Monday, December 25, 2006

the seed of American spirits

The Youghiogheny River fell out of Maryland when we weren’t looking. It fell down a mountain through game lands and small towns, gathering streams and joining the Monongahela before Pittsburgh. There’s only one flat farm field before this confluence and Jim drove past it that day. “I used to plow this field when I was a kid. It was nice to plow a flat field. They grew rye on that field. This is whiskey country here boy.”

This is the original whiskey country, the seed of American spirits. The river took it south into the wilderness, beyond the reaches of taxation and regulation.

We followed the bottomlands along the creek for miles. Climbing steeply up the other side looking down below, a long large broken brick building stretched out rigidly along the banks. Broken down, black and burnt, rusted machinery and cars in the yard. “That’s the Old Overholt distillery, or it’s the old Old Overholt distillery at any rate.”

Here we are standing below the log cabin and firing shotguns toward the creek. Here we are two hours later doing the same. Starting off one at a time, then two targets at once, then two shooters at once, then three clays and four. The sun set and it was cold. We could see our breath. We were tired and content.

Enlarge the pictures by clicking upon them.











Saturday, December 23, 2006

how do you over cook soup?

Ignore the title of this post. It has nothing to do with anything when you think about it. It's perfectly possible to over cook soup. Especially the noodle varieties. This is why I have switched to a completely macrobiotic, no-cook, vegan, whole foods, Jungle Jim diet: crap in, crap out's my motto. The human body is exactly like computer programming: you have to harness the whole power of the whole body-mind-spirit dasein-geist. DNA proves that god exists and that he's a big fan of macrobiotica. Deepak Chopra told me that.

There is lots to say here folks. A story about the Whiskey Rebellion and 30-06 rifle fire and my impending trip to NYC. Flash fiction and the impending birth of poetry-prose, not to be confused with prose-poetry. My impending trip to Tidioute, Dunn's Eddy and, wait for it, Wolf Creek. And, of course, Benwah's new case of syphilis. It's no laughing matter.

Here is my new Indianabeer.com piece. I like the first paragraph and the description of the lager, but other than that I think Matt Dunn fucked it up pretty good. Click the picture please.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

two things

I was on the Good Beer Show last week and it is posted here.

There is a very cool article about recent human evolution in the NY Times here.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

indianabeer all up in here

The webmaster continues to come up with clever new titles for my Indianabeer pieces. Excelsior: climbing a mountain in winter.

Click the pic to be magically transported through the interblag tubes.