Nurse the Hate: Competitive Adventure Podcasting and NFL Championship Weekend

I listened to a podcast this week from a guy that had played in an underground band roughly the same level of “struggling to get noticed” that our various bands have always been.  It’s the level where you book a show somewhere you have played before, have left a decent reputation and have a reasonable belief enough people will show up to see you if you come back.  This is based on the idea that you don’t book a show the same time that Social Distortion is playing a free show at the park or Revered Horton Heat has brought a cavalcade of stars to town at the superior club for $10.  There is always disaster looming around every corner my friends.

 

I had been told that the podcast was great, and he told stories from that early 1990s period well before anyone’s dreams had been crushed by Napster, dance culture, the internet, changing tastes or just fatigue with the struggle.  The podcast is essentially him reading from his book, which I will snottily say isn’t written very well, and frankly the stories aren’t that great.  He spent a great deal of energy writing about how he and his friends hit the road and naively didn’t know the challenges that faced them but bravely dealt with things like snowstorms and friendly cops.  During that same period, we had a pistol pulled on us by a club owner, had a van engine catch on fire, drove across the country on a tour, had bizarre sexual trysts with local girls, avoided angry local boyfriends of those girls, played with most of our record collection, and pushed every physical limit possible.  Shit, I passed out at a lunch spot on a Friday after three consecutive nights of gigs with five am arrivals home with work at 830am.  I was on a tile floor with most of the dining room circled around me asking each other “Is he OK?”.  Hell yeah.  I jumped in the van and played Cincinnati that night.

 

I suppose that ultimately my experience wasn’t that different than the podcast guy.  I mean, in both cases, we were just guys looking for some kind of adventure.  He got enough adventure to satiate his appetite.  I suspected we had bigger tolerances for insanity than those guys, and this podcast bears that out.  However, no matter how far either of us pushed it, at least we fucking tried.  The biggest pitfall in American society now is the safety of everything.  No one takes chances, because chances involve risk, and risk could end in loss.  While it may appear that the only way to avoid loss is to avoid chance, I would say this is a loser’s gambit.  The only way to win is to embrace risk.  While Matt Damon certainly did not say it best in his awkward crypto currency ad, the line isn’t wrong that “fortune favors the bold”.  Sure, there’s a bunch of “bold” people that end up on the rocks, but at least they did try, and kudos should be extended even in a disastrous end.

 

I reached two conclusions.  1.  I will read the book.  Maybe this guy just sucks at telling stories on a microphone.  2.  I am a competitive asshole and I feel like I need to assemble that book I have had built the skeleton of over all these blogging years and kick the shit out of his book.  Hemingway said all writers are competitive and hate each other’s writing.  Well, that wasn’t Hemingway, that was a line of dialogue in a Woody Allen movie spoken by the Hemingway character, which is another writer whose script I could have improved, so fuck both of those guys.

 

Let’s talk about risk.  I should have won both games last week, but Ryan Tannehill screwed me for the last time in 2021-22 with his interception spree.  I had that guy on my fantasy team, and he disappointed me week after week.  There was no reason why he shouldn’t have done the same last week either.  I should have seen it coming.  No matter.  I faded the Bengals last week, and I’m fading them again this week.

 

The Bengals might have won last week, but that was turnovers.  They were outplayed by Vegas and outplayed by Tennessee, but won both.  That shit happens in the NFL.  It’s not happening this week.  Kansas City is turning the dial up.  That win last week was an all time great NFL game, and this week will be an afterthought.  The Bengals are decimated in the defensive line.  They have four players on the D line and practice squad guys.  Their options are either A) blitz Mahomes and get killed or B) give Mahomes time and get killed.  Kansas City is going to score a shit ton of points unless they somehow conveniently turn it over three times or more.  This suggests that Cincinnati will have to outscore KC.  You want any part of that?  I don’t.  Burrow got sacked nine times last week.  I am hoping to hop on Kansas City -7 but will likely swallow the hook if I have to.  I also am in the weeds on the Kansas City team total of OVER 31.   

 

I have been riding with San Francisco and am going to keep going.  They have that team of destiny vibe to them.  The Rams, meanwhile, have a feel of a Greek tragedy.  I’m not suggesting Matt Stafford is going to find out his wife is his mother or anything, but it just seems like that thing is going to collapse.  San Fran has won the last six matchups.  This suggests a coaching edge, because the Rams have been stacked.  The 49ers have a great defense, especially on the D line.  That’s how games are won.  That Ram offensive line, despite a great game last week, has been soft in spots.  I think this game is going to be a grind, and I love getting 3.5 with a great defensive team.  San Francisco +3.5.  Oh, I also like Cam Akers UNDER 63.5 yards rushing.  That guy fumbled twice last week.  No way they feed him the ball.  He won’t get enough attempts to get 63.5 yards.

 

Season Record:  36-35 

Nurse the Hate: Amsterdam, Game Shows and the NFL Divisional Round

 

 

I was running on a treadmill the other day at the gym.  The TV was set to a Price Is Right rerun.  I have a philosophy that once you hit a certain age, you are either “sore” or “fat”.  There is no option that exists for “looking presentable and feeling comfortable”.  The only choices are various shades of misery.  My feet made dull thuds on the treadmill track.  On the screen an overtly gay heavyset black man made wild gesticulations at the very thought of winning The Showcase Showdown prize package.  It was a pool table, shoes, and a wind surfing rig.  As far as I could tell, he wasn’t going to play pool, was too fashionable for the cheap shoes, and had absolutely no chance to balance on a windsurfing board.  He was VERY excited though.  He made his bid.  It looked like about $3000 worth of crap.  He bid something like $27,000.

The next showcase came up.  It was a woman in her thirties in a conservative top and sensible flats.  She was sort of cute, like if she put forth an effort, she would make everyone at her 20^th high school reunion go “Woah!  Did you see Michelle Jenkins?  She didn’t look like that in high school!”.  However, Michelle didn’t feel a national TV appearance warranted that type of effort, so she looked like she had just popped out to Home Depot for some wallpaper samples.  The big doors opened up with the announcer screaming “A NEW CAR!!!!!” and a shot of the studio audience going apeshit.  It was a Hyundai Elantra or something like that, a sensible entry level car.  In fact, I would bet almost anything Michelle had driven an earlier model of the same car to the show taping.  Hers probably has a dent in the driver’s side where she misjudged a parking lot pole, and a small tool kit in the dashboard, because Michelle seems like a prudent woman from the 8 second assessment I made while running on the treadmill.

This is when things got exciting.  The announcer waited just the right amount of time between the crowd reaction to the car to slightly settle before really letting them have it.  “A trip to Amsterdam!”  By this time the crowd was ready to have heart attacks they were so blown away by the frenzy of it all.  Even Michelle seemed pretty jacked up.  This is when I started to hope Michelle lost the Showcase Showdown.  In what is clear evidence of a personality defect, I decided Michelle didn’t deserve to go to Amsterdam.  What kind of adventure would she have there?  Maybe she’d get crazy and buy some street fries and try them with mayo, but that would be about it.  Oh, it was pure envy on my part.  Michelle has every right to go to Amsterdam.  I just didn’t want her to go and me to be stuck in Ohio typing into a computer making other people rich.

I have been to Amsterdam twice, but both trips there added up to about three hours.  I was on Daredevils tours both times.  Once we stopped to buy some music equipment.  I think Bob needed a pedal or something when some of our rental gear took a shit.  We pulled in fast and hoped junkies wouldn’t break into our van in the 55 minutes we had to park the van.  They didn’t and we went on our way. 

The other time there we decided to walk around town for a bit on our way to some crazy town in Holland that had a British submarine base where most of the crew showed up to our gig and drank the bar dry of Amstel.  It was a gorgeous afternoon.  Obviously, Leo’s agenda was to go to one of the famous “coffee shops” and sample the local weed.  We sat outside in the Red Light district sipping beers, our faces in the sun.  It was that time of year when the sun only has so much heat to give, so you try to lap it up when you can.  We sat next to a canal and watched shitfaced pale Irish drunk boys shuffle past.

It came to our attention that the coffee house also sold mushrooms.  A theory began to emerge that it would be a good idea to buy some “just in case we needed them”.  When you are drinking beers in the middle of the afternoon on a rock tour with a driver ready to take you to the next gig, this seems not only reasonable, but irrational NOT to secure these supplies.  Leo went in to figure out the particulars.  It was interesting as they offered four types of mushrooms.  These were made available on a menu board that looked like a chicken wing joint.  As I recall, the first three options were geography based with increasing strength.  For example, “Maui provides pleasant feelings and an overall body buzz” followed by “Mexican provides giggles and enhanced color sensitivity”.  The one at the very top caught my eye.  It said something like “Golden Teacher:  Only for the most experienced cosmic adventurer, for those that want to travel to the very limits of the mind and break into new dimensions”.

I sat outside at a small bistro table.  I was in cowboy boots, playing music with my friends, sipping an excellent crisp beer in a place that looked like a movie set.  We had a show tonight, tomorrow, and the night after that.  The entire world just consisted of getting in and out of a van, playing the songs we made up in our basement, and then doing it again somewhere new the next day.  I heard Leo come out of the shop.  He was holding a bag.  I asked him what he got in there, already knowing the answer.  “Golden Teacher…  As much as I could get.”  He nodded his head while he said it, knowing in advance that I knew what he was going to tell me. 

Are you going to tell me Michelle was going to try to have that kind of Amsterdam trip?  Yes, I had completely projected my image of Michelle based on nothing really.  As far as I knew she would spend her day in art galleries and at night engage in forbidden sex acts with sullen Eastern European prostitutes and their business associates.  If you really get down to it, I was just jealous that she was going to have the chance to do something interesting, whatever that might be, and it felt like she was stealing that opportunity from me.  I wanted to go back to the nice afternoon on the canal.  Why did she get to do it instead of me?  I kept running.  Thud thud thud.  The heavy gay black guy was only $1800 off.  Michelle came though though, winning her Amsterdam trip and car by being just $400 off.  She seemed really happy.  Winner.  There was much rejoicing as the credits rolled.

I’ll tell you something, I’ve got a couple winners this week.  I like Tennessee -3.5 and the Rams +3.  Tennessee has everyone coming back healthy.  They are the most underrated #1 seed in the playoffs I can ever remember.  They had injuries to most of their key offensive players (Henry, Brown, Jones) and went on this run starting Oct 18th- Bills (W), Kansas City (W), Colts (W), Rams (W), Saints (W).  Now they are healthy and are coming off a bye week and get to play at home?  Vrabel is twice the coach Taylor is, and the Bengals are that point where they partied all week at their great fortune.  Their dream dies this week.  I’d like it better at -3, so I might wait for kickoff to see if it drops. 

Tampa has had an amazing run, but those dudes are decimated at the skill positions.  Brady now has two receivers in his circle of trust (Gronk and Evans) and has to face a defense that is great at up the middle pressure.  I don’t trust Stafford, but I think the Rams defense keeps the Bucs offense in check.  I hate betting against The Witch, but the points are too much to pass up.  The Rams just have too many matchup advantages all over the place.  If I can tease on threes, I am going to go Rams +9/Titans +3.   

 

Season Record:  35-34

Nurse the Hate: Thinking Wild Card Weekend in the Finger Lakes

 

I am in the Finger Lakes right now visiting some wineries to talk about things like native yeast programs, dosage philosophies, and rootstock selection.  It must be nice for the winery people to talk to someone that cares about their upgraded fermentation vessels when 95% of the visitors say things like "I don't like sweet wines, but this riesling is actually pretty good" in regards to a world class wine the winemaker has painstakingly crafted.  It would be like showing up at their job and saying "You know Nancy, most nurses I have met have been self destructive nymphomaniacs with a fierce appetite for cigarettes and relationships with abusive men, but you seem OK."  What are you going to do?  Most people are simple apes.

The wines here in the Finger Lakes have improved remarkably from the first time I came here about 20 years ago.  Back then it was mostly country bumpkins making simple sweet wines meant to get bachelorette parties and Moms shitfaced.  The level of winemaking knowledge and investment level here has skyrocketed.  The best rieslings here remind me of good producers from the Pfalz and Rheinhessen.  They have a combination of citrus fruit purity, linear acidity, and great balance.  These can be serious wines.  Sure, there are still a bunch of sweet bullshit wines from vidal, niagara, concord, etc. but they are still well made regardless if they are "serious".  As long as they stay in their lane with rieslings, gewürztraminers, some sparklers, and maybe cabernet franc in warm years, the wines are worth your attention.     

The wineries I was visiting are located great distances from each other across the region.  This left me plenty of time in the car driving past terrifying dilapidated trailers and crumbling houses flying "Trump Won" and "Don't Tread On Me" flags.  If you are living in a sunken trailer with garbage strewn all over your property, I am going to point out that perhaps the Golden Trump Years might not have improved your situation much, unless of course, you previously lived in a mud hut.  It's sort of shocking the level of rural poverty in this part of New York once you get away from any of the lakes.  It's like Arkansas with worse weather.

The one unifying thing appears to be a love of the Buffalo Bills, who had almost as many flags represented as the various thinly veiled hate messages.  I'm on board.  In fact, as I am writing this I am sipping on a "Pills Mafia" from Thin Man Brewery.  As an old season ticket holding family of Bills fans, I am pulling for Buffalo this weekend.  Unfortunately for them, they have to play New England for a third time in zero degree weather with winds whipping around the stadium on Saturday night.  I will not be there in person, but I will raise a can of Pills Mafia to the hearty souls that brave that weather.  I'm not touching that game otherwise.  I have no idea what is going to happen.

Let's move onto a game where I have an opinion.  I like San Francisco.  I think Dallas has beaten lousy teams, and lost to good teams.  The Cowboys are not great at home, have injuries all over the place to their explosive playmakers, and Dak just doesn't look right.  San Francisco is coming off two high pressure games, the last one a come-from-behind win over the Rams.  I think as opposed to them being gassed just to get in, they are feeling confident they can beat anyone.  I am going to see if the very public Cowboys get enough action to move the number to 3.5, but if it doesn't, I am still on San Francisco +3.

I am going to make a small bet on the Raiders.  Until I see Cincinnati win a playoff game, I am going to assume it can't happen.  I also have some questions about Joe Burrow's health.  Burrow got hurt in his knee on the last snap he took in that debacle of a finish vs Kansas City two weeks ago.  He then came out of the gate saying "I'm not playing" against Cleveland as opposed to the coach saying "we are resting Joe".  I think something is going on there.  If Burrow isn't 100%, that will be an issue against a very strong Raiders defensive line.  I don't think the Raiders are very good.  They could just as easily be 6-11 and pointing fingers right now, but if Burrow is playing injured the Bengals suck.  Raiders +5.5   

Season Record:  34-33 (last week plus season win totals) 

Nurse the Hate: Rioja and the Final NFL Week

 

I have been to the Rioja region of Spain three times.  The first time I didn’t know what Rioja was and Bobby Latina blew up a Fender Twin.  I couldn’t hear correctly for three days and still have a slight ringing in my ears at all times.  The second time I was in a Sprinter van with the Whiskey Daredevils and looked around and saw vines after a long drive through a tundra where we had been shanghai-ed by a couple of local Spanish cops that tried to steal our money.  I remember Christoph was driving.  We were in the middle of fucking nowhere.  It sort of looked like Montana.  We passed a small white cop car who immediately pulled out to follow us.  This made some sense in that we were in a green van with the phrase “LSD Trips” painted down the side.  Why a rock n’ roll tour van company would choose to advertise that their clients were likely breaking whatever substance laws of the place they were driving through seems a curious business plan.  We can’t give you your van back if it has been impounded. 

 

You haven’t lived until you have had German cops pull you over near the Dutch border asking for “your papers”.  I was nervous as shit and I hadn’t even done anything illegal in the last 48 hours.  I did regret not casting to memory the phrase “Das sind nicht meine Drogen.  Das sind Leos.  Bringen Sie mich sofort zur Amerikanischen Botschaft.” Or “Those are not my drugs.  Those are Leo’s.  Take me to the American Embassy at once.”  A flashlight beam to the face.  A check of the passport.  A little flower talk from Christoph.  We were on our way.  Not that time in Spain though.  Those cops didn’t give a shit about “our papers”.  They saw an easy mark.

 

We had kept all of our tour money in a concealed safe under the passenger seat in the second row of seats.  The van did a poor job of deferring unwanted attention, but that safe was very well hidden.  When the cops pulled us over, it was allegedly because we didn’t have our seatbelts on.  Christoph and whoever was riding shotgun did, and there was no way they could have seen us in back, but it didn’t appear that we would have been able to successfully argue ourselves out of the situation that way.  The cops sized us up, and told us we have some insane fine that we had to pay for each of the three guys that weren’t wearing seatbelts.  They wanted something like 450 euros.  They were very adamant that the best way to handle this was to just pay them the fine directly in cash.  This was obviously a lie.  We countered with our own lie.  We claimed not to have any cash.  This pissed them off as our lie was an effective counter to their lie, and they then refused to let us leave unless we paid them via a credit card.  Holy shit were they pissed when Krusty pulled out a credit card to pay it.  I mean, what could they do?  All of our various lies had run their course.

 

I can’t recall if Krusty called his credit card company to refute the charge.  I remember I argued strongly that he should do so as these guys were local cops from what I now suspect to be a small town in the autonomous region of Aragon.  Krusty, concerned that he would be detained at the airport later that week in some sort of scene reminiscent of “Midnight Express” was quite hesitant to do so.  I don’t remember if he cancelled that charge, but I do know that he has not returned to Spain.  Perhaps The Jackal (aka Krusty) is still being monitored on the Interpol grid.  I forget.  But at least those cops didn’t steal our money and we got out of Spain without incident.  In fact, the people of Rioja were quite welcoming. 

 

The last time I was in Rioja we played a gig with The Godfathers, a late 1980s Brit post punk band I always liked.  The band has two Irish brothers at its core, the Coyne Brothers.  I remember a few things about that gig.  We had a pre-show meal with the band at a local restaurant and drank some Rioja wine.  I knew by then what good wine was, but this wasn’t it.  I mean, it was OK, but in the promotor’s defense, there was no reason to bust out La Rioja Alta Gran Riserva to a bunch of goons that wouldn’t know the difference.  We played our set and in the small dressing room afterwards, Chris the bass player said “Was that lyric in that Wichita Buzzcut song “my teeth are like toothpicks, too much crystal meth”?.  When I told him it was, he nodded and laughed.  “That’s pretty good mate.”  Those guys then went out and played great, as good as when I had seen them in the late 1980s at Peabody’s Down Under.  At one point Peter Coyne, the singer, jumped off the stage and hit some guy in the crowd that did something that pissed him off, hopped back on stage and then went right into the next verse.   They closed with “Birth School Work Death”.  That’s a good rock show.

 

I mention Rioja at all because it’s white knuckle time for one of my season long NFL bets.  I bet “NO” on “Do the Saints make the Playoffs?”.  It’s not going to change my world if I win or lose this wager, but I really want to win.  If I win, this will allow me to buy a very good bottle of Rioja wine, perhaps something from R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia like their gran riserva.  This was something I didn’t know about the last time I was in Rioja, and I really wish I had.  The good news is that now the Saints and internet shopping can make all of these wrongs right.  I need the Saints to somehow lose to the Falcons OR the 49ers to beat the Rams.  This is far from a sure thing, but I am leaning 49ers anyway.  I might figure out a hedge, but it seems more sporting to just drink a lesser Rioja and root against the Saints tomorrow. 

 

Here’s an interesting fact.  Justin Fields, the Chicago Bears “QB of the Future”, tested positive for covid.  That news moved the line from Vikings -6 to Vikings -4.  It’s never good news when you are a #1 pick and the market reacts to Andy Dalton starting instead of you by throwing money at your team now that you’re out.  Both of these guys sorta suck, but Fields has quietly become competent at times in the second half of the season.  Meanwhile the Vikings are giving all indications they are coming out to win, playing all the veterans, and Zimmer is coaching to win.  Seattle was favored by seven a couple weeks ago at home versus the Bears.  Now Minnesota, definitely better than Seattle, is at home giving four?  I see what is called “line value” here.  Minnesota -4

 

I think the Giants might be worse than Jacksonville right now, and that’s saying something.  The Giants have a completely defeated vibe to them, and they are going to finish up the season with David Fromm at QB.  Fromm played a couple weeks ago when he came in to relieve an awful Mike Glennon and was so bad that they put Glennon back in.   The Giants are playing Washington, and if there is one thing The Football team can do,  it’s stop the run.  If the Giants can’t run, that means they’ll need David Fromm to win the game.  How the fuck is that going to happen?  I am taking Washington -7 and teasing them with New England, who I am also taking -6 to beat Miami.

 

I spoke with a friend of mine that was on the practice squad of New England and Kansas City for two years.  When he was on New England they were in this same scenario.  They had clinched a playoff berth, and had zero visible motivation.  The Hoodie prepped for that game and pushed them like it was the Super Bowl.  He told me that when he was on KC and they had been eliminated from the Playoffs, nobody gave one solitary fuck.  This week the Patriots have a re-match versus a Miami team that had their playoff aspirations crushed last week and beat New England earlier this year.  Who do you like?  Miami with no motivation or New England with Belichick with his hand on the whip getting ready for the playoffs?  Washington -7, New England -6, Wash-1/NE pick em  

 

The Ravens stink.  They have used 82 players this year.  The guys in the Ravens uniforms aren’t even the Ravens.  I’ll take Pittsburgh, with slim playoff hopes, with points and on the road.  Who is motivated here?  The Ravens or the Steelers with slim playoff chances and maybe Big Ben’s last NFL game against their rival?  Pittsburgh +3.5

 

Season Record: 29-31

Nurse the Hate: MW Merlot Project Part 1

 

I believe I am going to be starting up a side blog on my wine writings.  I almost used the word "launching", but using that word in regards to beginning a small blog dedicated to wine seems preposterous.  It's like when I hear friends of mine in small indie bands that "drop" a new song, as if a seismic shift has been made because yet another soon to be ignored .wav file is cluttering up the icloud.  However, I think I can provide some value to fellow Master of Wine students or prospective students that want to hear about the various pitfalls of someone attempting to navigate this minefield.  I am not under the illusion that this potential audience is large, and this comes from a guy that sings in a country punk band that is obsessively gambling on NFL Football.  However, most people that are interested in my rock and roll misfortunes and gambling miscues are probably not concerned about an in depth essay on extended red wine maceration techniques.  For now though, I thought I'd bring you up to speed on my attempt at making a red wine.

I decided to make some Sonoma merlot.  Well, I decided to make red wine really just to have the experience, and I didn’t want to be stuck with five gallons of crappy kit cabernet from God knows where.  Most wine kits from brewery supply shops give you “red” or maybe “cabernet”.  If the grape source isn’t good, then the wine you make will be bottom shelf grocery store shit, and that’s if you do EVERYTHING right.  It’s amazing to me that people go to the trouble of making wine themselves and then cheap out on the grapes.  “Hey, want some shitty Chilean cabernet?  This juice kit is on sale!”   Why make wine you wouldn’t want to drink even if it came out perfectly?  It all goes back to my basic philosophy of not scrimping on shoes, cheese, sound equipment or wine.  The investment will always pay off. 

 

I tend to learn by doing.  “Why!  You’re a visual learner!”  No, it’s really that I learn by making mistakes and then trying to fix them.  I am trying to learn as much about the winemaking process as I can because the people I am in this MW program with make wines that are on every wine store shelf in the country, and I made a glass jug of Semillon once.  I am just going to come out and say it.  I feel I might have a little less working knowledge than someone that made 1 million bottles of William Hill cabernet last year.  I’m now expected to know all sorts of winemaking answers and for the most part I can’t even understand the questions. 

 

The good thing is that if you are making a plastic pail of wine or a steel oil refinery sized tank, the basic process is essentially the same.  Crush the red grapes.  Adjust the “must” (or the crushed grapes/juice/skins) if the acid, sugar or pH is off.  Add some yeast.  Keep everything clean.  Monitor temperatures and push “cap” (the skins which rise to the top when CO2 is given off in the alcohol conversion).  I had decided to source some Sonoma grapes from a vineyard I looked up on a map.  The frozen pail arrived after Xmas, and I tried to time out the thaw to give myself the perfect window to handle the ferment.  Of course, I fucked that up.

 

It worked out that the grapes got to my target temperature of 72 degrees at about 1am after I played a gig at the Beachland.  It seems like the room I have them in will get to 80 degrees shortly, optimal for maxing out my tannins and color from the grapes.  I don't really have a choice.  I need to start now.  So, I’m exhausted, buzzed up on shots of Jager given to me from folks that graciously attended the show, and trying to measure out things like OptiRed (to enhance color during ferment), GoFerm (to provide yeast some nutrients to kickstart fermentation) and the yeast itself.  One of the first big winemaking choices is the yeast.  There are a million options, each which is trumpeted as providing various attributes to your wine.  More aromatics!  Bigger mouthfeel!  More fruit!  Less fruit!  Faster fermentation!  Slower!  Lower pH!  Higher pH!  Of course, with each choice comes downside.  If you decide to use Yeast X, then while you gain some aromatic complexity, you lose acidity and it might taste flabby.  That means you might consider another yeast, which gives you fermentation while holding that acidity, but then again, do you want to deal with possibly a loss of color and flavor?  Everything is a game of jenga.  One choice influences the entire house of cards, and you don’t know you made the wrong choice until it’s too late.

 

I decided to go with UCD-725 Bordeaux Red, which is a yeast that allegedly provides some elements of Bordeaux wines to the resulting merlot.  Merlot makes up the lion’s share of most Bordeaux wines, especially on the Right Bank of the Gironde River in St Emilion, Pomerol, and other nearby communes that make wines I like.  I thought it would be interesting to see if I could add some of the more earthy character of those wines into grapes I full expected to be black fruit dominated.  I am hoping to add some complexity to what I assume is ripe fruit, and then barrel age it in American oak for some kind of Sonoma/Bordeaux/Rioja gumbo of a wine.  If it works, I’ll refer to it as “fusion”.  If it doesn’t, I’ll quietly pass them out to friends that can’t tell the difference between good and bad wine.

 

The downside of starting the fermentation process at 1am was that I had two buckets of grapes, but only one set of tools to mix up the yeast and additives.  Each step required a 15 minute wait until proceeding to the next step.  This resulted in me setting my phone alarm, placing it on my chest, and being awoken every quarter hour by the loud duck quack ringtone I had selected.  At one point I wasn’t positive if I had double yeasted one bucket and not added yeast to the other.  Even now, I’m not sure.  They both are forming a cap, are generating some heat, and appear to be moving the brix meter, so I think I’m OK.  I’m just not positive.  By the time I went to bed at 435am, I didn’t give a fuck.  I just wanted some sleep.

Nurse the Hate: Fun Town and NFL Gambling

 

I would highly suggest watching the documentary "Class Action Park" which is ostensibly about a water fun park outside of NYC in the late 1970s-early 80s, but is really about the changes in American life.  The "fun park" is a bunch of dangerous as shit water slides which were built by people with no engineering experience and little regard for safety.  One of them seemed like something Leo might have made.  It was a water slide at an impossible angle down a mountainside which threw kids into a loop before spitting them out into a laughably short catch pool.  The early test riders got knocked unconscious and lost teeth. As a former employee remembered "A human being can experience 7Gs two ways.  One is to pilot an F-15 fighter plane.  The other was to ride the cannonball loop at Action Park."

What the documentary is really about is how much has changed being a kid in 1980 and a kid in 2022.  There are a lot of kids that live in my neighborhood.  I almost never see any of them playing outside, riding bikes more than 500 feet away from their houses or creating any of their own fun.  Kids today go from sanctioned parental supervised activity to the safety bubble of home.  I have no idea if any of these kids ever experience any forms of risk before being led out of their cocoons.  Meanwhile a 1980s kid would leave the house in the morning, hop on a bike and be gone until dinner.  No one ever even asked what we were doing in any great detail.  We built "forts", jumped off railroad trestles, got in rock fights with strange kids from other neighborhoods, and took trips to places like "Airport Go-Karts" and "Fun Town".  

Anyone that is over the age of 45 can attest that no one cared about safety for kids when they grew up.  I remember a huge domed Jungle Gym that got erected at our elementary school on top of concrete.  Kids would hang off the top of it by their legs, and fall off onto their heads on the concrete all the time.  I saw more head wounds by the time I was 10 than guys that landed at Normandy on D-Day.  

"Fun Town", which wasn't particularly "fun", had a fiberglass slide that baked in the sun all day.  You would be given a foul smelling burlap sack, climb up the stairs, and then be told by a 15 year old kid working there that was in charge of safety to "go... go...go".  If any part of your body touched the surface of the slide, it immediately was scalded like you had sat on a waffle iron.  The burlap sack would juuuust fit your body on it, so you had to be ready when your split second window came when you were commanded to "go" by the Fun Town Slide Patrol Kid.  The first hill made it seem like it was going to be fun as you whooshed down.  The real action came right after that first straightaway when you dropped down to hill #2.  You usually had so much speed that you flew off the little track that was supposed to contain you.  If you were unlucky, you landed on the rail that separated the lanes, instantly giving you a bruised taint.  What was more likely was flying off the burlap slightly, and then landing with your exposed skin on the red hot fiberglass to make a "skreeeeeeee!!!!" sound as you slid down what was effectively a scalding hot cheese grater.  You'd see kids on the filthy carpet at the bottom looking at horror at their mangled legs and arms.  Ah yes, Fun Town...

What struck me about the "Class Action Park" documentary was an America and time that is gone.  Looking back at all the rides and alleged "safe" playground equipment we were provided, it probably borders on negligence.  I remember this swinging metal bar that was attached by chains to a metal pole.  You would swing back and forth when another kid that was your basic size got balanced on the other side.  Of course, if they jumped off, you'd fly into the metal pole and smash your fingers onto the center pole.  That wasn't a piece of playground equipment so much as a lesson in negotiated trust.  "Look Kevin, I'll swing on that with you, but don't fucking jump off and bust my fingers.  Promise?  Say it!  Say "I promise"!"

There is something useful about learning about trust, limits, centrifugal force, the limits of 12 year old boy bike repair, and exploring.  The world is a dangerous place, but not enough to be terrified of 24/7.  Once you get knocked off a metal bridge with a freezing water cannon at a Toronto Water Park, you keep your head on a swivel.  Seeing Joey Kemet in a cast all summer from jumping off the Walnut Creek trestle is a valuable learning lesson.  Some dirtbombs have rocks inside.  Other ones burst apart in Richard Cameron's face.  Just saying.  That world is gone, litigated out of existence by Travel Soccer Moms and hysterical heavy handed parents.  It might be a safer world for kids, but is it better?  I don't know.

Here's what I do know.  The Raiders stink.  Yes, they are on the cusp of a Playoff berth, but that's a joke.  This game was looking like the Raiders caught yet another monster break when Carson Wentz tested positive for covid.  Wentz is unvaccinated, and maintained it was a "private decision, made with his family".  I have no idea why these franchises pay these key players unlimited fortunes when at any given time they can be taken off the field for covid protocols.  And save me the "the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting covid" shit.  If you are vaccinated, you'll have an annoying cold.  If you are unvaccinated, you could be out two weeks as per NFL Player Union agreed terms.  I think Wentz was one of those idiots that "did his own research".  He probably had a lab set up in Indianapolis and got up to speed on all relevant science in between practices.  Why do these guys think they are smart?  Is it all the interviews they do?  That must be it.  Regardless, I waited to see if he was going to clear for the game, and thankfully he did.  The Colts need a win, are better than the Raiders, and Vegas is banged up.  Colts money line.

Miami has seven wins in a row.  That sounds like an oncoming juggernaut.  Of course, when you look closer, it's not so impressive.  They beat Houston, Lamar injured Ravens, Jets, Panthers, Giants, Saints with a 4th string QB.  Tennessee, certainly not a great team at present, is still a big step up to what the Dolphins have been seeing.  I am going to combine Tennessee and the Saints, a lousy team that is still able to beat a Carolina team that seems to have folded up the tents.  I mean, when you go back to Sam Darnold, that's not a good sign.  Tennessee +3/Saints -.5 and Saints money line.

I don't see how the Browns can win.  I am going to wait and see what Cincinnati does on Sunday.  If the Bengals beat KC, the Browns are officially out of the playoffs.  This would be good for the team as the last thing they need to do is go into week 17 and play Cincinnati for a winner-take-all divisional title game.  The Browns dreams were crushed twice in five days with a shorthanded loss to the Raiders followed by a disastrous loss to Green Bay on Xmas Day.  If they are in a position to play Pittsburgh with something on the line, they'll fold.  I don't see how it's possible to win with Baker Mayfield and an unmotivated team against a Steeler team giving Roethlesberger a career victory lap.  Depending on circumstance and covid, I'm taking Pittsburgh as a money line underdog.  

Season record 26-30