In lieu of new content, to which you might say

So what?

So what? I reply.



Indeed.

The Obligatory New Year Post.

What is the deal with 2009? I don't know. I don't have any grand pronouncements to make or any promises/resolutions with which to bullshit you. So what do I have? What is the point of this post? Fuck, I don't know. Here's some random shit I did or thought about this past year:

Accomplishments:

1. Thesis.
2. A car that does not suck or make me out to be a child molester:


3. Uh... That's pretty much it.

Yeah, 2008 mostly sucked ass, but Obama was elected and the malaise of 2007 seemed to be exorcised. The self-flagellation of my thesis was put behind me, and I'm eager to start working on my custodian essays/memoir. Eventually I'll come back to the novel, but right now I'm content letting it sit and ferment in the back alleys of my sub-conscious. For once, I'm cutting myself some slack and not worrying. Come the end of winter, I have a sneaking suspicion that "Chaotic Neutral" will come out of the drawer and I'll look at with eager eyes.

Anything else?

Yes. Because I'm a fan of lists and can't stop watching VH1's Top 500 Hard Rock Songs for like the 49th time, allow me to salute you with the following:

Songs I Loved In 2008:

1. Watch Your Step -Jason Anderson (released in 2005, fuck you if you think this is cheating)
2. Kim & Jesse -M83
3. Constructive Summer -The Hold Steady
4. The '59 Sound -Gaslight Anthem
5. Sultan -What Made Milwaukee Famous
6. Time to Pretend -MGMT
7. The Shock of the Lightning -Oasis (I'm a total sucker for this band)
8. Supernatural Superserious -REM
9. Waving Flags -British Sea Power
10. My Only Offer -Mates of State

Hon. Mention: The Wrestler -Bruce Springsteen, Slapped Actress -The Hold Steady, Graveyard Girl -M83, Soul on Fire -Spiritualized

Albums Everyone Else Liked Except Me:

Dear Science -TV On the Radio

-I don't know. I guess I'm missing something, but this just sounds like David Byrne on amphetamines howling into Pro Tools.

Vampire Weekend -Vampire Weekend

-Sweet fucking Christ! Will someone just kill this band! As I've said to friends, Vampire Weekend sounds like frat boys singing every Paul Simon song I hate.

Favorite Album of Year:

Saturdays = Youth -M83

-This is the best album of 1983 released 15 years after the fact. Still, it is the most luscious-sounding record of the year, and one that Kate Bush/Peter Gabriel/Cocteau Twins would have killed to make. It's interesting because I tend to focus on lyrics and guitar sound in the music I love, and Saturdays = Youth lacks in both departments, especially the latter. But there is something so earnest and innocent about the work here that I cannot help but be moved. There is a moment in the middle of "Graveyard Girl" where a teenage girl speaks these cheesy lines:

"I'm gonna jump the walls and run
I wonder if they'll miss me?
I won't miss them.
The cemetery is my home
I want to be a part of it,
Invisible even to the night.
Then I'll read poetry to the stones
Maybe one day I could be one of them...
Wise and silent.
Waiting for someone to love me.
Waiting for someone to kiss me.
I'm fifteen years old
And I feel it's already too late to live.
Don't you?"

There is a pause between the last two lines, magnifying the question directed at the listener. It is so over-the-top, cheeseball emo that I wanted to throw up, but then the ethereal synth and bass line came in and I smiled instead, remembering that every teenager is a little bit goth and filled with unrealistic romantic ideals.

Saturdays = Youth is a soundtrack for an unmade John Hughes film, and every time I put it on I imagine driving through the North Chicago suburbs in summer time, daydreaming of Molly Ringwald.


Well, goodbye 2008. I'll leave you with this picture of two kids looking constipated at a bar:


Good night, and good luck.

Return of the Mac

It has been a month since I posted something here, and longer than that if you are counting substance as part of the equation, but I needed the break. Mostly, things have been well save for the frigidity of this December and the annoying need to find a new car, lose weight and get a new wardrobe. Seeing as my narcissism (and neuroticism) has limitless potential, I pose this to you: How should Darren (version 2.6) dress?

Our candidates:

1. Urbane, refined Darren:


2. Aging indie-kid Darren:


3. "I don't give a shit" Darren:


4. Lebowski Darren:


5. Mostly naked and/or weird Darren:



Please vote. It's vital to our country's interests.

~

Friends, I have been shower beer celibate ever since downing that massive can of Labatt Blue last month. This is some sort of crime on my part, or at minimum a venal sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Last night, in the midst of a really windy snowstorm, I decided to atone for my lack of action on this front.


The Red Stripe looks at home, peaceful even, on that shelf of hair products. It also appears to be a dick with two scrunchies for balls, if you have the right sort of eye.

ANYWAY, it became clear to me that drinking this in the shower would not be right. I needed to punish myself for the lack of reverence I exhibited over the course of the last month. As I contemplated this, a huge rush of wind slammed into the house, shaking the windows and making unseen planks of old timber creak. At that moment, I knew the Gods of shower beer were speaking to me. The elements were to be my confessional. Shower beer became Snowstorm beer.


Mmm. That's fuckin' brisk, baby!

As much as I tried to convince myself that drinking Jamaican beer in a snowstorm was ironic in a hip way, it was really just lame and goddamn freezing. The beer did not warm my cockles, it did not whisk me away to beaches and blunts. The alcohol did, however, go straight to my head. If I had two more I most likely would have been trashed, so in the future if I decide to go sledding on a cold day I will make sure to pack a few brews. What's the lesson here? Always wear long underwear and don't fuck with the Gods of shower beer.

Night's Consumption:

Red Stripe: 1 bottle

James Rockford Memorial Drunk Scale Score: 1.3 -Not at all intoxicated, but goddamn did the cold make me feel more buzzed than I actually was.

~

News of the WTF:

I mentioned to AV that my mother had a bible quote affixed to her fridge via a McCain/Palin magnet/campaign button. When I went over there today, the McCain button and bible quote were gone, replaced by this gem:


Yep. An "It's Ok to say Merry Christmas" button and Psalm 95. I can't make this shit up. No one is telling you to stop saying "Merry Christmas", there is just a common respect that is expected. That is why businesses ask employees to say Happy Holidays instead. No one is trying to kill Christmas, and even if there was, it would be the single most useless gesture imaginable.

What strikes me most about the Psalm chosen, is that like most evangelical morons, my mother has decided to cherry pick the happiest, most triumphant lines. Consider how the same Psalm ends:

do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert,

where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.

For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways."

So I declared on oath in my anger,
"They shall never enter my rest."

-Psalm 95 8-11, NIV

Happy Holidays.

Back In The High Life Again

FINA

FUCKING

LLLLLLLLY!

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will

Thanks to everyone who put with me bitching about this book. You know who you are. Raise a glass with me.

Quickly...

In lieu of writing a critical introduction to my thesis, I think I'll just burn a CD of this:

Cap and Gown

We are interrupting this blog for an announcement:

Clubby and Darren are going to graduate.


They have put this off for a long time, but for the next few weeks they will be busy with filling out forms, writings checks, making calls, getting signatures, doing some editing and printing off gobs of thesisy goodness.

As such, showerbeer must go on a brief hiatus. Fear not, we will return soon.

The Patty Melt Chronicles: Perkins

Friends, I've been down with a sickness.

Ill and lethargic, I abstained from alcohol and patty melts for two days (TWO WHOLE DAYS!) and needed to rejuvenate my supply of piss and vinegar. While beer is generally not a good thing to imbibe during under-the-weather periods, the greasy goodness of a patty melt makes for comfort. Naturally, it would follow that a evening spent sitting at a Formica table at a cheap, greasy spoon-like restaurant would offer the best hope for a cure-all meal of beef and onions and cheese.

In a previous post, I ranted about the horror that was the patty melt at Mickey's Diner. In that post, I made the rather audacious claim that Culver's offers a superior product. This is true. However, today I present something different. I felt that I needed to establish an absolute mean in terms of quality, so I decided to head to the local Perkins, a chain that is the very definition of mediocre.


The interior of this Perkins was... well, just like every other fucking Perkins I've been to: tan wall paper, green carpeting, egg odor in the air, freeze-your-bits-off cold bathrooms, etc. I'm always curious as to why the bathrooms are so cold. Does the district manager decide these things? Is it a corporate matter? What? What could possibly be the benefit? Does seeing your breath aid in comforting you when you have explosive diarrhea from following up a night of Jag Bombs with a Denver Omelet and French Toast? Please, someone, give me an answer.

ANYWAY.

The patty melt came after a rather long wait. Another question I've always had is why all-night places like Perkins employ only one waiter between the hours of 11pm-4am. Sure, there is a manager (and obviously a cook) on duty, but all he does is bus tables and pick his nose at the register- a piece of technology he can't ever seem to master. But I digress.


Aww. It even came on a blue plate! Blue plate special! Wow, those Perkins people sure are clever. But I shouldn't talk. By the time the patty melt arrived, I was ready to eat the goddamn curtains.

Note the disheveled look I have. This is a result of no sleep and the Guatemalan hurky-jerky virus that I seem to have contracted. Don't let the beard scare you ladies, it's only there because of a bet I lost. Don't Ask.

Despite my noticeable trepidation, the patty melt was actually pretty damn decent. The beef patty was thick, though not terribly flavorful. The marble rye bread was surprisingly good- it soaked up the perfect amount of grease and was suitably crisp yet soft. American cheese was, well, american fucking cheese, but the onions made up for it. They were grilled perfectly and gave the sandwich the appropriate amount of falvor without being overbearing and turning the patty melt into the world's biggest and most expensive White Castle slider.

As for sides, I stuck with the usual Coca-cola and french fry accompaniment. Fortunatly for me, this cook at this particular Perkins was dilligent enough to have changed the fryer grease sometime within the last geological epoch, thus ensuring that I wouldn't have to brave the meat locker chill of said establishment's restroom in order to yak up by dinner.

Christ, did I just give a passing review to a fucking Perkins?
~~~

Clubby the Seal will answer questions this Sunday kiddies, so put your thinking caps on and come up with some good ones. In the meantime, guzzle a beer in a shower and contemplate the last days of summer.

I know I will.