Eat Your Heart Out

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Well… it’s that time of year… when everybody out there is spending major bucks for fancy dinners, jewelry, chocolates & all that mess… people are proposing and flooding Facebook with pictures of their engagements rings and rants about how they’re the luckiest (blank) in the world… all that sentimental bullsh*t… and trust me, there’ll be more about all that hogwash later in the weekend (once I found out who in my family & friends will be doing that) but until then… Izzy & I have had a bit of a tradition this time of year. Our first Valentine’s together four years ago, we watched “Cannibal: The Musical” and “Orgasmo”. Three years ago, I had just got back from Mardi Gras & the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Two years ago, we watched “Ladies Man” & “The Thin Man”, two completely different movies. Last year, we went to a homebrew club event at Anchor Brewing, then I bought her a 12 pack of Taco Bell tacos for dinner. Yup, we’re hella romantic. So in going back to the theme of our first VD… here are some new movies about people eating people that we just watched…

 

The other night I (alone) watched a movie called “The Green Inferno” starring… well, nobody… but directed by Eli Roth (“Hostel” & “Knock Knock” from a few weeks ago). This movie is about a group of hippy ass wanna-be college students who fly out to the Peruvian rainforest to stop the bulldozers from tearing down a section of forest where they’ve discovered a previously unknown village of natives. Noble enough cause, right? Yes, even if it’s pretty f**king pointless… but they get out there… and basically do a little eco-terrorism by blowing up some dozers, while broadcasting the whole thing on the web (somehow… don’t ask) and eventually are turned away by the mercenaries in the gentlest way possible. Roll credits. Super lame movie. NOPE!!! On the flight back to civilization, their plane crashes… and they’re in the middle of the f**king jungle… and are rescued by the natives. Oh wait, I mean the natives take them to their village… and then start to EAT THEM!!! YES!!! Cannibalistic tribes eat hippie trash!!! Yet another great premise, Mr. Roth!!! Now for the usual stuff… great premise… poor execution… except for one thing, THIS MOVIE WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD!!! Okay… the acting is… mediocre. The dialogue is here & there. There are about five scenes were I literally went “Why the f**k is this in the movie? It’s not funny. There’s no point. It’s not propelling the story. Did they just need to fill 90 minutes?” There’s a LARGE amount of torture porn in the latter half of this movie… but to his credit, not as much as others. A lot of the violence is more implied (leading to the imagination which may have been the benefit of either poorly executed practical effects or low budget… but it works better). Yes, the movie has its flaws. However… it’s pretty beautifully shot… and for what the story is… pretty well done… and there’s not a lot of “Oh shut the f**k up” moments that pop up in horror movies just to set up situations. It’s pretty organic. Okay… so overall… if you’re looking for a pretty good horror flick that you may or may not forget in a few weeks/months… then check this out. If you’re squeamish, just pass.

 

 

Then Thursday night, Izzy & I watched a another new movie with a similar premise (cannibalism) but in a completely different setting & situation… and that movie was “Bone Tomahawk” starring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins & Matthew Fox… and cameos from David Arquette & Sid Haig too. Great cast. The movie follows the story of a four-man posse in the Old West going on a journey to save two people who were abducted by cannibalistic cave dwellers. The posse is composed of the sheriff (Russell), his elderly deputy (Jenkins), a mysterious dapper gentleman whose family was killed by natives years before (Fox) and the husband of one of the abducted who also has a broken leg (Wilson). Yes, a truly motley crew for facing legendary unknown vicious antagonists… but it’s the old west… and they’ve got facial hair and/or crutches… and their trusty weaponry. Alright, this movie… really set itself up well in the first ten minutes or so… and then… I kid you not, for the next 90 minutes or so… it’s basically just four guys… walking in the desert… talking, on the way to save these people. The topics of conversation? Morals… how stupid the guy with the broken leg is for slowing them down… and not telling them that eventually they’re going to have to amputate… and that’s really about it. It’s very slow… no score… I mean… great way of showing just how trudging & monotonous the situation would be… but there’s seriously a part where they lose their horses that lasts about 12 seconds… to get you excited… and then it’s a full hour of pretty much nothing except for the occasion sound guy jerking himself off at how crunchy he can make leg bones sound when somebody’s trying to walk on them with crutches. Things pick up for the last 30 minutes or so though when they catch up to the cannibalistic tribe… and then you get your ultraviolent conflict resolution… and then a pretty awkward ending that THANKFULLY they cut out the journey back to their city of Bright Hope. Was it a horrible movie? Of course not. It was very artfully done, the acting was pretty good as far as gruff Westerny folk go, intrigue was built when the time was right, fairly realistic for the time period… but my God… that middle 90 minutes when they walk is just… unnecessarily long & pointless. I’d say just fast forward for a bit… or watch it at 10x speed until you see something interesting… but when they’re just talking, keep going until something good happens.

 

So yeah… something to think about over the Valentine’s / President’s Day weekend… for all you fellow cynics out there. Also, if you’re thinking “$teve, you’re being awfully hard on Valentine’s this time around… what gives bruh? Something bad happen?” Not at all… I’m probably just compensating for something… hiding my real emotions… pay you no mind until next time. Have a fantastic weekend everybody!!!

SF Beer Week 2015

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

SF Beer Week has come upon us!!! Wait… that sounded weird… this past week was SF Beer Week… and there were HUNDREDS of events going on all over the Bay Area. However, because I’m not independently wealthy & have to work for a living, I didn’t get to just go from place to place experiencing drunkenness through craft beer… but Izzy & I did hold our own… and here’s how…

 

First, I want to show a wonderful piece

of art that Izzy made for me... a watercolor

of my favorite dinosaur, Anklyosaurus

Saturday, February 7^th – We brewed a batch of my award-winning “PentaceraHops” IPA at my house (the Batcave) with my girlfriend Izzy & her aunts, while one of Izzy’s friends’ husband videotapes us for his series of articles on Homebrewing… yes, I’ll be a beer celebrity soon enough… but only later did I find out that he’s actually a Walter Kronkite Award winning journalist. Yeah… so it’s legit… not just a weird guy with a camera. Basically this was a pretty simple partial mash recipe that we’ve done before (with a few tweaks to the hops to meet what we had available) but here are some pictures…

 Mid-brew walk...

 Back to brewing...

I also got to star in this video… Check me out…

 

Sunday, February 8^th – Rainy day sampling of fine beers from our collection including Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine & Narwhal Imperial Stout from last year, and other high octane beers. Other than that… nothing much… pretty relaxing… watched movies (more to come later)

 

Monday, February 9^th – We had lunch at Marin Brewing on the way out to Izzy’s house… had a sampler of their beers on tap… took a Dopple Weizen home with us… enjoyed one of their little pizzas & some buffalo wings… good times…

 

That night, Izzy & I had a wonderful five-star dinner with beer pairings at Elevation 66 Brewery in El Cerrito with Big Ben, Li’l John & others… here are some pictures of the food…

 

… and during that wonderful time, we discussed a great many things… including the mysterious art of Beer Lacing… which apparently is when you look into the residual head on a beer glass… and see shapes or figures, not unlike gazing into the clouds on a summer’s day. Here are a few that I found in my beverages… and yes, if you thought that fancy ice pictures during brews was kind of odd… this may be a repeating thing… what do you see?

 

Tuesday & Wednesday, I pretty much spent the evenings catching up on house work & playing my new PS4 with NBA 2K15 and starting MyCareer mode in this basketball game. You may remember in the 2K13 edition that I was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, led them to a few championships, then signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Well… this time, I wasn’t drafted (GASP!!!) so I had to work my way up through ten-day contracts with the New Orleans Pelicans, then get signed for the rest of the year… and we won the championship!!! YAY!!! That’s right, the Pelicans won an NBA title!!! Then it was time for me to hit free agency… so I signed a maximum contract… with the Los Angeles Clippers. Yup… CP3, Blake Griffin, DeAndre “Putback and/or Alley-Oop” Jordan, Coach Doc Rivers & his son Austin riding the bench, and me leading the way on a max contract. Boom! There’s also a general manager, league mode, etc. but yeah, it’s like most basketball games from the past 25 years… with better graphics, some odd and fairly repetitive commentary, some cool dunks… but yeah, mostly the same stuff. Still… I like it because there’s usually some great strategy involved… and I heart basketball. Yippee! Check it out if you like those games…

 

Thursday, February 12^th – After work, I headed over to the Hops for Housing Charity Event, where a lot of the major local homebrew players and microbreweries-to-be volunteer some of their exquisite beverages for a modest admission donation that goes towards the SF Tenants Union who have been fighting for the rights of tenants and for the preservation of affordable housing in San Francisco (so obviously they’ve been either dropping the ball or are severely underfunded since this place is the most expensive f**king city in America now). Anyway, the event was held at BeatBox SF here in the city, and it was a nice little space that… frankly got packed pretty quickly, but the beer was great & the company was great too with plenty of SF Homebrewers Guild members in attendance. Here are some pictures…

 

My only complaint was the music… not necessarily that it was dance music… I’m like whatever, it’s background… but the fact that it was TOO F**KING LOUD!!! I’m not an old man or anything either, everybody at the event agrees with me… or I’m pretty sure that’s what they were saying… they kept covering their ears like they knew what I was talking about… anyway, great event! Hope to go to it next year… and maybe I’ll offer my DJ services to run the music too. I got a few mixes on my iPod I can pop in.

 

Also, wanna see what I got Izzy for Valentine's?

 

...but she had to one up me with this handmade card...

 

Saturday, February 14^th – Valentine’s Day – For a romantic Valentine's Day, I took Izzy to a luncheon at the world famous Anchor Brewing as they were having a celebrating for the California Homebrewing Club of the Year - The Maltose Falcons, based out of Los Angeles. Congratulations to them... and we're coming for ya next year. Here are some pictures of the area and some great barbecue...

 

Afterwards, I spoiled her with a Taco Bell 12 Pack... cuz I'm a f**king boss... she loved it...

 

Sunday, February 15^th – Finish off the “week” with a  Homebrew Share sponsored by the guild that I’m on the board for at Pi Bar in the Mission… and we also raffled off some prizes & announced our Homebrewer of the Year...

 

Afterwards, we also stopped by Rare Barrel for the first time. The Rare Barrel is a brewery in Berkeley that specializes in barrel aging and sour beers... which is an interesting & acquired taste for most beer drinkers... but if you're ever in Berkeley, check them out...

 

Monday, February 16th - President's Day - We celebrated this day off work with bottling our Red Ale... and kind of being the unofficial end of SF Beer Week... but here are some pictures of the process... and the ale is delicious...

 

Anyway, next year, we may hafta REALLY go into SF Beer Week (if we can get over the costs) but beer week is great for getting access to a lot of different special kinds & expanding knowledge of the craft of beer... but then again, it really helps when people are interested in it too... but hey, if you're willing to learn, I'm willing to teach. Have a great week everybody!!!