[Copied over from a previous incarnation...]
I recently finished reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, and if there is one thing I took away from it, it was a reaffirmation of the fact that food and alcohol have the ability to bring communities together, to forge bonds where none might otherwise exist, and to get people shit-housed together who might normally never be caught dead within one hundred yards of one another. Alcohol is without a doubt one of the world’s great equalizers. Of course, historically it has caused countless conflicts, large and small, but in the current age, more often than not, treaties are signed, agreements are made, and seals are bonded with a toast and a nice wallop of the local fire water.
The definition of community has experienced a major shift and expansion in the past fifteen years or so as a direct result of the technological advances that our society has experienced, primarily the explosion of the internet. Communities have formed around the most arcane subjects, with people plugged in every second of every day, somewhere in the world, with an opinion. Message boards, podcasts, yahoo groups, social interaction sites, and so on can be simply overwhelming if one allows oneself to fall in to the trap of being consumed rather than being the consumer. Some might argue that there is indeed too much useless and false information out there, that anybody with half a brain can post whatever they want, in effect, diluting the greater social consciousness, dumbing it down so that the lowest common denominator might finally stop tugging at their slack, drooling jaw and gaze about in a new found state of comprehension. I say bring it, and not for the obvious reason that I sit here perched on my own electronic soapbox (yes, I do see the irony in this). If you do possess half a brain, you have the tools to weed out the good from the bad. You might also have the ability to see the humor in what you and other half-brains consider dreck.
With that in mind, I offer the following three youtube clips, with beer as their common theme. These clips run the gamut from informative to downright insane. All of these clips have virtue. The first because it is actually informative. The second because it attempts to impart knowledge, and is downright kooky. And the last because the guy is just out of his mind, and actually having fun with beer. That’s right, it’s just beer.
The sublime:
The ridiculous (be sure to check out some of his other videos):
And the patently absurd (ditto of the above, watch more of this kook’s stuff):
