Kate the Great day has come and gone in the blink of an eye (see earlier post on the subject). And just as quickly, all the bottles have disappeared. In less than two hours, all of the vessels, about eight hundred of them, had been spoken for. And as expected, there were some ticker/traders whining immediately on beer forums that they were shut out of their purchases. Nonetheless, after doing some searching on line, it looks like this guy got his Kate (think I saw some guy interviewing people outside all afternoon):
Ahhh, it brings a smile to my face. Although this video is probably a farce, having experienced the day first-hand, some of the content isn’t too far-fetched. As I stood in line waiting to receive my bottle voucher, the amount of tickerdom and conversations about trades were astronomical. There were even some people who were ponying up the cash to become Imperial Pint Club members just so they could score an extra two bottles. It is highly unlikely that any of these new members will set foot in the pub again for some time, if ever. But they got their Kate. As for me, I stuck to the “keep it local” theme throughout the day. A film crew from the Brewery’s marketing department was making the rounds in the pub, as was a local podcaster, and I told them I was there to support my local, and make sure that some of Kate was consumed by those from the area, rather than far-flung reaches like Illinois and Florida, as some were purported to have traveled from. I don’t think I’m a xenophobe, by any means. But given the ticker hype that this was receiving, I wanted to make sure that there were some familiar faces bellying up to the bar. And indeed there were. Not everyone was of the ticker/trader persuasion. In fact, the whole event, although hectic, was bringing smiles to the faces of most of the Brewery’s staff, no doubt overjoyed by the amount of cash they were making on what might normally be a slow Tuesday afternoon. Hell, they made at least $8000 on bottle sales alone. And I’m sure the bartenders and wait staff walked out of there with fists full of cash, which is most excellent. My only hope is that the tickers/traders didn’t discover how amazing Tod and Tyler’s other wares are, including the Saison and Oatmeal Stout, pictured here:
Having taken up residence at a small bar table near the front, it was easy to take in all of the action as things progressed throughout the afternoon. It also allowed for friends to come and go as they pleased (not everyone could take the whole day off with impunity), with plenty of space for everyone to sit and enjoy a glass or two of Kate. It also made for a great spot to see Tod hoist the first glass of the ‘08 Kate:
All in all, a wonderful day, spent in great company, with excellent conversation, and a pretty damn good beer. Word has it that the taps might run dry by this Saturday, which would be too bad, but makes me even more glad that I was there for the release.
“Completely unprovoked, he smashed me over the head with the fucking cooler,” John exclaimed to Kumar. Aaron smirked, still shaking his head and cut in.
“John, you are so full of shit. Unprovoked? I think not, kind sir,” Aaron said and took a quick gulp of his Dead Guy, and continued. “First of all, it wasn’t your head, it was your back. Secondly, you had been riding my ass all night. And then you take us down that torturous path in the complete dark, I get a branch in my eye, and you start cracking jokes about it. You deserved it and more.”
“Eh, ex, excuse me, riding your ass all night,” John sputtered, his martini sloshing around dangerously close to the rim in his right hand. Miraculously, he hadn’t spilled a drop, despite his state. “All right,” John said turning on me, “time to get the district attorney involved.” Whenever John was in his cups, more often than not he turned litigious, and started to refer to people as if he were in a court of justice. “Mr. District Attorney, what say you as to the truth of the matter?”
We had stumbled out of the Coat of Arms a little past 6:00 p.m. Jim spied Gilly’s across the road and rumbled off for some hot dogs, not even saying a word to us.
The two-minute walk across the road and parking lot to the Blue Mermaid did little to sober us up, although as we walked up the worn, wooden steps to enter, I recalled the ghost stories I had been told about this place when sitting at the bar, and that helped a little. Once, when the place was closed and a waitress was cashing out upstairs, nobody else around, she heard a knock on the window next to her. This was on the second floor. Another time, with just a customer and bartender closing down the place, they both saw and heard a little girl’s feet at the top of the stairway of the second floor dining and restroom area. They both ran upstairs, each going in the opposite direction at the top of the landing, and found nothing. These spooky thoughts were cast aside though as we entered the orange and yellow painted foyer and whipped around to the right through a small dining area to the bar proper. Aaron was already seated at one of the six tall stools at the marble-topped bar, a pint in front of him. The t.v. mounted above the bar had a Sox game on. We lucked out with three empty seats next to Aaron, happily, no seat for Jim whenever he decided to show, and I quickly took account of what was on tap – Moat Mountain Golden Pilsner, Rogue Dead Guy, Unibroue Ephemere, Shipyard Summer Ale, Magic Hat Hocus Pocus, Buzzard Bay Lager, and Harpoon IPA. There was also an assortment of bottles including Long Trail Double bag, La Fin du Monde, and some macro-pap, but I went with a Moat Mountain.
“Well,” I chose my words carefully, “from what I remember, John,” and his eyes wavered in and out of focus on me, “you had been riding everyone that night, not just Aaron, and on the way back to the cabin, you did say, ‘What are you, a woman?’ to Aaron after something had happened, and the next thing I knew there was Styrofoam and beer bottles crashing down all over the place on the path.” And that was the truth.
We had been out at the Cove, a bonfire raging, lots of good beer, but by 1:00 a.m. or so the wind had come up and it had turned colder. We decided to head back to John’s cabin down a path we had all walked a number of times, only John hadn’t cut back the summer brush yet, and it was already July. As a result, those not as familiar with the twists and turns it took had some trouble navigating it, and particularly Aaron who had volunteered to haul back the cooler with a considerable amount of beer still left in it. And of course John didn’t help any with his constant chatter about poison ivy, deer ticks with Lyme disease – “You’re gonna have to get a mirror out when you get home and check under your balls for those critters,” and just generally egging Aaron on as he grew more frustrated with the heavy cooler. With the woman comment, Aaron reared back with a roar and crashed the cooler against John’s back, the Styrofoam exploding everywhere, bottles falling and clanking in the dark undergrowth. In retaliation, John swept up as much of the Styrofoam as he could and threw it on the hood of Aaron’s car back at the cabin.
Both John and Aaron nodded in agreement with this telling of the story, Kumar laughing and rubbing at his hands with a bar napkin. I picked up the Caribbean-flavored menu but decided not to order anything this time – in the past, the black bean soup, lobster chowder, and Jamaican jerk chicken had always been excellent. We continued to have drinks, John growing increasingly more hostile with Aaron, Kumar alternating between the taps and a large glass of water that the bartender kept up to the brim, when all hell broke loose.
“Aaron, for god’s sake,” John yelled, “rip the panties out of the crack of your ass and order a real drink!” I dared not look as Aaron’s fist hurtled towards John’s nose.
I’m a lucky person. I live in New England, and more precisely, the New Hampshire seacoast area. This means that the Portsmouth Brewery is a mere 20-minute drive for me, although it might take me a half hour when all of those idiots south of the border start to make the drive up and invade my local environs.
No matter how long it takes me to get there though, I always feel a certain sense of home when sitting at the Brewery’s bar. The main reason for this is that I grew up twenty minutes away, in Maine, and had some of my formative beer experiences while sitting on one of the Brewery’s stools. I’d also hazard a guess that this feeling is also engendered from the truly amazing beers that are produced from the Brewery’s glinting, glass-enclosed tanks. The current head brewer, Tod Mott, and his assistant Tyler, are making some of the best beer in New England (I rank John Kimmich at The Alchemist right up there as well), if not the nation. This is both a blessing and a curse, though. It is a blessing because of my proximity to the source of these aqua vitae. It is a curse because so many now want it, sucking the well dry of these elixirs in a fashion that has heretofore never been witnessed. One beer in particular that Tod and Tyler have been brewing for a few years now, and until recently, mostly under the radar, exemplifies this duality of yin and yang, light and dark, good and evil, Red Sox and Yankees. Kate the Great, an imperial stout, and its much-publicized release this month on June 24, has caused much drum and stang within beer drinking circles.
On one beer site, when it was announced back in February or so that there would be a new batch of Kate released some time in the summer, the shouts went out immediately from all corners of the nation, “ISO!” For those of you unfamiliar with this acronym, it means, “in search of,” which implies that the person will either trade beer of equal value as that of Kate, an act of almost Herculean proportions based on some peoples perceived notions of value, or that they will simply outright buy it from you. At the same time as this was happening, beer lovers were also anticipating the annual release of another imperial stout by the folks at Three Floyds Brewing, Dark Lord. The interest in high-end beer has been growing for a number of years, and the zeal with which some covet these beers is simply mind-blowing. Specialty beer releases have become a niche traveling industry unto themselves, and the release of Kate the Great on the 24th appears to be heading in the same direction, with folks planning on traveling from all over New England, and even further a field, to kneel at the czarina’s throne and kiss her ebony ring.
As a result of this fervor for high-end beers, and because of the relatively small amount of Kate the Great that is brewed, the “tickers” and traders are coming out of the woodwork. Tickers are those life-forms, a relative term here, who seek hard-to-find and rare beers not necessarily because they want to drink them as a normal person would, but because they want to “tick” them off of their list of been there and done that, a bragging chip to haul out at local watering holes and festivals, a crumbling, rusted pin to stick to their splattered brewery hat or wizard print t-shirt. Tickers also very often fall in to the trader category as well, those who view beers such as Kate like commodities, to be bought, sold (often on eBay), or traded; drinking it isn’t even a secondary or tertiary option for this breed, except for maybe a small splash acquired from some other source.
With all of this in mind, and given the press (more recent press here) that Kate the Great received following its top ranking on one beer web site during its last release, it’s no wonder that cars are being gassed up and primed for the 24th. Having caught wind of the masses that are to descend on their newly bricked sidewalk, with some people going so far as to say they are going to camp out overnight, the Brewery, via email and its blog, sought out their customers’ opinions concerning the distribution of Kate, asking them to vote for one of four options:
-Option One: Let ‘er rip. Make Milton Friedman proud - don’t place any limits at all. Greed is good. Put all forty-five cases in the store on the first day and let the free market reign.
-Option Two: Make this a regulated market, but don’t overdo it. Maximum purchase of six bottles per person per day till the beer is all gone, even if it runs out on the very first day.
-Option Three: A little more regulation, please. Put ten cases in the store on each of the first two days, then five a day thereafter. Limit purchases to six bottles apiece, or the equivalent of two growlers.
-Option Four: The Famous Diner Pie Policy. Two Bottles Per Person Per Day, and don’t think you can get your friends to sneak in and buy more pie - I mean beer - on your behalf. We know who you are and you’ll never get away with it.
I voted for option #5, what I later came to call the “Kate for only those in-state” option. I stated that only those with a New Hampshire driver’s license should be allowed to buy bottles of Kate, and unlimited growler fills, while those who come from out of state would only be able to buy a single bottle, but only when Mars was in retrograde. It just so happens that the next time that will happen is in March 2009. My reasons for this tongue-in-cheek response, and one I happily posted on a popular beer message board, were numerous. The first was that I was distressed to see how quickly this beer flew out of the Brewery’s doors the last time it was released. People were coming in to the pub, ordering a beer, usually Kate, and drinking it while waiting for their growlers to be filled, growlers that were inevitably brought out of state, and sent to places unknown. As a local and somebody who has supported the Brewery for years, it was disheartening to see so much of this disappear so quickly. The second reason was to jab the ticker/trader crowd in their collective sides, many of whom had already set up trades of this yet-to-be-released beer. As one person wrote on the message board, the “presumed entitlement” that many of the tickers/traders have in relation to this and other beers is simply astounding. A third reason was to simply bring some levity to a discussion about something, beer, which often gets far too serious for some people.
After all of the votes were counted, it was decided that a version of option #2 would be the way to go: only two bottles per person each day (an extra two, once, for Imperial Pint Club members), and no growler fills. The outcry began immediately among the ticker/trader crowd, protesting that this is a free market economy, that they would now have to bring their extended family in order to get as many bottles as possible, and so on and so forth. Their cries fell on my deaf ears, as if a chorus of angels singing from the heavens were magnificently crushing my ear drums. I could not have been happier with the Brewery’s decision. Now Kate would be available for much longer than it had been the last time, particularly because there would be no growler fills. The Brewery made a decision to try and maintain the focus on Kate the Great as a liquid to be consumed, and not a commodity to be bought, sold and traded from the basement bedroom floors of (mostly) men’s homes. By limiting the amount of beer that could be carried away, the Brewery will in essence be giving back to its local customer base by ensuring that it will be on tap for many more weeks than it would have been had growler fills been allowed. There is no doubt that some of these same local customers might be a bit miffed that they won’t be able to share a growler of Kate with friends in the comfort of their own homes, or at their neighbor’s barbecue. I believe that this will be outweighed by the fact that instead of being laughed at by the barkeep when you ask for a pour of Kate a few weeks after the release, you will be set up in a flash with a goblet of Tod’s black gold. To use a quote that I have no doubt the tickers/traders would appreciate, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“A collect call for Mrs. Kumar Floyd from Mr. Floyd. Will you accept the charges,” Jim yelled in our direction at the bar as he leaned out of the red telephone box near the stairwell. We’d been at the Coat of Arms for over an hour, Jim, Kumar, John and I, having already spent the early afternoon at the Brewery, and we were slated to move on to the Blue Mermaid after this. Things at the Brewery had been quiet; we were spent from just finishing up a weekend of hiking up in the White Mountains, and instead of heading back to Boston right away, we decided to do a crawl in Portsmouth, John’s backyard.
Kumar glared over at Jim, and was about to come back with something, when Jim slung himself back in the booth, robbing him of his opportunity. John grinned and wobbled his eyes crazily at us, nodding in Jim’s direction, and said, “We ought to call up Aaron and drag him out with us to the Mermaid after this. I think he should meet Jim.” If there were two people who should definitely not meet up, it was Jim and Aaron. Plus, with John along, it would be like pouring kerosene on an already lit fire. Just keeping Kumar and Jim away from the dart boards behind us took enough energy; I didn’t need to be involved in preventing Aaron and Jim from going at each other’s throats as they would inevitably do after a few hours. Kumar could take Jim’s ribbing with a grain of salt; Aaron was born without a salt shaker.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a great idea,” I said, “but if we do see him, do not call him a girl again; we don’t need a replay of that whole event.” John cackled, Kumar’s eyebrows raised in questioning, and I turned to survey the offerings in front of me. There were twelve draughts on, including some John Courage, McEwan’s, and Beamish, two casks of Grail Pale Ale and Old Thumper; and an assortment of bottles that had Old Peculier and the Unibroue bombers among them, not bad. I was on my second Old Thumper, and it was going down fine, but a quick trip to the men’s was called for before my next one.
As I strode back over to the stairwell, Jim talking animatedly on his cell phone in the phone booth on my right, I noticed on the left that there was a snooker table in a non-smoking dining area, deserted at this hour. Immediately in front of me was a large mural painted on the wall of the stairway leading down to the exit. Back when this place was The Toucan restaurant, and they gave you crayons to draw on the paper tablecloths, I think the wall was painted in a tropical motif. Now it was covered by a pastiche of eclectic English characters: Sherlock Holmes, Princess Diana, the Queen Mother, Wallace and Gromit, Robert Smith, Johnny Rotten, the Spice Girls, Austin Powers, the Beatles, the baby from “The Family Guy,” and two other figures I couldn’t identify. I gave up trying to figure out who those two were when Jim’s yells from the phone booth broke my reverie. He was holding the phone out at arm’s length and bellowing at it as I rounded the corner and entered the serviceable bathroom. “What do you mean my money’s no fucking good, you godd…”
Returning from the bathroom, I saw to my relief that Jim, without Kumar, was throwing darts at the far end of the bar. Smoke sailed sloppily around the bar area, drifting in and out of the light from the sole window in that portion, creating a disturbing dichotomy of frozen, white-splashed, spotlit area dead center in the middle of the bar, while the rest of the place dozed in its dark effluvium of beer streamers, brewing mirrors and posters, and red tartan wall paper. The bar, which sat about fourteen, was just dimly lit by the television and string of Guinness lights above it, like fireflies on an inky, humid summer night. John’s order of bangers and mash had arrived and he was already half way through it by the time I was served my third pint, Old Speckled Hen.
“So, what’s his problem,” I asked nodding at Jim. One of the darts was lodged at an angle in the ceiling above the dart boards. Jim was taking a breather, guzzling on his pint. Our bartender, a lithe-to-the-point-of-it-being-a-problem woman with a red bob, was leaning against the back of the bar and staring over at Jim with arms folded, no doubt weighing whether or not he’d had enough. On the whole, the service our bartender, the future buddha, had afforded us had been top-notch – quick with the pours and the food not sitting around under a heat lamp. Plus, the fact that she was considering cutting Jim off was always a plus in my book. Regrettably, it was time to move on.
“I have no idea,” John said, draining his pint. “He was muttering something about some poker game. Anyway what do you say we head out,” John stated more than asked as he stood up and hollered over at Jim that we were going. “Besides, I had Kumar make a quick call when you were in the bathroom,” John said and Kumar began to laugh quietly. “Guess who’s meeting us at the Mermaid?”
We had just finished setting up our tents, Jim and I a four-man, and Kumar his two-man, when John rolled up on his 1978 Honda CB750. Backing his bike up next to our car, John strode up, a rucksack plucked from the back of his bike on his shoulder, and asked, “So where’s this behemoth thing I’ve been hearing so much about?”
“The city lights were calling to you,” Jim cracked again, John nodding and sipping his pint in approval. That was at least the fourth time Jim had mentioned it, and I was getting to the point of belting him. We were sitting at the bar of the Woodstock Inn Station and Brewery after an eight hour hike completed earlier in the day consisting of the Falling Waters Trail, over the ridge between Mounts Lincoln and Lafayette, and then down the Old Bridle Path. The hike had been enjoyable, until we reached the ridge and took a breather half way across it. John just couldn’t resist anymore and brought up the trip we had taken in Maine in the Mahoosuks. Jim and Kumar were all ears.
After two grueling days in the rain, and being chased off a ridge in a thunderstorm, John and I and the rest of the Maine crew had made a unanimous decision to pack it in and get off the trail, try our chances of getting picked up on a logging road. Tired, wet, exhausted, and swigging from Nalgene bottles filled with tequila, John started to insist that I had spearheaded our campaign to get off the trail, “The city lights were calling to you, man, I could see it in your eyes.” The same refrain over and over, when in truth, with the ten extra years John had on the rest of us, he was the main reason we got off the mountain. He tended to be a revisionist. Jim was eating up John’s story hook, line and sinker, and I knew I’d be hearing more of it that evening.
“Yep, I’ve seen that look in his eyes too,” Jim explained, “although usually it’s about half-way through one of our drinking sessions. He even once took off with the keys to my apartment in the middle of last winter,” and with that I shoved off from the bar to go find Kumar. The Inn was an absolute maze. After entering the main bar area, seating on the left extended for a bit, while snaking around to the right were various hallways leading to various rooms, leading to yet more hallways and so on. The main bar area, called the Woodstock Station, was done up in an unfinished wood style. Square-shaped with a cozy overhang, the bar had hoisted televisions and a popcorn machine in the corner that spewed a garish yellow and red carnival light. After walking in circles for a bit, I eventually found Kumar in a small side bar playing Mortal Kombat. There was also an old-school Outrun game, as well as a foosball table. I made a mental note to tell Kumar not to say anything about the arcade games, or the foosball table, to Jim. This small bar area was much more inviting than the main bar, with low lighting, but also largely uninhabited. Kumar’s game ended and we went back to the main bar to find John and Jim ordering up more rounds for the four of us. Our food had arrived as well.
On tap were the Pemi Pale Ale, the White Mountain Weasel Wheat, Old Man Oatmeal Stout, Pig’s Ear Brown Ale, Red Rack Ale, and the seasonals Raspberry Wheat and a Golden. I stuck with the stout, while everyone else was switching back and forth among the other offerings. I also noticed a number of macro bottles kicking around. The menu was largely pub grub, though quite long, and had some good pizzas, which is what I had. I noticed there was some kind of mug club offered, and that with membership, there were some pretty good dinner specials offered, which was a break from the usual mongo-sized-beer-for-regular-price special you get with a mug club. Jim also pointed out that pints were only $2.25 from three to five in the afternoon. All in all, an unpretentious and filling pub.
It was a Wednesday night and when we had first arrived, right off the mountain ten minutes away, the bar was largely deserted. But by 8:00 p.m. the place was filling up with locals and there wasn’t a space at the bar. I thought it might be a good idea for us to get back to the campsite before Jim said anything untoward, or John decided to regale everyone with more Maine stories. Surprisingly, it didn’t take much convincing, and Kumar was already out the door. It wasn’t that we hadn’t enjoyed the Woodstock Inn. Just the opposite, because we were back the next night as well. Rather, there were bigger fish to fry back at the camp. Namely, the Behemoth. As we exited the Inn, I noticed John quietly humming a Peter, Paul and Mary tune to himself.
I recently finished reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, and if there is one thing I took away from it, it was a reaffirmation of the fact that food and alcohol have the ability to bring communities together, to forge bonds where none might otherwise exist, and to get people shit-housed together who might normally never be caught dead within one hundred yards of one another. Alcohol is without a doubt one of the world’s great equalizers. Of course, historically it has caused countless wars, large and small, but in the current age, more often than not, treaties are signed, agreements are made, and seals are bonded with a toast and a nice wallop of the local fire water.
The definition of community has experienced a major shift and expansion in the past fifteen years or so as a direct result of the technological advances that our society has experienced, primarily the explosion of the internet. Communities have formed around the most arcane subjects, with people plugged in every second of every day, somewhere in the world, with an opinion. Message boards, podcasts, yahoo groups, social interaction sites, and so on can be simply overwhelming if one allows oneself to fall in to the trap of being consumed rather than being the consumer. Some might argue that there is indeed too much useless and false information out there, that anybody with half a brain can post whatever they want, in effect, diluting the greater social consciousness, dumbing it down so that the lowest common denominator might finally stop tugging at their slack, drooling jaw and gaze about in a newfound state of comprehension. I say bring it, and not for the obvious reason that I sit here perched on my own electronic soapbox (yes, I do see the irony in this). If you do possess half a brain, you have the tools to weed out the good from the bad. You might also have the ability to see the humor in what you and other half-brains consider dreck.
With that in mind, I offer the following three youtube clips, with beer as their communal theme. These clips run the gamut of informative to downright insane. All of these clips have virtue. The first because it is actually informative. The second because it attempts to impart knowledge, and is downright kooky. And the last because the guy is just out of his mind, and actually having fun with beer. That’s right, it’s just beer.
The sublime:
The ridiculous (be sure to check out some of his other videos):
And the patently absurd (ditto of the above, watch more of this kook’s stuff):
Our walk to Matt Murphy’s from the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse would have been remarkable for its general lack of chaos had it not been for Jim’s ice cream. On our way out of the Clubhouse, Jim, like a dowsing rod to water, took a hard right into J.P Licks, Kumar in tow. They emerged into the afternoon sunlight, Jim with a cone topped by two scoops of something red and green, Kumar with a cup of what looked like coffee. I kept us headed down Harvard St. and started in about the camping trip slated for the following weekend.
“So, I know we’re responsible for our own food and drink, but what about other stuff, like a tent,” I asked nobody in particular.
“Well, I’ve got a two-man I’ll bring,” Kumar started, and then continued by reciting a laundry list of other camping items that he would be bringing, mostly for personal use. Jim stared at him incredulously, while I made a conscious decision to fall back behind a few paces.
“That’s great,” Jim roared, his ice cream cone letting fly with drops on the pavement in front of him. “Just stuff for yourself, you fuck, and here I am bringing the Behemoth,” and with that, Jim’s red ice cream scoop slid off his cone and plopped perfectly dead center on to his white t-shirt. Needless to say, the rest of the way to Matt Murphy’s had us running and cackling two paces ahead of an enraged Jim, red ice cream running like a sun-burst down his palate of flesh.
By the time we entered the bar, it was just a little past 5:00 and there was already a good crowd mucking about. Many of the tables were occupied, mostly drinkers at that early evening hour, and there were a few folks propped up at the bar. A small space overall, the L-shaped bar had no seats, while the nine or so tables pushed up against the right wall and street windows could be reconfigured into various constellations to accommodate parties of any size. We sidled up to the bar, with Kumar immediately going for the water glasses set up near the taps, lemon wedges included, while I scanned the offerings. Jim had chugged off to the bathrooms located through the kitchen, telling me to order him a Sam Adams. The taps included Harpoon IPA, Hoegaarden, Old Speckled Hen, Newcastle, Ipswich Ale, and a few others, including Sam Adams Summer Ale. A full bar was also present, though it received barely a glance from both Kumar and I. In the end, not much better selection than the previous two places we had been. However, it made up for this with its atmosphere – no televisions, dark wood everywhere, sanded floors that were practically white with use, and local art up on the sandstone colored walls, all of which lent the place a homey, living room feel.
Just as our drinks arrived, a yell issued forth from the kitchen area. I turned to see a cook pointing at Jim and his shirt as he made his way back from the toilet.
“Madre de Dios,” the cook stammered in what I knew was Spanish. Kumar’s eyes raised and his pint froze just as it was touching his lips. I waited for Kumar’s translation as Jim strode up next to us, resting a foot on the footrest and grabbing his pint. Kumar made kind of a semi-circle around Jim, examining his shirt more closely and then stopped.
“Holy crap, it IS the Madonna and child,” he whispered, pointing at Jim’s ice cream smeared t-shirt. Sure enough, an outline of Mary and Jesus were plastered onto Jim’s generous front.
“Call the news outlets,” I offered. By then Kumar was down on the floor, bowing and gesticulating in mock adoration of the holy ice cream image. Jim thrust his leg out to kick Kumar but as he did so he managed to lose half his pint, also down the front of his shirt. The image of Mary and child was no more, and Kumar was back at the bar.
“You could have made us some money with that, you uncoordinated sloth,” Kumar railed.
“Listen, Mr. Mxyzptlk, if you don’t cut the shit, I am going to do a lot more than spell your name backwards, you got it,” Jim demanded. “And you won’t be seeing any of the Behemoth either.”
With that, we settled into some low-level drinking. The Cure’s “Close to Me” started playing over the PA and I noticed some people around us were ordering dinner. I didn’t order any on this foray, but in the past I had always been partial to the farmer’s platter and the fish and chips served in newspaper; truly top-notch fare. As people laughed in a corner behind us, the afternoon sun darted in around the plush red floor to ceiling drapes at the door that kept the cold at bay in the winter months. Kumar stood with both feet on the footrest, hands gripping the lip of the bar, and Jim continued to try first his left, then his right leg, and back and forth again, on the rest. Another round appeared in front of us, as if conjured up from the sweaty water rings on the bar, the sun receding to shadows around us, things slowing down. It just couldn’t last though. Jim pointed at one of the paintings on the wall.
As luck would have it, we managed to catch a ride on one of the new C Line low-rider cars, a blast of AC frosting us as we took our seats. Jim and Kumar made sure there was a hetero-appropriate empty seat between the two of them while I opted to stand. Our short stay at Roggie’s became all but a horrible, distant memory while I gazed longingly at the façade of the Publick House as we clunk-clunked through Washington Square. I thought we might end up there later, if we lasted that long. We were disgorged from the car’s icy embrace at Coolidge Corner and made the quick walk down Harvard St. to the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse.
We entered through the left doors; the right ones apparently used only as an exit, and found ourselves staring at another Golden Tee machine. Jim had already spiked himself with his video game jones and sauntered right past the machine, down the narrow space between the long bar that made up the left side of the Clubhouse and the bank teller-style partition that separated the bar from the main eating area on the right. There was a middling crowd present, but with the fine weather and Sox home game, the bar side was mostly empty with the majority of the patrons gorging themselves on all things fried and otherwise dipped in coagulants at the tabled area. Jim continued to walk up the bar and stopped half-way with arms raised parallel to the ground, palms down. He swiveled his arms and head simultaneously left and right, eyes pinioning from one of the 20 televisions to the next, and finally triangulated the best possible seat at the bar that he could sit at and see as much sports as possible. With that resolved Kumar and I plunked ourselves down to Jim’s right and examined the tap handles.
There were about 30 taps, with the most interesting ones comprised of Rogue Dead Guy, and Long Trail Ale, although much of it looked like a carbon copy of Roggie’s line-up, just slightly better. I also noticed an assortment of Chimay and Sam Smith bottles. There were some ubiquitous pine apple chunks stewing in what was no doubt some kind of well vodka, and their menu touted their specialty cocktails. Having already made my mind up, I leafed through the food menu and noted that they were big on salads, sandwiches, roll-ups, and the like, and they all had sports figures’ names attached to them. Go figure.
“So, would you all like Kronenburgs,” the diminutive waitress asked when she suddenly teleported in front of us. I guess there was a push to sell that stuff. I didn’t see any reps around.
“Uh, no, maybe,” Jim responded too quickly, “I want a Sam Adams.”
“I’ll take a Dead Guy,” Kumar said and grabbed a bar napkin. I went with a Dead Guy as well, and none of us ordered any food. It would have been a difficult prospect trying to eat and drink at the bar as it was barely nine inches wide, and had a spill-inducing lip on it as well. Our drinks came quickly and mine was placed on top of an early Roger Clemens baseball card, when he was with the Sox. The card, and many others, were protected by the polyurethaned top of the bar, and were symptomatic of the rest of the sports paraphernalia that dripped from every available space on the walls. Still, this was a sports bar and with that in mind I felt it was done as tastefully as possible.
Just as we ordered our second round, a Brookline alt-prog mother bustled in with two children, hers presumably, and looked around a bit at the bar before asking Jim if he wouldn’t mind moving down a seat so she and her kids could sit right in front of the largest television with the Sox game on.
Jim made no reply, just shook his head chuckling, and turned and looked at us with raised eyebrows, pointing his free index finger at his head and turning it in a swirling motion. I glanced around Jim at the woman who was staring at his back. She stammered something, thought better of it, and moved off down the bar with her kids as far away from us as possible, the children already complaining about not being able to see the biggest television.
“Shouldn’t even be kids at the bar,” Jim pontificated. “And besides, she was probably a Yankees fan anyway, indoctrinating her kids in all things Evil,” Jim said with a prolonged vowel on the letter e.
“Yeah, well, at least…” Kumar was replying when the woman gave out a glass-breaking screech. We all turned to look in her direction.
“The bases are loaded,” the woman cried, making her allegiance all too clear.
“No they’re fucking not,” Jim bellowed. And he was right; Lester had only given up a single with nobody on. “Get your facts straight.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t need a drunk proselytizing to me,” the mother cried from down the bar.
“What was that about prostituting you,” Jim asked and with that I huddled us out the exit door, the one that went through the seating area, not the one near the woman and her children. Off to Matt Murphy’s for stop number three.
