Cup of Coffee

September 16, 2011: The Biggest Little Hick Town I’ve Ever Been In

87 Comments

Words cannot express how difficult it is to track down good beer in most of LA. I looked in eight places today, and just barely missed having to settle for Stella.

87 thoughts on “September 16, 2011: The Biggest Little Hick Town I’ve Ever Been In”

  2. I have to tell you that G-Town, population of about 700 where I worked for 12 1/2 years and where I go about once a week now, has a nice little liquor store, with a pretty decent variety of craft beers. I mean it's not the greatest ever, but considering the size of the town and its location, I am pretty impressed with their selection. So, G-Town > LA? Maybe!

    1. I'm glad, from the sounds of things, that I wasn't on the look out for a beer store when I was in LA. ch gave me a couple of nice links for bars to get beer at, but traffic is such a mess there that it upset my midwestern sensibilities and caused me to give up my search. I had to go to Pasadena to find a decently priced meal and good beer.

    2. one of my best buddies from grad school teaches at UCLA and is a beer connoisseur. He describes LA as a vast beer wasteland. Me, I can find great variety and quality at gas stations and Kwik-E Marts.

      1. Same here. The local Piggly Wiggly has a pretty decent selection (and in a town of about 4000). There is a local chain of grocery stores that also has a beer (and liquor and wine) selection that rivals any liquor store I've ever seen anywhere.

          1. We most certainly do not. Although come to think of it, I think I saw one in northern Illinois once.

            EDIT: scratch that, it wasn't a BevMo!, it was a Binny's.

                1. Sorry man, but a BevMo would be pretty nice. Fortunately, I have Harley's Bait & Liquor behind my house. Free wine tasting with a purchase of nightcrawlers!

                  1. In that case, I'll just try to avoid going to any BevMo!'s if I am out in CA and remain blissfully ignorant.

                    What wine would go best with a nightcrawler purchase, anyway?

                    5. Did they ever really market it as such? (I don't know--I never spent much time in the fortified wine aisles.) I always thought Mad Dog was the "street name". Kind of like we referred to Olde English 800 as "Crazy 8's" in HS. MD stands for Mogen David.

                    6. I may be misremembering from my college days, but I swear it used to say that one the label. I can't find any images of any old bottles, so its possible my brain is giving me false, yet more awesome memories.

                    9. I'm with Neil E-6. We referred to it as "Mad Dog 20/20", but it never, in my recollection actually said Mad Dog on the label.

                    10. I worked in liquor stores through college (woohoo!). There were nicknames for all kinds of stuff - E&J was Erk & Jerk, Seagram's Gin was Bumpy Face, etc.

      2. In fairness, Sierra Nevada Pale is at quite a few places, but after opting for it five or six times in a row due to lack of competition, one would like to find a single other palatable option. I've been to two good places here, neither of which were anywhere near my place (or near the place I'm housesitting now): a BevMo, and a Trader Joe's. I was at the Trader Joe's within a day or two of initially getting here, and I got SN Pale, unaware it was the only good beer I could in my area.

  3. I want to thank all of you who participated in my little like bomb last night. I thoroughly enjoyed that. AMR's comment about original Sox was especially enjoyable, although I'm not sure he really understood how enjoyable it was.

    I must be easily amused.

    Oh, and Go Rays!

        1. Do we have a Teddy Bruschi here at the WGOM, someone who was here for a while then retired and ended up on another medium? I had thought maybe statfreak would qualify, so you may want to check his Twitter feed.

    1. I actually played intramural basketball against that guy and he couldn't stop me. (I know. What was his problem?) My boys and I took down (actually blew out) a bunch of football players and knocked them out of the playoffs. Then, we got drunk on bad beer. The end.

      1. Now, I haven't seen it, but I don't think prominently displaying Slap Shot 3 is something I'd do on my website.

    1. Do any other leagues allow trading of players for managers? They should, because it's an awesome idea.

  7. Paging Twayn (do we have an image for that?):

    The little bro just called and he's having an odd problem with his early 90s (?) Cavalier. In town he's fine, but when he gets up to highway speed his seat belt chime starts going off even though he is wearing his seatbelt properly. Any ideas?

    1. Sounds like it could be a short in the seat belt sensor wiring or the sensor itself could be failing. Under the seat there should be some wires that connect the sensor to the control panel. There is usually a plastic connector in the wiring run that can be unplugged. That's going to completely disconnect the sensor so that the seat belt alarm won't work at all, but it's a quick, easy workaround.

        1. And if that doesn't work, I've found that starting a small fire in the interior of the car usually clears up any problems like the one you're describing.

        2. If you can't find the plug, you can try checking the fusebox. If there's a dedicated fuse for the seatbelt alarm, you can just pull the fuse. But this can be tricky because some cars use the same circuit for the seatbelt alarm and the airbags, so you want to be sure that's not the case.

  8. Airport security in London:

    During filming, Wexler said she gave everybody on set a vibrator. But getting them there caused a bit of embarrassment for a security guard at a Heathrow airport luggage checkpoint.

    "The officer said, 'You have 20 or 30 small electronic devices in your luggage,' and I said, 'Yes, they're vibrators,' and the guy just said, 'Move along,'" she recalled.

    1. Woodson mentioned John Lynch, so I went and found some video of John Lynch. My goodness are we mis-remembering that guy. The highlight clip was a collection of some of the most atrocious tackling form I've ever seen, and dangerous too, since he always appeared to be leading with his helmet and leaving his feet.

    2. Not the Vikings- they only passed for 39 yards, remember. I can't believe they didn't mention that anywhere in the article.

    3. After further reflection on this, super passing attacks can only be a good thing in terms of fantasy football. Since the Vikings are a big purple joke, that means the added fantasy value makes the NFL more enjoyable for me.

    4. I know that this isn't directly related to your link, but I'll rant anyway. I loath football. The small brained folks who ran my high school's athletic programs supported the ostracizing of boys who refused to play. You became a fag if you didn't play the game, and, worse yet, if you did play the game and you sucked at it you were an uber-fag. I played through 7th grade never really understanding the fundamentals of the game due to poor coaching and a lack of enthusiasm / participation on my part.

      What I still don't get is that they season is over so quickly, but the coverage is non-stop and when it's a slow news week ESPN has to gin up controversy to keep reporting on the NFL. 17 weeks, and all this hype, for what exactly? The violence of the game doesn't really bother me, but the rabid, foaming at the mouth fans do. I have no time for Yankees / Boston fans for the same reason, but it seems like the allegiance to one's football team supplants any rationality and human compassion during the season.

      Don't get me started on living in the football capitol of the universe. /rant/

      1. My high school wasn't nearly as extreme as that, but there was still that obvious preferential treatment to the "name" guys on the football team. I decided I had enough my sophomore year when the varsity coach (George Thole, world class a-hole, if that name reminds anyone of anything. I guess he was well-known in the MN high school football world) ranted at me because I wasn't going to the school weight room as I was in his office to accept an academic award for grades while playing a sport. I do remember also looking at the soccer players as Mauers and seeing football players ostracize them. Now, I very much don't believe that to be true.

        I had my epiphany early on last season that the NFL is not something to get worked up over. Living as a Viking fan in the middle of Bears/Packers territory probably helps prove your foaming at the mouth fans thought.

        1. I was a two-year starter in h.s., and co-captain as a senior. And I played a little (D-III) college ball. Very little of playing football was "fun."

          The camaraderie was great. I enjoyed being part of that brotherhood. But I didn't play in a place where football was the be-all and end-all. Maybe that's why we were mediocre??

          whatever. I was thrilled when my son decided not to play.

      2. The small brained folks who ran my high school's athletic programs supported the ostracizing of boys who refused to play.

        I had that as well. I quit two sports because of that attitude. We had a football coach trip one of my skate rat friends in the hall to amuse a couple of his players. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

        We got some revenge that...hugely inconvenienced him, to say the least. He knew it was us. I saw to it that he knew, but couldn't prove it and couldn't do anything about it. That's basically the best thing that ever happened to me in my rotten, hopeless high school.

    5. This isn't a case of one man wandering out on a limb to sell some hype.

      No, this is a case of talking to SEVERAL ESPN shills selling hype.

      I also enjoyed how Wilbon equated Fran Tarkenton with John Elway. Yea, John Elway, king of the scramblers.

  10. Albert Belle's twin brother died in a car accident, and it led me to this piece. An interesting take by a former writer (and he was a HOF research assistant for a few years) that sheds some light on the Cuddiier situation.

    2. Excellent read. I'll admit to mocking AB for his surliness, but good lord he was a monster at the plate. I now know that a lot of sportswriters are nothing but insecure little dopes all too willing to wield their mighty pen as a sword against the jocks they resent.

      1. all too willing to wield their mighty pen as a shiv in the back is more like it. I am continually appalled at how low the standards are for "literacy" in sports writing.

          1. sorry, my tone didn't carry well. I meant to convey the sense that while THEY might think they wield swords, they are, in fact, shivs.

    1. I'm sure Souhan has dealt with pneumonia numerous times while walking uphill to school, with only a single dose of Sudafed to allay his misery.

      1. Are you kidding me? He talked to his college roommate, Otter, who was pre-med (or was it pre-law), and he said that he's never heard of pneumonia.

    2. Will Souhan even consider apologizing for calling out Mauer for sitting out with a cold? Now we find out Mauer was playing for a last-place team in September with pneumonia? And we seriously question his toughness? The training staff should be fired over this. Even if it only recently turned into pneumonia, no way he should have been cleared to play for this team with something that could turn into pneumonia. That's ridiculous.

    3. Boo. Just bought $10 tix on stubhub. This will be our first game with four kids.

      And now I'm doubting my purchase. At least we'll get to see Slowey's first win!

        1. Fingers crossed. It might take these bertin' kids another 45 minutes to get ready. Will be cool to hear it on the radio on the way in.

          1. And Jimmer comes through. Think back about four months and consider the following: you are going to a game between the Indians And the Twins and a late inning THOME home run provides the winning margin. Sounds like one I would have wanted to see!

  12. Fireworks in my hick town tonight. The dog is terrified.

    I was for a moment, too, since the sound of fireworks, where I am, don't make a guy's mind wander toward fireworks.

    1. Yeah, every year around New Year's and the Fourth of July the news has to remind all the idiots that they shouldn't fire their guns in the air! Apparently bullets don't just disintegrate when fired up into the atmosphere. They actually fall to the ground. Did you know that?

      1. I've got every intention of steering clear of politics here, but it amuses me (or something) that the type of person who wants a gun is usually the type of person who shouldn't have one.

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