Beer and football IX: The mirror tells me lies

Week one
The game: Texans at Patriots
The beer: Clown Shoes Rexx Imperial Red Ale
The result: Win, 27–20; Titans/Jarrod lose (times four), 27–20

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Week two
The game: Patriots at Jaguars
The beer: 603 NH Ale
The result: Loss, 31–20

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Week three
The game: Patriots at Lions
The beer: Riverwalk Cash Bus Pale Ale
The result: Loss, 26–10

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The commentary: Boy, am I glad I wrapped up that Trout Mask Replica business in early July so I can sit back and relax for a couple of months before the new NFL (and, therefore, "BAF") season kicks off. Hmm? What's that now?

Had I known in late 2010 and periodically ever since that a simple Captain Beefheart post would escalate to the equivalent of a fifty-page novella (complete with a sneak-peak excerpt) then forget it, no way, let's just write a paragraph for some playlist and leave it at that. Instead the thing hung over me in draft form across so many text files and Google Keep documents and only over the last three weeks did I pull it together—even that early draft had only a bare-bones outline past the Canobie/college stuff. It feels great to have seen it through and even better to consider it well done.

What else? Oh, the Patriots Dynasty is over again. I guess that means another Super Bowl appearance? I'm pulled in all directions here, on one end with "It's only September and they often start slowly before things fall into place" and the opposite with "I've been railing against poor drafting and awful defense for years and it's caught up to them at last!" After those losses—neither of which was competitive—I'd put it somewhere in the middle if the AFC weren't so awful. What, they're not going to win the division? The Dolphins are for real? Gimme a break and pray that my confidence carries into Sunday evening.

Should I speak of knockout pools and the resultant RICO investigations? Shit no. The Tinkerbells ushered me to a purgatory of prize-less ESPN and NFL.com contests. I continue to play but why? Maybe next year, Asterisk Oren.

It's called "beer and football," suckers. The Rexx "aged in bourbon barrels" was as smooth as any beer aged in bourbon barrels, which is to say it was a little rough at first until the thirteen-percent alcohol (!) kicked in. Much tamer was week two's 603, a remaining can of which had to have been in the basement since G's birthday party last Summer and was drunk in honor of the random NEW HAMPSHIRE hoodies for sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond in Danvers… Massachusetts. Sure, as a ten-year-old I had a DALLAS T-shirt even though I never visited Texas until my late twenties, but Snoopy was wearing a cowboy hat on it and I was a goddamn kid. Who buys NEW HAMPSHIRE in Massachusetts? Who buys NEW HAMPSHIRE in New Hampshire? I can see NORTH CONWAY or LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE or FUN WORLD but a blanket NEW HAMPSHIRE? Anyway, I followed it up that night (for the game was recorded) with one and a half expired Sam Adamses from this year's party, an in-laws special and the last from that brewery I'll ever drink thanks to founder Jim Koch's support for Trump's tax overhaul. I dumped the remaining half because fuck Koch, fuck his beers (brewed now in Ohio anyway) and fuck Trump with the largest immigrant fist available.

Riverwalk, though, that's a brewery I can get behind (har! har!). I took in Theater in the Open's Poe in a cemetery chapel last week, the environment made more… macabre… by the EXIT sign's red glow. Regular readers (!) will remember I worked my way through Edgar Allan Poe's prose oeuvre (that word again!) over the last couple of years, concluding with his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket in June. Friday night's performance started as an in-your-face free-for-all around the chapel grounds, actors in effective ravens masks, cloaks and wedding dresses stalking looky-loos and confronting them with intense readings of "Shadow" ("Shadow!") and selected poems, most of which I never did read. Before long we moved inside for more recitations and accompanying dance pieces before settling in for a strong multimedia reading of "The Tell-Tale Heart." "The Raven" closed the evening, of course, mainly candlelit (plus that red glow—beautiful) and very well done by the troupe's lead man who, no matter how good, is not Homer Simpson.

A mile away was the Riverwalk taproom. "Hmm… perhaps I'll wet my whistle." Google Maps called bullshit on that and had no idea where to find the place. "Turn left on Hill Street. Turn right on Parker Street. Turn right on Graf Road. Um… yeah, better turn around at Watts Eye Associates." Just look for the giant wind turbine, you practically park in its shadow. ("Shadow!") Several more ums follow even after you park, as you enter the building and are faced with a wide-open production floor. Can this be it? Have I been lured here by miscreants? No, just follow the wayfaring TAPROOM ☞ legend through that door. Sketchy. The Cash Bus was fine but if not for driving home I'd have been all over the eight-percent Ricky the Dragon Pale Ale. (Insert Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat catchphrase here if I could only remember one. "Dogs are friendly and stupid"?)

I've decided to remain in the Library Book Club for another year because bureaucracy is keeping my office one from getting off the ground. "I'm about to email marketing and client services to see who wants to join my book club. What do you mean did I run it by the social committee? There's a social committee? And you want to give them a chance to first promote it in a newsletter? They have a newsletter? When's it coming out? Fine, just keep me posted." The email has sat in my DRAFTS folder long enough for me to come to my senses and edit out an exercise in generating multiple—multiple—non-sequitur names for the club based on the firm's CSG acronym. "Client Services Group"? Not tonight. Try these on for size:

Criminal Seance Garden
Covert Super Genius
Crack'd Shards of Greg
Container Store Giftcard
Cold Silent Gusto
Conjured Staggering Gorilla
Chemical Science Grocer
Cosmic Semi Guru
Cheat the System Gracefully
Crestfallen Sir George
Crafty Staccato Gingham
Cerebral Skin Graft
Council Strongman's Grapes
Caustic Silver Germophobe
Consignment Shop Girlfriend
Complicit Stovepipe Garnish
Compliant Second Grader
Cream Stooges Groundhogs
Carl's Sassy Go-Go's
Chapter Six Gravy
Consumer Spiv Generator
Customer Service Genepool
Carousel Sans Giraffe
Critically Scarred Golfer
Compulsively Sinister Grammarian
Connie Swail Goatfarm
Cheesy Salty Goldfish
Creedence Slays Grapevine
Cinema Starlet Grotto
Cricketer's Sorry Gameplay
Customary Sexual Gratification
Corporate Subscription to Glamour
Crosby, Stills & Gronkowski

There's a good chance this list is hilarious to no one else and would therefore fall flat. Instead, corpo-mockery overwhelms and "CSGNFBØQEBCBBL," short for "CSG & Friends Bimonthly (Excluding Quarter-End) Book Club Brown Bag Lunch," will look hot in the subject line. Right on. Should the bureaucrats relent then we'll see how I keep up with two regular book clubs—the Ladies chose enough intriguing titles to keep me interested and some others I may skip in order to keep my head above water. Come on, though, "Chapter Six Gravy"?

Up next: I probably won't need the caps-lock key as much next week—I tend toward bold text for emphasis anyway. Should the Dolphins win, though, all consistency standards are out the window. Cheers!