zine: Beers Never Get Drunk in a Sober & Blasphemous World by Patrick Moore (limited run by Analog Submission Press, Cape Town SA & Yorkshire, UK); no longer available.
drinks: 1. Pillow Fight (6% ABV, 440mL, can) brewed by Tallboy & Moose (Preston, Vic, AUS) 2. How Now Brown Cacao? (6% ABV, 440mL nitro can) brewed by Moon Dog Brewing (Abbotsford, Vic, AUS) in collaboration with Metisto Artisan Chocolate
venue: The Catfish, Fitzroy, Melbourne (they’re playing some killer Britpop at the moment and it’s RAD)
*Patreon-only content*
After being shafted by some skeezy bartender over a period of a few months, for whatever-the-hell reason, I thought it’d be good idea last Monday (7/10/19) to turn up to their place on employment (on their day off, natch) for drinks with someone else (there was one beer I was dying to try) after my work shift. I guess if you’re brought up Catholic, the self-flagellation desire never truly leaves you, wink? Here’s the first of the quartet – Hop Nation‘s Fool raspberry sour. The beer I was chasing was Stay Puft Imperial Salted Caramel porter by Tiny Rebel Brewing Co).
Four tulip glasses later (fark, I forget how expensive Beer Deluxe is?! and how sloppy *some* bartenders are with pouring?!) with excellent company, and insisting on taking some of my night meds which were probably best left avoided after getting home (it’s okay – sometimes I can do that), given that one completely caused me to forget that our bathroom/loo switch is outside the door, not inside – absolute hell when you’re dying to empty your bladder.
Immediate beer consumption the following day wasn’t exactly on my mind for the following day, but I’d had a coworking sesh organisised at The Catfish with my poet mate Connor, who is doing a much better job of poeting at the moment, while I’m halfway through the poetry zine I purposefully chose, and hope to have two tinnies with rather than just the one.
*Patreon-only image & content here*
First of all, the first poem reminds me of aforementioned skeezy bartender (but seriously, who is the fool in this situation? Why the hell was I so naive? I do not like that I cannot put the two dot diacritical on the ‘i’ in ‘naive’) called ‘It’s Our Almost One Week Anniversary Together’ – I’d like to type the whole poem, but I’ll just do the beginning and the end:
you want a love poem?
go asphyxiate yourself
[…]
you’ll get yoursafter I’m done
dry heaving
in the toilet
I feel personally targeted by this because I spend a lot of my time dry heaving (chemical nausea, and I don’t use the toilet for that shit, what do you think bathroom sinks are for?!) and I also don’t write love poetry*. Perhaps ones about my cats count, but they’re safe, aren’t they? And they do unconditional love way better than humans do. I don’t really think humans are truly capable of strictly unconditional love, just like physics error calculations have to be done because we don’t live in a vacuum. There’s too many extenuating forces that can affect, say, the skimming of a pebble on a pond’s surface. Anyway, I digest (sic)…It was quite the scuffle with bedclothes (and clothes generally, let’s be honest) to get to The Catfish on time after an unintentional tasting sesh last night. I really wanted a Bloody Mary! The beer. I’d been wanting to try this one for ages and for some reason thought it was a collab? After last night’s…antics and despite scoffing down a mushroom Philly cheesesteak with extra cheese at warp speed, I wasn’t looking forward to drinking more beer (gasp! flap your kerchiefs, ladies).
*Patreon-only beer tasting notes here*
Pillow Fight is weird – at first it seemed too bitter in keeping with its IPA kin, then at other times, it tasted more like a textbook NE IPA (freshly squeezed orange juice without too much sweetness or mouth-pucker sourness). It also looks like slightly diluted mango juice, and has very little carbonation. It’s a good-sized can so I took my sweet-not-sour time drinking it. Probably one you’d be best off drinking on tap and super-fresh? My can had some hardened orange oat/lactose that eventually melted but yeah wow, the bitterness just stunned me into sobriety (don’t worry, it won’t last). I’m very grateful for the second beer How Now Brown Cacao?, which is one of those beers that doesn’t taste like beer at all (confirmed by my mate Connor) and is just freaking delicious – think a liquid that looks like a pint of a pale with a foamy, creamy white head that tastes of subtle chocolate, caramel and fudge.
*Patreon-only beer tasting notes here*
It was needed for the second half of Moore’s chapbook. I hate giving negative reviews of things, but there’s a lot in what I’ve read so far that’s extremely problematic: ableism (in particular regarding mental health, though some with people who have unusual appearances, such as bearded ladies), implied misogyny in the killing and successful concealing of ex-lovers (like, seriously? this isn’t the 1990s?). One of the ableist mental illness poems I’ve quoted below, but chosen very carefully what part to quote:
nothing matters when
you’re the rightful proprietor
to a broken mind
— ‘Toothpaste on the Stairs. With Ghosts’
Some of us don’t actually have a choice over having ‘broken’ minds. Sometimes people ask me if I’d rather never lived with any mood disorders, but would I be the person I am now if I didn’t have them? Who’s to say I wouldn’t have grown up mean, a slave to capitalism, not caring or wanting to imagine how others might feel in given situations (empathy is a fucking curse with my type of depression; for some time I have to fake not giving a shit in certain situations before not giving a shit, and that’s usually for my mental health in regards to toxic, draining people).I absolutely fucking HATE writing negative reviews of ANYTHING, however, I think the weakest poem in this chapbook is ‘The Writer’. It feels riddled with phrases and concepts that are designed to shock, and also ignores that people have different experiences at different times in their lives. The poem instructs people not to bother experimenting with recreational drug use if you haven’t before…so at what stage is one supposed to contemplate that? At 10? At 50? At 25? It just seems like a passive-aggressive prescriptive ‘suggestion’ borne of accumulated lived experience or life wisdom that doesn’t really read as such.
The one poem I did connect with as a reader was called ‘The Wrong Bar’ (which I dare remind you, I most certainly am not at!).
if you’re the drunkest one at the bar,
you’re at the wrong bar
— ‘The Wrong Bar’
We’ve all been there. No judgement if you haven’t, or don’t want to, or are still waiting for your wrong bar.
Also, cheers Connor, for confirming that I wasn’t being overly harsh when reading the reviewed chapbook. I’m the kind of reviewer that can always find something positive to say about someone’s creative work because it’s a bloody risk, putting aspects of your self out there that aren’t as, say, risky as they would be in a corporate/professional setting.
I think I’m going to have to start asking C to nag me to get the veg or vegan cheesesteaks though (my fave is the mushroom one, every freaking time, that sucker is so good with the melted cheese!), and though I don’t eat much meat, I should probably make more of an effort with preparing vegan meals?
And drink less booze. Ironically, been drinking a tad more since the skeezy bartender incident, bad bad bad.
*not entirely true; I have dedicated poems to lovers of great personal significance, especially as they were likely not to be listening or paying attention. Some have even been published. Shh! Don’t tell anyone I have feelings.
