trade newsletter called Beer Business Daily. It comes out daily. Don’t laugh, you’d be surprised how many people, after hearing the name of the publication, ask how often it’s published. BBD, as it’s called in the trade, has grown from one subscriber in 1997 – the first brave subscriber a kind quiet gentleman named Mike Hopkins who was and still is an Anheuser-Busch distributor in Brenham, Texas, (we call him Subscriber No. 1A) – to over 20,000 daily readers who, for the most part, are anything but quiet. They have opinions and aren’t afraid to share them, mores the pity. I am blessed each day with hundreds of emails in response to whatever was written in BBD that morning, often hostile. My theory is that if you aren’t pissing off at least twenty-five percent of your readers at any given time, then you aren’t doing your job. So I get quite a daily cacophony of beer industry noise each day. And from this white noise the middle-aged beer writer can tease out themes, connect dots, and discover hidden truths like a rarely situated gem – a diamond in a goat’s ass, say.

And one diamond in a goat’s rectum that recently presented itself to me in my daily email proctology exam is that – wait for it because it’s good – Beer is Heavy. Let’s take a moment to digest this truth. Tick tock. What, not so brilliant, you say? Read on.

Well, before we get into that splendid fact and its implications on the industry, let me clarify that we at BBD rarely write about actual beer. This great magazine and other venues do an excellent job of writing about the beer, a virtuous and worthy topic deserving of so much ink. No, we write about the more mercenary topic of the money behind the beer: to whom it’s flowing and from whom it’s flowing. If you leave with one takeaway from this article – and it appears so far you are likely to come away with precious few – is that in the beer business, beer is slow and money is fast. Or to put more succinctly, beer is heavy, particularly in relation to its price. This one simple fact drives nearly everything else in the beer industry: how it’s sold, where it’s sold, at what price it’s sold, its ownership structure, etc. And the relation between beer’s weight and its price is presently changing, and that will, in turn, change how beer is sold, where it’s sold, at what price, and its ownership structure.

Let me explain -- after I pour myself another glass of Infinium, a Christmas gift from Boston Beer Company. It does kind of taste like champagne, like they promised -- very refreshing and delicious. But it begs the question: Should beer out-champagne champagne? Should beer attempt to out-[insert alcohol beverage of choice] anything except beer? Or should good beer should just be good balanced representations of what it’s supposed to be? There. In this paragraph I’ve written more about actual beer than I have in my entire life. And you, lucky reader, are here to witness it. I feel all verklempt. Let’s take another moment to reflect. (Incidentally, upon reflection, also in this paragraph I’ve quite possibly infuriated an influential and powerful friend in the beer industry, Jim Koch. Sorry, Jim. As you know I’m the least qualified person on earth to pass intelligent judgment on a beer. I’ll give you this: It certainly has inspired some fascinating prose so far. Maybe the editor, Julie Johnson, will see fit to delete this ‘graph. Go ahead, Julie, delete it. I dare you....but I won’t make my minimum word count if you do, be warned).

Let’s get back to our thesis, after that shameless attempt at interesting filler so I get my 30 cents a word: Beer is heavy, heavier than money and heavy relative to its price. The fact that beer is heavier than money has implications on both the global and the local beer industries, for similar reasons. On the global stage, a clever group of bankers disguised as brewery owners have figured out that beer’s weight makes it prohibitively expensive to ship economically, particularly across mountain ranges and oceans. Therefore, rather than take a brand like Brazil’s Brahma and ship it far and wide, it makes much more financial sense to move the money internationally, which is weightless, and buy other breweries. Hence the rapid global consolidation of mega-breweries we’ve witnessed for the past twenty years: SAB and Miller, Molson and Coors, InBev and Anheuser-Busch, Heinken and Femsa, to name just a few. You can apprently use the profits from what you make on Brahma to finance buying the brewery in Belgium, and once you’ve paid down your debt from the purchase, walla! Now you’ve increased in size of your company and make more money. Not only that, when you own Brahma in Brazil and buy a brewery in Belgium, the brewery in Belgium can brew Brahma there, saving the shipping costs. Easy peasy Japanese-y. The Belgians who wish to drink Brahma either don’t know or care where the Brazilian beer is made, it appears. In fact, only in the United States do beer drinkers care about the origin of where their beer is actually brewed. That’s why Heineken is brewed all over the world for local markets, except in the U.S. where the Heineken you drink is brewed in Amsterdam at the mothership brewery. Beer is heavy, don’t forget, relative to its price. Another sip of Infinium. It’s growing on me.

Now, you know what other alcohol beverage isn’t heavy relative to its price, in the high-end at least? Wine. High-end wine is expensive, and yet it weighs nearly the same as beer. And terrior matters. So when you drink Chateau Lafitte Rothschild, you know it comes from France. In spirits, you wouldn’t drink single malt scotch from Mexico just as you wouldn’t drink an agave tequila from Scotland. And that’s okay for those companies, because the prices are such that the shipping is nearly negligible. Another sip: Liquid ambrosia.

And even within the US, there’s a thriving Internet business with domestic high-end wines, because the price is high enough relative to its weight that you can buy a case and not worry too much about the shipping costs because it’s a minor add-on. That’s why so much wine and spirits are shipped long distances. Thirty percent of wine and spirits sold is high end, so it’s a big part of that industry. I should note here that this Infinium is a piece of heaven on earth.

Not so much in beer. Craft beer is only five percent of the total U.S. beer business, albeit growing. Not much beer is sold online. The vast majority of beer, which is domestic mainstream beer, is sold the same way it has for decades: through wholesale distributors to retailers. Because the prices are low relative to its weight, it has to be sold through distributors who aggregate many brands together so it’s economically feasible to sell to your local convenience or liquor store. Beer is perishable too, and it sells at a much higher velocity than wine or spirits. So deliveries must be made much more frequently, further setting in stone how it’s sold. And of course you have state regulations that help to maintain the status quo. I can make the case as to how this regulation actually helps craft brewers ultimately with you individually, in a bar, but won’t get into it in these pages until I have more space and the effect of this Infinium wears off. Damn good beer, this Infinium, by the way.

So, what is changing? Well, higher priced craft brewers are growing in sales relative to mainstream beers like Bud Light, and more are being sold in larger 750ml wine bottles. As craft beer grows, the average price of beer grows. Since craft beer weighs the same as regular old Bud Light, the ratio of the weight of beer to its average price is going down. This changes the game a bit, in that it makes shipping smaller loads more feasible. That may increase pressure to sell more over the Internet to individual drinkers. But besides that, even in the current system, it may also keep indie craft brewers independent for a longer period of time, because there is less financial pressure to consolidate and share brewing capacity. Are you following me? If not, put down your beer, you’ve had enough.

On the other hand, even craft beer is cheaper than fine wines and high priced spirits (and they all weigh the same). So this unavoidable truth, I think but am not sure, could lead to some consolidation amongst U.S. craft brewers (we have mountain ranges, remember) and more collaborative sharing of brewing capacity between and amongst craft brewers. I smell consolidation. I smell strategic alliances. I smell joint ventures.

No? You don’t believe me? Are Bend, Oregon-based Deschutes’ fermenters that much different than Boston-based Harpoon’s that they couldn’t reproduce each others’ beers, with their master brewers help in attendance? I am confident they can do it. It’s the wrong question, actually. The right question is, would the West coast beer drinker balk at drinking Harpoon that was made at Deschutes? And that’s the trump card that comes descending down on us like a goat farting diamonds: The Consumer. American beer drinkers, as illustrated by imported beers, tend to care more than their foreign brothers about authenticity of brewing origin. And if they care enough, they’ll pay more. At that point, the weight of beer becomes less significant.

So, ultimately, it comes down to how much the drinker cares. Do you care? I’ll have one more glass of Infinium while you ponder.

Harry Schuhmacher is the editor of Beer Business Daily. He blogs at beereditor.blogspot.com and tweets at @BeerBizDaily and emails at hs@beernet.com.

Dolphin Rock

2011-04-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I had a friend whose grandfather had a ranch near town. This ranch had an unusual “feature”: a huge limestone outcropping, 100 feet high (or so it seemed to a child) that looked like a giant gray ~~phallus~~ dolphin coming out of the grassy ocean at a 45 degree angle to play ball with the sun. Here’s my expert rendering of it:

As you can plainly see, it is a horrifying monolith. For one, it stuck at such an angle that I was always afraid it would fall over to the ground; two, it had a disgusting cesspool at its base that bred skeeters and snakes; and three, my friend and his hot-older-sister-who-always-wore-a-bathing-suit always insisted on climbing it and peering over its edge. They called it, innocuously enough, Dolphin Rock (although I may have dreamt that later). I always imagined a more sinister name, like Devil’s Nose or Mocking Gravity.

Not only that, but this unnatural, unsteady, terrifying outcropping stood at the corner of my friend’s property, so that hippies from a nearby dope smoking camp (or something) would regularly trespass to scale the rock and drop their beer cans over the edge, and soak in the sun like lizards.

As the school week progressed I would pray that my friend would not suggest that we go to his grandfather’s ranch, because I knew we’d be scaling that god-forsaken barren rock and again I’d be humiliated in front of his hot-older-sister-in-a-bathing-suit and her hot friends who would, like my friend, just walk up the rock and dance at the top while I would crawl on my stomach like I was taking the next trench in World War I. Heights were never my thing .... I happen to subscribe to that old biddy that it’s not the height that is the issue, and it’s not even the falling, it’s the impact. The bottom of my feet never touched Dolphin Rock, but I’ve shredded the front of many shirts on it. On returning home my mother would say, “What the hell, do they drag you behind the jeep on your stomach when you’re out there?” “No,” I’d say lamely (as if that was a possibility). I could never tell her that I had climbed, nay, belly crawled a ten story high limestone rock against my will, because I knew she’d say, “If you don’t like it, don’t do it.” But I was much too insecure not to join them, having a deep need to fit in and not appear weak, particularly in front of pretty-girls-in-bathing-suits, an insecurity I harbor to this day.

I would justify my cowardness by saying to myself that I was smarter than my friend and his hot-sister-in-a-bathing-suit, because they obviously didn’t grasp simple geometry, the theory of gravity and its inverse square, and how cantilevers work, because if they had they would understand that our weight would no doubt uproot the rock from its base eventually; and without this purchase, we’d necessarily go hurling into the cesspool below to a painful and -- worse -- messy death (all the while accelerating at a mortal rate of 9.8 meters per second squared, if in a vacuum. Yes, I was that kind of dork). And the cesspool presented a whole other set of horrors for me. As a child and now, I can’t stand to be dirty. I dreaded going go birthday parties because I didn’t like seeing the other children with cake icing around their mouths and their hands sticky with Hawaiian punch. As a baby I once cried for hours because I got honey on my neck. Fodder for the shrink in my future as soon as I can afford one.

What was most humiliating was how my friend and his hot-older-sister-in-a-bathing-suit would dance around on the peak of Death Rock and stand on the edge peering over at the cesspool below as I clung shaking in fear to limestone. I still have nightmares about it to this day. At my own ranch we have a cliff that I have never gone anywhere near, yet I still weekly dream about driving my truck off it. Have I mentioned that heights aren't my thing? I get dizzy walking on the second level of malls, and don't get me started on the DF/W Terminal D escalators.

It would be one thing if there was a deep blue lagoon at the bottom to jump into.... that might be worth the danger and the effort. But to climb that terrifying rock just to look at a mud puddle -- I just didn’t see the risk-reward payoff. Even the drug-addled hippies grew bored with Dolphin Rock and stopped trespassing, which was a relief because my friend’s grandfather insisted on calling the federal Game Wardens every time he spotted one, grumbling about “damn teenagers” and “no respect for property.” It was quite a production and needless drama.

At one point, as my friend and his hot-sister-in-a-bikini were dancing around and I was clutching the rock for dear life, I remember seeing my tears falling to the chalky limestone, drying almost instantly in the sun. Here I decided that enough is enough. But I didn’t refuse to scale Dolphin Rock the next time they suggested it -- oh no, that would be the healthy way to deal with the problem. I was raised differently. I simply started avoiding my friend in class, didn’t return his calls, and ducked behind water fountains and dived under bleachers when I saw him. In other words, I simply ended the friendship due to that dreadful rock.

I realize this post makes me seem neurotic, poorly adjusted, passive-aggressive, and a little crazy. But there it is. There’s no point in hiding it now.

Farewell, O. Henry's

2011-02-14T13:45:00.001-08:00

I was in Austin this week for a niche publishers conference – a seminar for niche trade publishers to better themselves. Since I could use some self-improvement, I attended. Turns out we’re already doing most of the things they taught, so it was more of a lesson in validation.

I stayed at the Hilton downtown, on 4th and Neches. This hotel is new – well let’s put it this way, it wasn’t there when I went to college in Austin 20 years ago. But from the moment I walked into the lobby, I had a weird feeling that I couldn’t shake. Like I’d been there before. Something familiar about the place, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Until I looked out the window of the second story conference room and saw this. It’s O. Henry’s house, the turn-of-the-century ironic writer who briefly lived in Austin in this tiny house until he stole from the bank he worked at and was uncharitably run out of town. The sight of it literally stopped me in my tracks, because the one thing I remember about O. Henry’s house is that it was directly across the street from O. Henry’s Back Forty Bar, the honkey tonk I practically lived at during my later college days. We spent so much time there that the bar’s owner, Louis, set up tabs for us so we could pay her once at the end of the month. We went there so much that Louis was invited to my wedding. We went there so much that Louis would often find us sitting on the front step, waiting for her to open it up at 3. We spent so much time there that it's the only bar my wife Lulu has been kicked out of, twice. (Lulu and Louis didn't get along very well as I remember it).

It was a run down bar in a rock house that probably should’ve been condemned years ago. Half the house was a bar-be-que restaurant and half was O. Henry’s Back Forty. Sometimes, when the wind came from a certain direction, smoke from the restaurant's fire pit would fill O. Henry's and our clothes smelled of pork sausage for days (but it had the benefit of clearing the fleas out of O. Henry's carpets and drapes). I always loved how the bar stole for its name two diametrically opposite themes: A literary satirical writer and an expression from a cowboy show on TV. The irony wouldn’t be lost on O. Henry himself. In fact the “O. Henry’s” part of the sign fell down at some point so newbies only knew it as – simply -- the Back Forty. Only veterans like myself knew that it was really called “O. Henry’s Back Forty”, or sometimes we called it Oh B-F. I think it was originally called O. Henry’s and then Louis added “Back Forty” to give it more street cred with college kids, most of whom went to public school and so had no idea who O. Henry was.

Anyway, as soon as I saw O. Henry’s house I took the elevator down and walked across the street to make sure. Sure enough, here is the plaque outside the house. Then I looked back at the Hilton, an imposing structure, on the very spot where O. Henry's Back Forty should be. What the hell?

So I rang my old friend Jeff Smith, who also frequented Oh B-F so much that he sometimes was confused with the furniture.

Me: “Jeff, it’s Harry. What the F—happened to O. Henry’s?
Jeff: “You mean the Back Forty?”
Me: (sighing impatiently)
Jeff: “Didn’t you know? Louis sold the real estate to Hilton for three million dollars. She bought a Dodge sports car which she called 'Baby Car' and then died."

Isn’t that always what happens? Poor Louis, wanted to be “Big Rich” (as she put it) for all her life and finally achieves that dream on the back of Conrad Hilton and then doesn’t live long enough to properly enjoy "Baby Car".

Incidentally, I knew that Jeff would know the story. He always kept up with the “bar characters” we befriended while in college, like the bartender/bookie/pimp Richard, No-Neck, the drunken state Senator who had to be carried home most nights, the barmaid Bev whom we all scandalously made out with at various times, (without regret, I insist). When I left Austin, I left the characters behind and didn't look back. Not Jeff. Jeff is a loyal friend to the end, even to bar characters. I think he even sent Bev a TV as a congratulatory gift when her son was released from prison.

So now O. Henry’s Back Forty is a fancy glass and steel convention hotel. They call that progress. I call it bull-honkey. At least Louis' other bar is still around, the Cloak Room. Now that's a bar.

A Dutch Christmas

2011-01-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

I had a fantastic Christmas. I mean, it was the best ever.

Our house was robbed, our dogs ran away, our horse died, and all I got for Christmas was a replacement wedding ring that I had lost in a strip joint in Vegas. I know, it sounds like a bad country song. (I actually didn’t lose my ring in Vegas. It sat at the bottom of my pool for a week but it was too cold to fetch, and then it was just gone). Oh, and my credit card number was pilfered and somebody had a grand ol' time in Paris spending $15k in one weekend.

So why, you ask, do I say that my Christmas was fantastic? Two words: Pennsylvania Dutch. Given my string of bad luck, I thought it only fitting to indulge myself in that most pleasurable of holiday treats.

In fact, I found that Pennsylvania Dutch was the best answer to almost every question over the holidays.

-Want a drink? Why yes, I’ll have some Pennsylvania Dutch if you please.
-Want to watch TV? Yes, and be a good girl and fetch me a dram of Pennsylvania Dutch.
-Want a sandwich? No, I’m saving the calories for a Touch of the Dutch.
-Want some breakfast? Sure. Well, on second thought, pour me a tumbler of P-Dutch instead, will ya?
-Do you know where my sunglasses are? I thought you’d never ask, but yes I’d love a tall glass of cold Pennsylvania Dutch.

What is Pennsylvania Dutch? You grind up half an elf, capture the seed after pleasuring a reindeer, toss in a pair of Santa’s drawers, put it in a blender, have it blessed by an Amish elder, and Pennsylvania Dutch is what you get on the other end.

Actually it’s three-quarters bottom-shelf brandy, rum, and bourbon that quality control at any self-respecting distillery would normally pour down the drain, and mix it with one-fourth slightly curdled cream, and that’s Pennsylvania Dutch. So naturally, it’s absolutely delicious. It’s like Zeus is peeing in your mouth. The minute Thanksgiving comes around, I start buying it up by the case, because it goes fast in my town.

The only question when having a Touch o’ the Dutch is: neat or on the rocks? My rule of thumb is to always drink P-Dutch neat before noon, as if it were a glass of milk or, say, a vitamin shake; and on the rocks after noon, as then it’s more of a cocktail. But those are just my rules. I don’t pay the mortgage at your house, so you can make your own rules. What’s great about the Dutch is it’s an appropriate aperitif at any time of day, at least it is at my house where I am paying the mortgage.

And P-Dutch is a versatile mixer too -- it allows you get in touch with your creative side, if you have one. If you don't, drink 16 ounces of the Dutch and you will. Diageo kindly sent me a bottle of Godiva chocolate-infused vodka (it’s more like Aphrodite peeing in your mouth). You put a shot of that into a moderately clean glass, top it off with some P-D, and walla! You have what I call the Flying Dutchman. Two shots of vodka and it’s called the Headless Dutchman. Three shots, Vomiting Dutchman. Add a banana and blend, the Kraaaazy Dutchman (he’s gone toootally bananas!! Badda-bing). Add chocolate syrup and blend, the Tan Dutchman, An Oxymoron Drink (alternatively called "Dutch Chocolate" and "Dutch West Indies"). Add sauerkraut and blend, the Boer (do not recommend). Add strawberries and blend, the Fairy Dutchman - It's Fabulous! Forget to put the top on the blender and it leaks all over the place, we call that The Julian Assange Wiki-Dutch (har-de-har-har). And so on.

But be warned: Too much Pennsylvania Dutch and you will soon be “going Dutch” on dates on Match.com because your spouse will have left you. There’s nothing quite so pathetic as somebody who is prostrate and debauched on Dutch. But it’s almost worth it.

Gods of the beer industry (and Caroline too)

2010-12-03T08:38:00.001-08:00

Me, Caroline Levy, Bump Williams, and Bob Lachky, talking beer in front of a whole lotta wine. Essex House NYC.

Sunrise over D/FW Airport

2010-12-02T05:02:00.001-08:00

The Grand Hyatt, D/FW, Terminal D

2010-12-01T17:27:00.000-08:00

Today I am luck enough to be at the D/FW Grand Hyatt in Terminal D -- the quintessential expensive airport hotel frequented by those who are stuck in Dallas because there's a snow storm in Chicago. The cool thing about this hotel is the lobby bar has bar/dinner seating with individual TV monitors with a single placemat in front of each....a sort of sad Japanese businessman sort of solitude, which is in tune with the restaurant's cuisine. This hotel is trying to going a-Japanesa I think she said so, but not quite. This hotel commands high prices simply because so many O'Hare bound passengers are stuck here and we refuse to stay at the dirtier older off-site Hyatt Regency. Actually today I was heading to LaGuardia. Both flights I was on were canceled but not before we got onto the tarmac. The Indian guy next to me couldn't understand the captain, but for some reason understood me when I repeated verbatim what the captain said in the same language.

Captain: "Uh, I'm sorry to say that JFK has notified us of an hour delay due to weather, so we will wait here on the ground in Dallas until we're clear to take off."
Indian Man: "What he say?"
Me: "I'm sorry to say that JFK has notified us of an hour delay due to weather, so we will wait here on the ground in Dallas until we're clear to take off."
Indian Man (nodding in comprehension): "Ah yes. We have a flight to Bombay out of JFK."
(one hour later)
Captain: "Uh, I'm sorry to say that JFK has closed their runways due to weather, and we are going back to the terminal, this flight is cancelled."
Indian Man: "What he say?"
Me: "You're fucked."

Of course I didn't really say that. I said, "I'm sorry to say that JFK has closed their runways due to weather, and we are going back to the terminal, this flight is cancelled." But he knew he was screwed. I felt bad for him. Missing an international connection, particularly that far away, is a major pain in the ass.

But anyway, this little bar with TVs in front of each seat at the Grand Hyatt Terminal D in DFW is the perfect place for dinner and drinks with your favorite person -- you! Rather than spending another pathetic evening holed up in your room alone getting drunk on minibar bottles and watching TV and ordering room service and pissing yourself, now you can do it in public, with others watching. But fellow heavy travelers know, it's always feels better to be pathetic with other humans around than being pathetic alone. For some reason, after working in my room for hours, I long to be near others, even if I don't always speak to anybody, and I'd say 50% of the time I don't. But this hotel is truly set up for pathetic loners like me. They know their customer.

Welcome to Effing Costa Rica, Land of Hospitality!

2010-11-04T10:08:00.001-07:00

Note: Some folks here in Florida asked me to repost this story. Here you go guys.

Have you ever spent any significant time in a jail in San Jose, Costa Rica? Well, now you can check that off your bucket list, because I’ve done it and will tell you all about it. You know, to save you the trip.

When my wife’s brother asked me to tag along on a fishing trip to Costa Rica with some friends, I jumped at the opportunity. What a nice long weekend it would be, fishing for the elusive Marlin along the best waters in the world for saltwater billfish.

We arrive in Costa Rica on Wednesday evening and we get in line to go through Customs. No problemo. I've been through customs in dozens of countries all around the world. I've always prided myself on my innocent face and sympatico karma that makes me glide through international borders like a greased pig on a frozen pond.

Oh, but my cockiness caught up with me with a vengeance. I, brilliant contrarian that I am, get into a slightly longer line at customs that I believe will actually run faster based on the fact that the silver-haired customs agent checking passaportes (as they call them in Espanol) is dressed very smartly in a nice blazer and is probably more intelligent and speedy than his compadres. I am a world traveller you see, I wink to my friends. I know how to work these lines, eh?

This was mistake number 1, in retrospect.

But let’s back up a mite. Perhaps mistake number 1 was when I returned home from a business trip last year to attend a party for San Antonio Spurs center Steve Kerr, who was retiring from basketball. That party was very fun as I recall, as we all ended up in the pool in our clothes playing, what else? Water basketball with several Spurs players. You may recall that I bragged endlessly about hitting an outside shot against the three-point superstar, making me a three-point superstar..... in water basketball. If this were a TV movie, which it may be you never know, there would now be a close-up of my passport in my back pocket, with pool water flowing over it.

But really, if we want to truthfully trace back to mistake number 1 (there are really so many mistakes, we might have to go all the way back to shortly after my birth when I hit my head on a jeep bumper), it may be when I took Lulu and her friend Dacia (I know, it’s a stripper name but she’s not a stripper) to sushi lunch and announced that I was going to the paradise of Iraq for a few days with Diageo to help administer humanitarian relief to hospitals in the wake of the war, back when it was deemed safe, about 48 hours after we had taken Baghdad.

While I do not regret that trip, as we did provide 90,000 pounds of medical supplies to ailing Iraqi hospitals (and some beer for the troops), the trip had the unfortunate consequence of providing many suspicious-looking visas being stamped into my passaporte. You know, friendly tropical vacation hotspots like Costa Rica don’t welcome cool-faced gringos in wind jackets who frequent Beirut, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and particularly the recently liberated Republic of Iraq.

So getting back to my mistakes: I end up in the pool with the Spurs where my passaporte gets wet and soggy. That’s mistake number one. Going to Iraq with Diageo was mistake number two (if you don’t count the head-wound on the jeep bumper).

Then not going to the post office to get a new passaporte because mine looks as if it’s been through the spin cycle in the washer before being put in the microwave before being run over by a tractor before being chewed on by a Cherokee squaw….. that was mistake number three.

So there I was, all smart and sassy, picking the silver-haired sharp dressed man who would clearly recognize an honest American tourist with lots of U.S. dollars in his pocket to spend on the fledgling local economy. And hookers. Just kidding, honey. (Or am I?). No really I'm kidding.

This was mistake number four, because it turns out this prick would make Allan Greenspan look like a drug addled party boy. He gives my passaporte the equivalent of an anal search. He peals back laminate, splits pages looking for microscopic pieces of….. what? Nano-guns? Puts it under some kind of special light, probably just regular flourescent trying to scare me. He frowns and shakes his head and clucks his tongue. Meanwhile my entire crew has made it through customs like a breeze and is on their way to get the rental car.

Then it happens. He was already suspicious of me, and was searching for the straw that would break my marlin fishing weekend's back. He sees the Arabic stamps in the back: Iraq, Jordan, Beirut, Amsterdam (they have hashish there I'm told) and various other disreputable countries like Australia, which everybody knows is full of drunks. “Mmm, no bueno,” he says. Now I’m no linguist, but I now know that I’m in trouble. And when you are in trouble with a Customs official -- particularly in Central America where Democracy is kind of a new experiment that they aren't completely settled on yet -- and even if you are totally innocent, I'm here to tell you that bullets of sweat break out on your forehead, which make you appear all the more guilty.

“Mmm," he says again. By this time a curious crowd has gathered and another senior manager has arrived. This immigration official speaks friendly English, as they do in the Spanich markets in west San Antonio when they wish to sell trinkets, and says that they will have to take the passaporte to another place to inspect it, and will I please sit down and wait, no problemo. Now this sounds friendly, so I sit and wait.

One hour passes. Tick tock. Two hours pass. I remember reading a tourism poster in the terminal that said, "Time goes slow in Costa Rica!" Wow, they weren't kidding. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law and friends have no idea what’s happened to me and nobody will let them back through, nor will they let me send them a message that I’m going to be detained, maybe for fear that I’ll hide a file in the note or something?

Now, a few of you have indelicately insinuated that for this to happen I must have been rowdy drunk, wearing a sombrero, loudly singing Irish folk songs and insulting everybody within earshot. That is simply not the case. I slept the entire plane ride down there and was mild as a field of clovers.

Finally another immigration official arrives, with no English to make it more of a challenge -- nay, opportunity for me, and declares sharply that I am to leave the country the next day, and that I am to wait in a spare white room all night with an armed guard until such time that I will be summoned.

Huh? No Miranda rights? No court-appointed attorney? But most seriously, no iPod or book? What is this, freaking Gitmo? I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start, or how to start, as my Spanish is a little rusty. Maybe he told me that the grateful government of Costa Rica is going to pay for my stay at the Los Suenos Resort until transportation back to the States can be arranged?

My interpretation turns out to be a bit optimistic. A guard escorts me to a plain white room with a single plastic chair, which I sit in before he does. “Ah, Senior, mi amigo, donde esta mi passaporte y equipage?” I say, trying to make friends at first as I see him as the only obstacle between me and a pay phone. The guard shrugs and says what he will repeat several times throughout the night: “No se, senor.” I don’t know.

Can I use a phone? No se. Can I get my passport back? No se. Can I speak to a supervisor who speaks English? No se. Can I contact the U.S. consulate? No se. Can I get a drink of water? No se. Can I take this chair and shove it up your ass? No se.

By this time, my friends had bribed a janitor to sneak his cell phone to me (guard didn't seem to care) and I was able to tell them that I have been detained and to go on without me, because I wisely suspected at this point that the golden shores of Costa Rica were beyond my capabilities.

Yet another immigration official (the bureaucracy in this freaking country is amazingly large for a so-called 'republic' that is most famous for abolishing its military) comes and he is all smiles and handshakes. He's the good cop. He keeps repeating, “no worries, theeese is jeeest a reality. Eeees okay, no problem, jees a reality. Weee send you home manana, no problem, a reality, no worries, we happy no?”

Well, no, not really actually. I can't really say with candor that I'm "happy", per se. Fishing for billfish on the open seas makes me happy. Seeing my children again would make me happy. Drinking warm water from a dirty tap would make me happy at this point. But sitting in a white room in a plastic chair with an armed guard all night doesn't usually make me particularly freaking happy.

"Oh, si," all smiles and nodding so that I'm tempted kick his nuts up through his mouth. "Eeees jus a reality, my friend. No problem, a reality."

I think he means to say “formality”, but in a way his word is more descriptive of the situation, because this white room and this plastic chair and this armed guard are my true reality. We are at about midnight now, and I experience what consultants refer to as a "paradigm shift" after contemplating my situation from a higher sphere. My thinking, attitude, and demeanor shift from indignant pissed-off haughty holy journalist U.S. Citizen with inaliable rights, to foreigner captive jackass without a gun or passport who'd better start playing nice. So I don't kick him, because at this point it occurs to me that I may be walking the fine line between just leaving the country quietly or going to a more permanent dank prison ruled by a sodomite named Guapo. I choose a conciliatory tone and offer him and the guard fancy American Orbits gum from my pocket, the new tangy orange flavor they won't get in Costa Rica until 2008.

Finally, at 6am, maybe just because of the gum, I am allowed a phone call on a pay phone that looks as if Castro had forged it from old rusty cannon balls just after taking over Cuba, and painted it a nice Soviet shade of drab green. I call Lulu (collect) and instruct her to contact Continental Airlines and get me the first flight out, preferably first class, and tell the airline to send a beefy agent to fetch me from the holding room and we'll make a break for the gate. She does this, and Continental tells her that the government of Costa Rica has already informed them that they want me out of their country ASAP (they've already arranged my ticket), so there will be no problem in me getting to the gate. She upgrades me to first class, bless her tall blonde soul.

At seven thirty, two armed guards escort me to the plane, all the way to my seat in 2A. As they turn to go, I give them my best Jim Cary immitation, “Thanks for the memories, can’t wait to return! Oh, and don't forget to write.” or something to that effect. The other passengers are either impressed or horrified. I actually said something saltier than that, but I'll spare you the details as it wasn't my finest hour, to folks who were just doing their job.

The government of Costa Rica, such as it is, has requested that I never return to their fair country. Finally, we agree on something! Happy days. You know, I feel this is a good healthy start towards a reconciliation. It's like saying we both like Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's a small but solid cornerstone on which to forge our future together, me and Costa Rica.

They had torn up my passaporte to such a degree that I actually had a little trouble getting back into the blessed beautiful United States. Birth certificates and Social Security cards had to be faxed from courthouses, bags had to be searched (again), more indignities endured. But I got back to the blessed U.S. where they have habeus corpus, a right I hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

So why am I public enemy number 1 in Costa Rica? I'm not entirely certain, but I think those Inspector Clusoes know a small arms dealer when they see one. "You're a beer writer," one official had asked in disdain. "A beer writer? Mmm." He'd seen too many "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock" episodes to believe that a beer writer would travel to Jordon, where beer is practically illegal.

The official reason was because they felt beyond a reasonable doubt that my passaporte had been tampered with, and in fact I was not who I said I was. Why anybody would pretend to be me, Harry Schuhmacher, a beer journalist from San Antonio, is beyond me. But apparently everybody wants to be me when trying to get into Central American countries.

I've since learned that Costa Rica is a destination of choice for felons on the run, and tampered passports are the best way to get into the country.

The frayed passaporte, the Arabic, my boots with Arabian sand on them, an iPod with U2, a sarcastic wit and foul mouth….it proved a combination that was just too much: I showed all the traits of a desperado on the lam, not fit for the unarmed waifs of Costa Rica.

So the Marlin remain safe from my hooks. But the bed is not, I’m going to sleep for 12 hours straight.

It's Always Sunny in Southern Florida

2010-09-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

I travelled to Southern Florida for work last week. Southern Florida. Sigh. The problem with Southern Florida is that its airports are chock full of children and ancients, (children heading to and from Disney World, and the ancients to and from seeing their children). Children and ancients tend to move e-v-e-r s-o s-l-o-w-l-y through airport walkways and escalators, taking up the entire width naturally. Not only that, they ask an inordinate amount of questions at ticket counters. The only truly valid question at a ticket counter is: Can I have my ticket? But children and ancients ask things like: is my flight on time, where is my gate, how long is my layover at my destination, where is the bathroom, what kind of plane am I flying, etc etc. all of which can be found on their ticket or on a monitor.

And don’t get me started on going through security. The oldies, with their aluminum canes and wheelchairs, would be difficult enough except that it never occurs to the blue hairs to take off their 75 pounds of costume jewelry and it never occurs to the old coots to take the $175 of spare change out of their pockets or their iron horseshoe belt buckles off. When travelling to or from Southern Florida, go ahead and give yourself an extra 45 minutes to get from curb to gate. Last week, once I finally got on my plane, one old guy chose that opportunity to check the level on his oxygen tank. Turns out, there wasn’t enough oxygen to last him the flight. So another oxygen tank had to be procured, apparently in Arkansas given the hour and a half it took to get it on the plane.

But other than an early death, I suppose becoming old lays in wait for us all, so I suppose I should show a little more patience. Pretty soon, I’ll be the one holding up lines, wielding an aluminum cane while asking innumerable inane questions at the ticket counter.

Which Picture Should I Use?

2010-09-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

The good folks at BeerAdvocate Magazine have chosen me as one of their Badass Beer Advocates for 2010, which is a huge honor ... I think. They've asked me for a photo to include in the next issue.

So..... I put it to you, my trusted loyal readers, which one should I send them?

As you can clearly see, both pictures portray me as a badass. The first pic, which I just had my housekeeper take of me at my dining room table after several false starts -- she had the camera backwards at first and blinded herself as she shot a closeup of her face, ( "Pinche chinga cabrone how does thees stooopid thing work?"), shows me quaffing a stein of high octane brown ale as I peck out a scathing editorial deflating the reputation of a beer industry dignitary; while the second -- taken with my nephew's phone -- shows me tearing up the Texas Hill Country on my son's dirt bike after drinking a few light lagers (I never ride after drinking high ABV ales, only light lagers -- safety first).

Email me at harry at beernet.com and put either "laptop" or "motorcycle" in the subject line to vote, or just comment on my Facebook page or Twitter page @BeerBizDaily

Muchas gracias,

Harry
El Jefe de cerveza

UPDATE: Motorcycle wins.

News Flash: Spider Monkey Terrifying Residents near San Antonio

2010-09-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

There is a spider monkey on the loose near San Antonio named W.C. Fields. After a storm damaged his cage at a primate reservation, he has been roaming the hills and neighborhoods of Leon Springs, terrorizing citizens with demands of bananas and beer. I’m not making this up. Why on earth would I?

Leon Spring is where we have some family property, so I hope Mr. WC Fields hasn’t broken into our house and drunk up all the beer. I’m assuming he’s been demanding beer because, after all, his owners named him WC Fields for a reason, and the original Fields was a notorious drunk. I know this because I had an excellent Liberal Arts classical public school education. But the average Joe, I fear, does not, and WC Field's grunts and flailing arms are being grossly misinterpreted as aggressive attacks.

He cornered one lady in her garage and kept her there terrified for an hour, demanding beer. The woman, apparently not aware of the significance of the WC Fields allusion, remained ignorant of his wishes and was reduced to cowering in a corner in tears, totally misinterpreting the fact that he was just asking for a light .... a Bud Light that is. I give the monkey credit: He was smart enough to know that most Texans keep their beer in dedicated refrigerators in their garages. WC Fields grunted and flapped his long arms up and down as he's prone to do, and in exasperation (he's thinking, "they named me WC Fields for Christ's sake, isn't it obvious what I want!"), finally left frustrated and unsatisfied. The woman inexplicably told the local press that she may sell her house due to this affront. That's her choice, although the chances of being attacked by another alcoholic spider monkey in her lifetime seem somewhat remote regardless of where she lives. Another man, an octogenarian, fed the monkey watermelon in his driveway until it got agitated and ran off. Note to residents of Leon Springs: The monkey doesn't want freaking fruit, he wants BEER. Can you blame him for being agitated? Please, just give the damn thing what he wants before he hurts somebody or, worse (from WC Fields' point of view), gets put back into captivity.

At my local watering hole in Leon Springs, the Scenic Loop Café, the owner has told employees not to serve the monkey food or alcohol, according to the San Antonio Express-News, a venerable city organ that has had the foresight to dedicate a reporter to this important story. I happen to be friends with the owner of the Cafe, Christy, and you can be sure I'll berate her next time I see her on this intolerant policy. “Don’t serve monkeys, eh Christy? What’s next, turning away German beer writers too? Slippery slopes, my dear. The poor monkey obviously just wants a nice cold pint of Blue Moon before he's stuffed back into a cage to live an abstemiously sober life with the occasional slightly fermented banana (in other words, a horrible life). I’ll pay his tab if he’s not carrying greenbacks.” The shame. I plan on boycotting the Loop in protest …. until I’m back in Leon Springs and need a drink. My principles only go so far.

Remember the Shawshank Redemption, when Tim Robbins arranges for his fellow prisoners to have just one cold beer before being locked up in prison again? I am of the belief that this is what our thirsty primate-on-the-lam is after. I almost wish I weren’t at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver right now, or else I’d be combing the hills of Leon Springs, a bottle of Stella Artois in one hand and a chain in the other, to share a cold one with WC Fields ..... right before stuffing him in my trunk and collecting the reward.

(Thanks to my friend Kyle who has been keeping me abreast of this important news story while I'm travelling. -HCS)

Dragons live forever, but not so little boys

2010-09-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

I have three sons, 17, 15, and 10. It seems like just yesterday that the 17 year old was in kindergarten. My wife Lulu cried on his first day of kindergarten. And I laughed it off because, after all, he’d be in kindergartenf for a full year. Today I look at him and he’s nearly ready to go off to college, and my 15 year old is going to Driver's Ed and getting ready to drive. Now I’m the one crying.

I still have one little bear. My ten year old and I are very close. The reason is because I started my business ten years ago, and when you’re self-employed you can take random days off on a whim. I took several afternoons off to take Wywy to a movie or to the ranch. He’s a snuggler, so on many nights I would crash in his bed and we would talk about the day, or sharks, or the different types of zombies, or battleships. Those days are drawing nigh, as he gets older and realizes that snuggling with your daddy isn’t cool anymore, if it ever was.

It brings to mind the song, Puff the Magic Dragon: “A Dragon lives forever; but not so little boys. Painted wings and giant's rings, make way for other toys. One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more. And Puff that mighty dragon suddenly ceased his fearless roar. His head now bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain. Puff no longer went to play, along that cheery lane. Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave, so Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.”

It’s true. The little boys we knew suddenly, quite miraculously and with no notice, grow up. We wake up one day to find our little boys all big and using deodorant and calling girls and going out. This has proved too much for me to handle. The last time I bawled this much was the 2002 Budweiser ad commemorating 9/11.
The commentator Rich Galen wrote a great post on this, pointing out that there are two types of people in this world regarding children growing up: those who get it and those who don’t. I get it. My baby bear is soon to be no more, and it just breaks my heart. I’m so proud of the young men my boys have become, but I still dearly miss the little boys -- the ones who marveled at trains, airplanes, and helicopters; the ones who called hamburgers hangubers; the ones who will race into your arms for a hug after school -- those little boys are no more. I can't go on -- my keyboard is wet.

The best trophies are those you can eat

2010-07-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

Ours is not an athletic family. Well.....that's not entirely true, so let me start again. I come from a very athletic family. My mother and sister are accomplished golfers and tennis players, and my wife still holds the record for some run mete at her high school. But I find trouble getting a few molecules of air between my feet and the ground when I attempt to jump. Some of my children unfortunately imitate me in this way, although none of them got my near-sightedness, asthma, bad knees, or gout.

At a dinner last night with friends, they all started talking about which of their kids were going to state in baseball and who was trying out for varsity basketball and who was starting on the football team, when I blurted out that my youngest boy won a gigantic bucket of cheese balls at tennis camp for being "most improved". They all stared at me for a minute, then resumed their conversation. I used to win "most improved" at tennis camp as well. It's a euphemism for "we have to give him something so how about most improved."

I was so proud of him. You can see that he's a modest boy, choosing not to lord his good fortune over everybody and shying away from the camera. But I was so excited I couldn't help snapping this shot of him in his glory. I mean, while other children are winning regular old boring ribbons and trophies, my boy got to bring home a trophy that has a huge bucket of cheese puffs glued to it -- the largest bucket of cheese puffs I've ever seen. It's the trophy that keeps on giving. I mean, look at it. It's HUGE.

We put the trophy/bucket of cheese balls on the coffee table and that night I accidentally ate half of it while watching a movie. They are very, very delicious. How can something with zero nutritional value and so much air in them pack in so much cheesy-icious taste? I didn't realize I had eaten half of it until it happened. The excitement of "The Remains of the Day" -- a period movie where the action is limited to a butler who almost, but doesn't, make a move on a cook -- must have distracted me. Damn you, Emma Thompson! Damn your sexy upper-class accent and your work-a-day frock!

I knew I'd be in trouble, so I hinted that I had accidentally knocked the bucket over and the cheese puffs, being round, rolled all over the floor as our dog Chica gobbled them up before I could get them back into the bucket. Since Chica doesn't speak english (except to me in the hot tub after margs), she was unable to rat me out, although her eyes were very convicting as she took the blame. I can't even look at her I'm so ashamed. But the explanation satisfied Lulu until she noticed my fingers were orange. Although dogs can't laugh, I thought I heard Chica chuckle with satisfaction.

Next week the "most improved" award is a tube of mini-Reeses peanut butter cups. You know who I'm rooting for. Que up "Sense and Sensibility."

Don't be shy ..... it's for losers

2010-07-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

This may surprise you, but when I was a child I was painfully shy. I was terrified of meeting new people, and would be happy as a clam if just allowed to lock myself in my room 24/7 and watch M*A*S*H reruns for the rest of my life.

Shyness is a terrible trait for a guy to have. It keeps you from excelling at work, it keeps you from making new friends, and worst of all, it keeps you from getting laid. So about half way through college I decided to teach myself not to be shy, and the only way to do that effectively was to drink more beer. If I hadn't discovered beer, I wouldn't have had the courage to speak to Lulu, and today I'd be a sad lonely old man of 41.

When I started my company and became a journalist, I had to take it to the next level, and not only not be shy but to be an extravert -- give speeches in front of hundreds of beer distributors, make new contacts and sources, eat with my hands in front of people. Again beer came in mighty handy.

Today I am decidedly not shy, and it's liberating. I still get nervous around new people sometimes, and I am forced to push through it and remember to smile and engage and be clever. It has served me well.
For instance, I was sitting with my friends Kaumil and Chewy at an outdoor patio bar in London last night. Kaumil is a beverage and tobacco analyst with UBS. Chewy owns a chain of pharmacies in London. They got to talking about stocks and bonds and sports or whatever men talk about, and of course my mind wandered. I noticed that the table next to us was getting rowdy. I leaned over to them and said something like, "Hey, either you guys pipe down, or let us join you." They invited us over.

One among them was a pretty Brit with huge blue eyes and a bubbly personality. She said she was a TV host on the BBC and, judging from the stares of everybody in the bar, it occurred to me that she must be some sort of celebrity. I told her I was from Texas and she frowned. "I'm sorry. I've been to Lubbock for a film shoot and it was horrible. It made me start smoking." I told her that this was a perfectly normal response to being in Lubbock ..... you must find an outlet, any outlet, when in that dusty dry town. I said I used to smoke when in Lubbock but stopped because, after all, it's bad for you -- both smoking and Lubbock. She asked me how I was able to stop smoking. I looked her in the eye and said in earnest: "Cocaine." Her laugh was like the tinkle of tiny bells.

Many other little jokes like that were told to illicit more tiny bells. Pretty soon she was seated by my side and cooing over me and playing with my hair. The fastest way to a pretty girl's heart is either through food or humor, and since I didn't have any food at hand, well..... Her date -- a guitarist in a band who is much younger than she or me -- watched with benign interest from across the table. He spoke in a northern England York accent that might as well have been Greek for it was completely unintelligible to me. In response to the few words he said (he was shy, you see), I just smiled and repeated, "right-e-o mate." What else was I to do? All in all it was great fun. She then asked that we retire to her flat for cocktails, but we ultimately paid our tab and left for our hotel, as my mother once told me that nothing good happens after midnight.

Later I discovered that she is not only famous, but infamous from when a girly magazine had her naked image projected gloriously onto the side of Parliament a few years ago, scandalizing the older MPs as they trudged to Whitehall in the early morning hours. (Not kidding, check it here nsfw). So within five hours of arriving in London I was whooping it up with a celebu-bunny, one of Maxim's 100 Hottest Women, and a true delight to behold. Yes, I'm a sucker for pretty women. That's just one benefit of losing my childhood shyness. Trust me, it's worth it.

So if you're shy like I was, my advice is to just man-up and get over it. They can't eat you. My mother also told me that. And my old friend August Busch IV once told me, "Making friends is our business." Indeed.

Has it been four years already?

2010-06-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

There's an English-style pub here in San Antonio I like to frequent called the Lion & the Rose. It's a dark smoky bar, my favorite type of establishment when it's sunny outside. There's nothing better than stealing away on a hot afternoon and catching a few pints in a dark pub. Yesterday was one such day, so I was giddy with anticipation to get to the Lion & the Rose to tip a glass.

So imagine my frustration when I showed up to find the bar packed with loud drunken punters, wankers, and blokes and a curious loud whine coming from every TV. Oh Christ, I thought, it's the bloody World Cup. It was a rookie mistake, I grant you. Of course I should've known that the L&R would be a touchstone for the town's loudest and most obnoxious limeys during the World Cup. Has it really been four years already? That went by fast, unlike the World Cup itself. Watching soccer is like watching paint dry or sunbathing -- soul-crushing boredom. Luckily I had a lively friend join me as a diversion.

Remember this post on the World Cup? Yep, four years ago. The worst part is I'm scheduled to go to Europe again, and again I'll be fighting hords of drunken soccer hooligans in every bar.

One of the worst features of this World Cup is the strange buzzing that blares from the TV broadcast, as if above the stadium millions of locusts are noisily roosting. My first thought was that South Africa must be swarmed by bees, which gave me a nanosecond of hope that the World Cup would be canceled. I then had the thought it was due to a flaw in the satellite feed, or that the TVs in the Lion & the Rose were damaged due to being drowned in years of thick ambient cigarette smoke.

But it turns out that some idiot at FIFA had the grand idea of giving every fan a little plastic horn, which they blow on continuously throughout the game. It just proves my theory that soccer fans are, on a whole, imbeciles. Not only do they find entertainment in one of the most boring sports in the world, but like besotted bumble bees they can think of nothing better to do in the stands than blow on a toy horn. It's as if to say, "look at me, I have horn, and I'm going to blow it to make myself significant." Of course, their insignificance is only enhanced by the fact that their horn is drowned out by millions of other horns. The futility is, frankly, depressing.

I was cajoled by a well-meaning friend into going to a Chelsea soccer game in London once with my son. Never again. After the game I literally feared for both our lives. There were fistfights everywhere, cops on horses charging the crowd, mass stampedes. We were both soaked in stale beer by the time we got to our hotel. Why anybody chooses to put themselves in that situation is beyond me. But then again, I'm old and increasingly grouchy.

My sons have been watching the Cup all weekend, not yet having the sense to know that watching the World Cup is like feeding seagulls, i.e. only imbeciles do it. That ever-present humming is starting to give me a headache. I think I'll head out to a bar for relief -- oh wait, every bar in town is also playing the game. I guess I'll go sunbathing.

Betrayal at 30,000 Feet

2010-06-07T14:53:00.001-07:00

Heading to St. Loo to lunch with Carlos Brito, the Brazilian chief of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Given his notorious parsimony, I'm bringing my own beer and dessert.

On my first leg from SA to D/FW, I fell into a deep sleep. In my dreams my wife Lulu announced that her other, younger husband and she were going to try to have a baby. In my dream it was completely natural that she have another husband and that he be younger. That was somehow okay. But for some reason what infuriated me was the fact that they were planning on having another baby. "But honey," I cried, desperately clutching at her tennis skirt, "we decided years ago that we wouldn't have any more children after Wywy, which is why I got a vasectomy." This part is true. You can read about my ~~humiliation~~ helpful surgery at Salon.com here.

She responded that her younger husband, Jake (I had earlier read an article about Jake Gyllenhaal in the in-flight magazine), wanted children and therefore she was starting a new family ..... with her other husband ..... who is Jarhead. This all seemed completely reasonable to her and horrifyingly real to me in a way only possible in dreams. My anguish was partially cut short by our landing, but even awake I still vaguely felt misused. As I made my way to the Admiral's Club, the airport PA system played the theme to "Love Story", only adding to my dark mood with every doleful piano note. Had I read an article about William Shatner or Wilford Brimley in American Way, I no doubt would've been spared this strife. Damn the luck. But Jake Gyllenhaal? How could she, I thought.

Of course, she hadn't. It was only a dream. But the betrayal stubbornly stuck in my mind. Dreams are storied manifestations of actual deep-seated feelings, right? If my active mind codgered up a dream of betrayal by my rib, naturally there must be some truth in the fact that at some subconscious level, I feel betrayed, however unlikely it is that Lulu is actually secretly practicing bigamy and breeding with Jake Gyllenhaal. I actually consider calling her and confronting her with this betrayal (I imagine talking overly-heated into the phone, "Jake Gyllenhaal is just as self-absorbed as you'd expect a 29 year-old millionaire actor to be! Don't let those puppy eyes fool you, he's a narcissistic pox-ridden smoothie drinking pencil-dick -- is that how you want your unborn child to turn out!?"), before I luckily stopped myself before I made a complete psychotic ass of myself in front of the only woman who has taken the time to actually love me.

I then promptly cast aside thoughts of that genuine love and fantasized about committing bigamy with Miranda Lambert, also featured in the magazine, but then discarded that notion on the grounds that she's a self-described gun lover and most of her songs are about violent retribution for perceived indiscretions.

There was another feature article on Susan Sarandon, who is 63, which actually worked out okay in my fantasy. I've always preferred older women -- they seem like they'd be so appreciative -- in a doting way -- to rate the attentions of such a young buck like myself. She's quite attractive, and probably completely content at her age with 78 seconds of sex a night. And we could adopt a child from Africa, so that Lulu and Jake's child would have a multicultural friend in the house. And she likes ping pong, my favorite sport. But her charity work and do-goodery would get in the way of my imagined life of Caesar-style pagan revelry -- after all, I'm a bigamist and this is my fantasy. Said fantasy is interrupted by the call to board my flight -- back to reality -- and the return of a vague sense that I've been wronged by my wife somehow.

What, exactly, is going on here, I wonder?

-Was it the vasectomy, the procedure Lulu insisted I undertake even though it stole my manhood, at the root of this latent resentment? That's hard to believe, since I got it ten years ago, and any loss of manhood is way over-compensated by the hypothetical ability to spread my seed from here to eternity without the least fear of pregnancies and requisite babies.

-Am I jealous of all the men who ogle at her long tan legs on the tennis court, at the mall, in restaurants, and at church for God's sake? Hardly. They're all older and fatter than I am, mostly. I doubt any of them can go 60 seconds without passing out. And the younger thinner ones tend to lack, what's the phrase? Self-awareness, or an ability to self-deprecate, or the self-confidence that comes with age, or a sense of humor, or an ability to connect intellectually with women, or…….the list could go on and on and on. In fairness they do have an intense knowledge of sports, particularly professional golf, which I entirely lack (notwithstanding my advice to Tiger). And I don't see myself ever, ever rectifying this weakness. Susan Sarandon doesn't give a fig about golf.

-Am I starting to feel my age, when I flop down gasping for breath and red-faced in mid-apoplexy after our lovemaking, starkly aware that Jake Effing Gyllenhaal could probably go longer than 78 seconds? Naw. Besides, who wants to go longer than 78 seconds when there's a new episode of "Modern Family" on the tube?

Look, I tell myself, only Freud would know, and he's dead. So just get over it and concentrate on coming up with interesting and engaging questions to ask Carlos Brito, the most powerful man in the global beer industry. Focus, Harry, focus. I will first ask him what plans he has for the Corona brand in the US should he be able to acquire………. Hey, anybody know how to get in touch with Sarandon's agent?

Cat, RIP

2010-06-06T13:50:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who is a bear hunting guide and commercial fisherman in Alaska. We’ll call him James, because that in fact is his name. In the winter off-season he lives in our back house, and pays me rent in bear sausage and dried salmon and the occasional pickled rabbit. Our arrangement harkens back to the good old days of a feudal system that we are both comfortable with, and he has taken to addressing me as “milord” and “Sir Harry” and I call him “my peasant-tenant.” I’m certain the city would levy thousands in fines if they knew I housed a human in such a shanty, but James loves his little love hut, particularly the free wifi he rips off our neighbors. He is a man of very few needs. He exercises by donning a huge sombrero and doing a sort of doggy paddle exercise in our pool on occasion. He makes coffee by heating up a jar of water on the stove and pouring the coffee grains in, and then filtering it through a rag. A hunter in Africa sends him some sort of vile brandy called Cape Smoke that he drinks neat out of a dirty tin cup. But he’s great fun to have around, if only for the stories.

Occasionally, on evenings after supper and the kids and wife are put to bed, I’ll step out back and choke down a dram of warm brandy with him. We talk of hunting and fishing and women as he feeds dried salmon to a stray cat he picked up somewhere named “Cat” that he insists is an expert mouser. I enjoy these times with James. It’s like walking into a sepia toned photo from the past. As the brandy goes down, each sip smoother than the last until it is nearly drinkable, time slows down until, after the second cup of brandy, it stands still. Then it starts going in reverse. That’s when it’s time to return to my house where the sepia tone turns to color -- and we have air conditioning.

Occasionally when James is on the hunt I get updates from him when he can get to a computer. Yesterday he emailed to say that the bear season was bad – it seems global warming or the lack thereof has kept the bears slumbering in their caves well into summer -- and that he was currently “in King Salmon” and would be fishing commercially in two weeks.

Unfortunately I had to break the news to him that “Cat” has been elevated to a higher sphere. We found her dead -- electrocuted as unlikely as that seems -- in the shed after she made the fatal mistake of biting through a hot extension chord. The sprinklers haven't worked since. She probably mistook it for a mouse tail. We threw the cat in the garbage only to have Chica dig her out repeatedly. Her corpse served as Chica's fuzzy play-toy for several gruesome days. We finally got her safely enterred with cap securely on garbage pail and you’ll no doubt be relieved to know she now rests in peace in a landfill in south San Antonio. The good news is that she will no longer use James’ suitcase as a litter box. The bad news is that James may have to upgrade his rodent control measures by calling Terminix.

I look forward to James’ return, where we can talk in melancholy and fond terms of Cat, our fallen sista solja.

A Great Memorial Day

2010-06-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

I had a glorious Memorial Day weekend. I swam in the creek with the brats at the ranch, caught a cooler-full of fish, basked in the sun, and drank an inordinate amount of beer. But after a long weekend in the sun with the kids, I was ready for some grown-up time. So I recruited my nephew, Blue Jeep Keys, to drive me to our local greasy spoon/honkey tonk bar. His nickname is based on his annoying propensity as a child to utter "blue jeep keys?...blue jeep keys", posing both the question and its answer, at every single lull in the conversation, the only phrase he knew for years. He had an abnormal attachment to these keys, which started our jeep which happened to be blue, often losing them and causing him to cry for hours until they were found. We tried in vain to substitute fake keys, which he would hurl back at your head, only wanting access to the blue jeep keys. No, he's not an imbecile, but at the time we harbored doubts.

Anyway, since it was Memorial Day's eve, I decided to let Blue Jeep Keys take me to our local watering hole so I could buy a few drinks for my old friend Troy, a World War II veteran who saw his share of action. When I first met him 20 years ago, I thought he was very old. Now he's very old plus 20 years, which makes him very very old. But he's still spry. He wears a Resistol straw cowboy hat, the price of which he complains about every single time I see him.

Troy: "Can you believe they charged me $93 dollars for this hat?"

Me: "You've never mentioned it."

Troy (talking over me): "At first I thought it must be lined in gold flake but I can't see any gold flake, but my eyes are bad. Do you see any gold flake?"

Me: "No." (wondering what "gold flake" is).

Troy: "Didn't think so. I was robbed. Then they tried to tell me Resistol didn't make long oval, and I knew they made long oval so I told the guy, you'd better check your little book again because I've been wearing long oval for 40 years. Lily prick."

It's tough to argue with a man who's seen just about everything. It's almost not fair. Troy makes me think of that old David Allan Coe song:

"He's veteran proud, tried and true

He fought 'till his heart was black and blue

Didn't know how he'd made it through

The hard times.

"He drank Pearl from a can and Jack Daniel's Black

Chewed tobacco from a mail pouch sack

Had an old dog that was trained to attack

Sometimes.

"He's get drunk and mean as a rattlesnake

And there wasn't much he would take

From a stranger."

Well, not exactly. Troy drinks Schlitz from a can, with intermittent shots of Jim Beam ("or whatever you got back there that's brown"). His dog wasn't trained to attack, but rather was a little white Shitzu named Popcorn that he used to bring into the bar, until he finally outlived Popcorn. Popcorn would sit dutifully at his feet as Troy washed down can after can of Schlitz. In Leon Springs, Texas, public health officials are few and far between, and if any had, by some fluke, wandered in and asked Troy to remove his dog, he would've promptly told them to go to hell and that would've been the end of that conversation. Troy's shot and been shot at for our country, and that does give him some leeway with the newer priggish rules of our republic, like bringing animals into a restaurant.

He does get pretty tight, but he doesn't get mean as a rattlesnake. More like grumpy, like a hungry bear. Lots of little things irritate him, and each of these unrelated annoyances is usually caused by liberal politicians or bureaucrats.

You never know what's going to come out of Troy's mouth.

Troy: "You ever had Mexican food in Vermont?"

Me: "No I don't think so."

Troy: "Well, don't. It's horrible. I'll never make that mistake again." (As if people are forever harassing him with offers of tacos from Vermont).

Later I asked him if he ever drank at the VFW Hall that's down the road. "Yes, I joined it a few years ago. They sent me a t-shirt with their logo on it. Made in damn China. I sent it back and told them where to put their membership."

In the party room adjacent to the bar there's some sort of faux cowboy wedding reception. Out here in Leon Springs, there's two types: the actual goat ranchers who've lived here for generations and somehow scratch a living out of this rocky arid land, and the suburban sprawl folks who dress up and play cowboy on the weekends. Since it's largely their money that keeps this joint afloat, we tolerate them. You haven't lived until you see a man in a cowboy get-up drinking a strawberry daquiri. One of them walks into the bar, orders a apple-tini or something, and says "howdy" to Troy. He rolls his eyes and mutters, "Jesus Christ." I burst out laughing.

Whenever I drink with Troy I feel inadequate as a man. Maybe not as bad as a fake cowboy drinking a wine spritzer, but inadequate nevertheless. I never fought in any wars. Hell, I've never even been in a proper bar fight. In college I was in a minor scuffle. I clocked a d-bag who was bothering a girl and quickly saw I was outmatched, so I stopped, dropped, and rolled. Works in fires too. Hardly honorable behavior. I've never told Troy this story and doubt I ever will. He likes me, or tolerates me, so I'd better put my best foot forward.

So after a nice time with Troy, I instructed Blue Jeep Keys to drive me back to el rancho grande, just a stone's throw from the honky tonk. At the gate, I step out and open it to allow him through. It was dark. I didn't realize that Blue Jeep Keys had a two-by-four sticking out the side of the bed of his truck, and as he passed it clocked me right smack in the face. My glasses go flying off and I go down for the count. Blue Jeep Keys runs back, "Are you okay?" I get up, a little dazed. "Yes I'm fine, let's go home."

The next morning I have a beautiful shiner on my left eye. I'm still inadequate, but it makes me feel a little better about myself. My rib is less impressed. "So you drank all evening with Troy and then got knocked over by a board in Blue's truck. Wow, is all I can say." Yes, it was a great weekend.

Learning to Say "No"

2010-02-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

WARNING: The following post is very crabby, finicky, and self-important. But then again, they all are.

It's February, and you know what that means. We are less than one month away from our Beer Industry Summit, the annual executive conference we throw for the top 500 executives in the beer industry, which is a year in the planning, but really a month in the real preparation -- the last month -- February. So naturally February, being the busiest month of the year, is when "The People" start coming out of the woodwork.

"The People" are those friends, acquaintances, complete strangers, and obscure relatives who appear out of nowhere wanting special favors that they think will only "take a minute" but would actually, if I said 'yes', take days of work. These people invariably forget that in addition to doing favors for strangers and friends, we also put out two daily publications and a yearly Summit. Since that's what people pay us for -- not favors -- forgive us if we tend to put those things first.

There are several types of "The People":

The Student -- We get this one several times a week. A student from such-in-such business school thought it would be cool to write their term paper on the beer industry. Cool right? Because beer is cool. Right on, bro. Except that they don't want to do the research for their term paper, because they don't know anything about the beer industry, so they want me to do their research for them.. Usually it's an email that says something like, "it will just take a minute, but I need Stella Artois draft sales for each month of 2005-2009." These students can't understand why I can't spend an hour digging up that information when I have a plane to catch in 45 minutes. They should have done their term paper on beauty aids or baby food. What they have failed to grasp is that while, yes, "beer is cool," it's also one of the most highly complex, regulated, and fragmented industries in the world. If you want to understand the beer industry, get a law degree first. Yeah, shoulda picked candy bars, pal.

The Do-Gooder -- This is somebody, usually an acquaintance, who has started or joined the board of a charity due to some misplaced vague guilt they feel about something horrible they did in their past and have now, in mid-February naturally, come to the point where they either need 200 cases of beer for a gala they are throwing, or need money to fund their charity. I can only imagine the board meeting where they discuss how to achieve this goal -- a logic funnel that invariably leads to me. "Hey, you know what industry is sinful and yet rich and so probably has lots of money/beer to give to throw at charities like ours: the beer industry! Let's see, who do we know in the beer industry? Harry!! He'll be thrilled to help us out."

Thrilled is a strong word. While I admire and have respect for people who work on charities, I always give an automatic and authoritative "NO" to these requests on so many grounds it's hard to list them all. (I did once arrange for a small amount of beer for a charity function for my mother-in-law, because I'm sleeping with her daughter. But that's where I draw the line: If I'm not sleeping with your daughter, sorry, I'm not asking for beer/money on your behalf).

So why can't I help the little children?

1. I am a journalist covering a pretty small and insular industry. A journalist. A journalist cannot ask the people he covers for a favor, not even on behalf of a charity, because regardless of how well-intentioned the charity is, an obligation is secured. If a journalist asks for a favor from a person or company he covers, that person or company will expect a break in your coverage of them.

2. I'm often asked to just "put the charity request in your newsletter." That doesn't work either. First of all, it always irritates me to no end when people who have never read my publication ask me to just "put" something in. Our publications are successful, and command a very high price, exactly because we don't "put" things in, particularly charity requests. People don't pay for what's on the page, they pay for what we leave out. And if that's what they're paying me for, I'm going to continue doing it.

3. Beer companies are asked to give beer/money to charities about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times a day. Most beer companies, distributors and brewers, have a full time staff that does nothing but field requests from charities. Apparently your idea to hit up a beer company isn't a very original one, because EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHARITY in the history of the world has already thought of it. They don't need me piling on.

4. I not only cover beer companies, but beer companies are my customers, and I am their vendor. Do you see how that relationship is supposed to go? They ask me for favors, not the other way around.

5. And this is always a shocker to people, but BEER ISN'T FREE, not even to beer companies. "Oh, they can just give us some beer." I hear this three times a month from people asking me to ask for free beer. Only thing is, it's not free. And I suppose you want them to deliver it too? On a Saturday?

The PR Maven -- This person comes out of the woodwork any time of year and says, "You know, you oughtta do a story on me" (or my brand or product). This is a tough one, because about one out of ten times the story might actually be one that my readers might be interested in, so I can't dismiss it out of hand. But 90% of the time, yes, my readers would keel over of boredom reading something about a new type of tap handle that delivers the right amount of nitrogen. Sometimes people get indignant when I politely decline the content. Usually these people have never read our publications and so have no idea that we write short, exclusive, newsy pieces about the beer business, not feature articles on tap handles. The ones who are the most indignant and haughty are invariably the ones who don't even subscribe.

The Chatty Friend -- Friends are constantly complaining to me and my wife that I never return phone calls. But when I get busiest my friends start leaving long windy messages on my cell phone just to ask a yes or no question. Note to my friends: Put it in an email! The five minutes I just wasted listening to your message, and the ten minutes it will take me to call you back, get through the requisite pleasantries, and answer your question, is 14 minutes and 50 seconds longer than it would have taken to answer your question through a text or email on my phone. See, I have a hour cab ride, and I have about 6 calls I need to return that have to do with what's going into tomorrow's issue of Beer Business Daily, so I don't have 15 minutes to answer a question. Sorry, I love you, but just email me next time (unless I'm sleeping with your daughter, then you can call). The problem with phone calls versus emails, is with phone calls you have to return them sequentially, one at a time, and make small talk. They take too long. When you have thousands of readers, dozens of which want to communicate with you about something on any given day, you have to learn to communicate with more than one at a time. With emails, you can have several "conversations" at one time, and the small talk is limited to "hi." Also, I'm a better writer than a talker, so email was a godsend to me when it came along. So, yes, non-business phone calls always go to the back of my priority list. And as you know, my dog Chica taught me how to prioritize.

Learning to say "no" in February is hard to do. But, hey, I'll always try to lend a hand the rest of the year. /End of grouchy rant.

New Year's Resolutions, 2010

2010-01-04T06:40:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year: Time to throw away the mildewing stuffing in your fridge, time to learn to wake up before 1pm, time to puree salt grass to cleanse the organs, and time to make New Year's resolutions. This year I'm shooting for the moon. To wit:

Take fewer showers. This whole notion of showing every single damn day is such a waste of time, fresh water, and carbon footprint. And it just takes too long for me. I can't just leap into and out of the shower. For me it's a long routine and if I skip one step it throws my equilibrium off for the day. Skip it. I'm now a Monday, Wednesday, Friday showerer.

Sleep more. I doubt if I averaged over 10 hours a night in 2009. This is simply unacceptable and it's amazing I was able to function at all. I can't go on burning the candle at both ends. Going to bed earlier is out of the question, as I can't miss my nightly Chelsea Lately episodes, so my resolution is to not raise my precious head from pillow below 10am. Sorry Lulu, you can get the kids to school.

Have more sex. I make this resolution every year and yet I fail every year. I guess I'm just not resolute enough. Or I rely too much on others, who fail me. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I'm taking this in my own hands.

Work less. Believe it or not, this is a tough one for me. When you publish two daily newsletters, there's no getting around it. But I'm getting a good start. Less than a week after taking two weeks off for the holidays, I'm going to Ixtapa for a long weekend.

More champagne and oysters at lunch. I already have champagne and oysters at lunch surprisingly often (when in season), but usually just a dozen oysters and one bottle of champagne. Let's raise the bar, shoot for the moon, eat outside the box. Two dozen and two bottles, baby. No pain no gain.

Safely land a crippled jetliner in the Hudson River like Sully, and then try to act nonchalant when the perky Katie Couric showers me with accolades. Oh, and gallantly insist that the surviving geese that caused the accident be pardoned, saying flippantly, "After all, according to nautical law, they did have the right of way."

I realize what you're thinking. You're thinking I've been a teensy weeny bit aggressive on these New Year's Resolutions. Well, you've got to press yourself in life if you're going to get anywhere. You only live once, as they say, although I'm not completely convinced of that.

My Advice to Tiger: Be Yourself

2009-12-15T07:14:00.000-08:00

Everybody else has opined on the Tiger Woods saga, I thought I might as well too. I know he regularly reads Thank You for Drinking Beer, so I'm sure he appreciates this unsolicited advice. Here's the thing that strikes me: Even if only half of what is being written about him is true, the man is a prodigious and epic skirt chaser. I'm not moralizing here, God forbid, he who live in house full of crystal knick-knacks no throwy stones, say Confucius. My point is if that's what he likes to do, he would've been a lot happier if he had just been honest about it from the start.

People who care for my well-being have often told me, "Harry, you should perhaps leave out some of the details about your life on the blog. People in your industry will think you're an imbecile." That's true. Having conversations with your dog in the hot tub doesn't normally highlight one's brilliance. But if I'm candid about my imbecility here, nobody can later say I was trying to hide it. And besides, it's who I am, and if I turn off 10% of my readers -- which is about what it is -- then I'm happy to point them to another venue. And since I like nothing better than giving life advice to billionaires who are number 1 in their sport, my advice to Tiger is figure out who you are and be that person, and let the sponsors fall where they will.

And if he decides to be a skirt chaser -- and you gotta admit he's pretty damn good at it -- he would still have sponsors. Maybe not blue-chip stuffy sponsors like Accenture, (btw I see their ads in every airport, but am still not exactly clear on what they do. My understanding is they get paid lots of money to make unpopular decisions at big corporations so the bosses don't have to take the heat). But there are plenty of sponsors willing to back a skirt chaser. You don't see Jay-Z or Snoop Dog stealing money out off tip jars for cab fare (which I did once, and was caught by Graham Mackay). His agent could thumb through any Playboy or Esquire and starting ringing up their advertisers today, for instance. Tag Heuer has already said they're sticking by Tiger, the official watch of wannabe skirt chasers everywhere.

So now he must make a choice. Rehabilitate and try to patch things up with his humiliated wife. Or dial up John Daly and get his drink on. But being insincere doesn't work in 2009. To quote Braveheart, "just be yourselves."

All The World's a Stage

2009-12-08T18:22:00.001-08:00

Well, damn, I dressed like a cowboy today. It's not completely out of character. When I'm at the ranch this time of year, I typically don my white felt Stetson, brandished with a turkey feather for panache, and burlap barn coat with work gloves sticking out of the pocket (the gloves are for holding cold beers on jeep rides on cold days, not for actual work). But today was different, because I wasn't at the ranch, but heading to Dallas. As Megan, who knows her ward, said at the office this morning in a dry tone, "Either you're celebrating Halloween late or you're staying at the Adolphus." Indeed, I am staying at the Adolphus.

I stay at the Adolphus Hotel when in Dallas for the following reasons:

1. It's an old hotel, and I love old hotels. Yes, the carpets can smell like grandpa's socks at times. That's the price you pay. But old hotels, and particularly the great oaken bars in old hotels, are much preferable to sterile Marriotts. Even though you can't smoke anymore, they can never fully eradicate the decades of cigarrette and cigar smoke from the wooden panels and ancient drapes at the bars of old hotels.

2. The Adolphus was built by Adolphus Busch, great-grandfather to my old pal August Busch IV. He built his hotel in 1912 because there wasn't a hotel nice enough in Dallas for him to stay, and he liked coming to Dallas. Not sure why. Probably had a girl here. There are lots of pretty girls here, they grow 'em like onions. And the hotel was built with beer money, and I always sleep more soundly in a place that was built with beer money. When in Amsterdam, I stay at the Hotel De L'Europe, built by Freddy Heineken and now owned by his sassy daughter Charlene. Anyway, they serve the freshest and most tasty draught Heineken in the world at the lobby bar. Freddy's gone now, more's the pity, but sometimes you can spot Charlene there in a short skirt. In Milwaukee stay at the Pfister, built by Joseph Schlitz, and in Chicago stay at the Peninsula -- not built by beer money but it's so nice it doesn't matter.

3. It's relatively cheap. Even AB InBev executives could stay here.

4. There's a great bartender here named Cosmo that I like. His name is actually Kosme, but he says people can't remember that so he tells them his name is Cosmo, like the drink. I'll tell you this, people are as dumb as pumpkins.

5. It has one of the most beautiful hotel lobbies in the U.S., if you like dark panneling, which I do. There's an old hotel in Portland, Oregon whose name escapes me just now that might rival it. It was also built by a rich baron at the turn of the century, but not a beer baron, so I don't sleep as well there.

6. The longtime staff here mistakenly thinks I'm some sort of prosperous ranching baron.

Of all the reasons to stay at the Adolphus, number 6 is by far the most compelling. Somewhere along the line they somehow got the impression I was a rich cattleman with thousands of acres of prime ranching land, or something. Probably because I got drunk and told them that. The valet remarks that the dust on my truck must come from "the ranch", and the hostess asks how the property is holding up "since the big fire." (Huh?). It's gotten to the point that now when I stay here, rather than disappoint them, I feel compelled to dress and play the part. Calfskin boots, Wranglers, alligator belt, and cowboy hat resplendant with turkey feather culled from my personal covey.

And I speak in a loud boisterous baritone tarted up with some sort of fake West Texas accent, all flat vowels and clipped consenants. I've even taken to pretending I'm chewing tobacco. The staff eats it up, giggling as they watch Highland Park society matrons taking tea in the lobby clutching their Tory Berch handbags in fear as I whisk through, spitting into plants, all man. The Bard once said, "All the world's a stage," and damned if he's right. The Bard, I swear, he's too clever a bastard by half (that's something I'd say in a loud voice as I walked through the Adolphus lobby on my way to the bar).

I know, it's ridiculous. Particularly since I'll have to change into a blue blazer, white oxford, and pressed chinos for my meeting tomorrow with a brewery executive. I'll have to sneek out the lobby so the Adolphus people don't find out I'm just a middling hack chasing beer executives around the country with pen and paper.

In truth, I do own a small ranch with my sisters, but to pose as a "prosperous rancher" is stretching it a bit when we defer fixing the leaky roof until next year, in the faint hope that the tiles swell and it somehow, miraculously, fixes itself. Hardly Captain Richard King of the King Ranch. More like a run down Augustus McCrae offering $50 to a down-and-out South Texas hooker for a poke, except that I would never pay that much when I can have Lulu for practically "free."

Let it Rain

2009-09-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

So I made it rain this week in San Antonio, the first rain we've had in about three years. We are in the midst of what people were calling a "50 year drought", until the old timers said, hey, it was never THIS dry in the drought of the 1950s, so maybe this should be called a "100 year drought." Since nobody is old enough to remember if the drought of 1910 was as bad as this one, we'll go ahead and call it that.

And I ended it, although I haven't received quite the accolades and attention I feel I deserve. No parades down Broadway, no medals presented by Mayor Castro, no keys to the city.

The way I did it was I took the top off my Jeep. The last time I took the top off my Jeep a few summers ago, it rained 20 inches in a month. After my seats mildewed and the radio shorted out, I put the top back on, and it literally hasn't rained since.

So this week I removed the top, and almost immediately it began to pour. In fact, we've gotten five inches at the ranch. The seats are starting to mildew again and sparks are flying out of the radio. But I will continue to drive it around town as I get drenched until we get 20 cumulative inche of rain. It is my sacrifice and my duty. But now the Jeep is in the short term parking garage at the airport, seats drying out, as I fly to New York to see the semi-finals of the U.S. Open tennis tourney, courtesy of my friends at Heineken who are sponsors. Serena ended up throwing the match in a dramatic fashion. Wow.

Now, I know what you're thinking: I thought it impuned your journalistic integrity to accept tickets from brewers you cover. Yes, this is true. But Heineken said they had one sole ticket left, and they were going to throw it away unless somebody claimed it. So you can see why I was compelled to step forward. It was my duty.

But I don't think Serena should have been penalized. True, that poor little line judge must have been petrified for her life as Serena came down on her, but if she didn't want to get her butt kicked, she shouldn't have been dumb enough to call a foot fault. Seriously, who calls a foot fault on the point before match point? Who calls a foot fault.... EVER? Unless it's obvious, and it wasn't, foot faults shouldn't be called. Damned ugly business.

Now I'm off to St. Louis.

On Hobos and Tricorn Hats

2009-07-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

We got robbed again (click here for last time). This time, our office was broken into. But before I get into that, this:

A few months ago I bought a tricorn hat on the internets. It is of the style popular back during the revolutionary war in the 1700s. The one I bought was not a nice one like George Washington wore, but a raggety old leather number favored by the common foot soldiers. It was an impulse buy obviously -- nobody buys a tricorn hat after any amount of serious reflection -- but I found a great use for it as a motivational tool at the office. As a joke, whenever a staffer did something good -- Adrienne landing a new subscriber (as shown above ... look at her beaming with pride under the tricorn with her accomplishment), or Megan breaking a big story -- they get to wear the raggety old tricorn hat for the day. Oh what big laughs we had, or rather I had. It was similar to the beer drinking stein that I lorded over them a few years ago.

Anyway, on Monday we walk into the office to see that the back door has been kicked in, swaying idly on its hinges. Oh no, we thought. They must have taken everything. When you see a swaying door on its hinges, you know what you vaue most by what immediately pops into your mind. Naturally I thought of the stuffed parakeet -- the one we named "Parakeet" -- that Dos Equis gifted me for Christmas last year. Also the wooden ammunition box that Anheuser-Busch sent before they were sold to Belgians, the lacquered signed portrait of the Miller Lite catfight girls wrestling in a fountain in the middle of a European square (I know, that's class), and of course my Pilsner Urquell humidor -- all my favorite pieces of swag sent in by breweries in the hope of getting a decent shake.

And most importantly, there's the beer. Our office is stacked with cases of craft beers that folks send from around the world as tasters. As I raced into the office, I screamed, "the beer, the beer!"

I was soon relieved to find that all of the beer was there. Parakeet remained in his cage, his cold steely dead eyes always creepily watching, the ammunition box still holding up the lacquered portrait of the catfat girls still wrestling in their eternal fountain of youth. All was undisturbed.

Megan, being the sensible one (that's her at left with tricorn), noted that all of the computers, laptops, flat-screened monitors and printers were still present and accounted for too. "Oh yeah," I muttered, petting Parakeet with a finger through its cage, "of course, the computers. That's a relief." Nothing was gone.

But then, when I sat at my desk (which is just a piece of glass held up by three kegs), I noticed a few strange things:

1. My rubbish pale is gone.
2. Two discarded old computer monitors that we kept in a closet are now under my desk at my feet.
3. The little 15'' TV that sits on my credenza is gone.
4. My tricorn hat, which had previously been hanging on a hat rack, is sitting on the center of my desk.

Like any Inspector Clusoe, I begin to piece the crime scene together based on my limited set of clues. It all came together: A drunk vagabond must have peeked into my window and seen my TV and monitors and thought, Hey, I bet I can get a few forties of Steel Reserve High Gravity for any one of those. So he gathered his strength and broke down our back door, which wasn't much of a door. Since he didn't possess a vehicle, he decided that he would take only what fit into my rubbish pale, because a hobo walking down the street carrying three flat panel monitors might attract suspicion. So he found two unnattached monitors in the closet (unhooking the ones on our desks would have taken too much trouble) and sat at my desk trying to put one, then the other, into the pale but found that they were both too wide. Then he saw my little TV, and found that that indeed fit perfectly into the rubbish pale.

Then he did a walkabout, apparently. He opened several of the cases of craft beer, but decided that either the abv's were too low, or that warm Imperial Stout might not be very refreshing on a 90 degree night (we turn off the A/C on the weekend). He then sat at my desk again, and my magnificent tricorn hat must have caught his intoxicated eye. He may have tried it on and admired his reflection in the glass of my monitor on my desk, but ultimately decided it didn't enhance his facial features, and left it there. Our scene ends with him walking down St. Mary's Street in downtown San Antonio with a rubbish pale under his arm with a small TV in it, a skip in his step as he thinks of popping open that first cold Steel Reserve.

The TV was the cheapest piece of electronics in the office, if you don't count Adrienne's paper shredder that she hasn't turned on in 2 years. So we got off easy. If he had stolen one laptop, he would have more than doubled his take of Steel Reserves. Incidentally, if he had bothered to look in the fridge, he would have found several actual Steel Reserves, ice cold and ready to go, saving him the inefficient exchange rate of bartering an aging 15 inch TV. I mean, he really must be a terrible vagabond, if there is such a thing as being a good vagabond. He truly hit the jackpot breaking into my office. It was full of high abv beer, even cheap lager high gravity beer chilled in the fridge, plus there were three twenty dollar bills on my desk, untouched. No, it was the tricorn hat that drew his gaze, and he even left that jewel. Why he only relieved me of that crappy TV, I'll never know. But his one chance is gone: They are installing an alarm system today, and my carpenter has already reinforced all the doors with metal brackets. Plus you can't step outside without seeing three or four SAPD cruisers. Here's why:

The policeman who filled out the report was a young man in his twenties. He inquired what we did in this office all day, other than make jokes with our tricorn hat. So we told him, he was flabbergasted. "You write about beer? You drink beer for a living?" He took note of our little courtyard out front. "Do you drink beer out here?" His eyes were wide like a child's in a toy store. I told him, yes, on many Friday afternoons when the weather is good, we enjoy a beer out here, closely monitoring our BAC levels of course, so that nobody's ever approaches 0.05, and yes he and his friends in the force are welcome to join us any time. I've found, after my stint in a Costa Rican jail, that it always serves my interests to befriend law enforcement whenever I come across that species. He agreed to beef up police cruiser drive-by's for the next thirty days, and maybe stop by to check on us on Friday afternoons.

So incidentally, nobody wants to wear the tricorn hat anymore, as I work in an office full of people who are obviously bigoted towards drunken thieving hobos. I actually think the tricorn has more value now: it has crowned a homeless person's head. I believe there's a Bible verse somewhere about that, but I can't put my finger on it. There but for the grace of God go I, or something. But my staff's irrational fear of lice trumps any show of humility or equanimity.

POSTSCRIPT: Megan and Adrienne have insisted that, since they are portrayed on the blog donning the tricorn hat, I too should join them in their mutual humiliation. Being the sort of boss who always leads the charge into the breach, who delights in being the tip of the spear, who is all too happy to take one for the gipper, here I am in my tricorn hat, in all its glory:

Ed. Note: At the request of readers, we now allow you to make comments. Just keep them clean, my mother reads this blog. -Harry

On Kelp and Exercising

2009-06-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting here in a beach bar looking over clear azul seas on the USVI (that's U.S. Virgin Islands, for those of you who are Carib-ignorant). Lulu and I, as well as my wine writer Megan and her husband Kyle, are here so Megan and I can give speeches tomorrow to a beer and wine group. And I am just plain worn out.

Usually, on working vacations like this, I'm worn out from drinkin' beer with beer people, hot tubbin', and ticklin' wars with Lulu. But in this case I've actually been exercising for the past few weeks. I hate to exercise, of course. People who like to exercise are sado-masochists and, while there's nothing wrong per se with sado-masochism (to each his own) I think you'll agree with me that it's abnormal and deviant behavior...like exercising. I've long held the belief that if you're going to run on a treadmill or a stairmaster or push up weights, you ought to instead accomplish something lasting, like building a fence or digging a moat for your house (I've always coveted a moat, complete with a drawbridge), or furiously pedalling an exercycle to generate electricity for poor people. I'm sure some insufferable do-gooder is working on an electricity-generating gym as we speak.

But I find that if I do outdoorsy and physically challenging sports that I actually somewhat enjoy, or at least don't despise, it makes the medicine go down. A woman with an outlandish bathing suit coverup made to resemble petticoats and clutching a parasol just walked by, so Mary Poppins naturally sprang to mind.

I've exercised every single day but one for the past three weeks. Tennis, a sport at which I enjoyed some degree of success as a youngster, has been my spoonful of sugar of choice. I like tennis because you play alone, like the lone wolf, and you don't have to make small talk with idiots like you do with golf, and it's the sport where the women all have great tan legs and they show them off under impossibly short skirts. My facebook friends are no doubt growing tired of reading on my wall how my rib Lulu has been pummelling me day after day, on clay courts. I then read an article where women have an advantage on clay, and especially on grass, because of something about the speed of the ball off the surface and the sliding of shoes and the curvature of the earth, etc. So when I called her out claiming that the clay gives her an advantage, to my surprise she proceeded to pummel me on hard courts even worse. Here at this USVI resort (French's Reef), they have grass courts, the latest surface on which I received a pummelling at Lulu's hands. Turns out the surface of the courts doesn't matter at our level of play. Double faults are double faults, no matter the surface. It's no wonder, the woman cheats like a Hungarian horse trader, has the wingspan of a turkey-buzzard, the strength of one of those 18th century draught oxen that are extinct today, and the stamina of a Turkish man-hooker.

Today I took a break from being humiliated by my rib on the courts and took my exercise a'swimming in the clear blue Caribbean. I like to swim in the surf. It puts you into a position of being completely alone, untouchable by email and texts and phone calls and carping ribs, and it has the tinge of danger, it's salty (and I love salt), and from playing tennis with one's rib. Plus, you feel manly, like David Hasselhof, off like an otter to save some busty blonde, between shots of Wild Turkey in his case.

Anyway, I put on some goggles ($3.99 at the San Antonio Wal-Mart two blocks from my house, $18.99 at French's Reef Surf Shoppe where I bought mine) and swam about 100 yards in the surf, which sounds a lot easier than it was. I'm not used to swimming in such clear waters -- it's terrifying. Every piece of errant seaweed is the spitting image of a small bull shark, every shadow a stingray, every coral a poisonous sea snake. I burned more calories in fear-inducing adrenaline production than actual swimming. I much prefer the Texas gulf coast, where visibility ranges from zero to an eighth of an inch, under the comforting belief that what you can't see can't hurt you. There are probably sharks and eels galore under me in the gulf, but I blissfully swim on, thinking that the slimy brush against my leg was a piece of kelp, or more likely some piece of trash discarded from a nearby oil platform.

No Respect

2009-05-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

I'd like to stay on this topic of colchisine, the “wonder drug” that cures gout but also, unfortunately, has the toxicity of arsenic and possesses side effects that render even the strongest ox of a man prostrate and weeping for days on end. I will say this: it does cure the symptoms of gout (there is no actual “cure” for gout, which is just a form of rheumy arthritis, only the relief from its painful symptoms).

Colchisine comes from the poisonous colchicum plant, which was discovered by the wine-swilling Greek Pedanius Dioscoride in the first century AD when casting about for a cure for his gout. He wandered up a hill and came across the curious colchicum plant, pleasantly called “meadow saffron” at the time, and naturally he ate it, as the ancients were prone to do as there wasn't exactly fast food around. After lying prostrate in his own vomit and excrement for two days, to his delight he found that it also completely cured the pain of his gout, right before he keeled over and died of organ failure.

I think it is indicative of the priority gout gets in the medical community that nobody has seen fit to find a better remedy since the first century – maybe one that isn't poisonous. It's the Rodney Dangerfield of diseases. Gout commands so little respect that although cholchisine has been known to relieve its symptoms since 1 A.D., the FDA still hasn't gotten around to approving it in the U.S. How my doctor prescribes it is beyond me – perhaps it is because we are so close to Mexico? You don't see the high society set rushing to throw elaborate “Race for the Cure” fund raising galas for the gout. Nobody is racing for the cure – nobody is even crawling for the cure. Hell, I doubt anybody is even casually looking for the cure. It's not for lack of sufferers. Gout afflicts millions each year, the silent crippler – three out of ten men get it at some point in their lives.

I think the main reason gout doesn't get respect is because of its unfortunate name: “The gout” doesn't inspire much sympathy for its sufferers. It sounds too close to “goat”, which never conjures images of good feeling or even good smells. If it were called “razor-joint arthritis” (RJA) or perhaps named after a celebrity with the gout, “Jared Leto Syndrome” (JLS), then maybe things would start snapping. (I once met Jared Leto several years ago in Australia, and I think, from our brief contact, that he would be a fine spokesperson for our affliction, and perhaps he'll even throw out the first handful of colchisine pills at our first gala. He got gout from losing a lot of weight for a movie, probably the same reason I got it).

I believe another reason gout commands so little respect is because it is widely derided as the “rich man's disease”, because one of the causes of gout is rich foods, expensive wine, and diamonds. Okay, not diamonds. But the fact remains that, right or wrong, nobody gives a damn about rich men. The only thing that would make it worse if it were rich white men, but luckily for all of us sufferers of gout, many rich men of color also get it – it's an equal opportunity disease. I myself am decidedly not rich, but it's my luck to get the maladies of the rich without actually having the money.

So I am looking into creating some gout awareness out there. Perhaps I will have one of our high society matrons design a ribbon to wear on tuxedo lapels, bring in Jared Leto, and have a good old fashioned gout gala. We could give out canes as door prizes and raffle off a gout pig.

What's Your Poison?

2009-05-13T10:56:00.001-07:00

Well, the wheels have finally come off the train. Since I turned forty in January, it's gone downhill very fast. First it was the broken ribs, then a horrible bout of pneumonia which laid me under for a full month, a persistent rash, accelerated hair loss, and now a painful arthiritis in my left hand which has been like having red hot razors in my wrist joint which only hurts when I type and breath, for going on 12 weeks now. Oh, and I can't thread a fishing line through a hook eye anymore without squinting my eyes. So you will excuse me if my posts have been sparse and the one I did get out was cranky.

Dr. Tonga has taken it all in stride, administering cortisone shots like a punch drunk NFL team doctor, god bless his Haitian soul. But under pressure from my rib, I reluctantly agreed that my many ailments had finally, predictably, outpaced his abilities – his Caribbean remedies (rum and cigars to treat pneumonia, for example) simply can't keep up with my northern Atlantic afflictions. When the last steroid shot failed to diminish the swelling in my wrist even nominally, I knew that, sadly, my days of watching Ricky Lake reruns on the black and white TV in his waiting room were limited. And my hands are kind of important, given that I type 2,000 words a day for my job, not including emails and blog posts.

So I had my rib (wife) call around to find a new general practitioner who preferably has a medical degree from this country. Lordy, we must have a serious shortage of GPs, because nobody would accept me as a new patient. And think of how much worse it will get under the government's universal health coverage when even hobos are allowed to see doctors.

I finally got in to see a GP but only because a mutual friend (thanks Lynnette) of the doc begged her to see me. Yes, my new doctor is a female, and I'm happy to report that she is an attractive female (not that that matters, of course). I anticipated my first date, er, appointment with Dr. Beatrice Rodriguez with equal parts anxiety and exhilaration – anxiety because she might ask me to disrobe, and exhilaration because she might ask me to disrobe. So many questions: should I spray tan, trim up, get a tattoo?

Turns out it didn't matter because the first date/appointment was with her physician's assistant, who drew blood and x-rayed my wrist and tapped around on my chest listening to the remnants of my bronchitic lungs – but did not ask me to disrobe. The doctor is so busy that I must make another appointment to get the benefit of her diagnosis and treatment. This is a far cry from Dr Tonga, who would have palmed me 20 hydrocodones and a steroid shot and had me out the door in the time it took this physician's assistant to take my temperature (treat 'em and street 'em is Tonga's motto).

I start to backtrack: maybe Dr. Tonga is the best fit for me. I don't have a lot of time to dicker around with doctors, even pretty ones, who have tight schedules and slowly practice careful responsible medicine. My rib looks at me over her sunglasses when I mention this and admonishes me to stay the course. “Harry,” she says as I sneak a look at her legs (I too am wearing sunglasses), “he told you to smoke cigars when you had pneumonia. I mean, what kind of doctor would tell you that?” I look back at her face coldly. “Do not disrespect Dr. Tonga in my presence. Hate the game, not the doctor. He may not be my physician anymore, but by god Dr. Tonga and I understand each other -- which is the definition of love and respect."

Dr. Beatrice ultimately says that I have the gout in my wrist, which is when you get razor sharp crystals in your joint from drinking too much beer, a job hazard. The only cure at this point, since I have let it go so long (she says with a hint of disgust – Dr Tonga had his faults, but he wasn't a judger), is to take large amounts of a drug called colchisine, which is a poison in the same line as arsenic. It's also called "Meadow Saffron" or "Satan's Revenge" in some circles. This toxic agent, when taken at the doses I had to, is so venomous that thirty minutes after ingesting the first pill it induces projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea like a two-headed fire hydrant that would make a caveman blush. It also produces cold sweats, dizziness, rashes, clammy palms, blurry vision, confusion, a swelling and fever of the inner organs, achy teeth, etc etc. But luckily for me this wonder drug also cures gout somehow. The trick is to take enough of the vile stuff to cure the gout, but not enough to kill you. It's a fine line we cochizine takers walk. I spent two days rolling around in a cold sweat on the bathroom floor clutching my gut and crying. But anybody who has had serious gout before will agree that I couldn't care less if it caused blood to flow from my eyes and my toes to fall off, I would take it to get rid of the gout's horrible, horrible pain. So I endeavor to persevere... excuse me …... gotta go.

Legless in Chicago

2009-03-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

It's 9:14pm on a Friday night, and I am sitting in my cold dowdy room at a Holiday Inn on Brynn Mawr (that street name sounds so familiar but I can't place it), near the O'Hare airport. This is not my first choice for a Friday night. I should be snug as a bug in my bed at home, preferably engaged in a tickle war with my leggy rib, but her long legs are out of reach due to the struggling economy – or something. You see, my flight was canceled, and I am staying here on the nickel of the American Airlines Corporation. But am I angry or bitter or even slightly irritated? Alarmingly, no. I somehow take some little joy in getting a voucher for a free cocktail at the lobby bar and a breakfast coupon.

Although I do pine a little for those legs – long tan soft legs. But if legs can't be had, I suppose I'll have a cocktail, courtesy of the government, because I'm sure it's just a matter of time until they have to bail out the airlines too. You can see this post is not going to be the standard bearer for organization, and I have a feeling it's not going to get better. I'm just exhausted and sick. It's been, to say the least, a tough week.

Earlier this week I was scheduled to fly off to Las Vegas to cover the very first national distributor conference of MillerCoors now that it is MillerCoors and not Miller and Coors. That's a good thing, because instead of two conferences, now I can just cover one. Not that I minded covering these sorts of conferences. Actually, they're kind of fun. You would be amazed at how viscerally appealing ad agencies can made make beer look. After a day of watching the upcoming beer ads on gigantic screens in an auditorium, all 3,000 people are racing for the doors to get their hands on a cold one. After the conference there's usually a big party poolside, with bands and food and ice sculptures and more food and beer. And beer people are great, and I like it that I know enough people these days that I don't ever suffer for interesting people to talk to. No holding up the wall for this guy.

Anyway, I was scheduled to fly but really I wasn't. I discovered the day before departure that I had forgotten to book a flight. So I buy a ticket on American for $1,500 US dollars, which was the lowest fare I could find. On the bright side, on the same day the FED printed a trillion dollars of new currency out of thin air and released it into the economy. So the $1,500 dollars I spent isn't worth nearly what it was last week. Thanks a trillion, Federal Reserve.

Then I get sick with some sort of bronchitis or laryngitis or some kind of -itis that reduces my voice to a croaking whisper and leaves me with a dull fever. I decide to go anyway, and I get to the airport and suddenly feel so lousy that I decide not to go, and skip my flight. Later I decide I really should be there as the first MillerCoors national distributor meeting really can't go on without me, so I buy a last minute one-way ticket on Southwest, for $500. I think that's the most Southwest has ever charged a customer and then put him in the middle seat.....So I'm three grand into this adventure so far.

I could go on for another 10 paragraphs about the myriad other mishaps I had on this trip, but I won't bore you. Because it would be boring to hear that when I arrived at The Rio at 11pm, I was told by the hotel my room wouldn't be ready until 2am (4am my time). Who checks out so late that the room isn't cleaned until 2am? Ironically, the ticket they gave me to use until my room was ready had emblazoned on it: “CHECK OUT TIME IS 11:00AM !!”. Yes, two exclamation points. And I won't bore you with the fact that when I finally did get to the meeting, my voice was gone.

It would seem to be frustrating to be in Las Vegas among my friends in the beer business and not have the ability to speak. It would be frustrating except that I am apparently now immune to feelings. I decide it's best to avoid conversation, with the help of my disguise. Consequently, I try to avoid eye contact and stare at the floor as I walk, and my beard helps, but the white tennies give it away and people recognize me. And most just won't accept, rightly, the fact that I can't talk and so I'm forced to croak a few lines, which just makes it worse. I never realized how much I talked until I lost my voice. If nothing else, I've learned that I talk way way too much.

But what's odd about all this is that I am not flustered, really at all. Not much irritated, not much angered, not put out. I feel nothing. Am I dead inside? Has my cold shriveled German heart finally taken over the rest of my soul? It's like I've gotten to an age where whatever inconveniences life throws at me, it's still just life. If I wasn't waiting for a room at 1am at the Rio, I'd be sleeping. At least this way I'm conscious. This is marked difference from the old Harry. I don't know what has happened in my life. Maybe it was turning 40 this year, but it just takes a lot to get me riled these days. Life here, life there, it's not that different, whatever. I think of those poor sods who work in the stinking hot seaside muck in Indonesia or somewhere tearing apart old oil tankers by hand, tankers they run ashore for scrap metal. It's regarded, by no less an authority as the Economist, a magazine written by white elitist economic professors in London and New York who naturally are the most qualified to know about scrapping oil tankers by hand in the muck, as the worst job on earth (they've evidently never delivered beer in Houston in the summer). But it occurs to me that even those folks occasionally must have a laugh with each other (I'm talking about the ship scrappers, not the economists). They probably ferment some sort of horrid brew that they adore. They have their dirty-legged women to enjoy. They don't have to deal with breakfast vouchers. It's all relative.

So now here I am, chillin' at da Holiday Inn, with none of my friends. Feel like I work at AB InBev. The coherence of this blog isn't getting any better, is it? I have now removed to the bar. Actually, the bar is quite nice and I am enjoying myself. Things are looking up. Faux dark cherry wood paneling, a loud mouth Chicago barmaid, and a few languid business travelers, adrift, enjoying free beers on the airline. I get carded. Naturally I left my wallet in my room because I thought, hey, I don't need my wallet because I can charge it to the room and besides, the first one is on Am Air. This is how low my country has fallen since 9/11. Hotel bars now require cackling barmaids to card everyone, from the unshaven college kid to grandpa over there with his eyes six inches from the TV so he can make out what's happening in the basketball game. I'm 40 but I look like I'm just shy of 58 with a graying beard and balding head. Seriously. Are they saving the errant Benjamin Button from having a beer? Can we really not trust a nice Irish big-bottomed foul-mouthed barmaid to use her common sense to discern that I'm over 21?

Well, maybe not. She just hollered at some poor hapless businessman something fierce for wandering into the bar and watching the TV for a moment without buying a drink, and another for “eatin' too slow.” She shoots me a squinty eye and shows a tooth (barmaids, particularly those on the trashy side, always view me as a natural ally for some reason. It must be something in my face) and barks, “No freeloaders 'round here, hon!” as if she just bowshot a hog for my birthday. The Holiday Inn Corporation doesn't know what a jewel they have here working on Brynn Mawr: She knows how to turn velocity and drive profits per square foot, neglecting to notice that the bar is mostly empty. She's drunk as cooter brown.

It was against this setting that it occurs to me, most bitterly, that Lulu's clean brown wonderous legs are an eternity away, and that is, by far, the biggest disappointment of the week. Something snaps inside me. For the first time this week, I find myself irritated. The blood pressure rises, my cheeks finally turn hot, my adrenaline flows, my voice comes back for a minute (epinephrine, like Dr. Tonga's cortisone shot, is a miracle drug). Finally, an emotion. I'm almost relieved. I am indeed, apparently, alive after all. I'm heading back up to my room to watch something that will cheer me up. I hear “Marly and Me” is a good comedy.

UPDATE: I watched “Marley and Me” and wept like a school girl. Yes, I'm alive.

A conversation with my dog

2009-02-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

Last night I set aside my usual loyalty to beer and decided to have a margarita. There's a Mexican joint here in San Antonio called Paloma Blanca that has become a Friday night tradition for us and our friends. Now, Paloma has this lethal margarita called the Heights. It's more like a martini with tequila substituted for the gin and lime juice substituted for the vermouth. There's a saying around here about the Heights margarita. They're like boobs: one is not enough, two is good, three ain't right, and four is perfect. So naturally I had four.

After Lulu took me home, I got in the hot tub, as is my want. I long ago discovered that four Heights margaritas have the surprising benefit of endowing one with the temporary ability to speak and understand dog.

My dog, Chica Schuhmacher, a big yellow lab, walked straight up to the hot tub and said in her English Wapping waterfront accent: “Excuse me, guv'nor, may I join you?” As a puppy Chica was taught to have the best manners, for although she's hackney and a dog, she could easily sit at the Queen's table without dishonour. She stepped into the tub and took her usual seat in the corner with the strongest jet.

Chica, being a dog, is naturally stupid in comparison to humans. She can't count, has no self-awareness, and can't drive a golf cart, despite repeated attempts to teach her. But unlike most humans, she is not unwise. She knows instinctively that meat is always preferable to fruit and vegetables, and that if you see an unattended cake on the counter, go ahead and hop up there and eat the entire thing immediately, because you never know when you'll run accross another unattended cake.

Chica is also a practiced aficionado of pork and venison sausage, and she knows that the best ratio of port to venison is 60-40. She also loves, and I mean loves, to run in front of the golf cart at the ranch. She can run for hours. In fact, if you don't stop her, she'll run herself to death. So although she eats lots of sausage and cake, she stays trim by running in front of the buggy. That and chasing the two neighborhood cats, Gary and Tiger, that make a daily game of taunting her.

I lit a cigar and settled in. “Chica,” I asked, blowing smoke in her face. She likes it. Secondhand smoke is the only way she gets to enjoy a good cigar, lacking opposable thumbs like a raccoon or even fingers. At least raccoons have fingers and can conceivably smoke cigars, although they'd have a hell of a time lighting one.

“Chica, what is the meaning of life?”

“Sausage of course, guv'nor,” says she.

“Have you ever seen how sausage is made?”

“Does it really matter, guv'nor?”

I contemplate this as I take another puff. “Good point.” Like I said, Chica is so wise. “Chica, I get so many emails these days, I am having trouble getting to them all in a timely manner; and worse, I am overlooking important emails that sometimes never get returned. What should I do?”

Chica ponders this for a minute. “Sometimes," she says, "late in the Autumn when we have exhausted our sausage supply, our rib Lulu will give me a rawhide bone instead. It's a poor substitute, but dogs cannot be choosers..."

"Is this going anywhere, Chica?"

"Stay with me here, guv'nor. Every now and then she forgets that she has given me a rawhide bone, and she will give me another...”

“She never forgets when she throws me a bone, Chica, eh?” I interject.

“Please let me finish,” Chica said with some irritation. Some dogs have no sense of humor. Her blood-sugar must be low. “So I then have two bones. I can't chew on both bones at the same time, unfortunately. And I can't leave a bone lying around, lest one of those slutty mouse-eating mange-ridden tabbies get ahold of it. So I bury one bone -- the bone that is the lesser bone of the two bones -- and I chew on the better bone until such time that it is properly consumed (always eat the good bone first, as you never know when you'll get run over by the mailman), and then I go and dig up the other one. That is the solution to your email problem.”

I chew on this for awhile. Yes, I can prioritize my emails, return the ones needing immediately attention, and then carving out time in the evening or weekend to return the other emails which have been saved off. Brilliant!

“You are very wise, Chica. Another question: Why are we bailing out the losing industries in our economy and taxing the successful ones?”

“Everybody loves the underdog,” says she with a sigh, or was that gas? Then after a pause: “Look, guv'nor, I have to ask before the Heights margaritas wear off. Will you tell Lulu that I prefer the cheap generic dog food from HEB, not that expensive Science Diet -- it gives me gas." Ah, now we know. "Also, tomorrow after the lad's baseball practice, can we go to the ranch so I can run in front of the buggy?”

“Yes,” I say. “We shall spend many hours in the buggy tomorrow, after I return my emails.” And then, just as quick as that, her hackney waterfront accent returns to a regular Labrador bark. I pat her on the head and we silently enjoy the rest of our cigar together.

On Germany, Purple Cabbage, Dukes, and Gas

2009-01-23T05:46:00.000-08:00

My German Brewery Tour

This is a time of heavy travel. Denver, Des Moines, New York, and Belgium, and that's just this month. Never a spare minute or a warm clime for this hot blooded Texan. And Europe is the worst. One thing about Western Europe is that we Yanks tend to equate it with the U.S. in terms of climate, we all being representative democracies and all. What we forget is that Europe is generally on the same latitudinal parallel as Nova Scotia, so yeah, it's kind of cold.

When I toured Bavaria last November with a troupe of beer trade journalists, all I managed to bring were old worn leather-soled bathroom slippers, flimsy khaki slacks from Target, and a discarded barn coat from the ranch fashioned from burlap. I thought since Bavaria was in southern Germany it would be mild. A simple Google weather check would have gone miles toward disavowing me of this delusion and would have prevented a tremendous amount of discomfort and injury. To say I was not outfitted appropriately was a gross understatement as we slogged from one cold dank brewery to another in the snow. I blame my rib Lulu of course, who sent her absent-minded charge packing to Germany in November for a week without so much as glancing inside my bag to see what I packed, or more importantly what I failed to pack. In my view that as gross negligence as a wife and demonstrating an obvious disregard for my wellbeing, and possible intentional harm, but I'll leave that up to my lawyer.

In case you don't know, breweries are necessarily vertical in their construction, particularly old Bavarian breweries, because they utilize the reliable force of gravity to transfer the golden nectar from brew kettle to lauder tun to fermenter to finally, barrels in an underground cave (I may have the sequence wrong but I'm pretty sure the barrels in the cave are last). So touring a brewery necessitates navigating flights upon flights of beer-soaked stairs carved in stone. With my leather slippers barely gaining purchase on even a rough surface, I was constantly falling down. Already uncoordinated in the best of circumstances, there was not a wet stair, a patch of black ice, a snow bank, or a dank fermenter floor in Bavaria that failed to trip me up. At one brewery I slid down about 50 stairs on my bottom, ripping the back side of my barn coat. The brewery owner was wailing bloody murder in German, not for my safety mind you, but I suspect he smelled a lawsuit coming from such a scantily clad vagabond who obviously doesn't have two nickels to rub together. About half way through the tour, our German guide was convinced that I was mentally disabled, and took to assisting me into and out of the bus like an invalid child and addressing me in a loud, slow tone normally reserved for simpletons. I overheard him whisper to a hop grower as he glared down on me after I fell for the fifth time that morning, "Er ist retardiert." My German's a little rusty but I got the drift of his meaning. The farmer nodded with sympathy as he helped me up. The other journos thought it hilarious and the epitaph stuck for the rest of the trip.

The other main difficulty I had in Germany was the gas. At one point at a formal dinner with the Faust family, prominent brewers in Bamberg, after I shrilly broke wind for the third time and couldn't in good conscience continue to pretend nobody heard (it shook the window panes), I felt obliged to offer an apology and explanation: I blamed it on the altitude. I know, kind of lame. Even more so when later I was informed that we were at sea level. Again, where is Google when you need it? I briefly considered playing up my newfound reputation of mental incapacitation, but I did have some semblance of pride. Anyway, the Faust brothers are gentlemen and accepted my excuse at face value, (perhaps our guide pre-briefed them of my “retardiert”? Anyway, you may think your merry correspondent is exaggerating. I assure you, if I am, not by much. Just ask any of my colleagues on the trip and they will corroborate. It's embarrassing, I know, this confession is therapeutic).

But of course it's all that purple cabbage and schnitzel and beer they're forever stuffing in your gob for breakfast, lunch, afternoon cake, and supper. Yes, Germans drink beer at breakfast like we drink coffee. And you can't politely refuse a German lest they take offense if you don't relish and gorge on every entrée and beer like some half-starved Philistine after a forced march. Who the hell else but a German would think that purple cabbage is an edible dish? It's like eating greasy lemon grass, and blows you out just as grass does a heifer. At one restaurant, they served a fried glob of fat inside an onion covered in gravy, an egg, butter, and bacon, accompanied by, what else? A big steaming mound of purple cabbage, along with endless pints of some kind of vile lager of their own invention that they smoked like pork. My bowels screamed for days. The bus rides were a cacophony of German flutes, and I'm ashamed to admit I was by far the worst offender even with my Teutonic constitution.

At one point we were to dine with some sort of German royalty, a bloated viscount or duke or something, in his drafty heatless stone castle on a desolate windswept hill, and our guide saw fit to pull me aside to politely implore me to try to gain control of myself "for his majesty's sake." It was day five of being plied with nothing but weiner schnitzel, the ever-present purple cabbage, and about a half barrel of beer per person per day, so I did the best I could under these trying circumstances. But ultimately you can't clap a stopper on Mother Nature, as the saying goes. But I doubt I scandalized the good duke, for I'm convinced even royalty aren't immune to flatulent episodes every now and then, and besides, he was stone deaf.

By day seven I was again myself (you eventually either die of dysentery or you buck up get used to it), and my colleague Pete Reid lent me some wool socks and my guardian angel Julie Bradford at All About Beer lent me her daughter's gloves, which if I recall were purple with pink stitching. I endeavored to persevere as we trudged from one identical brewery to another over snow banks and through long patches of black ice, pretending to marvel at yet another identical fermentation tank. A few more falls and a few more farts, and the trip was over. It was a great time, and by the time my plane touched down in San Antonio, I felt oddly refreshed and spry, like a spent balloon.

Wheels Up

2009-01-07T06:37:00.001-08:00

I've never put too much time, effort, or money into the various cars I've owned. Presently I have a Jeep Rubicon, split pea soup green with removable top and metal flooring, which is host to all kinds of dirt on the outside which helps to insulate the mouse that lives somewhere inside. It's not that I am untidy. The Jeep often doubles as a hunting vehicle at the ranch, with top off, so the inside is covered in our region's famed white caliche dust. So it doesn't really look dirty or gritty, it mostly looks like I let loose with a few eight balls of coke, or more likely in my case, a big bottle of Gold Bond Medicated Powder (TM).

To me, cars are for getting around in, and a warm home for a rodent, and that's about it. Washing a car is such a colossal waste of time and money. It's like washing a dog: what's the point? It's just going to go do what dogs do best, which is go out and poop in the yard without wiping, roll around in the mud, lick itself, and immediately get dirty again. Washing a car or a dog is such a futile exercise that it throws me into a depression just thinking about it.

My rib Lulu, who is from the manor born, always drives nice cars and always keeps her car irritatingly immaculate. Not a speck of Gold Bond inside or out. Every week she goes to this place called the Scrubby Tub, or something, which is the only place in town where criminals newly released from prison can find a job. The jailbirds clean the car, she gets it dirty, repeat.

Her immaculate car wouldn't be so irritating to me if she didn't constantly berate me on how “disgusting” my car is, inside and out. I do clean it occasionally. The one time I took it to the Scrubby Tub the mouse jumped out, and the so-called tough work-release criminals were too afraid to finish the job. But most of the time I let the car, like my dog, do what it does best: get dirty. As long as the radio works, I'm all good. (I don't change the oil very often either – that's for suckers who believe the propaganda of the oil companies who are, of course, in cahoots with Detroit. Cars only need oil every two or three years. But that's for another post).

Anyway, so it was with a little bit of sweet redemption when we woke up this morning to find that the tires were missing off Lulu's car. And when I say tires, I actually mean the entire wheel, including the tire. And when I say missing, I mean completely gone, with the car sitting on blocks right there in our driveway. Yes, at some point during the night while we were sleeping, a group of thugs jacked up her car, took all four wheels off, and thoughtfully placed the car, ever so gently, on four bricks (we live in a nice neighborhood so our thugs are gentlemanly).

A few observations: the economy must really be bad if there is enough of a market for used Suburban wheels. I mean, who steals the wheels off somebody's car? They weren't even the shiny expensive wheels with spinning rims and lights favored by ignoramuses who can't afford school supplies for their kids but somehow find the money to buy stolen wheels for their leveraged hot rods. Ours were just standard issue wheels, straight off the dealer's lot. The ignoramuses who got our wheels weren't even smart enough to get the shiny kind.

The sight of seeing your car on blocks is a curious one first thing in the morning. At first glance your brain says, hmmm, what is this, a practical joke? Pretty elaborate joke, you say? Listen, my friends bought a 600 pound Longhorn calf and had it delivered to my ranch on my 40 birthday last weekend, so yes, stranger things have happened. But then your brain discards the notion that it's a practical joke for the simple reason that it isn't funny, and my friends are funny.

Finally, after several seconds, it becomes apparent that your car is missing its wheels because somebody has stolen them. It's a sick feeling, knowing that thieves, stranger thieves, were so close to your bedroom and taking something dear to you. I never knew how dear Lulu's car wheels were until they're missing. .

But that sick feeling soon turns to anger. Having dirty thugs so close to your family does that to you. I live in a sleepy little town, and this town's investigative cop, we'll call him Barney Fife, offered little to think we'll ever get the wheels back or catch the criminals. Captain Fife does tell us that this has happened dozens of times in our neighborhood over the last month. They only take wheels from '08/09 Suburbans and Tahoe's and whatever the Cadillac version of those cars are called. Escaladas I think. Ours was a simple Suburban. Apparently the wheels from these particular kinds of cars are highly prized by those who have nothing better to do than drive up and down Congress Avenue revving their engines on their low-riders.

So why do I feel redeemed that Lulu got the wheels stolen off her car? Captain Fife also revealed that they suspect the local car wash, yes, her beloved Scrubby Tub, is the nexus point of these crimes, because the criminals they employ can check your address on the insurance card while they're wiping that disgusting Armor All grease all over your dashboard so that after driving it you feel like you have been handling a stick of butter – and spraying noxious chemicals (aka “new car smell”) on your seats, and plan their evil heist accordingly.

Here are the indisputable facts:

Fact: I have rarely had my car washed which is why my car is dirty, but.....
Fact: The Scrubby Tub criminals have therefore never had occasion to gawk at my address since the one time I was there a mouse thoughtfully attacked them, so therefore....
Fact: My car does have the benefit of having wheels, which help it get around town while.....
Fact: Lulu went to the Scrubby Tub a few days ago, so therefore ....

Conclusion: Lulu's car remains stationery, all day, on blocks until the special tow truck comes to take it to the dealer, who is elated because he finally made his first sale today in two months, while I buzz around town shopping and lunching with friends and flying a kite while she remains trapped at home watching the 111th Congress get sworn in on C-Span.

Sadly, Captain Fife and his merry band of Keystone Cops can't be bothered to question the malcontents who work at Scrubby Tubs because they're too busy giving us tax-paying residents tickets for rolling stop signs. Such is life. I went down to do a little thuggery of my own, CSI: San Antonio-style. Call me Horatio. I wore sunglasses, blared "We Won't Be Fooled Again", and questioned the manager for a few minutes. He was sublimely unhelpful and my sunglasses failed to intimidate. He did look my Jeep over with raised eyebrows and offered to wash it for free. I declined on principle.

But you can't really blame the criminals at the Scrubby Tub for carrying out these elaborate crimes. They are criminals, and criminals do what they do best: crime. Just like a car, which drives on dirty streets, is always destined to get dirty, and why a dog licks himself, and why ignorant people will always put money into shiny rims for their leveraged cars. It's the natural order of things.

Desperate Housewives

2008-12-15T13:20:00.001-08:00

I love being loved. And even more so, I despise being despised. I suspect this is because of being slightly neglected by my parents and having older wild sisters, the combination of which makes a boy, apparently, love being loved and despise being despised.

Mostly I am loved. Oh, occasionally a reader of mine (or an entire brewery) will get sideways with me about something I've written, but in the end we always end up friends. So overall, I'm pretty well-loved. And I'm loved by a wide swath of diverse people: of all races, socio-economic strata, sexual orientations, and age.

So it is with a degree of anguish that I have recently discovered that there is one demographic that universally despises me: young mothers with very young children – say, children under six years old. I say I recently discovered this, but the signs have been there all along – I was just loathe to accept it, because I love women so much, particularly young pretty ones. But this realization explains a lot – like why I didn't get along with my rib for those ten years that she, or rather we, had young children.

Now I know why I always get hostile looks, cold shoulders, exasperated sighs, and occasionally a sippy cup thrown at my head (but mostly missed because they throw like girls) from young mothers with young children around the world. Old mothers with young children are okay with me, as are old mothers with old children, and especially young women with no children. But put me in a room with a young mother with young children, and within five minutes she starts reaching for the pepper spray.

Young mothers with young children (YMYCs) find me to be vulgar, loathsome, and insensitive to the needs of young mothers with young children – who apparently feel as if they should be catered to with every degree of inconvenience to everybody else because they saw fit to get knocked up several times within as many years – and who apparently are under the belief that nobody else in the history of the world has ever been through the hell of having several young children at one time. But most of all, they despise me because I don't pretend to patronize their little children, and I treat them like I always treated my own children: like adults.

I have never understood why our generation of mothers, and the dads that enable them, coddle and indulge their little brats when what they really want, I suspect, is just to not to be condescended to. For me, there are two quick ways to break the ice with new people you meet, whether they are five or fifty: drink a bunch of beers with them, and/or through humor. Since you can't buy a baby a beer in this country, more's the pity, that only leaves humor.

Why is it always assumed that children don't have a sense of humor? In reality, the only redeeming quality of children is their senses of humor. They will laugh at anything. The first thing I do when I meet a child is to shake his or her hand and ask, “Do you have a poo-poo in your pants?” I have found that even the youngest and dumbest of children get this joke because it is hilarious. It's a great ice-breaker to start our relationship, which is bound to be short-lived since young children and I have nothing else in common other than a love of bathroom jokes. The next question I ask is, “Have you had your spanking yet today?” Since the child has already ascertained that I am a jokester, he/she will almost inevitably laugh at this pleasantry. Only the dimmest will start to cry, in which case I walk away.

But this unique and, I must say, innovative way of making fast friends with toddlers for some reason infuriates the young mother, and inevitably turns an otherwise pretty and sweet woman into an insolent, shrill, self-righteous shrew. What, is the word “poo-poo” really going to tarnish the psyche of little Billy?

All little children are extremely selfish, self-centered, and greedy. It's not their fault. That's just human nature – primal leftovers from the caveman days when it paid to be selfish, self-centered, and greedy so that you would steal food from your neighbor and greedily guard it to last the Winter. With the rise of modern civilization, we don't need these traits anymore, because we can hire lawyers to possess them for us. The art of parenting is to try to break children of these natural traits so that they can fit into our modern society, unless, of course, you want your child to be a lawyer. That's why it's called “growing up,” and why when an adult is acting selfish and self-centered, it's called being “childish”.

When children don't get their way, they cry. This is also a natural response, but one that is not desired. So when I hear a child crying or whining, I start crying and whining even louder, to try to drown them out. This inevitably confuses the child so much that they will stop crying, because another childish trait that's the most powerful of all kicks in: curiosity. They want to find out why this grown man is crying and whining, because they've never seen that before. It's a great technique, and it's hilarious to watch. But this also infuriates the young mother.

But aside from the way I interact with their children, YMYCs also don't like everything I represent, which may rub off on their husbands: mainly independence, but also a little roguery mixed in. My rib is a very good woman, and she lets me be very independent now that our children are older. I go hunting when I want to go hunting, I travel on business when I need to without harping from her, I sit in the hot tub with nothing but a sombrero and a cigar, etc. Independence in a man, and the possibility of it rubbing off on their husbands, is something that the YMYC cannot abide. I don't blame them. Raising multiple little brats is by far the hardest job on the earth, and their greatest fear is that their husbands will leave – either for a weekend or for life.

Subsequently, YMYCs create all sorts of activities – constant motion – so that the young husband is so busy he won't have time to ponder the notion of going hunting or leaving for a week long poker tournament in Vegas. Soccer games, church retreats, bible studies, bike rodeos (whatever that is), piano lessons, gymnastics classes, and the list goes on. Forget the fact that the children are so busy that they never learn how to create their own imaginations (which is only accomplished by making them deliberately bored), but it also has the practical effect of tying up the husbands. I happen to be lucky in that all three of my sons are uncoordinated and don't play too many sports, but rather are interested in what I happen to enjoy, hunting, fishing, and hot tubbing.

There is not a more hang-dog, suppressed, emasculated, sunken chested, broken spirited person walking the face of this earth than the young husband of the YMYC. I've been there, brother. Forever juggling sippy cups, pushing prams, dicking around with car seats, wiping up vomit, and being ordered around by a fat bottomed belligerent shrew who he's not even sleeping with much, the young man with young children looks to me, his older brother who is finally free of the ties that bind, as a sort of demi-god, a hero, one to look up to, to emulate. He thinks: Harry gets to drink whiskey and wear a sombrero and shoot at a chili petine bush with his .22 pistol from his hot tub, why can't I? This “why can't I” business, alas, is the final straw that turns the YMYC against me with all the force of Medusa.

But I am convinced they will love me once again, when their youngest is out of diapers.

I Fell into a Toilet: My Amazing Story of Survival, Perseverance, and Guts

2008-11-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

So I fell in a toilet yesterday. Well, not so much in the toilet as on it....and a little bit in it. There's a distinction I think, though I'm not quite prepared to explain it to you just now. It all happened so fast. See, I was stepping out of the bathtub..... okay, let's just stop right there. Yes, I occasionally take baths, particularly in hotel rooms. Some of my friends have suggested that taking baths is not what men do, but I think au contraire. A fine hot bubble bath with a scented candle and my favorite magazine....okay, whatever, it's gay. Accept me like I am or don't, but I've loved taking baths since I was five years old. I recently had a jacuzzi installed at home, which is just a bath outdoors.

Anyway, so I drain the water and am stepping out, rather carelessly as I thought of today's gripping events in the beer industry, and my right foot slips out from under me, and gravity, in all its Newtonian glory, kicked in. Now , there were four possible directions to fall: I could have fallen back into the bathtub, in which case I would have braced myself against the walls, or I could have fallen toward the nice pile of soft pillowing towels ahead of me, or I could have fallen into the doorway where there was a fluffy carpet, or I could have fallen left into a hard, cold, germ-laden, piss-stained, toilet. Naturally, the toilet is where I fell. All 200-and-a-few-more pounds of me. And I didn't just hit the toilet, but I also struck the side of the tub somehow with a tremendous force, gravity having been extra strong that day, chest-first. There I was, with one hand in the bathtub, one hand in the toilet, my face in the space betwenxt. I pushed myself like a fat oil-slathered seal onto the floor and started to sob hysterically like a little girl, holding my ribs and hip like some old woman. This, I declare, was not my finest hour. Those “I've fallen and I can't get up” beepers wouldn't have been any good to me, because I was stark naked, and I would rather lie there and die of internal injuries and hunger than let anybody see me like that, alive. Eventually, of course, they would find me, after rigor mortus had set in and presumably I would be decayed and drained of fluids a a bit, (there was a “do not disturb” sign on my door), likely making me look a little better than I do now.

I can imagine Lulu receiving condolence calls from our friends. “Yes, it's such a tragedy, thank you for calling.” Then in a flatter tone, “Yes, he really did fall into the toilet.” I can see our pastor at my funeral, grasping for nice things to say about me. “He was clumsy in life, but, uh, I'm sure God probably loves him.” I imagine all my so-called guy friends coming a'calling around Lulu, trying to “give her comfort.” Lulu, if you ever hear anybody say, “Harry would have wanted us to,” don't believe them. I never want you to, again, ever. Never. Remember this, I'm either watching from above or below, but either way, I'm watching.

This last thought gives me strength. Must. Not. Die. Like. This. For good measure, I reach up and flush the toilet. Can't see what's in it, but just in case. Like a true survivalist, I take stock of my situation, and try to channel my inner Bear Grylls. “Keep your head on, Schuhmacher. Don't panic. You can get through this.” I felt around my body for broken bones. Tough to tell, a few places really, really hurt. Not “Charlie bit me” hurt. More like “Charlie stole my friggin kidney” hurt.

I will admit to you, and you may not believe me, but the first thought that ran through my mind was, not my wife or children, not my own safety, but how will I get tomorrow's newsletter out if I'm incapacitated? Can I crawl to my laptop? Are my hands okay? Yes they are, all is well. As it turns out, my ample barrel chest and hip broke the fall before my hands came into play.

Can I stand up? I'm ashamed to tell you that I was truly afraid to try. What if it hurts? It's kind of like when you wash your privates with soap, and then when you go to pee, it burns. So you hold your pee because you know it will hurt. Just like that. I can take pain, I just can't take the anticipation of pain. If I were captured by our enemies, I fear I'd sing like a yellow-bellied canary at the mere sight of a sharpened golf tee.

I also have the thought, maybe seen on Bear Grylls' stupid show where he pretends to kill crocs with a blow gun that he claims to have carved from a bamboo stick, but actually sleeps in a Ritz-Carlton while lackeys buy the blow gun on Amazon.com. But anyway, Bear says that if you think you're back is broken, don't get up because then you may sever your spinal column, which is crucial for getting around. But it's my hip and maybe a few ribs that hurt. Then again, I think Bear says don't get up if you're ribs are broken too, because they can slice through your innards and blood vessels like razors and you bleed to death internally. Stupid show. I stare at the underside of the toilet and think of how much it looks like a pregnant woman's tummy, which is another piece of knowledge to file away, though not necessarily helpful in my current predicament. My eyes roll around the place, taking it all in like Bear would do. I wonder what's on the history of my laptop's Internet browser. I should probably format my hard-drive if I ever make it that far. Are there bank accounts anywhere that I should let Lulu know about? Sadly, no. Hey, the mini-bar is almost in reach, I wonder how much the pistachios are? These are the thoughts that race through your brain when you're prostrate, naked as a walrus, on the cold floor of your hotel room with unknown broken bones. In case you were wondering.

Finally I haul myself up on all fours and crawl to my bed. I figure if I'm going to die from internal bleeding, I might as well go out of this world like I entered it, swathed in thousand count Turkish cotton sheets. I lay there staring at the ceiling for maybe thirty minutes. To call the wife or not? That's the first thing to enter my mind....when in trouble with my ribs, call the rib. I weigh the pros and cons. There's nothing she can do, and if I call her, it will just worry her or worse, she may insist on getting the hotel staff to come help me or something, and that is out of the question for reasons I've already discussed. I call her anyway, because I can't help myself. Thankfully, she doesn't answer. Should I call Megan, my top lieutenant at the company? No, this isn't work-related, and it would creep her out if she knew I was calling her in the buff, which necessarily would have to come to her knowledge. Maybe my friend Joe Staffel who lives here? No, I didn't tell him I was in town because I had a lot of work things to do – he might get his feelings hurt if he knew – of course I guess now he knows. Sorry Joe, I was there for a few days for work, and didn't call you in advance to get together, but certainly considered calling you when I needed a friend in an emergency. Yes, I'm a shitty friend. But I'm still a friend, no?

So I lie there and stare at the ceiling. Think, Harry, think. The one thing that stupid fat-face limey Bear Grylls does say is that you should visualize a goal – staying alive, or in my case getting home without too much humiliation – into little baby steps, and take it one little baby step at a time. The first step, I decide, is to get some clothes on. If I'm appropriately clothed in jeans and a nice pressed white oxford shirt, it takes away all my issues about Lulu getting help from the hotel staff, or calling Megan, and it may help my self-esteem in general (there's a giant mirror on the wall next to my bed that no matter how hard I try, I can't stop glancing at). So I make an attempt at standing up. I slide to the edge of the bed, put my feet on the floor, and attempt to raise my torso, which is like raising the Titanic in more ways than one.

Holy shitola, jesu christo chinga tu madre! Yes, it hurts by god, but surprisingly, not as much as I thought. The anticipation, as I said, is always much worse than the actual pain. And without the pain, there is no sweet, or so I've heard. I stand up. Hey this isn't so bad. I put my clothes on – ever, so, delicately, and, slowly. Leaning over hurts, but once I get my pants on, gravy. Starting to feel better. I go ahead and work on my computer and get tomorrow's issue mostly done, just in case. Now what? I'm feeling better, so I go ahead and call Lulu and tell her my story, with obvious omissions, to make me more of a hero, which is to say I lied about almost everything.

I have a beer reception tonight. To attend or not? I respectfully decline, and instead listen to a blues trio in my hotel lobby and contemplate, Bear Grylls-style, my next challenge. I must fly across the country, with a layover, early tomorrow morning. Have I said jesu christo yet? Because I think this situation calls for a jesu christo and maybe even another chinga tu madre, although I hate to overuse those important epitaphs.

My plan is to get lots of cash out of the ATM, and just pay everybody to get my suitcase into the cab, into the airport, into ticketing, and on the damn plane. Luckily I'm in first class so I can lay there like a board, stretched out. When I land, I will pay a bell cap to put my bag in my car (the first healthy male under 40 to ever ask for that service in 30 years, and my suitcase is a small rollerbag). I will then fly like a daffodil on a hurricane to Dr. Tonga to get his expert prognosis. I don't wish to taint Dr. Tonga's medical opinion with any preconceived ideas in the unlikely event he checks this blog, or even has a computer with an Internet connection, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there's a cortisone shot in my near future. Dr. Tonga won't bother my insurance company or the government with expensive x-rays (he doesn't take insurance or Medicare anyway). Besides, there's nothing you can do about broken or bruised ribs, besides an $80 cortisone shot of course. It's no wonder I'm bloated and aggressive lately. Dr. Tonga has pumped me so full of steroids that I am actually considering growing a mustache this year. It is my finest hour. Gotta go, they're play Mack the Knife.

On Drug Ads and Doctors

2008-11-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

You know what I hate? While you didn't ask, I'll tell you anyway. I hate doctors, except mine. I'll get to that in a minute, because I just thought of something else I hate even more than doctors. I hate pharmaceutical ads. All pharmaceutical ads. But what I REALLY despise, so much that I sometimes gag, are pharma ads for men. Drug ads targeting middle-aged men to treat things like going potty too much, gummy arteries, and flabby weeners may be effective in selling the drugs, but the ads invariably feature dough-faced imbeciles doing stupid things.

Yes, before you ask, I've had a bad day and my blood sugar is low. But I just saw an ad featuring a smug asshole whining that he has to pee three times a night. Oh, boo-hoo. People are eating babies in Sub-Sahara Africa, but let's drop everything and spend precious Medicare dollars so you don't have to haul your ass to the toilet so much. Ever heard of a chamber pot, or an empty 2 liter Coke bottle? Use some ingenuity, man.

But now, with LookMaNoPee (TM), he lives a great life with reduced bathroom breaks -- cue the shots of him riding a bike with his ugly wife. He's the one wearing a helmet. Safety first. So he takes a pill so he can hold his peepee until the morning, and he wears a helmet to protect his precious head in case he makes a boo boo while riding a bike – a bicycle, not a motorcycle, mind you. What a stud. John Wayne is sitting on a mantle of clouds somewhere throwing up into his Stetson in disgust, relieved that he's dead and doesn't have to live amongst such chicken livers. This guy won't need Viagra because I doubt it would ever occur to his wife, even as ugly as she is, to bed such a nancy-boy. Drug ads always have these shots of smiling middle-aged people in hideous sweatpants doing the most inane things: flying a kite, jogging in a marathon, riding bikes, and my favorite: setting balloons free. What are you, seven?

And have you seen the ad where the doctor is explaining to his patient the side effects of whatever drug they're selling, as required by law? The patient looks suitably fascinated in the knowledge that the drug could cause his eyes to bleed hydrochloric acid, his rectum to leak Hawaiian Punch, and in “extremely rare cases”, his belly button to spontaneously shoot flaming arrows. The patient nods like a Mandarin doll – excited about the possibility of bleeding acid just so he won't wet the bed anymore – with a rapt look on his face, as if he's so appreciative that his doctor shares this crucial information with him. If my doctor even started to bore me with the side effects of the rainbow of drugs I currently take, I would walk out after hurling a urine-filled 2 liter Coke bottle at him.

But Dr. Tonga would never do that. In the Abidjan, on the Côte d'Ivoire in Africa, where he received his education according to the "degree" on the wall, they apparently teach a better bedside manner than our medical institutions. And they eat babies in Abidjan, lacking other protein that's handy, so consequently Dr. T treats me and all his patients with the appropriate level of hostility earned by those of us who are privileged and coddled. When I complain of debilitating pain in my left hand, Dr. T. screams at me that it's my fault for typing so much. When I yell back at him that I am a writer, and so if he wants to keep getting paid, he'd better make sure I can keep typing, he finally writes a scrip -- reluctantly -- for an anti-inflammatory, and his nurse-secretary-housekeeper pulls down my pants and gives me a cortisone shot in my bottom, though I can tell he believes me to be a pansy.

I like Dr. Tonga. He doesn't take any crap, and he doesn't take insurance. Just pay your hundred bucks and he'll treat any ailments you have -- in my case high blood pressure, carpal tunnel, chronically reoccurring pneumonia, broken feet, asthma, allergies, hypochondria, bloating, gas, and the gout -- and my life insurance company is none the wiser. All of these ailments, including and especially hypochondria, Dr. Tonga treats with cortisone shots. He is of the belief, taught to him by the wise elders of the Haitian medical community, that cortisone is the cure-all for everything, from gas to gout. And you know what, damned if he's right. It doesn't take a Harvard medical school grad to goose up your patients with steroids. I'm convinced Dr. Tonga is the future of medicine in this country: inexpensive, effective, no-nonsense health care, without all the needless accoutrements like clean needles and licensed nurses. And he doesn't keep me waiting since I've never seen another patient there. He respects my time. And you can smoke cigars in his waiting room. While Dr. T doesn't speak much English, we understand each other. I hate doctors, and he hates patients. It's a great relationship. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to put on my helmet and ride a bike and set off a bunch of balloons with my wife. Von 99 Luftballons Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont, Roscoe (inside joke with my rib).

Slumming in Beverly Hills

2008-11-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

So I found myself in Los Angeles for a meeting. More specifically, I found myself in Beverly Hills (the wifii password for my hotel was "90210"). I had a free day so I wandered the streets for a few hours.... down Rodeo Drive, around the corner to Wilshire, past the Creative Artists Agency, where I paused momentarily on the off chance I spot Catherine Zeta dash Jones to see if I can woo her away from that wrinkled grandpa Michael Douglas, onto Santa Monica Blvd., back around to Beverly Hills Blvd -- just to look at all the fancy shiny things I can't afford now that I have children who are so selfish as to want to go to college.

Two observations about Beverly Hills. The first is that, isn't Beverly Hills supposed to be full of beautiful women? Most of the women I saw looked burned up and burned out, plastic orange skin, frizzed up hair, needlessly high heels, painted up like left bank French hookers, frozen pissed-off scowls on their vapid faces -- probably have sand in their virginias. Several times I had to remind myself that I wasn't in the trashier parts of the red light district in Amsterdam (not that I've ever frequented the trashier parts of the red light district in Amsterdam....much). And many, like more than half (and all if over 50) had those puffed up lips, where I guess a doctor shoots Jello into them. What the hell is up with that? Does anybody suppose that this is desirable? They look like Audrey, the Venus Fly Trap in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Feed me, Seemore! This is the one time where Jello isn't fun. They look like they were stung by hornets. My dear Catherine Zeta dash Jones would NEVER engage in this practice, though her vain octogenarian husband might. Moral of the story: if you want to look at pretty women who don't look like Yoda on botox, don't waste your time in Beverly Hills. Austin has it beat twenty to one. And they smile at you. Hell, the girls trolling the Jersey Shore boardwalk are better than this.

The second observation is that the problem with Beverly Hills, or really any posh place, is that you can't purchase any essential toiletries. I needed a razor (the one I brought with me had about six weeks' use on it, so I think when I scraped it across my face hair actually sprouted), some chapstick (because I kept reflexively licking my lips when I saw all those puffy taco lips), and a legal pad, because I wanted to find a nice pub and work out my 2009 financial and marketing plan, (because that's the kind of guy I am, productive even on a Saturday afternoon. Work work work). These seemingly mundane and ubiquitous items, which in most of America you can find on any given street corner, are simply not to be had in Beverly Hills. The reason, I suspect, is that rents are so high that a Rite Aid would have to charge $5,000 for a small bottle of Pepto Bismol to make it on Rodeo Drive. Curious that in an area where you can buy a Cart-yee-air watch, a Louie Weetone suitcase, and an Alfalfa Romeo convertible, all within a 300 foot stretch of sidewalk, toothpaste is out of the question -- at any price. So I went without. Such is sacrifice. Lulu, I hope you're enjoying your Aquafresh and Gold Bond Medicated Powder at home. My kingdom for a thimbull of Gold Bond.

And forget about finding a nice neighborhood pub. The closest I could find was a fancy Italian restaurant that had a bar that seated two, because nobody drinks in Beverly Hills except green tea and cappuccino -- it's the only liquid that can pass those gigantic balloon lips apparently. Peroni Nasty As Euro was $12 for a 12 ounce "pint" (only in Beverly Hills would they recalibrate a standard unit of measure that's been in existence for well over 200 years). I felt like I was back home at Rosario's. I've been on quite a roll lately in paying a dollar an ounce for my beer. I like Peroni, but this is testing the limits of my love for the Italian nectar. Maybe I'll have an Ichiban, which is 20 ounces and only $15....what a bargain...it must be so cheap because it's brewed here. But beggars can't be choosers, particularly when one is a beggar on Rodeo Drive. So I did my financial and marketing plan on a cocktail napkin with a borrowed bic pen from the waitress, using my Blackberry's calculator function to get the most out of the assets I already own. The waitress, incidentally, had poofy lips -- 20% tips on $12 Peroni lets her live the High Life, no doubt. Where's Wendell when you need him? (These are insider beer industry jokes, my apologies to my few friends who aren't in the industry. See, SABMiller owns Peroni and High Life, and there's this guy named Wendell that peddles High Life, and......well just rest assured, it's funny). As luck would have it, with this financial crisis, a napkin is all I needed, and I only needed one side. After I was done, I walked out into the sunlight, shading my eyes, stuffing my business plan (napkin) into the pocket of my fraying shirt, and there was a Bentley with the vanity license plates proclaiming "PRDUCER". I hate this place. I'm going to Amsterdam

Lazy Sunday

2008-10-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in my usual Sunday afternoon bar having a beer. The barmaid, Mercedes, knows me by sight but doesn't know my name – calls me sugar, which I like more than I should. She brings me a tall draught of a light beer without asking. I sit at the same table I always do. Mercedes treats me better than the other patrons, because I am the only regular in this bar. In this bar, the people are always different every day. In this bar, I never have time for more than one beer. And in this bar, I always overpay with a big tip, in cash, because I never have time for change or to wait for a credit card charge. Of course I'm talking about Rosario's in Terminal 2 of the San Antonio International Airport (international because of our daily flights to Mexico City and Monterrey, natch).

As I write this it occurs to me that the real reason Mercedes always rewards me with her winning smile, and what I swear are deliberate peaks at her heaving brown bosom, and the sexy swing of her skirt as she turns to offer rebuke to a complaining customer wanting their check, as the other patrons get nothing from Mercedes but a stern frown and saucy attitude, is because I never seem to have anything smaller than a 20 spot for my one beer – and Mercedes can't be bothered to make change with anything resembling haste. The fact that 100% of her customers are on a strict time schedule dictated by the airlines is lost on her. I tell her she would be better suited working the bars downtown in La Villita, where there is no such thing as a schedule and time stands still, but she just smiles and pats my cheek in a way that makes my knees weak.

So, yeah, it's an expensive beer, and it's not even a craft or import, but it is 22 ounces. A dollar an ounce is definitely worth it (the dollar isn't worth what it use to be) and it relaxes me for my flight. And it's worth keeping me in good graces with Mercedes, who I've seen instantly sober-up tipsy tourists with her cold stare, which can rake your face like grapeshot. It would effectively ruin my week to get a cold stare from Mercedes. Dropping Hamiltons like a rapper is my insurance against it.

In the Fall I'm forever flying on Sunday to catch Monday morning meetings, usually state beer distributor meetings. But today I'm heading to Charlotte, North Carolina to again stick my head into the lion's mouth. Yes, I'm speaking at the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association annual meeting – the control states wine and spirits regulators. Longtime sufferers of this blog will remember how I publicly humiliated myself with this group a few years ago in Aspen. Apparently they liked my presentation back then, or else my humiliation was entertainment on a grand scale, because they've asked me back. During the speaker conference call a few weeks ago, the organizer of the meeting said, “Harry, I remember that you caused quite a controversy last time you spoke at our meeting. I hope you won't shy away from controversy this time.” I am to be the unpaid entertainment.

But they also warned me to keep my comments centered on beer. I don't think anybody is served when I riff freely and recklessly on foreign spirits companies' dedication to the control state system. I've learned my lesson since then. Now I'll riff freely and recklessly on the foreign brewers' dedication level to the control state system. But enough inside baseball.

I have the Sunday blues. Just coming off one of those grand weekends that you never want to end. My friends Alex and Melissa Epley had us to their splendid South Texas ranch, Rancho Tres Hijos. Oh yes, the house is nice: indoor pool, ten bedrooms, a 1985 big screen TV that probably weighs 800 pounds and takes up more space than a refrigerator and probably burns 300,000 kilowatts a minute.

But what draws me to this place is the rugged arid South Texas brush country that is truly magic to me for some reason. I can't explain it. Most people would look at the land – where you literally can't touch a tree or plant without getting a hand-full of poisonous thorns, where nothing grows over six fee tall except the occasional oak tree and the common rattle snake, one of which was killed by the ranch foreman on the patio this morning, where the land can't support anything but lizards, snakes, armadillos, wild pigs, and rabbits, oh and huge whitetail deer and Beefmaster cattle – most people would look at this land and think, wow, what an ugly, hot, inhospitable hellhole. But to me, and to those who grew up down there, it's a freaking garden of eden. A paradise.

Just being down there at sundown, driving around in a dusty old truck with a cigar hanging out my mouth and a cold beer between my legs and binoculars hanging from my neck and my long-legged wife sitting next to me with tight jeans and boots on, and my good friends Alex and Mel on hand, and country music on the radio (old classic country of the whiskey-gambling-whoring-honkey-tonk variety, not that new sappy-Jesus-sippy-cup-soccer-mom country music), well, it makes me grow a big rubbery one, to quote Tyler Durden in Fight Club. It just doesn't get any better than that.

On Saturday night we're cooking dove on the barbey when Alex's foreman, Julio, and his son Jose join us at the fire. The foreman doesn't speak English, but I delude myself into believing that I speak Spanish so it doesn't matter. Turns out, when all I do is bark “despacio!” at the poor fellow, (which means 'speak more slowly'), I don't actually speak Spanish. But I swell with pride when my son, Hunt, translates for us as he is fluent (he later told my rib Lulu, “Dad just knows common words like 'hola' and 'cerveza' and all the Mexican beer names like Corona-Tecate-Dos Equis, which he thought meant 'two horses', and words like tequila and tortilla.” Not true, just for the record. Hunt is a known liar, but if that's his story, so be it. Hey Hunt, we ran out of money before buying your Christmas presents this year. Lo siento, mi hijo.) Anyway, The foreman's son, Jose, is 16 and speaks perfect English so we got along grandly. He's a solid kid: smart as a whip and comfortable in his skin – not a liar like Hunt. He offers to take Hunt and I hog hunting the following morning.

We wake up an hour before dawn and head for the feeder. I had forgotten how much I hated hunting until I was trapped in the blind. Two things I really despise: boredom and mosquitoes, and hunting invariably has both in spades. After about five minutes, my hand is twitching for a book, magazine, blackberry, etch-a-sketch, anything to occupy my mind. And then we hear the inevitable inhuman hum, a high-pitched whine – a cloud of mosquitoes descend upon us, easy thin-skinned prey, drawn no doubt by the carbon dioxide we're exhaling. I insanely try to hold my breath to keep them at bay, but that doesn't work for long, for obvious reasons, oxygen being somewhat important to life. I turn up my collar and cram my cowboy hat down low, but the damn things still got me. I probably have malaria.

The other thing I don't like about hunting is that you have to remain perfectly still and quiet, because while the animals you're hunting are generally stupid and easy to trick, because they're animals, they unfortunately do possess an acute sense of hearing. So every time I blew my nose, farted, kicked the side of the blind, or adjusted my underpants, all of which were absolutely necessary at the time, Jose and Hunt would give me hostile looks. Finally I said, screw it, and took out my blackberry and caught up on my emails. I figured if the hogs could hear the clicking of the blackberry keys, they deserve to live. If not, then die they will at the hands of my 13 year old son. Nature is cruel but nature is just.

Nature cruelly but justly continued to irritate us in the form of mosquitoes as big as small mocking birds for the next hour. But then, hogs finally came to the feeder because, of course, they're hogs. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, as the saying goes. Hunt and Jose each bagged one. What a glorious morning. Let's get back to the warm bed of that long-legged wife and have a tickle war.

Looking For a Boy Tuesday/Wednesday

2008-10-24T04:24:00.000-07:00

I've been in a little bit of a funk. I am beginning to think that I may be getting burnt out on writing a daily column. I've been doing it well on nigh for ten years now, my only reprieve the last week of December each year and a one week hunting trip to Argentina three years ago.

It seems easy, to bang out little pearls of news and commentary each day on what's happening in the beer game. And it is easy....for awhile. But then it starts to wear on your whiskers a little. Every day, when the work is done, and you lay your satisfied and smug head on the pillow to dream about women with bums like little pumpkins – or whatever – you wake up the next day a chump, because it starts all over again. And again. And again. Until, finally, you find yourself staring at a blinking cursor on a slow news day wondering what lies you're going to make up today. Just kidding, of course. They're actually true lies. The opposite, I'm told, of false facts.

Three or four years ago I made a feint at getting help by hiring young Megan straight out of college. Hello – here we go, I finally have the help of an eager junior, a girl Friday, a bright diamond whom I can grind down into the dull gem of a trade journalist to help with the daily grind – you take Tuesday and Wednesday, and I'll keep the important Monday-Thursday-Friday columns. But soon afterward I sent her sailing with Wine & Spirits Daily – taking all days of that publication, even crucial Friday. Sure, I own the ship, but today remain alone on my island, in the same boat, working my health into the sand, if that makes any sense.

In my travels I've come to find that most of my readers believe – falsely – that I sandbag columns and store them like, well, like sandbags in a sandbag warehouse for rainy days [that's the best I can do right now, will come up with a better metaphor later]. That would be a smart strategy. But true journalists don't, can't, get ahead. We are always behind on deadlines. Always. It's part of our DNA. If you show me a journalist who is filing stories early, I'll show you a fast typist, not a journalist. Journalists need the adrenaline of a deadline to inspire the unique headline, the magnetic hook, the drop dead closer. Even pros like the late Bill Buckley were forever getting hounded by editors. There simply is no getting ahead. And besides, if it's not timely enough that it must be read in the next 48 hours, then it's not really newsworthy is it?

Journalists are an odd lot. I didn't know I wanted to be a journalist, until I became one, and then wondered why the hell I wasn't one from the start. Journalists are ribald and act wildly inappropriate, but make periodic attempts at being a gentleman – check. Journalists take their craft seriously but don't take themselves too seriously - check. Journalists are witty, big-hearted, boozy, cynical-but-not-really, and most of all, egotistical – check, check, check.

Actually, the typical journalist I describe above is a dying lot. The journalist-as-honest-drunk doesn't play in Peoria anymore. For one thing, it's unsustainable. Ten years ago I could hold court at the Napoleon Bar at NBWA, running up the unlimited BBD Platinum Amex, until three in the morning, still bang out my column somehow (albeit with a few typos) and be on the podium at 7 the next morning moderating a craft brewer panel. Five years ago I could do it less well. Today if my head doesn't hit my pillow by midnight I'm in big trouble. I get my columns done now before I go out, not after. I know, not exactly Hunter Thompson-like, more like Erma Bombeck. But I'm turning 40 in two months and spring chicken I'm not. Gonzo needs a break.

So in honor of turning 40, and in honor of preserving my health and sanity, and most importantly in honor of rewarding my long-suffering readers with better quality and consistency, I'm on the lookout for another journalist, a boy Friday, to take the Tuesday-Wednesday slots, so really a boy Tuesday-Wednesday to be accurate, or something like that. Of course, to do it right he/she won't be a boy at all, but a seasoned journalist who knows the beer trade frontwards and backwards. I have one or two people in mind, but am not ready to make the move yet – gotta make sure I can afford it and whatnot, as I suppose this person will want some sort of renumeration, and bennies of course. Everybody wants free bennies these days. So look for that and more changes to come in 2009.

Going To the Olympics Not

2008-08-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently asked me if I was going to the Olympics. Since I am connected with the beer industry, my friends often believe that I have some inside track on rare tickets. Come the Super Bowl, World Series, and whatever the big hockey game is called, old girlfriends, distant cousins, and comparative strangers suddenly appear out of the woodwork asking if I can help them obtain tickets from my beer contacts.

I quickly disavow them of this delusion. First, while it's true I have many friends who run large breweries and beer distributorships, they are also my customers. I am not their customers. Do you see the difference? I should be giving them tickets, not the other way around. Second, I am also a journalist covering brewers, so accepting lavish gifts is generally considered a conflict of interest and gauche.

Yes, I occasionally receive free beer, or the odd baseball cap or t-shirt. SABMiller once sent me a cigar humidor, which was nice. Cerveceria Cauhtemoc once sent me a stuffed parakeet in a cage, which was odd. I accept this swag because it doesn't affect my coverage, I don't ask for it, I give most of it away (except the free beer, and the humidor, and of course the dead parakeet -- it remains in my office standing guard over my important papers; and I enjoy reminding my assistant Adrienne to feed it when I'm out of town -- a sad worn joke I know, but still funny to me), and it would be rude and time-consuming to send it all back besides.

But no, hard-to-come-by tickets don't generally flow in my direction. Not only would I feel uncomfortable asking for tickets, but I know that brewers and distributors ALWAYS get hounded for tickets by everybody. One distributor once told me he felt like he ran a ticket company that sold beer as a sideline.

But all that aside, if a brewer somehow insisted that I accept front row tickets to the Olympics with a free ride on the company jet to Beijing and a free suite at the Ritzy Fancy hotel, I would politely decline -- not on moral grounds alone, but on the grounds that I can't think of anything worse than watching endless amateur sporting events in a crowded, hot, smog-ridden, communist country that regularly hangs dissident journalists. I am deathly afraid of crowds, I hate watching (and playing) sports except horse racing and cock fighting of course, and I have bad lungs brought on by a bout of childhood pneumonia (which I treat liberally with Havana cigars kept in my Peroni-branded humidor). Plus, I don't like being hanged much, now that I've gotten older and wiser. Death is so final. I prefer to keep my options open.

The only summer Olympic sport that mildly interests me is the javelin throw. But for obvious reasons, it's prudent to watch it from the safety of the living room on the teevee, lest the errant throw pierce the heart of a spectator on the front row (and trust me, if I went to the Olympics I'd be on the front row).

Now, if anybody has an extra ticket to next year's upper Chihuahua double-bladed rooster-a-thon, you know how to reach me.

Rich Cartiere - RIP

2008-06-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

It is my great regret to relay the sad news that my colleague and friend, Rich Cartiere, editor and publisher of the influential Wine Market Report, succumbed to the inevitable earlier this week after complications with brain surgery. He was 51.

I spoke with Rich just a few weeks ago, and I had no idea how serious his health issues had become. He never mentioned it, only complaining of gout. Others I have spoken with since his death were equally ignorant of his brain cancer. I suppose he didn't want to "bother" us with his health issues, which is the kind of guy he was.

Rich was a legendary wine journalist, and WMR was considered the “bible” of the wine industry. I've spoken on panels with Rich and got to know him as a colleague over the years. Since we were only mildly competitive, we often shared ideas and best practices on the challenges of electronic publishing. He started his newsletter just before I started BBD, and grew to a peak of 5,000 readers. I honor him for his success.

Rich was truly great at breaking wine stories, and he had the firmest grasp of any journalist I know of the intricacies of three-tier law. His clearly written pieces on the various three-tier court cases, from the Granholm case on down, were the best-organized and researched journalism covering three-tier that I've seen, including my own. Rich was a master of clear and fair alcohol beverage reporting, making sense where few else could of our massively complex labyrinth of bev-al codes. The industry is worse off today without him, and as a friend I will miss him terribly.

Please join me this evening in raising a glass of wine to a great gentleman and bev-al journalist, to Rich Cartiere, RIP.

New Year's Resolution for 2008

2008-01-06T06:39:00.000-08:00

You may recall that each year on this blog I put forth a few New Year's Resolutions for myself, and since I don't really believe in the idea of a new year nor in being resolute, my past resolutions have been tongue-in-cheek, like resolving to eat more lobster. Yeah, I know. Ha ha really funny stuff, maybe I should quit my job and be a scab for Letterman.

But this year I wanted to take a different tack. I decided that, rather than make a list of real or fake resolutions which would invariably complicate my life and set myself up for failure, I would create ONLY ONE resolution. That way, it would be easy to remember, easy to execute, and thus easy to accomplish. It's all about keeping it simple here at the world headquarters at BBD.

So after about five minutes of heavy thinking, I am resolved to drink more water in 2008. That's it. Drink more water.

You may think this silly or stupid or both, but when you think about it, drinking more water, as simple as it is, actually encompasses several resolutions in one handy and easy behavior. It helps you lose weight, that perennial (and usually unaccomplished) resolution, as it fills you up before meals and has no calories. Water is good for health, it's good for the skin, and it's delicious. Oh, and it quenches thirst, which is always, like a hyena, nipping at your tail.

And since I'm a creative sort of soul, I am expanding my resolution to include all water, including the kind found in beer. So I'm also supporting my industry with my new resolution, as increased beer consumption will likely ensue.

So here's to water.

Remembrance of Things Past

2007-08-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

The following article was first published in the September 07 issue of All About Beer Magazine, a great consumer magazine which celebrates the world of beer culture. Thanks to publisher Daniel Bradford for allowing me to also post it here. -HCS

Remembrance of Things Past

“When nothing else from the past subsists, after people are dead, after the destruction of things, smell and taste alone remain, like souls bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the vast edifice of memory.”

These poignant words appear at the beginning of In Search of Lost Time, the eternal if not interminable biographical novel by Marcel Proust. Here the narrator remarks how scents possess such a strong power, unique amongst the senses, to transport you to a time in your past, often formerly forgotten episodes in childhood.

For Proust, that scent proved to be the sweet-tart smell of cake soaked in tea. For me, it’s the smell of molded cardboard soaked in stale beer.

For going on four generations, my family, the Schuhmachers, had been carving their sustenance out of the arid lands of Texas as wholesale beer distributors. Some of my earliest memories are of playing hide-and-seek amongst the stacks of beer in my father’s warehouse in Houston. In a bustling commercial beer operation, tall pallets of beer are constantly in motion, so the child must be alert, lest he get run over by a forklift. But other than those trifling dangers, which necessarily heightened the excitement of the game, the beer stacks proved even better than a hedge maze for hours of entertainment for my sisters and me.

As in every beer warehouse, then and now, accidents happen. A forklift holding a pallet with 65 cases of longneck bottles of beer on it will hook a turn too fast, and the stack of beer necessarily fall to the ground based on the inverse square and Newton’s theory of gravity, smashing about half the bottles. The result is a messy mountain of soaked cardboard, glass, and beer. This mountain is pushed by a forklift into a section of the warehouse called the “breaker pile.”

This breaker pile varies in size and age at any given time, depending on how fast the workers in the breaker pile are able to “repack” the salvageable bottles and cans from those that are leaking or broken. The good cans and bottles are cleaned and repacked into cartons, while the rest is documented and destroyed (to regain the lost excise tax). It’s a tedious and time-consuming job, as you’re dealing with a lot of broken glass, stale beer, soggy cardboard, and those annoying tiny gnats that inevitably appear where there is spilt beer. But it’s an important job: No beer must be wasted, not one single bottle.

The breaker pile is where the wise beer distributor owner first puts his children to work. He does this for several good reasons: First, the breaker pile is the worst job in the warehouse and as the children of distributors are perceived—usually correctly—as rich brats by the other employees, throwing them to the breaker pile forces the children to earn their salt early on. Second, children are good at working the breaker pile for some reason: Maybe it’s their small hands, maybe it’s the fact they are fearless amongst shards of glass, maybe it’s their ability to make a game out of anything. But mostly I suspect it’s because children are dumb and don’t know any better.

So I spent my childhood summers washing the shards of glass off bottles, getting blisters on my thumb from “ringing” cans into those plastic six-pack rings, gluing new twelve-pack carriers, and stapling cases shut. The smell of a ripe breaker pile is a combination of seaweed on the beach, boiling coffee, and a wet puppy. It’s not as disagreeable as you would think, but actually a very sweetly musty smell. Not too far, actually, from Proust’s cake dipped into tea, if the cake was actually a day-old Ahi tuna.

Today, I work as a beer industry trade journalist. My father sold his distributorship many years ago, orphaning me from the world of beer distribution forever. But my work takes me into many beer warehouses across the country, and each time I draw near to a breaker pile, it takes me back to my childhood. It’s the most powerful link I have to a time of innocence and wonder.

Harry Schuhmacher is the editor and publisher of Beer Business Daily, a trade journal for the U.S. beer industry. He can be reached at hs@beernet.com.

Dog eat dog

2007-01-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

If, by chance, you die and are given the opportunity by God to come back as a pet in the Schuhmacher household, you may wish to gently decline the offer. We Schuhmachers are tough on pets. So tough, in fact, that we’ve rarely had a pet live more than a year due to various accidents and omissions. To wit:

Exhibit A: Boston. Boston, whom we purchased in Boston during the short stint we lived there when I thought I needed more schooling, was a little dog that was constantly under foot. Always tripping us up, Boston lasted six months before she got under tire. Yes, I accidentally ran over her, sending her to that great bone yard in the sky, where she is no doubt tripping up the saints.

Exhibit B: Wacky. This little nipper was a terrier of some sorts that we acquired in Denver. Don’t remember what happened to Wacky, but she didn’t make the one year mark.

Exhibit C & D: Fluffy I and Fluffy II. These were little hamsters. The first one we bought for WyWy and gave to him on Christmas Day. He accidentally stepped on it, sending it to that great mouse wheel in the sky. The day after Christmas we got Fluffy II, who lasted a few months until it died under mysterious circumstances after we were gone for a weekend. Both Fluffy’s got an honorable burial at sea, which is to say we flushed them down the commode.

UPDATE: A friend reminded me that we actually had another dog named Boston. Boston II didn't last a year either. Poisoned by a belligerent neighbor, we think.

Exhibit E: Shannon. Shannon was a lab mix that came the closest to lasting a year. But then, disaster. We left Shannon with our caretakers at the ranch, who also had dogs. We returned to find that not only was Shannon gone, but all the foreman’s dogs had vanished. Our poor luck with animals had apparently rubbed off. Either that or Shannon lead the other dogs on a Homeward Bound like adventure, only to be eaten by coyotes.

Today we have a yellow lab named Chica, and I am proud to report that this month marks the one year anniversary of Chica living in the Schuhmacher household, and she is not only still very much alive but in relative good health. Chica was given to us by my friend Diane, who only asked for a bottle of tequila in return (that’s the kind of friend she is). She was wary to let us have her, given our track record. But I think the curse of the Schuhmacher pets is finally broken. Victory!

Bad Santa

2006-12-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

I dressed up as Santa Claus tonight so that I could have my picture taken with the kids at the local homeless shelter for children and moms. It’s a great program that lets those with resources provide gifts and amenities for families who are having a tough time. I don’t do much in the way of charity work during the year, so dressing up as Santa for an hour or so seemed like something I could reasonably pull off without a hitch. Once again I over-estimated my abilities and under-estimated the challenge therein.

There are really only three basic requirements to being a convincing Santa:

1. Be fat
2. Have a booming loud voice for the ho ho ho’s.
3. Be able to stare at a camera and have your picture taken without closing your eyes.

That’s it. You don’t even have to smile, because the beard covers your entire face below your nose.

The first requirement was no problem as I have been packing on the pounds like a blind pig with two heads since I injured my foot (see below). But the second and third were challenges. As anybody in the beer business who spoke with me on the phone today knows, I have a raw-throat laryngitis that I typically get this time of year, to where my voice was all but gone. Secondly, the nylon hair from the Santa wig got in my eyes, so I was constantly blinking for the camera.

But before that I had a bizarre thing happen to me. I was sitting on the stairs in a dark stairwell, waiting for my cue to enter the dining hall. Suddenly I look up and a little boy sees me and cries, “Santa! Santa!” and runs off to return with a posse of about 10 other little boys. By this time I had run up the stairs and hid in a door jam. “He’s gone. I swear I saw Santa,” the boy said to his friends who were incredulous. They came up the stairs but couldn’t see me in the dark door jam. I felt like a cross between a spy on the lamb and the Beatles. A rock star…..who hides. How great is that?

The biggest problem I faced was I couldn’t wear the Santa booties because of my foot, so I wore my Salomon tennis shoes, which my little boy WyWy recognized immediately and busted my cover. “Daaaad, why are you dressed like Santa?” he asked, rolling his eyes as he got in my lap for the photo. I say to him in a low voice out of the side of my mouth, “Ix-nay on the Dadnay, WyWy-way.” Turns out homeless children know pig latin too. What a small world. We’re all of us not that different.

It was a gratifying and, yes, fun experience, but exhausting. I croaked out about a hundred times. “Ho ho ho, what does this fine young boy/girl want for Christmas?” No matter how many times I asked this, the answer was the same: “Playstation”. Way to shoot for the stars, kiddos. One little boy came back to have his picture taken no less than five times, and I worked hard to appear spellbound as he told me of his little sister’s rock collection…..five times, wiping his nose on my sleeve each time. Cute little bugger though.

Afterwards I changed back into my street clothes in the same darkened hallway and returned to the dining hall and plopped down next to my friend Phyllis, who patted me on the knee and said, “Good job, Santa.” I sighed and took a sip of my Diet Pepsi. I suddenly turned sentimental and reflective:

Me: That was a very cool experience.
Her: Yeah, makes you feel good to help people.
Me: Yes, and the kids were so grateful, and they even loved my grumpy Santa interpretation.
Her: You really knocked ‘em dead, Harry.
Me: Yep. Children are truly God’s creatures. [long pause] Got any hand sanitizer?
Her: Purell’s in my purse, side pocket sweetie.

Comfortably numb

2006-12-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

I want to talk to you about pain for a minute. As you know by now because I tell you every five minutes, I injured my foot a few weeks ago. I was given pain medication which I stopped taking two weeks ago because, honestly, what I don’t need is yet another addiction in my life.

So I’ve just been living with the pain in my foot, which ebbs and flows in terms of intensity but is always there in some fashion. At first the pain made me belligerent and cranky, and like a petulant child I kept alternating my thinking between “why me?” and “poor me”, and I welcomed with open arms whatever pity I could muster from my friends, even polite insincere pity, which as time went on seemed to be the majority of the pity I received.

But after a while my brain stopped registering the pain consciously. Oh, it’s still there, lurking like your bastard half-brother in a dark corner, and I wince when I put too much pressure on the foot or I knock it on something, but I don’t actually think about it usually. It’s more like, “I'm thinking of something else, and I know there’s pain down there and I know it hurts, but I’m going to continue thinking about something else and just not acknowledge it.” At this point you don’t welcome any more vocal pity, even the rare sincere variety, because it returns your conscious mind back to the reality of the pain. Ouchy, your foot says, and I'll be damned if you don't start listening when your foot speaks to you.

When the pain subsides, you feel at ease. When it throbs, like at the end of the day, you still go on with your thoughts and activities, but you’re kind of on this little edge. Beer and wine sometimes helps, but only in moderation, because I’ve found that when one over-indulges, one becomes careless with the foot, putting weight on it and banging it around on bar stools and the like, and the next morning not only are you groggy, but you have this painful appendage that was ill-used and is letting you know about how it feels about that.

I've also noticed that I've gained weight, not just because I'm immobile. The fact remains that I wasn't too mobile before the accident. I think it's related to the pain, because when it hurts I tend to shove things in my mouth to compensate, and I'm not talking brussel sprouts, but rather Godiva chocolate or cheeseburgers. What's that about? I think it must be related to dopamines or something. The pain hurts, as pain normally does, so I overcompensate by eating a cheeseburger which feels good going down. I ain't no doctor but damn I'm smart.

As I said, after a while the pain starts to take on a persona of its own, as if it’s your bastard half-brother named Clyde that comes and goes throughout the day, and sometimes you consciously acknowledge Clyde, because, you know, he’s your brother and all, which puts you in a bad mood but makes him happy, and sometimes you ignore Clyde, which is good. It’s better to ignore Clyde when he comes a’knocking, but he’s there. You see him out of the corner of your eye, eating fish sticks with his mouth open or burping the Star Spangled Banner or whatever image you would find irritating, and you try to ignore it, and sometimes you succeed, but sometimes you turn your head and see him, and he opens his mouth and says, “see food, get it?” And you grimace because you can’t believe you fell for it again. That’s what chronic pain is like for me.

The View from the Top

2006-12-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those weekends where everything was perfect, and you never wanted it to end, and so you don’t let it end, and you take Monday off, and then you regret doing that because now it’s Tuesday and now you really really don’t want it to end?

Well, last weekend wasn’t really one of those weekends. But I must admit I had a decent weekend, and I did take Monday off. Two things happened to me this weekend that were kind of special: I got to witness my youngest boy WyWy make the game-saving shot in his first basketball game ever, and I got to drive a top-drive.

Because highly descriptive writing is hard work, and I try to avoid hard work whenever possible, I won’t attempt to describe the pure bliss in watching my boy make two free throws in a row in the last seconds of his very first game. No, I’ll just show it to you, because I filmed it on my cell phone. I did add some inspirational music and response cuts in order to give you the full effect:

Isn’t that just fantastic? And I need not remind you that I’m the Head Coach, so all glory reflects back on me. But wait, there’s more!

That’s right, I got to drive that vehicle you see on the left there. In the event you are not from South Texas, let me first explain how this vehicle works and its stated purpose, and then let me fill you in on its real purpose.

This vehicle is called a top drive. It’s a converted truck which has steering, a gas pedal and brake all up in the front of that single-family condominium you see attached to the roof. I told my friend Trey, to whom this monstrosity belongs, that perhaps he could house a homeless family in there in the off-season and write it off as a charity.

So you can drive this thing from the condo on top, hence the name, top drive. Clever, huh? Its stated purpose is to hunt deer out of it like a sort of mobile blind. You drive it around and if you see a deer, you shoot it. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, if shooting deer doesn’t suit your fancy, what else do you think we could do with a top drive? Come on kids….put on your imagination cap. That’s right: it’s a perfect booze cruise wagon……a veritable mobile party on wheels. Take a cooler of beer up there, a few girls, crank up the XM Radio top 40 station, designate a driver of course, and drive around the ranch looking at wildlife and having a great old time. Which is exactly what we did, except that we didn’t have any girls except for a dog named Sadie, who ended up doubling as our designated driver. We had so much fun on Sunday, we did it again on Monday.

The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s truly a remarkable machine, and fairly common on South Texas ranches nowadays. It was first invented years ago by a San Antonio car dealer who liked to hunt but didn’t like to sit in blinds (boring) and was frustrated that he couldn’t see over the mesquite brush from his truck. So he did what any self-respecting car dealer would do under the circumstances, and directed his chief mechanic to make his dream of a deer blind on wheels a reality. One can only imagine how that conversation went:

Car dealer: "Hey, I've got an idea! And it will be fun! Why don't we take this 800 pound deer blind and affix it to the top of that truck.

Mechanic: "Uh....."

Car dealer: "You know what, let's also rig it so you can drive from up there..."

Mechanic: "Is that all?"

Car dealer: "Oh hell, go ahead and put a wet bar and a stereo up there too."

Mechanic (sarcastically): "Would you like me to add a disco ball?"

Car dealer, (completely missing the sarcasm): "Naw, that'd be tacky."

Mechanic, (under his breath): "Jesus H. Christ."

This was the first time for me to ride in one and certainly the first time to drive. It’s an odd sensation, driving a truck from 30 feet in the air. Everything is sluggish, like I’m driving through a vat of molasses. Or maybe I was driving through molasses, who knows. It was just great fun.

These are the times when I wish I was Big Rich so I didn’t have to come back to work, and could just drive around in my own top drive for the rest of my life. I would take my top drive everywhere. Going through a fast food drive through, “Hey down there, earthpeople, we mean you no harm. Pass up the burgers and we won’t destroy your facility.”

But I’m not Big Rich so I’m back at the platinum keyboard of BBD. My oldest son, who is wiser than I am even though I’m 37 and he’s 13, told me, “Dad, if you did that all the time, it wouldn’t be special anymore so you would stop appreciating it.” Wow, what a great young man to know that already. I was much older when I learned it….okay I never learned it. But from the mouths of babes comes the truth.

Gimpy in Costa Brava

2006-11-29T08:01:00.000-08:00

It’s been a tough week for your favorite beer blogger. Yes, that’s right, I hurt my foot…..again. Here I am hobbling along the Mediterranean with a cane Lulu bought off an old man in London for ten quid.

How did I injure myself, you ask? Let’s just say it involved a motorcycle, Buckingham Palace, gravity, and a 9% ABV Spanish malt liquor called Doble Malta. No matter, let’s not get bogged down in details. The fact is I hurt my foot and so I was forced to cancel my trip to China. That’s all I have to say about that.

The worst part about this is that now I’m not able to run my usual five miles a day on the treadmill, go mountain biking in the hills, roller-blade by the beach, play hop-scotch with the neighborhood children, run with the bulls in Pamplona, or perform gardening, like I normally do each weekday.

The good news is that I’m back in front of the platinum plated keyboard of Beer Business Daily a week earlier than I thought, and with so much beer news going on, it hasn’t taken me long to get back into the groove of things. This morning an interview with JB Shireman of New Belgium, later an off-record chat with Joe Thompson, a foot x-ray at lunch, and then back at the platinum keyboard, working the golden BBD bat phone, unearthing hidden beer industry nuggets of information. God I love this job.

(Un)Dignified in the Journal

2006-11-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

Proving that there perhaps is such a thing as bad publicity, the Wall Street Journal last week reported that your editor, me, has made a bet with Miller president Tom Long that Miller Lite won’t swing five percentage points before the end of their fiscal year in March, otherwise I am to appear on my website drinking a Miller Lite……wearing a pink mankini with red hearts on it, kind of like Borat.

Here's the actual quote: "Miller's ability to restore Miller Lite has been met with skepticism. If it hits the 5% mark, Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publisher of the influential Beer Business Daily, has promised to post a picture of himself on his Web site, wearing a pink Speedo -- "with red hearts" -- and drinking a Miller Lite."

So this bet appears on Page Two of the Journal and I’m so proud that I email it around to family and friends. My mother, who is a world class snob, rang me today to remind me to get my flu shot and to castigate me for being mentioned in the Journal in such an undignified way….. “Your grandfather, who I need not remind you was an esteemed and respected newspaper publisher before these days of that yellow journalist Murdoch and that communist Ochs, would not approve. You should never be IN the paper, you should own the paper,” she said, to which I replied, “Mother, I DO own the paper, it’s called Beer Business Daily,” to which she retorted, “Well, you certainly don’t own the Wall Street Journal.” I couldn’t argue that point.

Nonetheless, I think this mention in the Journal will go down in the annals of Schuhmacher family history as a…..what? A turning point? “And this marks the start of the decline of the Schuhmacher family name.”

Fabulosa

2006-11-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last night I attended a charity banquet where I was lucky enough to sit between these to lovely ladies. On the left is the chief meteorologist for our local Clear Channel TV and radio stations, Jennifer Broome, and on the right is…..well, I’ll get to her name in a minute.

I found Jennifer Broome to be a delightful and interesting dinner companion, AND she’s a local celebrity, and I love celebrities. But she was to be on the news at 10 to give her 4 Warn Storm Report, and I was constantly checking my watch and asking her, “shouldn’t you be on your way?” I just couldn't imagine what would happen if the cameras started rolling and there was no Jennifer Broome to bring us the weather. She was hilarious and a good time. And she made her appearance on the news.

But this blog isn’t about Jennifer Broome, more’s the pity for you. This blog is about me. And I will now reveal to you the pretty brunette to my right. Her name is…..drum roll please….Fabiola Rock. Yes, that’s right, I’m not kidding. Fabiola Rock. Is that not the absolute best name you’ve ever heard?

Here is another picture of me, Fabiola, and an unidentified woman. I told Fabiola that if she marries, she ought to consider keeping her maiden name, because it will never get any better than Fabiola Rock. Unless she marries somebody named Love.

But by the end of the night even I was screwing up her name, alternatively calling her Fabianna and Fabulosa, the latter of which is a floor cleaner that is a knock-off of Pine-Sol. Actually, it’s quite different. For one thing, it’s a shade of purple not normally found . When Pine-Sol’s ads depict a child watching her mother mop the floor, asking sweetly, “Momma, how do they get a pine forest in the bottle?”, Fabulosa’s ads would say, “Momma, how do they get an industrial chemical plant in the bottle?”

Coach Schuhmacher

2006-11-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

My friend Kenneth and I both have six year old sons. “How much fun would it be,” Kenneth said one day, “to coach the boys’ basketball team together this year.”

I indicated that I most certainly would not find it anywhere close to fun. I dislike basketball and I dislike children, at least other people’s children, and I understand it takes a village, or more than two, to make a basketball team.

But he hemmed and hawed and said it would be a hoot and I wouldn’t have to do much but occasionally show up to practices. After all, I’d only be the Assistant Coach. Finally I acquiesced just so my son couldn’t claim in therapy after he grows up that I never coached any of his teams. Better to do it while they’re still little and cute. Plus, I’d get to blow a whistle.

So you can imagine my surprise last night when I returned to my hotel room late in Boston, after a long day of meetings with the folks at Heineken. I received a broadcast email from Karel, my friend’s wife. Here is what it reads:

Hi everyone! Here is our roster for the boys’ basketball team. Harry Schuhmacher has agreed to be the head coach. Please let me know of any additional information you may need.

Thanks!

Karel on behalf of Harry Schuhmacher

Whaa? I don’t remember agreeing to being head coach. I thought we had agreed that KENNETH was to be head coach and I was to be a sort of belligerent Coach Friday standing off in the corner, blowing my whistle and occasionally slamming a yard stick on the bleachers to frighten the louder children. And is it me or is her email a little overly chipper, in a mocking sort of way, with all its happy little exclamation points?

Now, Karel is cool and pretty and a good friend, so I sent her back an eloquently written and subtle email to get my point across, as one friend to another, while also attempting to catch a tone that contradicted her mocking chipper tone:

KAREL, WHAT THE F***?! -H

Satisfied that my meaning, however subtle, would be clear to her, I popped open a cold Heineken that somebody had graciously thought to put on ice by my bed and turned on CNN.

Then I started thinking. You know, I’ve never liked the way the other dads who coach kids teams make it so serious and practices so boring and military-like, with their stupid soul-less humorless wicked fat faces incessantly shouting from the sidelines, “Billy get back there! Charlie move over there! Wyatt, stop scratching your butt!!” (that last one’s my boy……and I resent it when some fat-face tells my little brilliant baby bear that he can’t scratch what is evidently a chronic itch). I’ve never said anything about it, because I’m firmly of the belief that you really can’t register a complaint if you’re not willing to step up to the plate yourself.

I popped a second Heineken. Maybe, just maybe, there is a better way. Maybe instead making every drill a chore, every game a shouting match, every season a relief that it’s over, we can change the way it’s done. Maybe we make each drill a little game. Maybe we dole out candy and trinkets as prizes for each drill. Maybe we create funny nicknames for each player. Maybe we pepper the practices intermittently with fart jokes—because six years olds can never resist a well-rendered fart joke. Maybe we create a secret unspoken code, like professional baseball players do, so there’s zero noise from the sidelines. Maybe the players can scratch their butts freely without being harassed by fat-faced dads.

Maybe my revolutionary new coaching tactics work, and we actually win the championship and all the glory of this falls squarely where it should, on the shoulders of their head coach, whom they come to idolize. Maybe one of the players—maybe even my own boy—eventually becomes fabulously wealthy and famous and tells a black-tie crowd at some prestigious awards ceremony that he owes it all to his Kindergarten basketball coach, “my loving father, Harry Schuhmacher, who taught discipline and competitiveness”……. or whatever basketball is supposed to teach you. I’ll of course be long dead by this point, sitting on a mantle of clouds next to George Gervin, the legendary San Antonio Spur, the ICEMAN:

ICEMAN: So which one’s your boy?
ME: The one giving the speech.
ICEMAN: The one scratching his butt?
ME: Yeah, that’s my boy.
ICEMAN (inching away): You must be proud…..

So, I popped one more Heineken, excited about my new endeavor, and penned the following email to Karel.

Dear Karel,

Upon reflection I have come to the conclusion that I don’t wish to deny those boys the absolute best coach they can have, nor my son an education in discipline and competitiveness, so I agree to serve as head coach, with a few conditions.

First, will you please Google and print out the rules of basketball and some basketball drills that six year olds can do. Second, instruct Lulu to please go to Wal-Mart and buy me some cool sweat pants, blue, with the cool stripe down the sides, a cool matching jacket, with matching stripes down the arms, a loud-ass whistle, a loud-ass megaphone that can also play military marching songs, assorted candy (hard), assorted trinkets, a yardstick (just in case), some red cones (not sure why, but I think you’re supposed to have red cones), a George Gervin poster, a case of Heineken, a propane tank, and one (1) glazed donut.

Those are my terms. K, looking forward to your birthday party…….being over.

Yours,

Coach Schuhmacher

I added the donut just as a demonstration that Coach Schuhmacher’s decisions will not be questioned.

Shake 'n Bake

2006-10-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I am to appear on a local AM radio show in Annapolis, Maryland, broadcast to the Washington DC area. They are interviewing me on a show that features “successful entrepreneurs, how they did it”. I had met the producer of the show at a prestigious publisher’s conference about a year ago in New York where I gave a speech, and he apparently thought I’d be an interesting guest.

You may be asking how in the world I was asked to speak in the first place at a prestigious publisher’s conference last year. Let me back up to give you a perspective that has some reality attached to it. This conference had speakers who really do publish the top notch online publications: WSJ.com, DowJones.com, Hoovers.com, Time.com, People.com, Playboy.com, ESPN.com, etc.

I was the token “small B2B niche publisher.”

At the time, I thought, hell, it’s still really cool to be asked to share a podium with these publishing heavyweights, even if I’m the token “small niche publisher”. Later I found out that the original “small niche publisher” they had lined up had backed out at the last minute and they needed to find a replacement pronto. So they thought, what would be an interesting niche? The pizza delivery man, who happened to be in the room, yelled out “beer!”, as pizza deliverymen often do when asked any generic question, so they Googled “beer publications” and found my web site and that’s how I got asked. No kidding. Fate is a good thing, sometimes. Or Google is a good thing. Fate and Google, I find, often amount to the same thing.

So I gave a decent speech, made some jokes, met some big online publishing and broadcasting honchos, one of which hosts a radio show on “success” in Maryland, and so consequently I am now to wax brilliant on the secrets of success to the poor unwitting citizens of Annapolis, where they have the elite West Point Academy, the height of discipline in the U.S. armed forces.

[UPDATE: Actually, an alum of West Point sent me a cordial email informing me that West Point is actually located in New York, while the U.S. Naval Academy is in Annapolis. This man, now an officer in the Army, sent an email that was kind and gentlemanly, but I could tell that behind the scenes he may have been slightly insulted at being confused with the webbed feet salty dogs at the Naval Academy. My apologies for the confusion, although I honor both the Naval Academy and West Point equally, I stress to note].

I’m actually nervous that some Naval Academy (not West Point) cadet will hear my honest answers to the prepared questions clearly geared toward classic self-improvement doctrines, straight out of “The 7 Habits…” and “Think and Grow Rich”, and fall into despair:

Q: So, Harry, do you view ‘success’ as a noun or a verb, a journey or destination?
A: Well, it’s currently very much a verb, unfortunately, but I very much would wish it to be a noun. If Marvin Shanken suddenly appears on my doorstep with a check for $20 million to buy me out, I am so out of here and tanning my noun on a corral beach in the Keys.

Q: Did your family support your move to entrepreneurship?
A: Actually, no. We were constantly short of cash and my wife and children complained incessantly about it. Apparently they’re too good for Campos Pinto Beans with Schuhmacher secret sauce……five days a week. Today we are doing better (we now eat Bush’s Baked Beans…..with Schuhmacher secret sauce) but they still complain that I travel too much. Do you call that support……or attempted career sabotage? I thought so.

Q: Tell our listeners how the epiphany occurred? When did the proverbial light bulb go off in your head to create your first publication on beer?
A: I was sitting on the toilet reading the competition, and I thought, ‘Dang, he’s good. I’ll never be able as good as him.’ But I started it anyway, because I had no other options at the time, and struggled through five years of not beating him. Today, I still haven’t beaten him. I’ve now grown very accustomed to being a loser……”

Q: Uh, yeah, but doesn’t your competition drive you to higher spheres of excellence?
A: Not exactly. I find that when my competitors experience victories over me I break out the aluminum foil for my windows and curl up in the fetal position on my bed sucking my thumb, sometimes for days on end........or I fly to Las Vegas and blow thousands on gambling and whiskey…..just kidding, I blow it on gambling and beer of course……..

You get the picture. A show like that may push some poor homesick young aspiring Admiral to quit the academy and take a job as a postal worker, and we all know where that leads.

So I will endeavor to remain upbeat and, how do they say in Maryland? Chipper. Yes, I will be chipper, and I will give a rabble rouser that will elevate even the most lugubrious sailor to his feet:

“Yes, success is a verb, Mark, and I’ll never quit, EVER, because money is so transient and unimportant to me. You know how I keep it real, Mike? Here in my heart? [pound chest gently with fist]. Yessir, for this hombre it’s the challenge of climbing an impossibly high and freezing mountain that gets my juices a’flowin’. And when Debbie Downers say, ‘Hey, you can’t climb that mountain Harry, you’re really out of shape and have asthma and short legs and no athletic ability’, I reply, boldly, chin up: ‘Sir, I can and I WILL climb that mountain, simply because it’s there, even if it kills me from an asthma attack and I leave my children fatherless and my wife penniless’. And speaking of, I just want to take this moment to thank my wife and three sons [shake and bake] for always being there for me when I needed them, and never asking for a dime when times were rough, and always eating beans and tortillas five days a week without nary a complaint. I love you, my little gassy bears. And now that I’ve reached the apex of my career, I want to especially thank my worthy competition for constantly driving me to perform at a higher level of excellence. Without you, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to attempt to climb that mountain and die of hypothermia. God bless America and a shout-out to my home-boy, Alan Greenspan, for keeping interest rates so low and for whoever invented the high def flat-screen LCD TV……Peace out.”

Aspen Edge

2006-09-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well, my big mouth got me into trouble again. I got yet another humiliating public thrashing by members of my industry. I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not everybody else that is crazy, but maybe, just maybe, it’s me that is off the mark.

Nah.

This time my public dishonor was at the hands of liquor people. In Aspen. At the St. Regis Hotel. I suppose if you’re going to be made an ass of in front of your peers, the St. Regis in Aspen is about as good a place as any. When disgraced, I always prefer to do it in style.

I was delivering what I thought would be a quaint little speech to the liquor control authorities who preside over their respective state alcohol industries at the mercy of a state’s legal ability to create state-run liquor monopolies, something I wholly support, and a sensitive point which has been brought into question by the courts lately. During the course of my speech, I casually questioned whether the distillers, at their home offices (read London, Paris, Bermuda, etc.), where really, truly, honestly, in their heart-of-hearts supportive of the rights of states to regulate alcohol within their borders.

I’m afraid this gave offense to the distillery executives in the room, which I was soon to regret. Each distillery executive there, and there seemed to be an interminable quantity, each took it upon themselves to take turns treating me, as I stood alone at the podium with the bright lights trained on my furnace-hot cheeks, to lengthy lectures and interrogations about their respective wild enthusiasm for state-based regulation. Just as soon as I thought we could change the subject to something more pleasant, like cadavers, yet another would stand up and declare “for the record” that such-in-such distillery’s home office not only is supportive of states-rights but would rather burn down their distillery than lose one single control state jurisdiction. I bring you joy of this.

I was gratified that August Busch IV called just a few hours after my speech, having already heard about my trial by fire through the grape-vine, to tell me not to sweat it.

So as I sit here in the famous Hotel Jerome bar, channeling Hunter Thompson, mulling over my public thrashing, this ordeal has taught me that words do matter, and some things are really just very sensitive. I really meant no offense, but was just giving flight to my gut feeling on a matter, a gut feeling that I still believe may end up having at least some truth to it. When push comes to shove, we’ll see soon enough which of our alcohol suppliers, and that includes our brewers, are on board with state alcohol authority. I'll apologize for offending anybody, but I'll not apologize for calling those to the carpet to see where they truly stand. We'll see who crosses the line in the sand, sooner rather than later I think, unfortunately. I do hope I'm proven wrong.

Hooray Beer!

2006-08-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I love, and I mean LOVE, the beer business is the relatively high frequency of unintentionally hilarious occasions it, for some reason, produces on a regular basis. Let me back up: the thing I MOST love about the beer business is the people in this business, because I have a theory that the U.S. beer business has the most fascinating and bizarre characters, per capita, than any other business in the world, and that includes the rodeo clown business, show business, and the mafia, (although we may have a bit of overlap with the mafia……just kidding, if any feds are reading this). Maybe bullfighters or mimes have more overall characters, but those are the wrong sort of bizarre characters. The beer business has fascinating characters that you can always laugh with. Or barring that, you can laugh at.

One such eccentric is Jim Koch, who founded and is chairman of Boston Beer Co. (Sam Adams). I’ve personally known Jim for about five years, although I’ve known of him for much longer, and for that entire time he has worn what appears to be the same khaki trousers, frayed blue blazer, and prep school tie. When I was last with Jim, we were at a Milwaukee Brewers’ game as a guest of Miller Brewing Co. (don’t ask, long story) and I noticed he had stapled the hem of his blazer because it was coming undone. The man is a millionaire but he staples his blazer to keep it from disintigrating. You gotta love that.

But back to funny scenarios. Only in the beer business would this happen. As you may or may not know, Red Stripe beer from Jamaica has a character in their ads called the Red Stripe Ambassador, who wears tails and an “ambassador” riband and goes around screaming “Hooray beer!” at the most inappropriate times. This is funny in itself, because anybody in tails screaming “Hooray beer!” is funny. Trust me on this one.

But what cranked it up a notch, at least for me, was last week during Jamaican Independence Day, or some such holiday, where the Red Stripe “ambassador” joined the real Jamaican Ambassador at the podium at an official Washington DC event, I think it was even at the Jamaican embassy. The real Ambassador made some decorous words about Jamaican history and the importance of independence, or some such blather, but it was the Red Stripe “ambassador” who stole the show as he kept screaming “Hooray beer!” at every opportunity or lull, as the real Ambassador strained like hell to form his lips into something resembling a smile.

The real Ambassador took it in stride. Honestly, what else could he do? The reality is that breweries are usually among the largest employers and economic lynchpins in most of the world, so everybody from Franklin Roosevelt, who forced a similarly strained smile as Clydesdales trampled the White House lawn to deliver the first Post-Prohibition beer to the president, to every Chancellor Germany has ever had, who must chug the obligatory 60 ounce stein of lager to kick off Octoberfest each year, without vomiting, burping, or even wincing, which if I'm not mistaken are causes for impeachment in Germany. Beer has a strong grip on our culture, and no matter how decorous the occasion, we in the beer business somehow manage to bring everybody down to the same level. Beer is so……as Jefferson would say…….democratic. The great leveler. The common denominator. Beer, in short, is fun.

That’s why I love this business. Or at least one reason.

See you in Phoenix

2006-08-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

We're putting the finishing touches on our plan to have our 4th Annual Beer Industry Summit in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday, February 26, 2007. Block out your calendar, because you're not going to want to miss this one.

We've got quite a lineup of speakers this year:

August A. Busch, IV - president, Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
Graham Mackay - president, SABMiller Plc
Frits van Paasschen - president, Coors Brewing Co.
Jim Koch - founder and chairman, Boston Beer Company
Gary Fish - president, Deschutes Brewery
Nick Lake - senior vp, ACNielsen
Bob Brown - president, Sales Systems Development
A Wall Street analyst panel, to be announced
A Hispanic Marketing expert, to be announced
A talking duck (tentative)

And more to come. I'll have registration materials ready for you within the week, so stay tuned. Oh, and I'll be speaking as well, since it's my Summit.

Liquid Gold

2006-08-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

Ah, summer family vacation. A time to reconnect with family. A time to bond. A time for my family to remember just what personality traits they find irritating in me, and a time to catalogue each of those traits in minute detail.

One such trait is to buy really obnoxious items at the grocery store and attempt to make a meal of it. This week I hit the jackpot when I discovered something called an "olive loaf", which is a big loaf of bologna with sliced green olives embedded in it. "How do they get the olives in the bologna?" I scream from the kitchen. Nobody laughs. I also bought some Miracle Whip and Wonder bread, and wala! We have olive loaf sandwiches for everybody! Mmm..... scrumpdelicious. It actually wasn't bad. The family disagrees....bunch of damn silver spooners and lord fontlaroys if you ask me.

This week it's me and the boys out on the open seas......er.....open Gulf......uh.....enclosed bay. You who have suffered this blog a long time may recall last year when we came to the Texas armpit....I mean Texas Riviera, Port Aransas, to seek the elusive Kingfish. Back then a chum of thrown up Lucky Charms by my six-year-0ld little ankle biter brought up the fish in droves. Tomorrow we are to go offshore again, and I'm preparing a hearty breakfast of Lucky Charms (maybe laced with anchovies?) for breakfast....but this year he's seven, and sure to make a more volumous chum because, naturally, his stomach is bigger.

Yesterday we watched a giant offshore oil platform being towed through the channel just in front of our rental. What a glorious sight. It warms my shrivelled cold heart to see more oil capacity being brought online. Did you know they name platforms? This one is called ATLANTIS, a virtual city over the sea rather than under it, but let's not get bogged down in details. The platform is owned by BP (which just shut down their Alaskan oilfield, causing oil to jump to, what $800 a barrel? Liquid gold my ass -- they should call it liquid diamonds -- or no, liquid moon rock. Yeah, liquid moon rock. I don't care who you are, that's funny). This bright and shiny platform probably cost $100 million and it was being towed by Bert and Ernie, two little tug boats that could.

Here is a video I took of the floating oil platform. I was simultaneously finishing up a conversation with a beer distributor from Oklahoma while shooting this (because I'm a multitasker), so disregard my comments. Here is another video of me trying to be funny, in vain it turns out. Yes, Harry's discovered video and he's not afraid to use it.

But wait. Hold the presses. Maybe this isn't an oil drilling platform after all. BP is desperately trying to claim in TV ads that its initials stand for "Beyond Petroleum", instead of the much more ominously Empire-invoking name "British Petroleum". Maybe ATLANTIS, the city OVER the sea, is a giant solar power unit? No? Does it turn salt water into electricity? No? A wind or tide turbine? Maybe it turns sand into moon rock? That would be very cool, but would have limited value in solving our energy crisis. What? It pumps oil? I suppose "beyond petroleum" will take some time. Not that I'm complaining. I like my gas burning truck, and the Texas economy hums at $75/barrel West Texas crude.

Spanked in Vail

2006-08-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

I’m having a great week. I was in Vail at the Beer Institute meeting, and there are worse places a man can be, right? You’ll recall I’m not exactly persona grata at this particular meeting, where I was originally only allowed admittance if I wore duct tape on my mouth and didn’t make direct eye contact. This year the duct tape was removed but I wasn’t to speak unless spoken to.

The Beer Institute meeting has proved itself to be a great setting for berating surly editors, apparently. And I find that I quite like it. After all, the only worse thing than beer people talking about you is them not talking about you. This week I was lucky enough to get quite a few public and private thrashings from various brewery people of all levels. A group of good-natured but stern A-B execs took turns brow-beating me at dinner for not giving them fair press. A Coors exec said I didn’t treat them fairly on comparative pricing issues. A Miller exec took issue with a prediction I made last month, and for continually complaining about a particular program in their public relations department. A posse of Heineken execs surrounded me in a dark hallway, not ten minutes after the A-B execs made my ears bleed, and accused me of being in, you guessed it, A-B’s pocket. Then they took turns beating me with a stick. I'm just kidding, they didn't beat me with a stick. They beat me with a broken Heineken bottle.

Have I missed anybody? Oh, yeah: the president of a certain brewery (hint: they sell beer in a green bottle) told the assembled audience at the main session that I was full of, and I quote, “BS”. Apparently, I spend all my days thinking of diabolical ways to slight brewers. If only I had the time.

The only person to give me kudos for fair and balanced reporting was, ironically, the executive whom I had given the most trouble over the past few months: InBev USA president Doug Corbett. Thanks Doug for the beers, but don’t tell anybody I’m balanced – it will ruin my reputation.

Enough of the soccer already

2006-07-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Is the World Cup finally over? I must say, I’ve never been more grateful for a sporting event to be over than the World Cup.

What strikes me as most amazing about the World Cup is that it is simultaneously both the most popular, and the most boring, sporting event in the world.

I watched my first and last World Cup game in a bar in Amsterdam this year. The fact that I was in a bar in Amsterdam was the only reason I didn't swallow five cyanide pills and douse myself in gasoline and beg for a light. Yes, I found myself in the unfortunate situation of being in Europe during the opening of this tedious and wearisome tournament. Everywhere I went, it’s all anybody wanted to talk about. And being one who loves to talk, it was like torture to have nothing, nada, absolutely zilch to say in response to friendly inquiries about soccer. If truth be told, and I know I’ll invoke the ire of many a God-fearing citizen by saying this, but I don’t particularly enjoy watching my own children play soccer; so why in Sam Hill would I want to watch a bunch of foreigners kick a leather ball up and down an enormous field for hours upon end for the sake of glimpsing, maybe, a rare goal. And there’s no commercials during games, so the one time I get up to pee or order a beer, inevitably a goal is made. I’ve never, ever, actually witnessed a goal, only faintly hear that obnoxious “gooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaal!” as I shake at the urinal.

I traveled back to the blessed U.S. only to find to my horror that it’s suddenly become very fashionable to watch the World Cup. During the Independence Day holiday, we traveled to Austin to visit Lulu’s people, and lo and behold they are all huddled around a TV watching Kacatcheckstan play Nepal. In an adjacent room, I find a group of diaper-wearing toddlers hammering away at a game of Beat the Weasel. In case you’re out of the toddler stage of life, Beat the Weasel is a very noisy battery-operated game in which children sit in a circle with plastic hammers and beat senseless at a plastic disk with weasels that pop their heads up intermittently. It is perhaps the most annoying and painfully boring game to watch, but I found it a treasure of entertainment compared to the wretched World Cup. I grabbed a beer, pulled up a chair, and enjoyed hours of Beat the Weasel action while Lulu’s family pretended to enjoy a bunch of Eastern European men carry out their frustrations on a ball.

Tell me the truth, is the World Cup over? Because quite frankly I’ve just about had enough soccer for the next fifty years. How many days until football season?

Getting the shaft

2006-07-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

July 4 has come and gone, and without a fire at the ranch. What wonder. It wasn't without design. We did, actually, refrain from setting off any fireworks this year since the grass is so dry (hasn't rained in about eight years). We reconciled ourselves to enjoying the distant fireworks courtesy of Anheuser-Busch (we're about 6 miles as a crow flies from SeaWorld of Texas).

And so the hot dry summer drags on. My truck is making strange noises again. You know, I bought a new truck and as soon as I went off a little speed bump the drive shaft snapped in half. I took it in and explained to the dealer that I had merely slowly manuevered the vehicle over a speed bump, so this drive shaft should be covered on warranty. After much back-and-forth and a bright light and rubber hose were brought out, I broke down. "Okay, it wasn't a speed bump but a cattle guard, and okay, I was at such a speed that I caught air. But still, the drive shaft should be covered. What kind of sissy truck is this?"

So I paid to have a new drive shaft put in because I'm a lover not a fighter, and, apparently, this cream puff of a vehicle requires a drive shaft to work. And lo and behold, but just a few days later the drive shaft is making very strange noises, particularly when I turn left, which is often.

But I keep forgetting to take it in to get checked out because when I drive to work, I only turn right. It isn't until the day is over and I return home do I hear the offending grinding noise underneath as I turn left, and by then I'm tired and don't wish to bother with it.

I'm lagging

2006-06-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

You probably think I’m talking about the scant posts to this site when you see lagging, but actually I’m talking about being jet-lagged. I know, I know, everybody loves to complain about being jet-lagged after crossing the pond, as if visiting Europe is such tough duty.

But being jet-lagged is such a strange sensation. It’s a paradox, really. For five or six hours you sit on an airplane in a comfy seat (and I was business class, so it was a really comfy seat) and read magazines, fiddle on the computer, eat a fairly nice supper, have a beer, and then sleep for several hours, dreaming of tea and scones at Claridges. Where I come from, that’s a pretty cush day. But somehow you still feel like hammered dog poo when you arrive, and you continue to feel like that until the very last day abroad, and then it’s time to come home and you start it all over again.

My travel companion was a beverage analyst who I called Beaujolais for no reason other than we were going to Paris, and I like saying Beaujolais over and over again. Sometimes I called him Beaujo for short.

So Beaujo and Harry do Europe. Beaujo was my entrée to visit the financial types at hedge funds and the like who decide where rich people’s extra money goes to get a decent return. It became quite apparent that these guys and gals don’t view the US beer industry as a pool of exploding profit growth. I did my best crazy-hat-on-a-cane routine, but to no avail.

Of all the places we went (London, Paris, Stockholm, and Amsterdam), Stockholm surprisingly was my favorite. The people are friendly, and consistently beautiful. Back in the dark ages somebody must have corralled all the pretty people of Europe and stuck them in Stockholm. Even the King’s daughter, Princess Madelein, is gorgeous, and royalty normally aren’t, mainly because they don’t have to be.

Most of the trip was tame, as we had a heavy meeting schedule, but we did manage to go clubbing in Stockholm. A few pointers in case you ever to out in Stockholm: 1. it doesn’t get dark until around midnight this time of year, so you are lulled into a false impression that the ‘night is young’ even though it’s 3am. 2. it gets light at 3am, so you think the evening is still young. 3. Everybody in Stockholm is young and pretty, so if you have self-esteem problems, this isn’t your game.

Beaujo, who is in his twenties, was in his element. He was always surrounded by adoring beauties. I, on the other hand, only got attention from a house painter named Sven who I suspect may have liked me for more than my charming Texas accent.

I took many pictures with my cell phone and then lost my cell phone. I also severely bruised a rib, merely by leaning over a bar to hand over my credit card. Getting hurt paying the tab is a new one, even for me. For the rest of the trip I couldn’t get in and out of a car without groaning in pain.

The naming game

2006-05-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

Not to be rude, but I've noticed that A-B amazingly continues its dismal tradition of atrocious names for new brands: B(e) and Anheuser World Select were only two fairly recent examples of brands which are almost impossible to call in a bar or have warm feelings about on a shelf. It appears they used a focus group. Focus groups are the wrong place to pick a brand identity in our opinion. Wanting to nothing more than to collect their money and go home to catch Oprah at two, they typically make their branding decisions according to a neat and tidy formula that fits with the marketer’s matrix of where the brand sits on the “Occasion Grid”, like as in, “Wow, this drink tastes like beer with a boost of caffeine, therefore it must be called B to the E….Budweiser boosted exponentially with Energy to drink while pre-gaming and late at night when you’re tired. Brilliant! Where’s my check and can I go home now?” Painting by numbers doesn’t work well in the branding game.

Perhaps the marketers at Hansen, who brilliantly named their energy drink Monster—a name everybody recognizes, can pronounce, and can identify with—will teach the marketing gurus in St. Loo that while heritage is good for Scotch Whiskey and old established beer brands, it must necessarily take the back label or even relegated to the left side panel on a six-pack carrier with new brands. The front label must be reserved for bold, brief, catchy, and pronouncible trademarks. Their new seasonals show signs of good judgment, although they still always go for the long name: Not “Fat Tire or “Blue Moon”, but “Beach Bum Blonde Ale”. Imagine calling that in a bar at last call: "Gimme a Bleached Blonde from Hell."

Going out in the trade

2006-05-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

I went out in the trade with a distributor this week. I had almost forgotten how much I love going out in the trade. I love to see the beer, and touch the beer, and admire the beer. Endcap beer displays and the wall, yes the Big Wall, of chilled beer in supermarket open coldboxes makes my blood flow more than if I suddenly walked into my house and saw Jessica Simpson ironing my shirts. In a tutu. Holding a cold lager beer in a worthy glass. Chatting with my wife, in a matching tutu, about how handsome I've become since I lost all that unnecessary hair atop my head. That's how seeing perfectly pulled-up and full cold boxes makes me feel.

But really, to make it perfect, one row of beers has to have a six pack or suitcase missing, so I can gamely step up and pull up the beer, making certain I'm pulling the oldest unit to the front. I'll even face bottles and (rarely) cans if I'm not in a hurry. The brand doesn't matter, I'm an equal opportunity puller-upper and facer, although when I'm with a distributor I'm careful to only pull up his brands.

I was astonished, again, how much premium wine has taken over the floor space in supermarkets and club stores. So many brands, so many SKUs, rows and rows of wine collecting dust that the wine distributor rep has to remove with a feather duster. Wine & Spirits reps always look like peacocks walking into accounts to service their wares, with the big feather duster in their back pocket. It kinda tells how quickly wine turns......not much. But then again the wine trade finances retailers more than beer.

After work today I raced to our public school district's offices to watch my oldest son receive an award from Duke University for scoring better than 50% of college-bound high school seniors on the SAT. Oh, he's 12 year's old. I was so proud because I too was good at conning the standardized tests into thinking I was bright, but he did it while also being cool and athletic and popular and just generally a good boy. The lad is truly smart, which doesn't surprise me much, as our family tends toward that particular trait while lacking in many others. But he also has common sense. It's a miracle to me, actually. Common sense. Wow.

Speaking of a lack of common sense, Jorge started another fire on the ranch that got out of control and spread to 140 acres very quickly. The local news affiliate had a helicopter capturing it all for posterity as four fire trucks battled the blaze.....or grass fire rather. I was there hosting non other than a Boy Scout camping retreat with seven 12 year olds and their fathers, who were somewhat stunned when the county fire marshall came after we'd pitched our tents and advised us to move to the house to avoid dying the possibility of a painful and horrid death.

My mother called my cell phone and said, "Please tell me that the 'ranch near Leon Springs' that the news is saying is on fire is not our ranch." Well mother, I could tell you that, but it'd be a lie. Luckly Jorge had a fire permit to burn brush or else we'd both be in jail, which would have been humiliating.....cuffed in front of my son's Boy Scout Troop..... for arson. That one would have made the San Antonio gossip circuit, and even the beer industry gossip circuit, I can assure you.

Honestly, I can't believe they issued Jorge a burn permit when we're in a drought, but that's the government at its best: issue a fire permit while it's dry, and then spend thousands on fire personnel to put it out. The good news is that we cleared a lot of deadwood and the grass will sure be green and pretty in a few weeks.

A new car

2006-04-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

I bought a new truck yesterday. Well, new isn't exactly the right word. It's a Prohibition era Ford with three on the tree. I was so proud I took a picture of it with my cell phone. There she is at left. She isn't much, but as they say, she's paid for. It doesn't have the usual amenities we're used to, like a radio or air conditioning -- it's so old that it doesn't even have places on the dashboard to put a radio or air vents.

The reason I bought this creampuff is because my real car broke down after I accidentally caught some air on a straightaway with a speed bump, and something snapped underneath.....like the drive shaft. So I had the truck towed into town but was stranded at the Scenic Loop Cafe and needing a ride when the owner suggested I purchase the abandoned truck sitting in the parking lot. We horse traded on it and I got the title and keys within ten minutes.

I drove it for five minutes and it ran out of gas. I guess fuel wasn't included in the deal.....either that or it only gets a quarter mile to the gallon. I left it on the side of the road and called a friend for a ride home and there it continues to sit. So now I have two trucks out of commission.

Houston, we have a problem

2006-04-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

The year 2006 is proving to be a year where I am boarding many American Airlines flights so that those silver planes can get my fat arse to the places where beer is sold and where the people who sell beer are. My travel schedule is crazy, but it's a necessity if I am to learn about markets. As everybody says, there is no U.S. beer industry........ there's 200 or more beer industry ecosystems, each with their wacky characteristics, within the U.S. beer business.

So it was with a degree of satisfaction that all three of the Big Brewers had their annual distributor sales and marketing meetings in Texas, close to my home. A-B was in Dallas, Coors in Houston, and Miller's is next week in Dallas. It's been a great Texas month, although I'm sure you folks in Seattle and Maine don't see it that way.

My almer mater company where I got my start, Houston Distributing, was the host company for the Coors meeting in Houston. This company is top notch, and a tough competitor to John Nau at Silver Eagle who himself runs a tight ship. This was a Coors sales meeting, mind you, and I can't tell you the pride I took when I waked into the Hyatt Americas, which never allows any POS whatsoever, and there were Coors Light and Blue Moon neons behind the bar. I know that took an Act of Congress by my former compadres. I know, I know..... it's temporary for the convention. But well done.

For some reason I was booked into a hotel that was the farthest hotel from the convention center and still be within the Houston city limits. So the first afternoon I called a Yellow Cab and got a very nice driver from Nigeria who told me he was here temporarily to earn money so he could send it back to his family in Nigeria. I had trouble understanding him, but I could tell this was a good man so I hired him to kind of be my driver for the week. His name is Badonkedonk.

I know, you're probably saying that it is highly unlikely his name is Badonkedonk, but that's his name, phonetically. After the convention and hospitality, Bedonkedonk took us on the pub crawl with Coors and distributor people. But before he would drop us off at each place, he would give me wise advice, "Never do this..... or order that..... or talk to ........ " But I only got about every fourth word with him, so his advice was lost on us. We worked on instinct, as usual, and as usual our instincts were wrong. But we observed distributors salespeople at work at every joint. On-premise distributor sales staff are the hardest......or more aptly the longest working individuals in the business.

The highlight of the week was when I spotted four folks, Kent, Jack, Tony, and Tammy; four senior managers at HDC who, for the first three, were literally the first bosses I ever had, and for the last, taught me how to build brands on-premise. These guys have forgotten more about selling beer on the street than most have learned. Curiously, they only recalled stories of me that ended in disgrace: "Remember when he lost a van"..... "remember when he drove a forklift off the rail dock"...... "remember when he told the manager at our largest grocery store that he was an asshole".

For the record, that grocery manager was an asshole, and I think he was actually a she. And the rail dock had ice on it and a Guinness keg that I didn't want to hit because the deposits were so high.......although, as it turns out, not as high as replacing a forklift. I don't really have an excuse for losing the van other than the fact that they didn't have OnStar back then and I was newly engaged to Lulu and very distracted....and I'm nearsighted. But I'm not here to defend myself. I'm here to tell those guys 'thank you' for teaching me, at ground level, the best business in this country: the beer business.

And of course it is thanks to Joe Huggins who gave this broke waif of a 21 year old boy, who was the son of his competitor, a chance. He and Scotty, Perry, and Bo taught me to question everything, I mean everything. Oh, and Michelle, who I found homeless at 18 in an El Camino with a baby and she ended up taking over my job and doing it better, or something like that.

Disneyland it's not

2006-03-19T19:38:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a week in the desert with my children and friends on Spring Break. We decided to forego the usual Spring Break tourist traps, mainly because I don't cotton to being around a bunch of strangers' children, or waiting in long lines, or really any crowds at all. Therefore, we spent a glorious week in Lajitas, along the far west Texas-Mexican border. No crowds there. No people at all, really. Just a goat. It was bliss.

Lajitas is a one-goat town, and this goat is also the mayor and he drinks Lone Star beer. When a town has an actual goat as the official mayor, and the goat likes beer....well, you either need to admire that or just shake your head in disgust. I chose to admire it because you can't change what you can't change. (Not kidding here. The goat's name is Clay Henry Jr.)

When I mentioned our vacation in my beer paper last week, Jim Koch emailed back asking why, with all the subscriptions Boston Beer Co. has, I would take my children to Lajitas. It seems he had worked near there in the 1970s and knew its charms or lack thereof. My boys asked the same question, quite vociferously and often throughout the trip.

I told them, look, there are starving children in Africa that don't get to slide down bentonite hills on their bottoms, feed beer to, and catch fleas from, a goat that is also a public official, ingest a dysentary-causing amoeba in Mexico, hit golf balls over the Rio Grande and have illegals bring them back to you, and fall hands-first into cacti, so count your blessings you little spoiled brats.

My oldest son, when asked today by a friend what he did during Spring Break, replied: "Uh, we saw a lot of rocks." Okay, I get it, Lajitas and the side trips to Terlingua and Marathon and Marfa weren't Disneyland. But doggonit, Disneyland isn't real. It's a company that creates this false environment with annoying music and hordes of people everywhere, any number of whom may be carriers of the bird flu. The rocks in Lajitas are real and don't carry viruses, albeit lacking in the entertainment arena. And the Monctezuma's revenge we caught at Ma Crosby's in Acuna was certainly real, and it held the benefit of being a great start to losing weight before summer bathing season, (and it ain't no bird flu).

This trip was a family-heritage homecoming for this journalist. What few know, and what I attempted to convey with a sense of mystery and awe to my children, was that this very border town of Lajitas was the secret spot where a young cub reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, in the no-man's land period just after WWI but before WWII, was able to secure the interview of a lifetime. I told my disinterested sons, as we sat in a bar called, what else? The Thirsty Goat (they let children sit in bars in Lajitas...... who's going to stop us, the Mayor? He was passed out under a mesquite bush, dreaming of eating mesquite bushes), that at the time it was the news coup of the decade, and the subsequent interviews were syndicated to newspapers via telegraph across the land and made this young newsman a minor celebrity.

And then with theatrical flair I revealed all: The exclusive interviews, held in this very town several times over a two year period, were with renegade Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa, who was then on the lamb since he was crossing the border and maurading American ranchers, so these meetings were in secret. And the man who got the interviews, mainly just because he spoke Spanish and had the same first name, so the editors sent him because they felt he would be less likely to be shot by the insane bandit with so much in common? His name was Frank. My middle boy then says sweetly, "My name is Frank."

Aye, I say wisely, drawing out the suspense--suspense holds a high value in the desert--both men were named Frank, as you are, my young son. And the newspaperman named Frank of whom I speak was not shot (at least not by Villa....he was later shot by a disgruntled reader because the Express printed news about the reader's divorce decree......actually, both of your great-grandfathers were shot as the other one was "accidentally" shot by your great-grandmother at point-blank range in the rear while duck hunting, but I digress). Frank rather forged a relationship with the renegade. And the newspaperman named Frank is.....dramatic pause....your great-grandfather. It was like Darth Vader relevealing his paternity to Luke.

And then to add cherries to the ice cream, I revealed how Frank parlayed that fleeting bit of fame, initiated arbitrarily by something as mundane as his first name, into eventually buying that newspaper and later serving as a U.S. special envoy to Mexico, where he met his future wife, your great-grandmother.......not the one who later "accidentally" shot her husband, the other one.

And that, my boys, is why you don't have to lather on sunscreen like a greased pig every single day like your pale blonde Dutch mother. (Deep voice here) There are lessons to be learned here amongst these red rocks and goat, my boys: 1. dark skin is better than light skin if you like to be outdoors a lot, and 2. success is often started by dumb luck, so play the hand that's dealt you and play it hard. I lean back in my chair and cross my arms with satisfaction, proud that I am to convey such heavy universal truths to my three boys in a bar called the Thirsty Goat.

This got the boys interested for about a nano-minute. "Wow, that's cool...... Can we slide down the hill on our butts again?" We were back to sliding down bentonite hills on our bottoms and trying to spin-out on our golf cart and offering Lone Star to the Mayor, now revived and happily munching on a thorny mesquite bush. Frank would have been proud, no?

Please come to Boston

2006-03-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

I returned to Boston this week to attend Mark’s funeral. I stayed at the Eliot Hotel, naturally, on the corner of Mass Ave and Commonwealth, in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. The hotel is just across the street from the tiny apartment Lulu and I used to live in, with two babies and a dog, ten years ago while I attended classes across the river.

One night we took the babies and the dog for a walk and got locked out of our apartment. We had no money and no phone, not that we could have called anybody because we also had no friends in Boston. It was getting cold so we ducked into the lobby of the Eliot Hotel, and the nice people who worked there graciously let us stay in a room (dog and all) and called a locksmith to get us back into our apartment. I later wrote a letter to the hotel’s management telling them that for the rest of my life, every time I return to Boston I will stay at the Eliot Hotel, something I'm sure had they known they wouldn't have been so generous. And so I do. Luckily, it's a nice hotel. It would have been unfortunate if a youth hostel or drug-soused seedy motel had taken us in.

Nothing ever changes in Boston. The city itself is so old that change is viewed askance by its provincial and suspicious peoples. And not to be too unkind, but Bostonians are such an unfortunate-looking lot. It's like they keep a chain-link fence around the city to keep the ugly people in, so they don't escape and spread their bad genes across the country. It almost throws me into a depression when I'm there....I look at underwear catalogues on the subway just to keep from throwing myself onto the third rail. And they all wear moth-eaten wool hats and cheap Red Sox jackets and they all have chronic bed-head. What's up with that? A friend suggested it's because it's so cold that people don't want to shower in the morning. I told her, "you know, Chicago's cold too, but they don't all have bed-head." Another theory blown out of the water by your editor's superior intellect.

Boston also has the most Dunkin' Donut stores of any place on earth. There's one on every corner, it's almost ridiculous. They love them some Dunkin' Donuts in Beantown. There may be some sort of correlation between the Dunkin' Donuts, the chronic bed-head, and the general fugliness of Bostonians, but I haven't cracked the code yet. But I feel I'm close. I'll spend another two days contemplating someting that is completely irrelevant.

I had a few hours to kill so I decided to follow my daily route of ten years ago and took the Red Line over the Charles River to Cambridge. I sat sandwiched between two ugly people with moth-eaten wool hats, Red Sox jackets, and bed-head, as they ate their Dunkin donuts.

I walked around the Harvard campus and eventually ended up at my old watering hole, the John Harvard Brewpub, where you hair must be neatly washed and combed to get service. I had a clam chowder, a Scottish Ale, and worked on the next day’s issue of BBD. I must admit it was very satisfying, because I had originally conceived of BBD in that very pub. To sit at the bar ten years later with an actual business doing what I love is…..well, I’m very lucky.

It was a melancholy sort of day—we buried Mark—but it was a ephemeral trip back to younger and poorer days for me, sort of bitter sweet. After the funeral we trekked out to Swampscott, Mark’s hometown, a little fishing village on the Atlantic, and drank beer at Red Rock’s Bistro, a glass walled and light filled restaurant on the water. It was Mark’s favorite.

I spoke for a long while with Jerry Steinman, the former publisher of Beer Marketer’s Insights. He is such a character and very vibrant for his 80 plus years. I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “Harry, I’m alive, I’m healthy, my family’s healthy, I’ve got some money in the bank…..it could be worse.” Amen to that. I did not tell him this, but he was such a rock star to me that many years ago at an NBWA convention I followed him up an escalator and tried to gather the nerve to introduce myself, but ultimately chickened out.

I told Mark’s widow, Kathy, that I had a voice recording of an interview I did with Mark a few months ago, and if she desired I would send her a copy. Poor Kathy broke down and cried at this. I hope Lulu cries at my wake. Kathy thanked me for coming from so far away. I told her that Mark would have come down for mine, and besides, if you don’t go to people’s funerals, they won’t come to yours. She nodded with a curious expression and moved on to other, more sane, people.

Rememberances for Mark may be made to the King-Nateman-Rodman Foundation, Mark’s foundation he set up for a yearly lecture series on beer industry legal issues, c/o Drew Jaglom at Tannenbaum, Helpern, Syracuse & Hirschtritt, 900 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10022. And you can sign Mark’s guestbook here.

Another Summit in the can

2006-03-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

Another Beer Business Daily Annual Beer Industry Summit is in the can. When I say "in the can", I am making a cinematic allusion, referring to when the film is in the round can and ready to ship to the theaters, not the bathroom. Although given the large number of speakers, I'm sure some Summiteers would have rather it be in the bathroom as there were few potty breaks. We live and learn, and next year well have one or two fewer speakers and allow more beer breaks.

I'm thinking Scottsdale, Arizona for February 26, 2007. Whatta think of that? You'll note that that is 364 days after this year's summit, which is one day short of a full year. I hope I'm not ridiculed for going a day short after Miller president Norman Adami pointed out in his address that "only Harry Schuhmacher can get away with having three 'Annual' Beer Industry Summits in 19 months. We all know Harry is special, and the usual restraints of time and space to not apply to somebody with such unbridled ambition." That got a good laugh.

Readers of the Beer Blog will also get Anheuser-Busch vp Marlene Coulis' remark that perhaps we should have next year's Beer Summit in Costa Rica. A few Summiteers got the inside joke on that.

One of the speakers at my first "Annual" Summit was Mark H. Rodman of Beverage Distribution Consultants. I wondered why Mark did not attend this year, but he was undergoing a relatively minor surgery. I am sad to report that Mark's heart unexpectedly gave out during that surgery, and my good friend died on Thursday evening.

As I reported in a special commemorative issue of BBD, I first met Mark about seven or eight years ago when he called me out of the blue and starting tearing into one of my articles, ending with, “...and people who hyphenate anti-trust shouldn’t be writing about antitrust!” I suggested to him coldly that if he is to ridicule my newsletter, he ought to at least subscribe to it first.

That inauspicious beginning grew into a strong personal friendship from which I fear I gained more than he did. His active and brilliant mind often worked so fast, and so voluminously, that I simply didn’t always have the time or energy to keep up with his emails and calls. We did not always agree—indeed we rarely did, as I viewed him as a Boston Communist elitist and he viewed me as a Texas facsist redneck—but we had a mutual respect for each other and shared a love for the beer industry. I will personally miss Mark a great deal.

Adios, my friend. I will never hyphenate antitrust again, nor will I write about it or any other difficult regulatory issues as well without your advice and counsel.

Listen to your parents

2006-02-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

I received the following email from my father regarding my attempted trip to Costa Rica:

Dear Harry,

Had you but asked, my son, I would have saved you that bothersome time down in the Central Americas. You see, I also listened to the fools who propagated the many myths about that dangerous and twisted land and took Dede and Philip down there eight years ago - back when they didn't even speak Spanish - or it didn't sound like it.

Ostensibly we were there to enjoy Spring Break playing golf and swimming. As it turned out, the "golf course" only had eleven holes, which of course made our scores fairly reasonable, but still, Philip thought I was lying to him when I explained that this was just one of Central America's unusual little attractions - abbreviated fun.

Then P. & D. went together to the beach, where monstrous waves pounded the strange, black, coarse sandy beach. I wisely stayed in the casita. P. got smashed around in the terrible surf, and he's the athletic one among us. D. got stung or bitten by some to-this-day unknown poisonous sea-nasty which raised huge strips of red puffy flesh on her thighs. I immediately applied baking soda, which I always have with me as I use it for deodorant and tooth-wash. We called a doctor but, as we had no idea what bit her, he had no antidote.....back to the baking soda.

To ease their minds I took them for a walking tour of a local rain-forest, where everything is multi-coloured, beautiful and deadly poisonous. Their version of a rattle snake is the fer-de-lance, the only living poisonous snake in the world that actually will chase humans at a speed faster than we can run. It's closely related to the cobra and the coral snake due to the similarity of their nerve-venom, which, if injected into your body, the first thing you do is lie down, because you're dead.

Dede wanted a guide, but since I was raised in the Texas Hill Country and was used to the out-back, didn't need such, and simply picked up a long stick and led them into the bog. A half-mile into the rain-forest we found a brown paper bag stuck on a tree. Somebody had scrawled across the bag "DANGER...FER-DE-LANCE NEARBY!!" I proved to my team that I knew exactly where the car was by racing in a straight line back to it.

After getting to the car I (we) decided we'd had so much fun in Costa Rica that we'd cut our trip a few days short and get back to the Real America, where baking soda always works - on anything. On the way to the big town with the airport (San Jose?) I was arrested twice - once for speeding and once for an illegal U-turn - both times I got tickets...which I intend to pay some day. We also ran across some ex-CIA guys who were seemingly in the drug trade - you know the type - large, beefy dumb guys who wear wrinkled clothes and smell really bad, have bad teeth, and don't like poetry.

At any rate, I found Costa Rica to be quite different from the glowing pleasure paradise that has been described to me by friends who obviously stay somewhere different. Maybe I didn't give it a fair shot, but it got the only shot I'm going to give it during this tour of duty on this particular planet. Sorry you too had an even worse time...I think when we Schuhmachers get to the sign that reads "Belize", we must turn around.

Love,

Dad

Welcome to beautiful Costa Rica, Land of Hospitality!

2006-02-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever spent any significant time in a jail in San Jose, Costa Rica? Well, now you can check that off your bucket list, because I’ve done it and will tell you all about it. You know, to save you the trip.

When my wife’s brother asked me to tag along on a fishing trip to Costa Rica with some friends, I jumped at the opportunity. What a nice long weekend it would be, fishing for the elusive Marlin along the best waters in the world for saltwater billfish.

We arrive in Costa Rica on Wednesday evening and we get in line to go through Customs. No problemo. I've been through customs in dozens of countries all around the world. I've always prided myself on my innocent face and sympatico karma that makes me glide through international borders like a greased pig on a frozen pond.

Oh, but my cockiness caught up with me with a vengeance. I, brilliant contrarian that I am, get into a slightly longer line at customs that I believe will actually run faster based on the fact that the silver-haired customs agent checking passaportes (as they call them in Espanol) is dressed very smartly in a nice blazer and is probably more intelligent and speedy than his compadres. I am a world traveller you see, I wink to my friends. I know how to work these lines, eh?

This was mistake number 1, in retrospect.

But let’s back up a mite. Perhaps mistake number 1 was when I returned home from a business trip last year to attend a party for San Antonio Spurs center Steve Kerr, who was retiring from basketball. That party was very fun as I recall, as we all ended up in the pool in our clothes playing, what else? Water basketball with several Spurs players. You may recall that I bragged endlessly about hitting an outside shot against the three-point superstar, making me a three-point superstar..... in water basketball. If this were a TV movie, which it may be you never know, there would now be a close-up of my passport in my back pocket, with pool water flowing over it.

But really, if we want to truthfully trace back to mistake number 1 (there are really so many mistakes, we might have to go all the way back to shortly after my birth when I hit my head on a jeep bumper), it may be when I took Lulu and her friend Dacia (I know, it’s a stripper name but she’s not a stripper) to sushi lunch and announced that I was going to the paradise of Iraq for a few days with Diageo to help administer humanitarian relief to hospitals in the wake of the war, back when it was deemed safe, about 48 hours after we had taken Baghdad.

While I do not regret that trip, as we did provide 90,000 pounds of medical supplies to ailing Iraqi hospitals (and some beer for the troops), the trip had the unfortunate consequence of providing many suspicious-looking visas being stamped into my passaporte. You know, friendly tropical vacation hotspots like Costa Rica don’t welcome cool-faced civilians in wind jackets who frequent Beirut, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and particularly the recently liberated Republic of Iraq.

So getting back to my mistakes: I end up in the pool with the Spurs where my passaporte gets wet and soggy. That’s mistake number one. Going to Iraq with Diageo was mistake number two (if you don’t count the head-wound on the jeep bumper).

Then not going to the post office to get a new passaporte because mine looks as if it’s been through the spin cycle in the washer before being put in the microwave before being run over by a tractor before being chewed on by a Cherokee squaw….. that was mistake number three.

So there I was, all smart and sassy, picking the silver-haired sharp dressed man who would clearly recognize an honest American tourist with lots of U.S. dollars in his pocket to spend on the fledgling local economy.

This was mistake number four, because it turns out this prick would make Allan Greenspan look like a drug addled party boy. He gives my passaporte the equivalent of an anal search. He peals back laminate, splits pages looking for microscopic pieces of….. what? Nano-guns? Puts it under some kind of special light, probably just regular flourescent trying to scare me. He frowns and shakes his head and clucks his tongue. Meanwhile my entire crew has made it through customs like a breeze and is on their way to get the rental car.

Then it happens. He was already suspicious of me, and was searching for the straw that would break my marlin fishing weekend's back. He sees the Arabic stamps in the back: Irag, Jordan, Beirut, Amsterdam (they have hashish there I'm told) and various other disreputable countries like Australia, which is full of drunks. “Mmm, no bueno,” he says. Now I’m no linguist, but I now know that I’m in trouble. And when you are in trouble with a Customs official -- particularly in Central America where Democracy is kind of a new experiment that they aren't completely settled on yet -- and even if you are totally innocent, I'm here to tell you that bullets of sweat break out on your forehead, which make you appear all the more guilty.

“Mmm," he says again. By this time a curious crowd is watching and another senior manager has arrived. This immigration official speaks friendly English, as they do in the Spanich markets in west San Antonio when they wish to sell trinkets, and says that they will have to take the passaporte to another place to inspect it, and will I please sit down and wait, no problemo. Now this sounds friendly, so I sit and wait.

One hour passes. Tick tock. Two hours pass. I remember reading a tourism poster in the terminal that said, "Time goes slow in Costa Rica!" Wow, they weren't kidding. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law and friends have no idea what’s happened to me and nobody will let them back through, nor will they let me send them a message that I’m going to be detained, maybe for fear that I’ll hide a file in the note or something?

Now, a few of you have indelicately insinuated that for this to happen I must have been rowdy drunk, wearing a sombrero, loudly singing Irish folk songs and insulting everybody within earshot. That is simply not the case. I slept the entire plane ride down there and was mild as a field of clovers.

Finally another immigration official arrives, with no English to make it more of a challenge -- nay, opportunity for me, and declares sharply that I am to leave the country the next day, and that I am to wait in a spare white room all night with an armed guard until such time that I will be summoned.

Huh? No Miranda rights? No court-appointed attorney? But most seriously, no iPod or book? I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start, or how to start, as my Spanish is a little rusty. Maybe he told me that the grateful government of Costa Rica is going to pay for my stay at the Los Suenos Resort until transportation back to the States can be arranged?

My interpretation turns out to be a bit optimistic. A guard escorts me to a plain white room with a single plastic chair, which I sit in before he does. “Ah, Senior, mi amigo, donde esta mi passaporte y equipage?” I say, trying to make friends at first as I see him as the only obstacle between me and a pay phone. The guard shrugs and says what he will repeat several times throughout the night: “No se, senor.” I don’t know.

Can I use a phone? No se. Can I get my passport back? No se. Can I speak to a supervisor who speaks English? No se. Can I contact the U.S. consulate? No se. Can I get a drink of water? No se. Can I take this chair and shove it up your ass? No se.

By this time, my friends had bribed a janitor to sneak his cell phone to me (guard didn't seem to care) and I was able to tell them that I have been detained and to go on without me, because I wisely suspected at this point that the golden shores of Costa Rica were beyond my capabilities.

Yet another immigration official (the bureaucracy in this freaking country is amazingly large for a so-called 'republic' that is most famous for abolishing its military) comes and he is all smiles and handshakes. He's the good cop. He keeps repeating, “no worries, theeese is jeeest a reality. Eeees okay, no problem, jees a reality. Weee send you home manana, no problem, a reality, no worries, we happy no?”

Well, no, not really actually. I can't really say with candor that I'm "happy", per se. Fishing for billfish on the open seas makes me happy. Seeing my children again would make me happy. Drinking warm water from a dirty tap would make me happy at this point. But sitting in a white room in a plastic chair with an armed guard all night doesn't usually make me particularly freaking happy.

"Oh, si," all smiles and nodding so that I'm tempted kick his nuts up through his mouth. "Eeees jus a reality, my friend. No problem, a reality."

I think he means to say “formality”, but in a way his word is more descriptive of the situation, because this white room and this plastic chair and this armed guard are my true reality. We are at about midnight now, and I experience what consultants refer to as a "paradigm shift" after contemplating my situation from a higher sphere. My thinking, attitude, and demeanor shift from indignant pissed-off haughty holy journalist U.S. Citizen with inaliable rights, to foreigner captive jackass without a gun or passport who'd better start playing nice. So I don't kick him, because at this point it occurs to me that I may be walking the fine line between just leaving the country quietly or going to a more permanent dank prison ruled by a sodomite named Guapo. I choose a conciliatory tone and offer him and the guard fancy American Orbits gum from my pocket, the new tangy orange flavor they won't get in Costa Rica until 2008.

Finally, at 6am, maybe just because of the gum, I am allowed a phone call on a pay phone that looks as if Castro had forged it from old rusty cannon balls just after taking over Cuba, and painted it a nice Soviet shade of drab green. I call Lulu (collect) and instruct her to contact Continental Airlines and get me the first flight out, preferably first class, and tell the airline to send a beefy agent to fetch me from the holding room and we'll make a break for the gate. She does this, and Continental tells her that the government of Costa Rica has already informed them that they want me out of their country ASAP (they've already arranged my ticket), so there will be no problem in me getting to the gate. She upgrades me to first class, bless her tall blonde soul.

At seven thirty, two armed guards escort me to the plane, all the way to my seat in 2A. As they turn to go, I give them my best Jim Cary immitation, “Thanks for the memories, can’t wait to return! Oh, and don't forget to write.” or something to that effect. The other passengers are either impressed or horrified. I actually said something saltier than that, but I'll spare you the details as it wasn't my finest hour, to folks who were just doing their job.

The government of Costa Rica, such as it is, has requested that I never return to their fair country. Finally, we agree on something! Happy days. You know, I feel this is a good healthy start towards a reconciliation. It's like saying we both like Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's a small but solid cornerstone on which to forge our future together, me and Costa Rica.

They had torn up my passaporte to such a degree that I actually had a little trouble getting back into the blessed beautiful United States. Birth certificates and Social Security cards had to be faxed from courthouses, bags had to be searched (again), more indignities endured. But I got back to the blessed U.S. where they have habeus corpus, a right I hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

So why am I public enemy number 1 in Costa Rica? I'm not entirely certain, but I think those Inspector Clusoes know a small arms dealer when they see one. "You're a beer writer," one official had asked in disdain. "A beer writer? Mmm." He'd seen too many "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock" episodes to believe that a beer writer would travel to Jordon, where beer is practically illegal.

The official reason was because they felt beyond a reasonable doubt that my passaporte had been tampered with, and in fact I was not who I said I was. Why anybody would pretend to be me, Harry Schuhmacher, a beer journalist from San Antonio, is beyond me. But apparently everybody wants to be me when trying to get into Central American countries.

I've since learned that Costa Rica is a destination of choice for felons on the run, and tampered passports are the best way to get into the country.

The frayed passaporte, the Arabic, my boots with Arabian sand on them, an iPod with U2, a sarcastic wit and foul mouth….it proved a combination that was just too much: I showed all the traits of a desperado on the lam, not fit for the unarmed waifs of Costa Rica.

So the Marlin remain safe from my hooks. But the bed is not, I’m going to sleep for 12 hours straight.

Re-thinking the chopper

2006-02-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

When I mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of chartering a helicopter in Costa Rica to ferry me from San Jose to our fishing village two hundred miles away, I got this response that made me rethink my decision:

The American helicopter: designed, built, and systematically assembled by Germans; meticulously inspected after every 30 hours of operation by FAA officials; impeccably detailed records of daily maintenance. As for comfort, the American copter is quiet, roomy, and has cushioned seats, a pressurized cabin and comfortable headphones. The average American helicopter pilot: wavy red hair, pale skin, striking blue eyes (not standing less than 6’1”) and thoroughly trained for combat missions under extreme conditions, as well as, tested and examined for drugs, clogged arteries, STDs and vision issues.

With all that being said, the American helicopter is still defined as a flying object with 100,000 metal parts flying through the sky trying to pull itself apart.

The third world helicopter: A Soviet era relic from the Cold War that may have logged some hours in that nasty Soviet-Afgan conflict only to be sold off as scrap metal by al-qaeda to a small Central American country. Of course, this Cold War machine lay idle atop cinder blocks until about 27 months ago when a Vietnam vet ex-pat (with a 14 year old wife) discovered the relic and took it as a personal challenge to restore the helicopter in to a lighter more nimble machine by leaving some heavier parts off during reassembly. This lighter version offers some new comforts: a nice place to rest your feet on the skids as you dangle your legs out the large, gaping hole were the sliding door was once attached (the view out this hole is awesome but you might want to bring a windbreaker and goggles as the equatorial winds get chilly at 130 knots with the door open) because the pilot wouldn’t close the door due the threat of asphyxiation because of a faulty exhaust system. Pilot training: he’s probably not a redhead… likely someone fleeing Mano Blanco in Guatemala, but probably has logged many drug running hours.

With all this being said, the third world helicopter is still defined as a flying object with 80,000 metal parts flying through the sky trying to pull itself apart.

Just FYI....

I'll be on the back nine

2006-01-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

I am taking up golf.

Now, I've always said that golf was for people with way too much time on their hands. If you have time to take 2.5 hours off and chase a little white ball around a field in a buggy, then I'd say you are not making the most productive use of your limited time on this green earth.

However, I am now going to join the ranks of the profoundly unproductive out of necessity and love for my child. This is how it came down the pike. My nine-year-old son is, how shall I put it gently, athletically challenged. He has played Little League baseball for the past few years only because that's what his 0lder brother did. But watching him swing at balls and not even get close to making contact was painful, particularly for me who has failed at every team sport I've tried.

So now it's time to register for Spring baseball. He unenthusiastically said he wanted to sign up. I proposed an alternative. "Son," I said with mock authority, because I can't fake authority, "how 'bout we take golf lessons together for an hour once a week, until we get to a point where we don't embarrass ourselves too much and can play together on a real course." Not surprisingly, he jumped at the chance, sensing that it's better to be humiliated along with your father than being humiliated alone, because when it comes to sports and Schuhmachers, humiliation is always a big component.

So we're going to practice playing golf. This way, he can learn a sport that will actually be useful to him in later life while his friends are experiencing false and hollow glory learning a sport that will only give them early-onset arthiritis. And I can spend time with him while also learning how to waste my weekend afternoons learning a ridiculous sport so I can hobnob with Pete Coors and Bill Hackett at the next Beer Institute Golf Tourney.

Whaddya think? Brilliant, huh? That's why I'm the boss.

Not another one

2006-01-19T16:50:00.000-08:00

Coors just named an Englishman as their new Chief Marketing Officer. You do not know what a pleasure it was to learn that yet another daintily accented man is entering the beer business. I mean, seriously, we went from being an industry of desultory farmers and third-generation bootleggers to being chock full of sunken chested loafer wearing Eton educated flower-in-lapel foreigners overnight. Is there anybody without a British-Aussy-Afrikaner-Belgian-Dutch accent in the beer industry anymore?

I have started developing one myself, just to fit in. I've asked South African Caroline Levy, beer analyst at UBS, to help me with my cadence and pitch, to get it just right. She's already instructed me to speak as if I have hot potatos in my mouth. Isn't that mahhvelous advice?

They say it's your birthday

2006-01-09T11:18:00.000-08:00

Indeed it was my birthday, sweet 37 and never been kissed. I become intolerable anywhere near my birthday. Even during "normal" times of the year I can be obnoxious, but during my birthday I insist that it be the All About Harry Show, starring....... Harry.

Quite naturally this means that I don't have many friends. So be it. Friends are for losers. And they get in the way of quality beer industry journalism, and they sometimes want to blather on about their domestic problems. Who needs that?

And besides, I don't need to have friends, I have Lulu, and she has friends I can rent. So Lulu gave me a birthday party and invited all of her friends. One of my few friends, because she is low maintenance and doesn't have any problems -- or at least she doesn't drone on and on about them, is Christy, who owns the Scenic Loop Cafe, and she catered the party and it was a blowout. Well, almost a blowout.

You see, for many a moon my only wish on my birthday is to rent a kareoke machine so that I can sing ballads to (not with) Lulu's friends as I sit on a throne on a stage and wear a crown on my head and hold a microphone in one hand ("this one goes out to all the girls I've loved before") and a scepter in the other.

Guests would be regaled with such classics, belted out in my best baritone, as "How Do you Like Me Now!" and "I like your Gedonkedonk" and "The Lady is a Tramp" as I point to various of Lulu's pretty friends with my scepter. Lulu, who is wise in not only how to make but keep friends, draws the line and I have yet to play rock star even though it is my birthday, not hers. If she wants to dance on a coffee table and take her top off at her birthday, far be it from me to stop her. But that's the kind of double standard I live with every day.

However, this year I was allowed to make a short speech, and I have reason to believe it was coherent and well-received: Aftwards people stood around staring at each other mouthing "Wha??" ... It's no "Freebird" but it's a start. Baby steps.

You know something that really chaps my mash tun? You know how it's your birthday party and some smuck comes up to you and says something like, "Yeah, it was my birthday last week" or "My birthday is tomorrow, you know." Well you know what? I could give a flying monkey when your birthday is, because it's my birthday and my birthday party. Do you see who's wearing the crown, pal? I don't see YOU holding a scepter. Choo-choo, here comes the clue train, you're about to get hit, right before your birthday.