Aug 11 2010 11:31 am
the blue state theory
Michigan is probably the most weirdly shaped of all states, the direct contiguity of land masses being of first importance when adjudicating shape weirdness. It’s all fucking wonky. The Lower Peninsula itself is like you piled a bunch of dirt and rocks on a piece of paper in a foot of water then tried to lift it out with only one hand under the paper. And I’m sure Wisconsin is pretty pissed about the whole Upper Peninsula thing, or Canada maybe, and Ohio? While the Toledo War was relatively bloodless, the psychological scars run deep.
Why Michigan has such good fishing and beer is probably unrelated directly to its shape. The shape and the fishing certainly share some common cause, but why do some areas of the country have great craft beer and others don’t? What do California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, for instance, all have in common? They all voted democrat in 2008 (and, except for Colorado, in 2000 and 2004 as well).
Do liberals just like better beer? Surely it’s more complicated than that: liberals are more creative, interesting, and willing to take risks than are conservatives. Just kidding. Sort of. I’m sure conservatives would respond with the arrogance, faux-sophisticate counter attack: liberals like to feel superior and “cultured” so they make and drink expensive, fancy beer. If only beer was more French, then they would have an argument. Wink. Wink.
Wink.
More traditional brewing states like Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and even Ohio and Indiana share some obvious social history in that they hosted large German immigrant communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but Indiana and Ohio have fallen off the pace over the past twenty years, Three Floyds and Hoppin’ Frog notwithstanding, though they are making giant strides recently. Is the blue state theory of craft beer enough to account for these trends? Probably. If nothing sticks to Teflon, how does Teflon stick to the pan?
Either way, it’s widely known that you don’t get rich playing Keno at the Sandbar. Say, Wade, what happened to your website dude?
Jul 9 2010 2:52 pm
I'm not the stabby kind
It was like when you were a kid and you were in the city and you lost track of your mommy or your daddy or whomever the fuck you had supposedly watching over you. You stood there in the middle of the sidewalk melting into tears and the passersby dared not take notice and your mouth gaped into a grotesque frown as glycerin saliva ran down your chin and from your nose. You wailed and you wailed but your mommy or your daddy or whomever the fuck you had supposedly watching over you never came. None of the passersby stopped either, those callous city pricks. You took a couple short hiccup sobs and closed your stupid mouth. You rubbed your eyes with the backs of bent wrists. You looked around. Then you just started walking. Then this happened and that happened blah blah, but all that really matters is in the end you stabbed that stupid bitch in the throat in Utah and got the chair or the chemicals or maybe even the firing squad, whatever those weirdo hicks have down there.
Now I’m not saying I’m the stabby kind, but if I run across a pickup with a busted right front headlight and blue paint on the bumper I might just stab the owner in the throat. Over and over and over again.
And by the by, Sherer Speed was up for a very pleasant visit. He caught a nice brown. The end.
Jun 26 2010 10:09 pm
Gleason's rope
The bells clang aloud. I keep having dreams about being in my boat on the river at night. I’m lying on my back and have no control; I slowly spin in an eddy beneath moonlight filtered through trees whose leaves look oddly like mini-blinds. I feel around and realize the anchor is gone, so are the oars, in fact everything is gone and my boat is smaller than I remember it. I feel for the water and touch short-napped carpet and realize I’m in bed.
When I got back from a steelhead trip last fall I had similar dreams. I was lying on my stomach at the front of Kevin’s boat and he’s telling me to push us off a rock so I’m pushing and pushing. I pushed my bed a foot from the wall three nights in a row.
Several years ago when I returned from England I moved into a new house. I had a dream for a week in which I was trying to climb up a very narrow, rapids-choked ravine on the headwaters of the River Dart. I pulled my blinds off the wall several times.
I have a dream that one day all the female writers from The New Yorker’s 20 under 40 fiction issue want to go fishing in Michigan and fall madly in love with me.
I have a dream that my Gleason’s Rope grows by several thousand miles so I can tow myself to Alaska on the cheap. And by Gleason’s Rope I don’t mean penis.
I think these interactive dreams have something to do with new houses and mini-blinds. As for catching large fish, I’ve conducted many empirical studies and conclude with some not insignificant bravado that it’s all about motherfucking time on the motherfucking water. But I have to take a day off. I’m out of the good flies.
Jun 19 2010 11:52 am
I'm your ice cream man
The wind blows off the lake every day. It’s cool here, ten degrees cooler than ten miles inland and a lot more pleasant than southern Indiana. Of course come January I may be singing a different tune, probably Van Halen’s Ice Cream Man, but it could be something else, I don’t really know. See, all my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy.
No more run-ins with the neighbors and my mailwoman is hot. The fishing has been off the chain yo. Yes, off the chain. Epic. The real deal. Rather good.
I’ve pulled the boat up more dirt roads and over those same railroad tracks more times this past week than I care to remember. Driving rt.10 at night is disorienting. It’s so long and straight. High beams three miles away look like aliens. The battleship looms in my rearview and those stupid national forest parking tags get sucked off the dash and out the passenger side window with some not uncommon frequency.
I owe a lot to Steve Martinez for helping me learn the river and get settled in Ludington. Maybe one of the most competent guys I’ve ever met, hell of a fisherman and more than willing to go out of his way to help me. Thanks Steve.
And have you seen the new Drake? I actually have a piece in there about Indiana creek smallmouth with a reference to thick women, always a positive.
Jun 14 2010 12:01 am
dear big brown trout
I hear you in that corner, slurping big mayflies one after another. I can’t get to you. If I did get to you, I wouldn’t be able to tell anyway because it’s fucking dark. So just eat my fly already. I’m sure you don’t realize this, but you’re just another hum-drum cog in a hum-drum machine, eating one widget all day and shittin’ out another. Big, noble brown trout. Mr. Fancy pants.
Blue blood fuck.
Everything is a cog or a widget and most things are both, like loss and love and getting told by your new neighbors that you shouldn’t park on the side of the street facing the wrong way. “It’s so you don’t have to drive the wrong way when you pull out.” Thanks. You’re a big help there Mrs. Little Urban Planner Achiever Award. I imagine racially you’re pretty cool, but as far as where I park on this extremely not busy street with only a couple houses on one side, I think I can manage.
(I do have a fishbeer sticker on my car so it’s possible my neighbor will read this)
For what’s it worth dear neighbor, I appreciate the fact that I am now much less likely to get a ticket. I also have a legitimate problem with people telling me what to do. So despite my protestations, I appreciate the heads up and believe that over time you’ll find I’m not actually as difficult as some people may claim.
(Don’t shit where you eat my friends, all’s well that ends well, I truly believe this will have cleared things up and neighbors can’t read parenthetical asides either way, well known fact).
