Friday Fun - The Session

Beer & Music

This round's on me. Although I'm not a full-time beer blogger, I do write about it from time to time, and I do drink it more than occasionally. On the first Friday of each month, true beer bloggers engage in what is known as "The Session," in which the brethren all weigh in on a common topic. This month's theme - Beer & Music. Tomme Arthur of TheLost Abbey blog is the session host this month, so stop by and see what he's culled from all the blogs.

It isn't exactly like looking for a needle in a haystack to find references to beer and drinking in music. Country music is littered with drunken inspiration. Either a situation is driving someone to drink, or drink is setting up the situation. Kind of symbiotic.

Here are a few of my favorites, some of which I've served you before.

Porter Wagoner, who passed away earlier this week, put forth one of his best efforts in "Mysery Loves Company." It's an amusing clip in that it's a vintage video from Porter's old TV show, but you can see immediately that the video doesn't match the audio. What's funny, though, is that they sort of catch up to each other about 55 seconds in. Nevertheless, a classic country drinking song.




When we lived in Austin, one of the local bands I liked was the Asylum Street Spankers, a sort of jug band that sounded like they were time-transported from the 1930s. One of their best novelty songs is simply titled, "Beer." This link takes you to an audio clip of a live performance at The Cedar in Minneapolis.

Here are links to a couple of my earlier posts that included some of my favorite drinking songs. Todd Snider's "Beer Run" is an infectious tune that you'll curse me for introducing you to. And one of my all-time favorites is Webb Pierce's "There Stands the Glass." Brother Dave suggests The Wood Brothers' "Alcohol of Fame."

Now it's your turn to pick up the tab. Have a favorite drinking song? Share it with me and others in the comments field.

Enjoy (responsibly)!

Sept. 10, 2007 - In the News

A busy week coming up, so let's get right to it. Here are this week's finds:

White Trash BBQ: The blog, operated by an unnamed (not even a pseudonym) "fire-obsessed" guy from Brooklyn is very much pegged to bbq events and issues around NYC. And that's okay. Nice to know there's good q action going on in the Big Apple. As you may have figured out by now, good names are Sullicom bait and I kept seeing this blog pop up on other sites and thought I'd take a look. Among the first things that struck me is that this guy has some seniority - he's had his blog going since June 2004! Even with the New Yorkiness, I found it interesting to read about this blogger's efforts as he competes on the KCBS Championship Barbecue circuit. He shows his results and describes the effort - not always a smooth one. There's also some humor in his posts and he's not afraid to stand up for the little guy, as evidenced by taking issue with A&P for not just firing, but also suing a couple of kid employees who made a parody video that wound up online.

Very Short Novels: Most of the blogs I've spotlighted to date deal with bbq, hot sauce or comfort foods. But I try to seek comforts for the mind, too. And this next blog falls perfectly into that category. I mentioned this site in Saturday's Mailbag. It's run by David B. Dale (a pen name, the initial and last name in honor of his parents, Beatrice and Dale), who says that anything more than 299 words "would be a waste." An additional description on the blog notes, "Character, conflict, emotional impact. And sentences! Everything you want in a novel, without one extra syllable." Being the skeptical journalist I've been trained to be (sorry, David. Just a habit), I copied and pasted several of the stories into Microsoft Word so I could use the Word Count tool to see if maybe one or two of the stories came up a word or two long or short. Nope. All that I checked were exactly as promised - 299 words. And they're not drivel, either. As of the wee hours of this morning, the post atop the blog, Little Worm, is a poignant, creative tale. This month marks the year anniversary since David launched the site and since September 2006 he's posted more than 130 entries. February was his most prolific month with 15 posts, including my favorite, Bunting for a Hit, about a father watching his son in a baseball game (baseball is another of my sentimental weaknesses). It's a terrific display of creativity and writing discipline to be able to continue that sort of output at all, but again to hit the mark of 299 words over and over is pretty incredible. As I suggested in Saturday's Mailbag post, David's got some sort of writing juju going on. Check it out. (299)

And now, the news...

What's up with the Brits? Our friend Alan at A Good Beer Blog examines the possible factors behind a severe slump in beer sales in the UK.

Leapin' Lizard! Sullicom spans the globe to bring you this item, from Borneo via Brunei.

Must be the sauce. Port Orange, Fla. police are seeking a burglar who keeps breaking into area bbq joints. A surveillance camera caught him during his last visit.

Unusual recipe of the week - This'll get you going in the morning. Tex-Mex Savory Waffles from the Group Recipes site.

Have a great week everybody!

Sept. 3, 2007 - In The News

It's Labor Day, and that's what I'm doing. I'll start with this post, do some yard work, probably drop by the office, then come home, fire up the grill and burn dinner for everyone. I love holidays. So restful.

In light of the holiday, I'm giving myself a bit of a pass and limiting this week's finds to one, and here it is:

A Good Beer Blog: This blog lives up to its name. Lots and lots of thoughtful dialog about brews and news brought to you by a Canadian, Alan McLeod, and a host of correspondents weighing in with their own reports. Atop the blog at this time is word that Knut of Norway, a prolific contributor, has just returned from Scotland with a full accounting of his trip. There's also news of a seasonal release from Flying Dog, reviewed by two correspondents; word of the passing of English beer writer Michael Jackson; and the start of an interesting collection of obscure beer laws throughout the world. If you're a beer aficionado and enjoy reading about beer as much as you do drinking it, this is a good site to visit.

And now, the news...

Care for a little "proto-salsa" with your chips? My favorite hot sauce site, Fiery-Foods, reports that the discovery of 1,400 year old chiles in a Mexican cave has led researchers to believe that ancient farmers were using the peppers to make early forms of salsa. I suppose it gave them something to nosh on while watching early forms of TV.

Give the boys some room! The Dallas Morning News was there for the record-setting tamale speed eating record set by Tim "Eater X" Janus, who gobbled down 71 pork tamales in 12 minutes. For his efforts, Mr. Janus got $1,500. Janus broke the previous record of 53 1/2 set by Joey Chestnut. While Janus was establishing the new tamale-eating record, Chestnut was in Myrtle Beach, SC, at the Beach, Boogie and BBQ Festival, setting a record of his own. There he shoved down 45 pulled-pork sandwiches in 10 minutes.

Unusual recipe of the week - How about some "bear-b-que?" From Bert Christensen's Weird & Different Recipes site comes this instruction for Barbecued Bear. I hear that before the bear became lunch, it had set a record by eating both Tim Janus and Joey Chestnut.

Have a great week everyone!