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My great friend Taube gave me an awesome mug recently.  (I still have my beard in the picture, so you can see how recently.)  The mug indicates that I am the world’s best boss.  So it’s possible that Taube thinks I am the best boss.  However, I did notice that the mug is made in China, so it is also possible that Taube is trying to poison me via lead using my love of coffee against me.  Time will tell.

Just to clear the air, Taube, I really am sorry for skimming SO MUCH cash off the top.  Also, you were right – I didn’t need THREE giant monitors. And hiring The Nudge on as my personal consultant may have been (in hindsight) a bit misguided.

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Continuing on our gross drinks theme, I give you Chelada.  Because mixing Clams and Tomatoes wasn’t already a hideous enough idea. Beer Advocate rated this beverage a “D.”  Though it should be noted that the rating was based on Budweiser and Clamato.  Perhaps mixing Clamato with Bud Light, thus making it healthier, ups the rating.

I can only guess that this beverage was born thusly:

Two guys were bored in a bar and began daring each other to drink just plain ol’ Clamato. Naturally both men balked at the repulsive dare and opted instead for a “truth.” But men aren’t good at secrets so their “truths” only bored them further.

Then the first guy offers, “Man, I’d have to be crazy stinko to try Clamato.” Guy One was a fan of mixing old-timey and new-timey slang together.

Guy number two pondered this for a bit and then revised his original dare. “Okay, but could you drink Clamato if you were getting mad hammered while you drank it?” He raised his eyebrows up and down for extra convincing.

Guy One, already being a bit tipsy and not being able to reason things out fully, was intrigued by this counter-proposal. “Yeah.  Yeah, I think I could do it then. It couldn’t be worse than HARD Creamer, right?”

The two men quickly concocted an elixir of Clamato and Bud Light giddy at the prospect of forging new alcoholic fontiers.  Guy One picked up the mug, said a small prayer, blinked a few times, exhaled, and in an unfounded feat of dexterity, both downed the beverage and vomited it all back up at the same time.

Guy Two exclaimed, “GROSS!” because it really was super gross. Then seeing the bio-mess asked, “What did you last eat?”

Guy One tried to say “enchiladas,” but the mix of awful flavors in his mouth cause him to choke a bit and all that sputtered out was, “chilada.”

Guy Two got the bartenders attention.  “Barkeep…another round of Cheladas.”  Americans are good at goofing up words from other languages.

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Seriously, who’s drinking this?  Creamy thing can’t be made manly or tough or EXTREME by adding the word “hard” in front of it.  (Would you put HARD creamer or HARD Half ‘n’ Half in your coffee?)  In fact,  adding “HARD” to “creamer”  just makes things worse.  Maybe they should have called it EXCREAM!

When I see products like this I always wonder how they made it all the way from concept to prototype to testing to market.  Nowhere along the way (like right at the “concept” phase?) did anyone try and put a stop to this abomination beverage?  It looks like milky Tang.

Check out their site. It’s marketed as a “Fruit & Cream with a kick.”  Just what your life has been missing.  And listen to that boss funky jazz groove.  Yeaaaaaaaah…creamy….fruity….yeahhhhh…

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Do you think Peabody winners gather together in a secret society and call themselves The Peabuddies? I hope so! I’ll bet they meet thrice annually. I’ll bet they spend their spare time in pairs and triples cruising urban pedestrian centers correcting passersby’s bad grammar. I’ll bet they get into their secret meetings, not by a secret handshake, but with an exquisit, perfectly constructed phrase that changes fortnightly and is encoded using a cypher based on the Rosetta Stone. I’ll bet the topic of dialects versus accents comes to fisticuffs more often than not between Peabuddies.

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For those not in the know The Fireman is an alter ego of Paul McCartney for releaseing less mainstream, more electronic style music.  When Paul is The Fireman, he collaborates with some dude who calls himself Youth (Martin Glover?).  (Though he looks pretty old in the pictures on the The Fireman Music site.  Maybe it’s one of those opposite names, like calling a bald guy “curly.”)  The duo release two albums in the 1990s: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998). Both are enjoyable but forgettable trance albums.  (Though one song from Rushes, “Bison,” was brilliant used for the chilling climax of Cecil Jenkins’ film “American Chisler.”)

Being the unwavering Paul McCartney fan that I am, I was stunned last weekend when I read a review of “Paul McCartney’s upcoming album Electric Arguments.”  First, how had an Paul McCartney release snuck up on me like that?  Second, Rolling Stone gave it four stars?  Well, I can’t explain how I had no idea this album was not only “in the works” but utterly imminent, but know having heard the album I can explain the four stars.

Electric Arguments is quite entertaining.  First it is not just seven variations on a trance idea like the last two The Fireman albums were.  Second, it’s not really an “electronica” or “trance” album at all.  There are a few tracks that are electro-grooves, but for the most part, all songs have lyrics, melodies, themes and everything else you’d find in a pop song.  I’m curious how this album would have fared had he released it as “Paul McCartney.”  What would Rolling Stone have said then?  Still, I’m much more impressed than I thought I’d be.  I’d prepped myself for a C- only to find it was an A-!  Read Paul’s Q&A.

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