Month: March 2006

It has come to my attention through a very recent acquaintance that there exists a product called "Bombardier British Military Dry Gin." I have found very little evidence of this product's existence beyond this website, which refuses to ship the product to Indiana.

I don't know if this gin is any good, nor do I know if "British military gin" is any different than ordinary dry gin. What I do know is that I must find out. If anyone in the Ginandtacos.com Sphere of Influence has seen this product for retail sale and/or knows anything about it, please let us know in the comments. You have the full faith and credit of Ginandtacos, Inc. behind you if you are willing to purchase and ship this product to us – monetary repayment will be swift, but your real reward will be in heaven.

Different people have different hobbies, different obsessions, and peculiarities that may not be readily understandable by observers.

I accept this. Star Trek fandom, for instance, makes absolutely no sense to me. But many people make a lifestyle out of it. So be it.

Recently I found myself looking around the interweb in an effort to find Apple Fanta for a friend who got addicted to it in Europe and now cannot locate it. If the interweb has taught me anything, it has taught me that just about everything is available for purchase and delivery to your front door.

In the process I uncovered one of the most incomprehensible subcultures I have yet come across: the rare soda community. Soda, a.k.a. pop. The soft drink. Yes, it appears that there is a seedy underbelly to American society that feeds the needs, cravings, and obsessions of people who are addicted to (or otherwise interested in) discontinued or rare soda.

It loses its value if removed from the original packaging

To wit: Soda Finder ™. Specifically, direct yourself to the "discontinued" page. I would not have previously thought that anyone would spend $300 for 12 bottles of Pepsi Blue, but I would have been in error. Just look at some of the beverages for sale and the prices they fetch. 12 cans of Mountain Dew Pitch Black II (distinct from Pitch Black I in that it adds a "sour grape bite") for $30 plus shipping? I'm sorry, but that's a level of committment I just can't comprehend.

The eeriest part is how closely this mimics any other seedy subculture – porn or anime, for example (look at the above photo and tell me you couldn't just as easily picture that guy holding an action figure). You have your casual dabblers who participate in the subculture only miminally (Playboy or Dragonball-Z in our analogies) and want to find a mass-produced but slightly obscure product like Caffeine Free Vanilla Coke. Then you take another step over the line and have people who have a very specific set of interests within the genre (Girl-on-girl porn or 1960s Japanimation) like sub-categories of Mountain Dew. You also have the import crowd (notice the section for "Canadian Imports" like 7-Up Cranberry Splash).
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I can only imagine there are soda conventions that would make the average Ren Faire or Comicon look like the Mr. Universe pagaent.

Lastly, in the seedy underbelly of a culture that is already a seedy underbelly, you have the people who take it into the great beyond: scat porn or hentai, for example, or in the case of our soda culture, Surge or Sprite Aruba Jam ReMix. They are the dirty, shameful people whom the rest of the genre's fans do not like to talk about.

Everyone knows they are there and everyone fears someday becoming one of them. It starts innocently enough as an effort to find some Diet Mountain Dew LiveWire. Then it consumes an ever-increasing amount of the person's life until one day they find themselves unemployed, unshaven, and sitting in front of the computer in their underwear scanning the internet for Barq's Diet Red Creme.

I will never look at the soda aisle in the same way again.

Too bad Kevin Smith didn't join the 27 Club. It worked for Hendrix and it worked for Joplin. Cobain, yeah, it worked out for him too. Step 1 = do something amazing. Step 2 = die before you can start doing subsequent and inevitably disappointing things. Step 3 = be immortalized.

Let me state the obvious before we continue; I fucking hate Kevin Smith. He is probably the most overrated, underwhelming figure in a profession that is fairly bursting with overrated, underwhelming figures. It is truly amazing how much this person sucks while still somehow being taken seriously (albeit with dramatically decreasing frequency these days).

Had he the good sense to just drop deap (O.D. and suicide would have both been acceptable) after Clerks he probably would have been remembered pretty fondly. Oh, don't get me wrong. It's not nearly as good of a film as many claim it is. But like that mediocre nobody who gets a full page in the high school yearbook after he hangs himself, Smith could have benefitted in perpetuity from a one-and-done approach.

Which brings me to the climax. In case Gigli, Jersey Girl, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back weren't enough to make you taste bile, he's currently wrapping up the production work on Clerks II. No, this is not a joke or a rumor.
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Insert the Bill Hicks "sucking Satan's cock" noise here.

I wonder if the executives at Dreamworks just walked into a room, dropped their trousers, and said "First one to suck it gets a $15 million budget and 2% of the adjusted gross." Smith would undoubtedly leave many shattered bodies in his wake as he maniacally dove toward the cash-dispensing genitalia.
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Too bad you didn't die 10 years ago, Kevin. There would have been all kinds of fawning tributes. Now there isn't enough mouthwash in the world to get the taste of shame and Harvey Weinstein's wang out of your mouth, and when you finally leave this world you will be remembered primarily for being the visionary who tapped the potential of the Affleck-Lopez team in two separate films. See you in 10 more years on a reality program based on washed-up celebrities!
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"Troy, it's MacArthur Parker…..I've got a hot part for you. Ever hear of Planet of the Apes?"

"The movie or the planet?"
"The new Broadway musical starring you as…the human."

"IT'S THE ROLE I WAS BORN TO PLAY!"

There comes a time in every man's life at which he realizes, "Yes, this is clearly the role I was born to play." Replace "man" with "band" and you could say that moment has arrived for Tremendous Fucking.

Mark the calendars, kids. On Saturday, April 29 at the fabulous Second Story Nightclub in even-more-fabulous Bloomington the annual Monroe County Humane Association benefit show sets the stage aflame with rock awesomeness. I could give you a list of bands and urge you to come. That might persuade you and it might not. But before you decide, try this on: the show has been painstakingly organized as a Touch & Go tribute.

MacArthur Parker called us and said "Ever hear of the Jesus Lizard?" to which we replied "The son of God or the reptile?" After a moment's confusion, it suddenly became clear that we are now the Jesus Lizard. At least for one night. It is beyond any shadow of a doubt the role we were born to play.

While this should be more than enough to convince you to cancel the prom, call a babysitter, sell your home, and come to the show I'd be remiss if I didn't add that also appearing will be Brainiac (Sump Pumps) and Shellac (Push-Pull). Who knows, some other surprise guests may end up on stage as well.

With no false modesty, I can't begin to tell you how much ass this is going to rock. I'm giving you an unconditional "No bands-who-didn't-practice" guarantee, which is crucial to the execution of any tribute show. We have been sequestered in the TremLair diligently pounding away at a face-melting selection of JL songs.

If you close your eyes, you can almost picture David Yow wagging his exposed genitals in your face. Upon opening them you will be relieved to find out that it is merely a clothed Pat Hawkins.

Welcome back to work, Illinois and Wisconsin.

"But Ed," say the rest of our viewers, "today is Tuesday.

Please lay off the pipe." With this comment you betray your non-midwestern heritage. Be not ashamed. Allow me to enlighten you.

The first Monday of March is, in select states, Kasimir Pulaski Day.

On this day one does no work, nor does one attend school. It is a state holiday set aside for the express purpose of honoring with sausage the life of an important Revolutionary War icon.

In the 18th Century thin mustaches indicated masculinity. Today they indicate Frenchness.

Count Kasimir Pulaski was born near Warsaw in 1745 into Polish nobility. An ardent lover of freedom, he fought on the side of Poland, Lithuania, and other parts of the Slavic world in their war against the Russian Tsar. He maintained his revolutionary zeal and, at the conclusion of the Russian conflict, he emigrated to the American colonies to aid their fight against British tyranny.

Pulaski was the innovator of many cavalry tactics that remain in military use to this day. The title of the most brilliant cavalry strategist of all time is usually given to Nathan Bedford Forrest, but Forrest founded the KKK.

Pulaski didn't. Advantage: polack.

After playing an important role in several Revolutionary War battles, often fighting alongside Washington, Pulaski was mortally wounded in Savannah, Georgia. He died shortly thereafter. Interestingly, his remains have never been conclusively accounted for. Various accounts have him buried at sea, cremated, interred in a Georgia plantation field, or returned to his native Poland.
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Pour a Zywiec in honor of our homie (is Old Style more appropriate at this point?) proclaiming "This goes out to all my polaxxx." Others may think your behavior strange, but it is natural for people to criticize what they can never hope to understand.

Many people (including several students who have just emailed me) wonder how/why in the heck South Dakota just enacted a piece of legislation banning abortion in the state. In other words, how can a state law exist in contradiction to a federal one?
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This law is what we call a "ringer" for the court system. The law was passed for the sole purpose of being immediately challenged in court, thereby giving the federal court system an opportunity to pass judgment on it. After all, the Supreme Court can't reverse its precedent without having a case on which to rule, can it?

Isn't it an amazing coincidence that they introduced (and subsequently passed) this bill into the legislature immediately after Samuel Alito was confirmed?
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Amazing. The planets must have been lined up or something.

Rosa Parks' act of civil disobedience was elaborately staged and organized by civil rights groups. Everyone knew the policies in place, and they knew that the best remedy was the legal system. They just needed a plaintiff. A ringer, if you will – a person to carry the complaints of everyone who had been affected by segregation into the federal courts.
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South Dakotans are not stupid. They know that this law is unconstitutional. By passing it anyway, they're rolling the dice that the court might be willing to reconsider its established precedent rather than simply rejecting the law out of hand. Best of luck to them and the myriad interest groups who put them up to it and finally have their ringer on which to expend millions of dollars in legal defense.
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