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.

Let the hops save me.

Much better.

The Local saved my ass last night, so much so that a shower beer was not needed (though fear not, I'm due for one soon) and I could go home feeling relaxed and sleep like a proverbial log. It never ceases to amaze me how fucking awesome a few pints of Smithwicks taste when fall is fast approaching.


Mmm... roasty malty goodness.

Let the good times roll.

The absolute anger and frustration I'm experiencing right now demands action. Since this frustration is personal and work related, you will have to forgive me for not going into the gory details; trust me, you wouldn't want to hear it anyway. That said, tonight I plan on waltzing down to The Local and lifting more than a few pints. I will be gone. I aim to set the record James Rockford Memorial Drunk Scale Score. After I get done at The Local, it shall be showerbeer time.

I've been slacking off as far as going to new bars and writing about them is concerned (save for the horrible Bullwinkle's experience). So here we go: Write in and tell me what bar(s) you would like to see the Showerbeer Blog travel to. I promise nothing, other than that if I do go, my report will follow Hunter S. Thompson's suggested ratio for reportage: 50% action, 50% lies. My only request is that these bars (at least until Showerbeer Blog is franchised and I am making gobs of money) be located in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I am not going to drive to Duluth just for this blog, and I sure as hell ain't going to fly to Miami for it, either...

Warren Zevon's "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School" is playing right now and I've got a feeling that weirdness will abound tonight. There is a full moon and the air is cool and pregnant with bad ideas being put into action quickly. Keep your eyes peeled for fires on the horizon and keep the station tuned to BBC news, for when the shit hits the fan, you will need to flee.



Improbable and grotesque mischief, strength and muscle and jungle work.

More soon...

Interrupting our regularly scheduled programming.

This is terrible. More news as I come across it. Time to get on the phone.

EDIT:

Well, the fucker hung himself and that's it. Not much else to say. Well, okay, that's a lie. David Foster Wallace was some who's work I was never a fan of, but someone who nonetheless informed my view of the 90's. That is to say, "Infinite Jest" came out in 1996- the year of Bill Clinton's reelection (most likely the only two-term Democrat I'll see in my lifetime) , the introduction of the Java programming language and the year 200+ people died when TWA 800 exploded off the the Atlantic coast. It was two years into the post-Cobain world, I was turning 21 and the English department was abuzz with Wallace's novel.

I didn't care for it. It was entirely too long and felt like the worst parts of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Breakfast of Champions extended to a ridiculous length and with OCD footnotes. I read it because it was an "it" book. I felt like my literary resume needed to include it, that it was an essential piece of the cultural zeitgeist, an auspicious work from a complex genius that I just didn't understand. Yeah, maybe I am too dumb for this, I thought. Maybe someday I'll appreciate what he was trying to do.

Well, not so. On either account. His novel is not merely post-modern, it is self-congratulatory. It suffers from the very compulsiveness of the language and cultural minutia. It gave birth to the obnoxious cleverness of David Eggers and the McSweeneysization of literature in general and American letters in particular. But here's the kicker: I can't stop thinking about how essential a book it is.

In hindsight, "Infinite Jest" is the "Nevermind" of American literature, and now David Foster Wallace will be its Kurt Cobain, albeit with a case of arrested suicide. Now his work will be elevated. Now Wallace will be the tragic genius that no one understood or properly appreciated. If you listen carefully, you can hear the stampede of post-docs scramble to their keyboards in order to re-review and compose critical inquiries about Foster's work. There will be films pitched, documentaries made. We will be enraptured. "Infinite Jest" is essential because like "Nevermind" we will won't be able to escape it- no matter how the book was received at the time, it has now transcended. It will be seen as a reflection of the schizophrenic end-of-days mode of thought in America- millennial tension, Generation X coming of age and making less than their parent's did, maybe some will even see it as a parable for an increasingly disconnected yet interdependent world, a novel that described the paranoid and disaffected climate that ultimately led to 9/11. Fuck, I don't know. Maybe this is all beyond me- a Minnesota kid who likes tennis and showerbeers and music and film and books.

In other news, 80's zombie night featured the best music Ground Zero has played in a long time. There were throngs of undead dancing to the inevitable "Thriller" cliche. As for me, I appreciated the frivolity and spectacle of a hundred people doing the zombie shimmy, but as the night wore on I realized that this place where I had spent many a late 1990s evening dancing had lost its appeal. There was something that felt, well, "off". I can't quite put my finger on it other than to say I left feeling a bit angry. Once I got home, I popped on "Fargo" and relaxed before going to bed.

When I checked the news the following morning, I discovered that someone whom I didn't think mattered to me had killed himself.

I'm too old for this shit.

Bullwinkle's, in a nutshell:


My MS Paint skills are not up to snuff, but you get the idea...

I went there because a younger friend of mine wanted to start a Thursday night tradition, which is all well and good, except when the bar in question is filled with the smell of Drakkar Noir, Garnier Fructis, popcorn, stale beer, and about 200 21-year olds with the collective IQ of a bag of grass clippings and all the conscientiousness of a herd of drunk whales (thanks, TC Boyle). It is a fright. Do not go. My prejudices were confirmed. My only highlight was taunting our sole female companion about her new boyfriend, someone I know well and someone who has a predilection for becoming the center of drama. Good times, dear reader, good times indeed.

~~~

Tonight I plan on hitting up a zombie-themed 80' dance night at Ground Zero. Yes, you read that correctly. Anyone want to take bets on how many fat people decide that throwing Bisquick and fake blood on their face and then walking around in beyond skin-tight pants is a good idea? I'll let you know the final numbers.

More to come on Sunday folks...