I need to tread lightly here, as my own wife is a blonde. Two new television commercials by Atlanta’s Red Brick Brewing play on the stereotype of dumb blondes. Funny or insensitive, I’m staying out of it.
How To Find Real Food
From Darya Pino, founder of Summer Tomato, comes this funny, but ultimately useful chart on How to Find Real Food at the Supermarket. Enjoy.
A Bacon Creche
Brian Hunt, from Moonlight Brewing, knows well my unbridled love of beacon and sent me a link to Heavenly Grease — A Pork Nativity Scene. It’s meant in good fun, as evidenced by this description. “Away in an oven just kraut for his bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his meat head.” But if you read the comments on Slashfood, not everyone thought it was kosher, which I found almost funny in and of itself. Still, I’m hungry now.
“Mary and Joseph are made of sausages and cloaked in turkey cold cuts, while the Three Weiner Wise Guys sport tin-foil crowns. Christ himself is a mini chipolata.”
Birds Fly, Men Drink
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Wright Brothers plane flying at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Today, 56 years later, the Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society was founded, also at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The society appears to be completely tongue-in-cheek, as evidenced by their “history” and “mission.” Still, you have to long any organization whose motto is “Birds Fly, Men Drink.”
Our History
Our Society was born at Kitty Hawk on one of those dark and windy nights when nothing flew; even the seagulls bounced from place to place like hoppy toads. Our founders, who had been invited to attend a ceremony on December 17, honoring a pair of bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio, began drinking and thinking on the evening of December 16. They drank and they thought until the myth of the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903 became as hard to swallow as the bootleg rye they imbibed.
Thus was born the society’s motto: “Birds Fly, Men Drink”. And thus its purpose: Exposure of the widely held myth of machines moving through the air with men “flying” them. This myth, it was clear, had its origins in folklore, long before the Wright Brothers. First came the nonsense of Cupid flying through the air. Then there was the fairy tale of Pegasus, a winged horse. Next came the fabled Arabian carpet. And the bit of flummery about a flying stork that dropped babies down chimneys. Small wonder that humankind, nourished on such nonsense, would believe that bicycle mechanics could move through the air like winged fowl.
Accepting the challenge these myths have perpetuated, The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society has fought the hallucination of airplane flight with every weapon at its command save sobriety. We remain dedicated to the principle that two Wrights made a wrong at Kitty Hawk.
Our Mission
Members of the Man Will Never Fly Society are not opposed to flight. Birds do it, Bees do it, even educated fleas do it, as Cole Porter once said. But when you stop to think about it, do you actually believe that a machine made of tons of metal will fly? Small wonder that the editor of a Dayton newspaper said, when informed of the mythical first flight in 1903. “Man will never fly. And if he does, he will never come from Dayton.”
The Society’s members believe that balloons fly, but we do not believe in flying machines. Indeed, members of the Society have proposed a variety of apparati for movement through the ozone. One of our members is even cultivating an enormous jumping bean which, when saddled and heated by a laser, will propel a human for great distances.
But let us hear no more of plane moving through the air, unless they are hurled by carpenters. Airports and airplanes are for the gullible. Little do “plane” passengers realize that they are merely boarding Greyhound buses with wings, and that while aboard these winged buses, given the illusion of flight when cloud like scenery is moved past their windows by stagehands in a very expensive theatrical performance.
We ask you to gather under our banner and combat the myth that man can, did, or will ever fly, except in his or her imagination.
Santa Beer Cozy
I don’t know how I missed this last year, but Urban Outfitters carried exclusively a two-piece Santa Claus beer cozy. They don’t have it this year, it’s sold out now. And all the blogs featuring, like at Nerd Approved, are from last year, too. So while I would never use a beer cozy, it is hilarious.
Mutineer Magazine’s Holiday Comedy Festival In Wine (& Beer) Country
This should be a fun — and funny — event. Mutineer Magazine is hosting a comedy event to benefit A Child’s Right, an organization with a mission to ensure children have access to safe drinking water. The Mutineer Magazine Holiday Comedy Festival will take place at the Jacuzzi Family Vineyards in Sonoma on December 11, beginning at 7:00 p.m. In addition to Jacuzzi wine, tequila from sponsor Don Roberto and beer from Lagunitas and Firestone Walker will also be served.
The evening of stand-up comedy will include comedians Ben Morrison (host), Bryan Callen (co-headliner), Natasha Leggero (co-headliner), Ben Gleib, Greg Wilson, and Daryl Wright. In addition, the winner of a Laugh Factory contest is scheduled to appear. Also special guest Jonathan Goldsmith will appear. He’s the Dos Equis spokesperson for the “The World’s Most Interesting Man” advertising campaign. You can read more about each performer at the Mutineer event website.
Tickets are only $35 and can be purchased online.
From the press release:
RARE LAUGHS, SPECTACULAR BEVERAGES
Performing against this fantastical blue backdrop (blue for water relief, naturally!)? An all-star lineup of standup comedians and special guests, no shortage of Hollywood-style glamour (think paparazzi-style photogs on the blue carpet) and outstanding libations from some of the finest names in beverage. It’s all in line with the publication’s rep for pushing boundaries and exceeding expectations where drinks and lifestyle experiences collide, and looks to be one of the wildest nights wine country will see this side of 2011. Los Angeles-based funnyman and festival host Ben Morrison – known as well for being Ashton Kutcher’s right-hand man on the hit MTV show “Punk’d” as for his prolific appetite for Single Malt Scotch – says, “It’s a totally rare opportunity to see this caliber of comedic talent all under one roof, in one night outside of Hollywood.”
Even better: it’s for a good cause.
LAUGHS TO BENEFIT WATER RELIEF
The festival is an ebullient catalyst for Mutineer’s 2011 trek to Nepal, where magazine staff, select “cultural influencers” and beverage industry reps will install five water filtration systems on behalf of relief organization A Child’s Right. The systems will provide clean drinking water to 25,000 children for ten years. To bring the full impact of the outreach home to readers, magazine editors will blog about the trip along the way and report on the endeavor with significant coverage in the May 2011 issue. Kropf sees it this way: “There’s nothing funny about the need for clean water. But bringing top comedic talent – and lots of laughter – to wine country to raise funds for water relief among at-risk kids? Priceless.”
FUNNY, SEXY & BLUE ALL OVER
Officially on the program roster: Cocktails by presenting sponsor Don Roberto Tequila and other select purveyors in the beverage tent, festive surprise guests, base-thumping holiday soul and funk beats, and lots of laughs. As for the show itself, the endlessly funny Natasha Leggero (as seen in NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” Comedy Central’s “Reno 911” and “Ugly Americans”) and Bryan Callen (“MadTV” and “The Hangover”) are set to co-headline an elite group of seven Hollywood humorists, all of whom have pledged to share with guests their most amusing insights into the theme of thirst. One of the comedians for the evening will be a wild-card performer selected at a Mutineer-sponsored search contest at LA’s Laugh Factory November 18, 2010, and a special appearance will be made at the festival by Jonathan Goldsmith, who famously portrays “The Most Interesting Man In the World” in Dos Equis’ advertisements.
A CHARITABLE GIFT EVERY HIP HOLIDAY REVELER CAN EMBRACE!
Best part of all? Festival guests will know that they’re laughing and sipping in the name of charitable water relief. And thanks to the show’s top-shelf talent, delicious drinks, eye-popping blue décor and insanely affordable ticket price — Mutineer tagged entry at a rightly reasonable $35 to make the show as millennial-accessible as possible — it looks as though everyone gets to have the last laugh come December 11. Cheers to that.
Make A Beer Bottle Menorah
With Hannakuh beginning December 1, Shmaltz Brewing has created a fun DIY way to make your own Menorah, using beer bottles — preferably He’Brew bottles.
Art by Chris Blair.
ManTables’ End Table Refrigerators
Earlier this year, I watched a stand-up comedy special by Jake Johannsen on Showtime, entitled I Love You. In one of his bits during the show Johannsen describes a dream — a man dream — for putting a mini fridge in his bedroom. Here’s the essence of it, omitting the added automatic coffee maker he wants to put on top of it.
I was going to buy a mini fridge, and that was going to be my bedside table. I thought I had a great idea. So at night I could be lying in bed with my wife, maybe watching a movie or reading a book, and have a nice cold beer out of the mini fridge, maybe two. That was my dream.
Long story short, the punchline is his wife said no, which was his example of compromise between married people. Trust me, it’s funnier in context. Well apparently somebody was listening and felt his pain. A new company, ManTables, has created a line of small refrigerators that resemble end tables so they won’t look out of place in a living room, rec room or … bedroom.
They ManTable refrigerators come in three colors: black, walnut and tobacco. Below in the walnut finish in a living room setting.
And here’s an open view. The website claims they can fit 45 beer cans. No word on how many bottles.
It seems to me they’d be perfect for a rec room or man cave that was some distance from the kitchen. The cost is $389.99, plus shipping, tax and handing charges.
St. Luke’s Bottle Band
Believe it or not, since 1979, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Illinois has had a musical group, the St. Luke’s Bottle Band. According to their website, the band was “founded by Professor Paul Phillips. Over the past few years the St. Luke’s Bottle Band has been featured on National Public Radio, the NBC Nightly News, Wild Chicago and the Jenny Jones Show. The band has traveled to Atlanta Georgia to perform for the American Lutheran Church Musicians Conference, as well as Door County, Wisconsin, to present a concert at the Fish Creek Auditorium. The Bottle Band has appeared on An American Moment with James Earl Jones and twice on the Late Show with David Letterman.” (Thanks to Tom D. for sending me the link.) In addition to Scott Joplin’s Peacherine Rag below, there are a number of additional videos of the bottle band performing, including a rousing kazoo version of John Philip Sousa’s Washington Post March. The also have a Facebook page. Enjoy.
Good People Vote
While perusing BuzzFeeds’ 100 Best Signs At The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear, at #99 the photo features the “Good People Vote” signs from Flying Dog Brewing being held up at the Rally To Restore Sanity over the weekend. Since today is Election Day here in the U.S., this is a great message. So go vote. After that “Then Drink Good Beer!” Now that’s good advice.
