As I’ve said earlier, bocks have sort of been off my radar for a while as I’ve vacillated between the worlds of IPAs and Belgians. This is where Take 52 has been helpful in expanding my understanding. Running into Finger Lakes Beverage Center this afternoon, I might have easily grabbed one of my comfort beers—Middle Ages Wailing Wench, or maybe Ithaca Flower Power IPA. My sites were set on Stone IPA when I spotted TroegsTroegenator Doublebock in the next cooler over. This Pennsylvania brew has been showing up more and more recently, and I figured, after my great experience with EKU 28, it was time to try this one. I can’t claim to be an expert on the style, but it drinks super clean, with a serious balance between the malt and heavy alcohol. The carbonation is light, just as I want it to be with this style. And when the swallow is gone, the taste dissipates quickly, making the net sip all the more urgent.
I had this beer while celebrating my boy’s 5th birthday. Turns out that Troegenator goes well with chocolate. Cake, that is. Only, the combo of heavy carbs (we also had potatoes with brunch, homemade cinnamon rolls and plenty of birthday cake) made napping a distinct certainty.
I would most certainly pick up this beer again, especially if I were visiting family in Florida and mom was buying.
According to the ground rules, I’m not supposed to mention any brewery more than once. I will, of course, be trying a great many new beers by Ithaca this year since a) they’re my hometown brewery and b) they keep coming out with new beers about as often as I change my socks. I reviewed their TWELVE and LeBleu two weeks ago, and already they’re back at it with a new beer. This one’s going to be a regular late winter seasonal. GroundBreak is an American saison, which you know, means that it’s a Belgian-style saison with lots of hops. This one is medium body for a saison with a strong hop flavor and bitterness. It’s definitely unlike anything else Ithaca has put out. I’m guessing that I’ll be bringing plenty of this with me to TAP-NY.
I was so excited about grilled skewered teriyaki tuna. I made a wonderful marinade with ginger and garlic. I headed out to the supermarket to buy my first tuna steak, but was bummed to learn my selection was limited to frozen. Desperate for the taste of seared tuna, I silenced the voice in my head that said to shop elsewhere for fresher fish.
The man behind the counter assured me the tuna would be delicious when thawed. I fridged the fish and waited the required 24 hours.
The next night I plopped cubed tuna into the patiently waiting marinade. In minutes I realized I had forgotten skewers. I felt I couldn't stray from a recipe at this point in my cooking career, so I let the tuna sit another 24 hours, this time in a wrapped bowl of gorgeous marinade.
In the meantime, I fell in love with a recipe for Spaghetti Squash Lo Mein. I figured lo main and teriyaki tuna would make smashing dinnermates.
The next morning I picked up skewers and a runt of a spaghetti squash from another grocery store. I was unyielding in my desire to try these two new recipes.
Never again will I try two new recipes in the same night.
They both turned out awful. They were great companions in that each was mushy and brown as overripe bananas. Some tuna was fine, the rest fishy. The lo mein was soggy and over-seasoned.
Here is where my limited culinary skills come into play. A chef seeks diversity in flavor, texture and color when orchestrating parts of a meal. I was fixated on the promise of ingesting Japanese! and Chinese! food in the same night. These are two cuisines that I avoid while on a low-carb plan food due to rice. I am powerless against rice. I love rice. And there is no room for rice in my life right now.
For some reason, last night, I took this week's cooking defeat to heart.
Instead of focusing on my series of successes this month, and the six pounds I've lost in 22 days, I concentrated on my failures. I thought about how I've plateaued in my weight loss. Then I thought of other non-related setbacks in my week. Soon while gazing into my fridge, my eyes landed on the container of whole milk. Then they rose to the top of the fridge, where they rested lovingly on the Chips-Ahoy With Real Candy Bits package. Who needs dinner when one has milk and cookies?
Luckily, I spied the remaining half of the spaghetti squash wrapped tightly in my fridge, and I remembered my success two weeks ago with Mock Fettucine Carbonara. I never blogged about it, but I was so impressed the first time I made it. Last night's revisit with Carbonara was good, and satisfying, but not the smash-hit it was the first time. However, it helped lift me out of the self-condemnation hole I had dug, and kept me on the good-carb track for another day.
All the greats do it eventually. I’m not talking about trashing a dressing room or going through a Christian phase. No, I’m talking about recording a live album. I’m not quite sure what mine would sound like, but there are a handful of no-nos. I wouldn’t open the LP with a lengthy introduction by an unknown emcee. I wouldn’t include emotional, cliché transitions between songs, uttered by my excited-yet-out-of-breath lead singer. And I sure wouldn’t include excess cheering and clapping. Maybe there’s be some residual evidence of an actual audience, but in my eyes, good taste would dictate that leave that low in the mix. And no way in hell would I start off with a song called “Hello There” and end with “Goodnight.” One of the two would be okay, but not both.
There’s a funny thing about rules: If you break them all at the same time, it’s sort of okay. And yes, you guessed it, that’s exactly what happened with Cheap Trick’s classic live LP, AT BUKOKAN. I can’t say I’m going to listen to this whole thing through very often, if ever again, but I can appreciate where they’re coming from (and what the appeal was).
Here's a new feature here at my Take 52 Classic LP blog: Stat Time!
* Times I could stand to listen to this all the way through: 3 * New songs that stuck with me: Hello There; Need Your Love * Tunes I already knew: I Want You to Want Me; Surrender * Random fact I learned through the process: How to spell “Budokan” * Random fact I won’t need for another 20 years or so: see above
P.S. I was wrong when I said “all the greats do it.” The Beatles never officially released a live one. That’s just how they rolled.
I have a few regulations when it comes to drinking a beer that has seemed to be broken recently; for example:
1. Never Drink From the Bottle. This rule was kaput when Captain Lawrence Brewing Company began bottling Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA. 2. Never Drink a Macrobrewery. I cannot stay away from a Miller High Life which I recently ordered at a restaurant because instead of the proper name was listed as The Champagne of Beers. 3. Never Buy a Beer in a Clear or Green Bottle. I newly broke this rule while drinking my beer of the week – Innis and Gunn Oak Aged Beer.
The myth that a clear bottle ruins the beer is exactly that, a myth. Yes, it makes the beer more susceptible to UV rays, but the color of the bottle can not be blamed for the skunked flavor.
Another rule I have is when I see a beer that is Aged in Oak (or any other type of barrel) I must have it. While perusing the Great Britain section of my local brew-market I was torn, Innis and Gunn…Clear Bottle…Oak Aged…would it cancel my two laws out? The answer, yes.
The oak gave this English Pale Ale toffee like characteristics that came over way too sweet due to the lack of hops to balance the flavor. For a Pale Ale, this brew had a huge malt backbone which I may have enjoyed had there been more of a medium body instead of the thin mouthful that I enjoy for an IPA. I guess the best way to describe the overall reaction would be to state that it tasted like a scotch after the ice has watered it down.
Overall I give this beer a 7/10. It was a worthy effort from Innis and Gunn. It wasn’t a bad beer, nor was it great, but I would definitely give it another go around some other time.
I know part of the game is to try different breweries each time, but I have decided to just try beers I have never had before. So, with this said my third beer is from the Dogfish Head brewery, Theobroma. The pour resulted in a small head that disappeared quickly. The color is a bright light amber. There are hints of honey in the aroma of the beer. But some would say it just smells like a beer. It is brewed with honey, cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, ancho chilies and ground annatto. The flavor is rich with the sweetness of the honey. There is a subtle hint of the chili pepper, it is as if the chili taste arrives with the after taste from the back of the mouth. Or it could be the heartburn from my dinner, but I doubt that. This is a beer that I received in the great beer trade of aught 9 with Randy. So, I am not sure exactly how old the beer is but as I as progress on this beer its getting easier and easier to get down. In hindsight I should of split this beer with someone else, these large bottles are sometimes tough to fight down on my own. Overall its a very good beer, but there is too much sweetness in the beer for me to ever have again. Once is enough for me.
I had one of these bad boys last weekend at the Flying Saucer in Raleigh, NC. The bottle was portrayed on a beer poster I had in college, but I hadn’t encountered one until that fateful night at Scott’s 40th birthday shin-dig. The EKU 28 was a great way to kick start the evening. At 11% ABV, the alcohol did not take over the flavor. Instead there was a deep, funky maltiness that didn’t give up. It occurred to me (about ¼ way through the bottle, while I was still capable of intelligent thought) that I hadn’t had a bock in a long, long time. I suppose it’s because they take so much time to ferment (and brewers don’t want to tie up their tanks for one batch when they could make many ales over the same amount of time). A quick scan of the Net shows a great many celebrated bock beers that I haven’t ever tried. It looks like I have several new topics for upcoming columns.
Match: Randy Orton (Intercontinental Champion) vs. Cactus Jack (Challenger)
Background: Mick Foley is a man of many faces. During his tenure in the WWF/E from 1996-2008, the self-proclaimed "hardcore legend" treated fans to a multitude of different characters that each embodied a portion of Foley's real life personality.
Mankind, Foley's first gimmick (1) in the WWF/E, was tortured soul who enjoyed pain, physically abused himself and others, all while wearing a Hannibal Lecter style mask that was meant to convey the character's fractured self-view. Ostracized as a child for being fat and unpopular, especially to members of the opposite sex, Mankind represented Foley's self-view during his formative years while growing up in Setauket, NY, a small town on the North Shore of Long Island.
Dude Love, Foley's second character, was the opposite of Mankind. A character he invented as a teenager while attending Ward Melville High School, Dude Love was a late 60's sex, drugs, and rock n' roll hippie that was the embodiment of cool and a man who always, always, got the ladies.
The last and final character, and the one that is represented in this week's match selection, is Cactus Jack. A hardcore, sadistic outlaw from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico who would stop at nothing from defeating his opponents in the ring, even if it meant the use of various weapons which usually ended up in self-mutilation.
Foley actually debuted the Cactus Jack character on the independent circuit in the mid-1980's and in Ted Turner's WCW from 1991-1994, however, it wasn't until 1997 that the WWF/E audience caught a glimpse of this version of Foley. A version that would be used sporadically over the course of the next 11 years until Foley's departure from the company in 2008.
This match took place in 2004 and features one of the WWE's rising stars at the time, Randy Orton. A third generation superstar and the son of "Cowboy" Bob Orton, Randy needed that one big feud (2) that would make him a legitimate superstar for years to come. It's a time honored tradition in the wrestling business that older established stars, preferably champions, put over (3) younger wrestlers in order to give the younger talent the rub (4) they need. Oddly, Orton is the Intercontinental Champion in this match, however, winning a lower-tiered title doesn't mean your a star these days. If I remember correctly, Randy didn't beat the best competition on his way to the title. He was a heel (5) at this point and it makes sense that a heel wrestler would lie, cheat and steal his way to a title as...you know...bad guys do those sort of things.
Anyway, Vince McMahon called on Mick Foley to come out of semi-retirement for this match in the hopes that Randy would get that much needed boost by beating the hardcore legend in a match that was stacked against him.
With all that said, here....we....go.
Workrate: Wow, what can I say, let's throw workrate right out of the equation here as a sound technical wrestling match this was not. But it wasn't supposed to be. This was supposed to be a disgusting, sadistic hardcore match fashioned after the famous "King of the Deathmatch" tournaments from Japan during the mid-90's which used props such as barbed-wire, tables, trash cans, fire and C4 explosives. Yes, you read that right, actual C4 explosives. And who was the 1995 "King of the Deathmatch" you ask? That's right - Cactus Jack himself.
The first portion of the match takes place mostly outside the ring, a normal occurrence in hardcore matches, where Randy repeatedly hits Cactus with various weapons. We even get the now famous, "back suplex onto the steel ramp" which Foley always ended up taking during his WWF/E matches that had no stipulations. Yes, folks, that's his actual head hitting the ramp and, no, he didn't put his hand up. Now I know what you're going to say. Wrestlers fake these moves by placing their hand up and hitting the ramp or the mat to make an elaborate sound thereby creating the illusion that the impact was real. Yes, this is true for most wrestlers. But not Mick Foley. Mick literally made a career of taking actual hits in the ring because he believed that the more real things got, the better his performance would be in the eyes of the fans and his peers. Whether that makes him an idiot or a genius, I still haven't figured out.
The match continues and we get some truly awful images of a barbed-wire bat being raked across Randy Orton's forehead. Again, folks, contrary to popular belief, there are no "blood capsules" in professional wrestling. The way they bleed from the head is an art form known as "blading." The way it works is that a wrestler has a small razor blade inserted into the tape around one of his/her wrists. When he or she is hit with an object or a stiff punch that in reality would cause someone to open up via a wound, said wrestler puts his hands around his head, cradles into the fetal position to ensure the cameras have no view, removes the razor blade and cuts their forehead multiple times horizontally. The wounds are skin deep, but because of the amount of blood vessels in the forehead, the bleeding is much more pronounced even though the wound is not very serious. They take it a step further by holding their breath and breathing out through the nose so the blood comes out faster.
As the match progresses, we get several horrific sequences where Cactus ends up being embedded in a table full of barbed-wire and an even more amazing spot where Randy gets impaled onto a bed of thumb tacks. Seeing the thumb tacks sticking out of Randy's back as he gets up in a state of shock is enough to make even the most hardcore of fans a bit squeamish. Some more outside the ring brawling ensues and Cactus even hits his famous flying elbow off the rampway onto a stack of tables as Orton is helpless to get out of the way.
Crowd Involvement: I love Canada. I really do. These people know their wrestling. Some of the greatest crowds, minus the Bret Hart match I reviewed last week, have been in Canada.
Let me digress for a minute and give you my top 3 Canadian crowds:
3) Edmonton, Alberta: Not just because their featured in this match. Prior to the horrific events of June 2007, Chris Benoit was Edmonton's favorite son. I can remember watching an episode of RAW back in 2004 where Chris returned to his hometown as WWE Champion and the crowd giving him a several minute ovation. It's too bad Chris became a monster, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include this great town on the list.
2) Toronto, Ontario: Site of multiple Wrestlemania's and the crowd that turned Hogan vs The Rock from Wrestlemania 18 into my all-time favorite match. These people literally changed the landscape of the WWF/E in 2002 by their reaction to Hulk Hogan.
1) Montreal, Quebec: Outside of New York, NY and MSG, this is BY FAR the greatest wrestling city/crowd in North America. In fact, they might be better. Sorry brethren. The reaction they gave Hogan on RAW after WM 18 and their continued persecution of Vince McMahon, Earl Hebner and Shawn Michaels 10+ years after the Montrea Screwjob is nothing short of epic. Did I mention you can use both hands at Montreal strip clubs? That alone is enough in my book to own the number one spot on this list.
Okay, I'm back. What was I writing about? Oh yeah, strip clubs. So you can use both hands and the dancers take you back to this room and then they proceed to.......wait........that wasn't it. Oh right! Crowd involvement. Okay, well, the crowd was great here. They chanted the obligatory, "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit" chant when they should have and made the match that much more entertaining with their knowledge.
Finish: Made total sense and accomplished what Vince set out to do. Randy beats Cactus clean with multiple RKO's (Orton's finishing maneuver) and the story ends up being that the young kid took all of Cactus's abuse and best shots in match he owns and beat him. No better way to establish a rising superstar than that.
Footnotes:
1) Gimmick: a wrestler's character or persona
2) Fued: a storyline/dispute between two wrestlers that normally ends up in a match
3) Over: In this case, allow another wrestler to win a match/beat you
4) Rub: The benefits a wrestler gets from the fans after beating another wrestler
It all started with a mustache: a thick, beefy mustache—on my face and mistaken for the one belonging to Jim Croce. I looked him up on the ‘net, just to see if the comparison was true. Then I fell for the man. Youtube has a bunch of clips taken from TV appearances, and all of them feature Croce with his right hand man, Maury Muehleisen. It turns out that Croce had previously backed Muehleisen, but the roles reversed in the early 70s as Croce’s success grew. On tour they played stripped down versions of his classics, and the results are pretty beautiful. Needless to say, I’ve been digging into the Croce hardcore through all of 2010. So I decided, for the purposes of this blog, that I’d go back and check out his studio albums—all three that were released prior to his death. What I found is that he’s got some decent songs in between the huge handful of sing-a-longs. All the albums have plenty of songs you know and love, but as the years go by, the songs in between seemed to grab me less and less.
If I were to recommend one proper Croce album, it would have to be 1972’s YOU DON’T MESS AROUND WITH JIM. 1973’s LIFE AND TIMES had some good tunes, several of which made it into my iPod playlist, but they didn’t grab me quite as much. There was a bit more cliché working there. I GOT A NAME (also 1973) didn’t do a whole lot for me outside of the standard “I Got a Name,” “Workin’ At the Car Wash Blues,” and “I’ll Have to Say I Love You With a Song.” But the first one really was outstanding. Three new tunes (well, new to me) made it into heavy rotation on the iPod. These include “Box #10” and the closer, “Hey Tomorrow,” a wistful and hopeful tune that had just enough cheese to make it tasty. “Hey tomorrow, where are you going?” he sings. “Do you have some room for me?”
Sadly, the answer was no. Croce and Maury Muehleisen were both killed in a plane accident on September 20, 1973. But those guys left a heck of a lot of beauty behind before they departed.
I read that an author should never take the life of the protagonist, but what if he couldn't shell out his hospital fees? Should they die or is there a better option?
In Summary Judgment by Charles Spohrer the anonymous narrator is faced with this dilemma after getting into an accident while on his motorcycle. Just like millions of Americans he is unable to meet the expense of his hospital bills and has to suffer the wrath of the collectors.
With the struggle for universal health care going on all around us, this grim future does not seem so far fetched. It seems more likely that there will be a resolution to what needs to be done to an individual who can not pay there bills rather than assist paying them.
Put people to work to pay off the hospital? According to Spohrer the new structure would turn a non-covered patient into a patron that is unable to pay their bar tab. Not such a bad proposal ….or is it? If only it was as uncomplicated as dish washing…
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
SNACKS: Munching on salmon pinwheels atop cucumbers, via George Stella and loving it. George's other amazing snack I made and loved is Nutty Muddy Trail Mix. I now understand the draw of ice-cream flavors like butter pecan. I didn't have the chili powder or cumin. I just salted, buttered and baked handfuls of almonds, walnuts and pecans. I ate it like popcorn.
MEALS: I made two major meals since I flew home Thursday night. A chicken roast was inspired by Food Network chefs The Neelys, whose show I caught on the JetBlue TV screen. This was my first chicken roast. I didn't drop it once. It was a success. For my family I added Neely's Twice Smashed Baked Potatoes. I thought I was strong enough to serve a carb-laden side dish without tasting it, but I was weak. I had about 2 tablespoonfuls of this mix of cheese, broccoli, sour cream, butter and mashed potatoes. I thought I was in heaven, and I was using leftover American and Asiago cheese, not the Gouda and cheddar that the recipe suggested. My husband, a carb-friendly guy, said the potatoes were "OK." I also made a roast beef! It was good, but too well done on the ends, nice in the middle. I like rare. I did try to make it into a hash for breakfast the next morning, adding some leftover pork chop meat, an onion, fresh garlic, and one small potato, but that sucked. It would have been successful without the pork. Still learning. Let me know if you try any of these recipes. The Nutty Muddy Trail Mix is four-star for me.
Let me start off by stating that I do not like Dogfish Head beers. I do enjoy a 90 minute as often as Scorsese wins the Best Director Oscar®, but that's about it. Something about the flavor combinations that turns me off, but I have never been able to pinpoint one thing alone. I knew eventually my travels through 52 breweries would make a stop in Delaware so I figured that there was no time like the present.
Just like every other beer conceived by Dogfish Head, the Squall IPA did not blow me over. Being that this is completely bottled conditioned it was smoother than the ordinary 90 minute, but just like the rest produced by DFH it has an uncontrollable sweetness that is trying its best to hide behind the use of six different types of hops.
The best part about this beer is the aroma...filled with beautiful, flowery, citrus scents that can only be enhanced through perfect dry hopping. This is a characteristic that I have tried to emulate in my home brew but never got the results that matched my expectations.
I give the beer a 6/10 - though it was not the perfect IPA, bottle conditioning made it as smooth as the sweet sounds of Yacht Rock (look it up)
I have just realized that I have lied to you in paragraph #1; No, I still do not like a majority of DFH beers, but there is one that I am a HUGE fan of and I happen to have one in the fridge to cleanse the pallet - Palo Santo Marron. I may not have enjoyed my beer of the week as I hoped, but at least I can end the evening on a high note. Cheers!
If I’m going to review a different brewery each week, then I’ve only got one shot to discuss the home team, Ithaca Beer Company. Turns out there’s no time like the present. They just released two new brews in the Excelsior! series: TWELVE and LeBleu.
Don’t look for LeBleu in stores. It sold out after only two weeks. Sold retail for $15, there’s already been one sold on eBay for $75.
Ithaca brewer Jeff “Chief” O’Neil contends that these big beers Ithaca puts out are meant to be conversation pieces, and I have to agree. I stood in my kitchen, sipping the TWELVE with research assistant Todd, comparing it with LeBleu. A formal review, we decided, was impossible. We’d have to resort to metaphor. In that case, TWELVE is deep, rootsy funk. Parliament, James Brown… the Ohio Players. It’s nasty and rich, with syncopated flavors. Smells like an armpit. A goddam, sexy armpit. LeBleu? That’d be jazz, baby. Light and delicate, yet innovative, complex and rooted in tradition. Coltrane, Monk.
The two beers have one similarity: both have roots in Belgian styles. That’s about it, other than both being incredibly interesting and delicious. TWELVE is a quadruple—a very strong wheat beer, malty and feisty with flavor. LeBleu is like nothing else, a sour ale made with wild yeasts and then blended with blueberries. Pours red like cranberry juice and has a light pink head. I drank the entire 750-ml bottle in one sitting and puzzled over it the entire time. In a good way. I won’t be tasting anything like that again—that is, until I crack another one at TAP New York this spring.
My 1st beer was consumed over a week ago, and unfortunately I do not remember exactly what it tasted like. So for my 1st and 2nd week I will be making up my reaction to the tasting of the two beers.
The 1st beer was Palo Santo Marron brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery. What I remember it had a sweet initial taste. If I cheat with BA it was a dark black coloring with a brown head. It must of tasted well because I remember telling myself that I should of purchased more than one bottle.
My 2nd beer of this new year was the Christmas Ale by Great Lakes Brewery from the oh so warm and happy land of Cleveland. In the past every beer that I have tried by Great Lakes has been a homerun, this one however misses. The amber coloring is pleasing to the eye and pours with very little foam or head. The odor is a strange perplexing bouquet of malt, hops, ginger and cinnamon. My first taste began with a traditional ale flavorings on the front there is a strong presence of a honey flavor, but the aftertaste kills this beer. The ginger and cinnamon makes for a bitter aftertaste that does not compliment the initial flavors. I have never been one to seek out christmas or spiced beers, and this one would be one I am thankful for tasting once but the last two will linger in the refridgerator.
When your first blog entry begins with apologies and excuses, I believe it's safe to say that we've started off on the wrong foot. However, I'm here to solemnly swear to all our devoted readers (all 6 of you) that I will not miss a deadline moving forward. However, I think it would be best if we all understand why I missed week one's deadline.
One word: indecisiveness.
Originally, my idea was to blog about what I perceived to be the biggest sports story of each week in the year 2010, then cook a signature dish that was aligned to the city or region in which the story or its subjects hailed from.
Huh? What? Say that again?
And therein lies the problem. The above idea was a stretch, and one that ultimately doesn't properly serve the purpose of this blog. Where were my new experiences? Where's the review? Yes, the cooking aspect delivered on that somewhat, but how does the sports op-ed portion tie in?
Simply put, it doesn't.
Therefore, the cause of my delay is that fact that I've decided to change my blog subject. Gone is the sports/food idea and in it's place is......wait for it.......wait for it.......PRO WRESTLING.
*crickets*
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Okay, I know what you're thinking. Pro wrestling? Really? Yes, really. And here's why. I am a professional wrestling fan. And I'm probably the complete opposite of what most folks think of when they think of a wrestling fan. Yes, I'm educated, yes I have a job and, yes, I have all my original teeth. To give you an example of how far my being a fan goes, I was lucky enough in college to work for a small independent federation where I wrote storylines and booked matches ("booked" in wrestling speak means determining who wins and who loses).
As you'll quickly learn in subsequent posts, wrestling has a language all to its own that has roots in turn of the century carnivals. So I'll be using some terms in my posts that will seem foreign at first, but will be explained in detail as part of, you, my esteemed readers, pro wrestling education.
So here's the deal - my goal is to review one professional wrestling match per week that I have never seen. There are literally thousands of matches from federations like New Japan, WCCW, Smokey Mountain Wrestling, the original ECW and WCW that I've never gotten to chance to see let alone write about. Much like beer or albums, wrestling matches have many characteristics that can be reviewed and analyzed in order to determine one's opinion. For example, beer has aroma, taste and appearance whereas wrestling has "workrate (1)", crowd involvement, storyline relevance and "the finish (2)." (footnotes provided below)
But before I descend into this journey, I feel I must preface a few things before I begin. Most people can't get over the fact that wrestling is fake. Their entire perception of the industry, usually negative, is built on this one fact. In reality, the pre-determined nature of the matches has little or no bearing on the actual performance itself.
So, if you're not a fan, I ask you to look beyond your pre-conceived notions when reading my entries. Instead, focus on the fact that pro wrestling is a skilled art form that very few people on this planet can perform with excellence. Focus on the fact that every time two wrestlers get into the ring with each other, they both put their lives in the hands of the other. Focus on the fact that the ring doesn't really "feel like a box spring" and that the bumps and bruises they take are indeed very real. And, lastly, focus on the fact that many of the matches I will likely review this year contain performers that are no longer with us.
Sadly, wrestlers have no benefits, they have no pensions and there is no wrestlers union. So, the best I can offer them is to review their life's work with both dignity and respect.
Hold on a second as I remove the soapbox from beneath my feet.
Okay, we're good! Now, since match footage exists from roughly the 1950's on, I've decided to only consider matches that took place in the modern era (1984-Present). The main reason is that I'd never be able to select a match with all those possibilities and wrestling sucked prior to the birth of Hulkamania on January 23rd, 1984. Who here remembers Hulk Hogan hitting the big boot then the leg drop on the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden thereby transforming wrestling from a dingy, Southern, smoke-filled gymnasium attraction to a nearly billion dollar industry that captivated America's youth, sold out some of the world's greatest venues and essentially created the pay-per-view business? I know I do.
With all that said, let's move onto my first match review of the year! As many of you may or may not know, Bret Hart returned to the WWE for the first time in 12 years this past Monday night on RAW (1/4).
Not seen since the infamous Montreal Screwjob (3) at Survivor Series 1997, The Hitman was front and center this past Monday night burying the hatchet with Shawn Michaels, something no WWE fan thought they'd ever see, and kicking off a new angle (4) with Vince McMahon that will supposedly culminate at Wrestlemania 26.
For anyone who knows anything about the Montreal Screwjob, the tragic passing of Owen Hart at a WWE pay-per-view in 1999, the death of "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith in 2002 and the Hart family's near destruction due to infighting brought on by the professional wrestling industry, the Hitman's return was nothing short of shocking and will forever be one of the most surreal moments in WWE history.
Unable to physically compete due to a career-ending concussion suffered back in 2000 while working for WCW, and a stroke which left him partially paralyzed for a brief period in 2002, Bret looked rather good considering all that has happened to him in the last ten years. Wearing the famous Hitman shades and donning a "Hitman" leather jacket that became most prominent during his 1997 World Title run, it was easy to see why they once called this man the "Excellence of Execution."
So, in honor of Bret and his return to WWE, let's take a look at his first WWF Heavyweight Title win for the first installment of Max's Matches!
Date: October 12th, 1992 Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Match: Ric Flair (WWF Champion) vs. Bret "The Hitman" Hart (Challenger)
Background: Considering how big of a wrestling fan I am and how much I've loved, and hated at times, Bret Hart throughout the years, it's astonishing that I've never seen this match. Yes, I've seen clips here and there as they've been played multiple times on WWE promo videos and DVD's, but I've never seen the match it it's entirety. What's even more shocking is that there may be many more wrestling fans out there that haven't either as this match was not televised nor was it shown on PPV in 1992. Yes, you read that right. A match that essentially represented the changing of the guard in the WWF at the time was not broadcast live whatsoever. It was eventually released on a WWF Coliseum home video many months later. How can that be? Well, let me tell you.
Ric Flair's contract with the WWF was set to expire in 1993 and he made it very clear that he intended on going back to WCW. It's a time honored tradition in the wrestling business that the promoter, in this case Vince McMahon, will not push (5) a wrestler who intends on leaving his company for the competition. In fact, said wrestler will actually be booked to lose the majority, if not all, of his or her matches before leaving in order to lessen their credibility once they debut for the new promotion. So, in this case, Vince had to take the title off Flair. The most obvious choice to take the reign would be Hulk Hogan, however, rumors began surfacing in the fall of 1992 that Vince McMahon and the WWF were being investigated by the federal government for distributing steroids illegally to wrestlers, Hogan in particular. So rather than stoke the brewing Fire, McMahon had Hogan take a leave of absence.
That left an up and coming superstar with multiple Intercontinental titles on his resume by the name of Bret Hart as the next logical World champion. It didn't help that Hart at that time was considered small by industry standards and would have helped Vince in his claim that not all his wrestlers are roided up freaks, I mean, hey, just look at his new World champion. And with that, the stage was set for Bret Hart to win his first major World title in his home country of Canada.
Workrate: Sadly, this match took place at a WWF Superstars taping, therefore the "big title bout" atmosphere is clearly absent. But even with somewhat diminished crowd involvement, both Bret and The Nature Boy go nearly 28 minutes exchanging amateur holds, brawling outside the ring and trading signature submission moves. Stu Hart, Bret's famous father, once described Ric Flair as being a "routine guy." Meaning, if you watched one Ric Flair match, you've seen them all as he performs the same moves every time in roughly the same sequence. And that basically rings true in this match as we get the Flair begging off routine, the irish whip flip over the top turnbuckle spot and the Flair flop. But combined with Bret's solid mat wrestling and his ability to tell a story in the ring with his actions, their chemistry works extremely well here and produces a fairly good championship match for 1992.
Crowd Involvement: Not the best except for the finish. As I mentioned, this match took place at a Superstars taping and the odds of a title changing hands at one of these back in '92 was slim to impossible.
Finish: Excellent. Flair finally submits to the Sharpshooter, much stronger finish than if Bret pinned him, and a new era in WWF history is born. Vince needed Bret to as look as strong as possible in this match in order to make his new champion credible in the eyes of the fan base, and making a multiple time World Champion and living legend tap out is about as strong as it gets.
It took me awhile to figure out which stories I should read for this adventure. Do I tackle the most famous stories or do I find random stories written by an amateur? The answer was easy...let's read both. I have decided to place all the stories I have accumulated into a folder and randomly select my weekly read.
"You're not going to be able to do that anymore," a line every parent-to-be has heard one too many times in a nine month span. For me everyone scolded me because my whole life I have been disappearing to concerts. Never was I asked if I will stop going, but rather that it WAS going to come to an end. That was my preference to keep going to shows, but there are more things in life that "You're not going to be able to do that anymore” which do not come by choice and sometimes those are the hardest to swallow…if you even notice that they are gone at all.
Atlas' Hips by Darrin Navarro is of two expectant parents discussing (in a compromising position) the new life they will have to leave behind once their child is born. Talking of exotic excursions and precarious expeditions the loving couple misses the moments that are happening to them currently.
Needless to say I felt an emptiness after reading this piece about the moments I have failed to notice and can not recapture. Every once in awhile you need a reminder like this to wake you up to the fact that not every moment comes with a commemorative t-shirt and could be gone in a flash.
I want my childhood back. Or at least the part of it that missed out on The Clash. There was a brief period in middle school when I was into COMBAT ROCK, but that was only because the radio served me copious amounts of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah.” The rest of the album wasn’t enough to sustain a life-long relationship, and that was that. I moved on to Def Leppard, The Cars and eventually The Beatles. When I made my way back to punk in the late ‘80s, the Clash never came up.
Would I have dug LONDON CALLING, had I listened to it back in the day? No freaking doubt. Joe Strummer’s vocals are a dead ringer for Mike Peters of The Alarm (vice versa, to be fair), and that would have been enough to suck me in, had I given the album a chance. Then the songs would have grabbed me, probably with more force than they did this past week. And that’s saying a lot, because I really fell for this album.
I couldn’t help but be impressed by the variety of styles represented here: ska and reggae, rockabilly, blues and (of course) punk. On top of that, the tunes were extremely catchy and fun. Now I’m wondering: how would my musical tastes have been different with this diversity in my teenage musical arsenal? It wasn’t until college that I started checking out ska (English Beat; Bim Skala Bim). Perhaps if I’d listened to London Calling I would have been open to something beyond pop and rock at an earlier age.
The album doesn’t seem dated. Okay, maybe it's a little dated. But hardly so compared to most of its contemporaries, anyway. Ann Landers says it’s never too late to send a ‘thank you’ note. And I say it’s never too late to get into The Clash.
Mike’s song picks: Lover’s Rock (dancy fun), “Train in Vain” (the only song other than “London Calling” that I’d heard before) and “Death or Glory” (with the head-scratching lyric, “he who f@#*s nuns will later join the church”)
Living in Connecticut is very hard for a beer drinker. 3.4 million people, 5,500 square miles and the 4th most densely populated state only has 4 breweries, with only two of them worth mentioning and none of them worth drinking. But has the Constitution State redeemed itself by brewing Imperial Stout Trooper??? It is hard to believe that such a great beer can make it out of the New England Brewing Company especially when they only have three selections to choose from...none of which are any better than bath water.
Originally I bought this beer due to the bottle being a Storm Trooper helmet, but after reading reviews I knew that it was a true Russian Imperial Stout. I popped open the 12 ounces after letting sit in my beer closet (yes, beer closet) for a year. It poured completely opaque into my pint glass with a very light, mocha head that departed just as fast as it came. At 9% abv, the alcohol was masked by roasted malts and bitter chocolate flavors making this one of the smoothest Russian Imperial Stouts on the market. The taste stayed in your mouth for quite some time, very similar to smoking a cigarette.
It seems that a brewery in CT finally has unlocked the secret of making a good beer, I just wish that they would figure out how to make it year-round. I would also like to give myself a pat on the back for not writing any Star Wars references in this write up...the force is strong in this one (doh!)
Overall: 9/10 - one of the most drinkable Russian Imperial Stouts, right next to Victory Storm King Stout
I am cheating badly. I am supposed to try a new recipe every week, but I needed this confidence boost.
I just made George Stella 's Anaheim Shrimp Scampi recipe and it was every bit as amazing as it was the first time I had it three years ago. Back then, George, a Food Network chef, was promoting his cookbook and serving scampi at a local supermarket when I passed by his demo table. After one taste, I bought his book and all the necessary ingredients. I cooked his scampi dish that night and three times later that year.
My husband just walked in from work and is picking at what I left for him on the stove while he talks on the phone. Aside from one cocktail party, I have never seen my husband eat while standing. There is no stronger endorsement than this.
A tip on the recipe: I did a short-cut on the scampi butter. I partially melted the required stick of butter in a microwave-safe dish for 15 or 20 seconds, and then whisked in the other ingredients. I molded the melty mix into a cigar shape and stuffed it into the freezer for ten minutes. It almost turned solid and that was good enough for me.
I somehow managed to buy amazing avocados yesterday. I usually suck at produce selection.
This is my best low-carb meal yet. OK, I've only tried two and yesterday's was a disaster. To answer the unspoken question, yes, I tasted it off the floor. It was awful but I am going to try the meatloaf recipe again.
I am counting this post as next week's. I fly on Monday for business.
On Christmas night, I watched Julie & Julia (Sony Pictures, 2009).
I felt inspired. I also felt a degree of shame for not trying harder to take my kitchen and show it who's boss. In the movie, actress Amy Adams, playing real life blogger Julie Powell, tries four times to get a chicken dish right. She burns a beef dish and makes it again the very next morning. In contrast, I flee the kitchen for weeks when the smoke hits the detector.
So when Mike Levy asked me to contribute to Take 52, my first thought was: If Julie Powell could commit to following a Julia Child recipe everyday, I certainly could try one new recipe a week.
Like Julie, I adore Julia Child and French cuisine, but I have 18 extra pounds of fat dancing around my waistline. Although I've read and loved Mireille Guiliano's book French Women Don't Get Fat, I certainly do.
And I know why. I don't diversify my meals. I have had great success with some diets, especially healthy-carb programs. But eventually I get bored with the food, and I start hunting for sugar snacks, pastries and pasta.
This year will be different. I am going to try a new, great, family-friendly, healthy meal at least once a week.
The fat will be evicted. I photographed my belly rolls this afternoon, hoping to post them and then laugh with delight months from now when my tummy is so much flatter and my jeans so much looser. I also photographed all phases of the meal I made tonight, my first attempt at a low-carb stuffed meatloaf, starring beef, mozzarella, Parmesan, red peppers, ham, onions, garlic, spices, and herbs.
But I can post no pictures right now. As the meatloaf was cooling on the stove, my toddler son, standing on a chair (a no-no) at the kitchen table, hoping to reach my open laptop (another no-no), lost his balance and crashed to the floor. The laptop followed. He is well, thank God. The machine is dead.
Minutes later, my four-year-old asked to help photograph my settled meatloaf. While within inches of the kitchen table, I smashed my 9" x 5" mozzarella-oozing meat loaf onto my very unwashed floor.
Coincidence? I think not. Evidently the Bermuda Triangle just moved into my kitchen.
As soon as I can, I will post pics of my love handles and my slippery loaf of love.
I’ve been a pretty big Bowie fan since early in high school. I can’t say I’ve listened to everything he’s done since “Let’s Dance,” but I’ve been through most of his stuff from the 70s. STATION TO STATION is just one of those albums that escaped me—I never knew anyone who owned it, and I never took the risk of buying the CD when Bowie was still growing on me.
For this experiment, I decided to listen to the CD at least six times. I wanted to really give it a chance to enter my consciousness. It worked—I got to the point where I knew which songs were coming up and could anticipate certain hooks and lyrics.
I was prepared for this experience by my brush with LOW, which is the LP that comes after Station chronologically. Station doesn’t have as much electronic weirdness (Brian Eno hadn’t jumped on board yet), but it’s got it’s own brand of strange. The title song is so different from other Bowie album starters—lengthy like some, but more so—it is basically two looooong extended grooves. It’s not bad in the background if I’m taking a long walk, but I don’t think I’d subject any of my loved ones to it.
Next comes “Golden Years,” which I’m glad to finally know in its proper context. The fuzz guitar and incessant hi-hat are the perfect, fun parfait after the extended opener. “Word On a Wing” brings it down again before the incredibly strange yet intriguing “Tvc15,” a science fiction romp set to honky-tonk piano and 50s-style doo-wop vocals. It really starts to sound like a Bowie song, in the traditional sense, when he brings in the hand claps, screeching guitar and horns during the chorus.
“Stay” keeps the party going. It’s downright groovy, complete with funky guitar and a bass line that borders on disco. Last comes the other song I’d previously heard, “Wild is the Wind.” It’s still not exactly a favorite of mine, but in the context here, it’s an appropriate romantic let down after twelve minutes of motion.
Overall, I’m glad that I took the chance to get to know this album. While I don’t expect to play the whole thing very often,“Tvc15” and “Stay” will be residing in my iPod, where they’ll join my all-too-managed shuffle playlist.
I know this may sound Golden Girlish, but recently I have re-found that nothing is better than reading a good book. Work has been crazy for the past month and I find myself relaxing by getting stressed out over what is happening in my current read. From The Road to my first of 52 short stories, Man from the South (by “Mr. Willy Wonka” Roald Dahl,) I get swallowed up by the suspense and love every second of it.
Sitting poolside in Jamaica, a writer, a gambler and a young American are vacationing. The swarthy gambler challenges the American to a bet: if his Zippo lights ten times in a row the man collects the gambler's Cadillac. But if it fails just once, the gambler will keep the man's pinky finger as a trophy.
If the story sound familiar, it has been transformed onto TV and movies three times, notably by Hitchcock, as well as Tarantino in Four Rooms. Just like any story, nothing can compare to the original. The beginning offers imagery that makes you want to be right next to writer having a cold beer in the hot sun. Not until the immaculately dressed gambler is introduced did my tranquil state turn over to anxiety in anticipation of the very last paragraph.
I’m going to come clean here. Even though I’ve covered central New York breweries with the Great Lakes Brewing News for nearly a decade, I’ve never been through a formal tasting process quite like we’re doing here. I’ve focused more on the marketing side of things, reporting about all the great beers that have been flowing out of the Finger Lakes and Catskills regions and the successes of our regional breweries. I recently resigned my position, and I find myself ironically looking more closely at beer than ever. That’s a good thing, people. Like when I quit tabling for MASSPIRG in college and then found time to actually recycle.
Here I am in my kitchen, examining Wolaver’s (Middlebury, VT) Alta Gracia Coffee Porter. Like all of Wolaver’s beers, this is an organic offering. The coffee is from the Dominican Republic, organically grown on a fair trade farm.
The beer pours dark brown, almost black, with a thin, cream-colored head. Fresh espresso beans are more than hinted in the bouquet, as a dry and fragrant aroma of coffee dominates the nose.
Alta Gracia coats the mouth like a glass of whole milk. It has a creamy consistency and has very light carbonation. The beer has a very clean taste, no doubt a result of the high quality ingredients used in production. The pleasant coffee flavor is very prominent with notes of dark chocolate, burnt caramel and bark. The coffee flavor dominates, with coffee flavors remaining long after a sip. The result is that few of the characteristics of a porter are evident, other than color and a body. The balance restored itself somewhat as the beer warmed closer to room temperature.
Overall – 6/10 … This is a tasty and enjoyable beer, a bit of a slow sipper due to the intense coffee flavor and aroma. While the coffee flavor was excellent, I prefer more malt to balance out the porter end of things.
I’m guessing that I’ll be much more comfortable with evaluating beer by the end of the year. Reviewing this one was somewhat stressful, as I hemmed and hawed my way through the pint, only to realize I had very little left to sip when I was done analyzing. I think I discovered a great way to beat this problem, though--for the time being, I’m going to drink two bottles for every one I review.
**WARNING** Please be kind to the writing - hopefully the reviews will get better as the weeks fly by. I have decided that after a year of listening to a new (to me) album a week throughout 2009 that I would keep with the theme of introducing myself to something that I have yet to try. 2010 will have many new experiences but the two I am going to shoot for are BEER and SHORT STORIES. The goal for the beer is to have a new beer each week that I have yet to try, but the twist is that I can not repeat a brewery.
For my first beer of the 52 I have opened a Lost Abbey 10 Commandment. From the bottle: 10 commandments: 1. The most imaginative beers are our crusade. 2. We believe we are all in this together. 3. We strive for honesty and integrity in our lives like you. 4. Fresh beer is great, aged beer is better. 5.Now that you have found us, help us spread the message. 6. There is good and evil in the world, our beers are good. 7. Passion isn't something you can buy at the corner store. 8. We believe an inspired life is worth living. 9. Life is about choices. The Lost Abbey is a great choice. 10. We are not perfect but no one is.
This Belgium Strong Ale in a 750ml bottle and poured a very dark, cola brown into a 16oz tulip glass. A lot more carbonation than I expected, which you can see by the picture above gave it a large head. As the head dissipated it did not leave much or any lacing.
The raisins came fourth big time in the aroma, and a sourness that I expect was caused by the Brett that was added during bottling. The taste was of a dark cherries and red wine which turned into a more sweet alcohol on the finish. It seemed to have an enormous mouthful, but it may have been the abundance of carbonation dancing on the tongue.
There was a lot going on in this beer, but without going over the top, which made it a very enjoyable beer to drink. As the beer got closer to room temperature it only got better. The spices made it a must have beer for the winter time.
Overall - 8/10 ... As the 9th Commandment states, "Life is about choices. The Lost Abbey is a great choice."
Here it is. The first ever post on "Take 52," a new and luxurious experiment in blogging. The writers attached to this page have committed to a one-year experiment: to try something new every single week this year. The idea is to choose one narrow area of interest and then dive in as deeply as possible. When we come up for air in December, we’ll (hopefully) be all the better for it.
This experience has its roots in two small experiments by two of our bloggers. The first was mine.
Back in 2004, I decided to become a freelance writer. Though I wasn’t sure how to do this, I committed to the goal of publishing a piece every single week of that year. Know what happened? By the time February was over, I had a few regular columns and enough contacts with local and regional papers that I had my 52 in the bag. And when the year was up? I was much improved as a writer: quicker, more organized and more precise. I’d also gained a slew of semi-related skills, such as pitching ideas and charming strangers on the telephone. Maybe I got too comfortable in this area, yammering with kid singer Dan Zanes for so long one time that he eventually got pulled over and ticketed for not using a headset with his cell phone. Sorry Dan.
This last year, my cousin Adam (who you’ll soon meet) decided to share a new CD with his close friends each week. Here’s a guy who was still in elementary school when I introduced him to Frank Zappa and Elvis Costello. Now the world has tipped upside down, and he’s been turning me on to band after band for twelve months. Along the way, Adam listened to far more than the 52 he reviewed for us. Most 30-somethings haven’t gotten past the music from their college days. But Adam’s here to tell you that Santana’s SUPERNATURAL ain’t exactly the flavor of the week. Thanks to him, I actually recognize names of bands that are advertised in my town’s weekly entertainment section.
So what exactly will we be writing about? It’s pretty wide open. I’ll be discovering a new classic CD every week. Though I’m pretty well versed in music from the 60s, 70s and 80s, there are still a handful of standards out there that have evaded me. Time to nail them down and show them who’s boss. Shawn will be reading a new young adult novel each week. The rest of us will be uncapping a new beer by a brewery we might not have tried. We’re still fleshing out this idea, so it’s quite possible that more columns will emerge in the coming weeks.
I’m realizing right now that I’m not so great at writing conclusions. Thankfully, I don’t have to think too much about a big wrap-up for another 12 months. And while I’m learning about classic albums that I never quite heard, I’ll also be discovering a lot about blogging and how to write a satisfying ending.
The writers attached to this page have committed to a one-year experiment: to try something new every single week this year. The idea is to choose one narrow area of interest and then dive in as deeply as possible. When we come up for air in December, we’ll (hopefully) be all the better for it.
