American Fez

Salvator Daily

I enjoy drinking German beer during the winter months. Monk-brewed, face-slapping, lederhosen-staining, oompah-farting doppelbock. Imagine a Bavarian burgermeister with a barrel all to himself, sitting in front of his roaring fire, dreaming of pigtailed milkmaids while waiting for the April thaw, only stirring from his reveries to carve another side of spit-roasted wild boar.

Well, that's not exactly how I celebrate beer o'clock in modern Boston, but it's as near as damn it bearing in mind that I wield no executive power over my fellow townspeople and an entire wild boar is prohibitively expensive these days, never mind rental of the spit-roasting equipment. So I'm confined to merely ordering the dog around and tearing strips off a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. I also have central heating, which is far more convenient than a roaring fire although obviously not as picturesque. Still, after three or four doppelbock Salvators in my pewter stein, I soon forget about these minor deviations from the Deutsch ideal.

Come early Spring, however, my malted fantasies turn their attention to traditional English pale ale. A similar copper color but not as strong or heavy on the stomach as its German cousin. 'Hail fellow well met.' Imagine the local squire in his tricorn hat and cloak, toasting lambing season with a pork pie and an overflowing tankard. Both dandy and rake, he occupies my favorite armchair until October when the Burgermeister reappears. Because I'm not drinking any of that yellowy lager they sell in the summer. The beach bum in flip flops is not a role I wish to play even if his beer is cold and refreshing on a boiling hot day.

Double Bogey

At work, my brain is required to be like a bag of golf clubs because it is the eleventh hour on the eighteenth hole. I need a driver for teeing-off difficult discussions in the conference room; that request for more project funding needs to fly down the fairway as if it were an intercontinental ballistic missile. Some sort of sand-wedge will be useful when nefarious colleagues try to trap me in their Powerpoint bunkers.  A nine-iron will come in usual for hitting out of the rough when the debate gets heated and my strategy is called into question. And I will very definitely need a simple putter for explaining obvious concepts to stupid people.

The putter is, of course, the club I use the most. Hold this flag, idiot, while I attempt to tap this little ball of information into your tiny hole of a mind. Its five o'clock in the afternoon and I'm already well over par talking with the account manager. I invest in new clubs when I can but he's happy with a rusty old set picked them up for a song at someone's garage sale. Maybe I should walk off the course and just head to the clubhouse? Drown my sorrows in cognac and memories of the halcyon days of razor-creased plus-fours and Argyle sweater vests. Back then, we wore our smart Gatsby caps at a jaunty angle. Now it's logo-emblazoned polyester visors pulled over our furrowed brows.

The other solution is to give up golf altogether and play and different game. One that demands less walking and fewer clubs. Darts, for instance. I only need three darts to throw at the treble twenty and I can drink while I'm throwing them. In fact, I'm told drinking is an integral part of darts and, like billiards, the more you drink the better you play. Now that's what I regard as a good benefits package.

The Powers That Be

Different politician's brains run on different types of energy. This senator has a nuclear brain reactor liable to meltdown at any moment. That congressman has a brain of static electricity produced by rubbing a child's balloon on his shirt. He has a slow moving steam-powered brain that huffs and puffs but eventually grinds to a halt. His brain only works because a Sisyphus of neurons are rolling it up a hill without ever reaching the summit. Most, of course, are merely clockwork automaton minds who require winding-up by the lobbyist with the money otherwise they don't work at all. But all of them are horribly deformed bags of flesh inflated by noxious gases and hot air. And unfortunately all these types of energy are extremely renewable.

My own brain is operated by battery (not included). It requires three of those AAA type, and often I can only find two of in the kitchen drawer when my intelligence feels drained. You know how it is when your comprehension of world events begins to flicker and go dark. A few years ago, I considered switching to a rechargeable lithium battery, just so I could remain on top of current affairs, but was told my cerebellum was no longer supported by the manufacturer. Apparently they don't make those kinds of old-fashioned brainstem connections anymore. It seems my average attention span is far too long for the hyperactive frontal lobes in circulation these days. Alas, they only offer disposable brains now. When your current brain is full you just throw it away and order a new brain formatted to download the latest conventional wisdom. Then your capacity for critical thinking enters automatic sleep mode and a simple screen-saver appears where your personality was. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

L'Avventura

I was watching an old black-and-white movie about a man whose life was much better than mine. Well-groomed and well-dressed, he lived in a well-appointed apartment overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea. When he wasn't staring at his private ocean, the man draped himself across a sleek mid-century leather armchair, contemplating his cufflinks while talking to Monica Vitti on the phone, drinking different types of drinks at different times of the day. Sometimes he drove along a coast road in an open-top Alfa Romeo like a one-man carnival float, right arm cradling the steering wheel, left arm flung over the back of the passenger seat, his lustrous hair flowing in the breeze, tanned face reflected in the rearview mirror which revealed a gridlock of Vespas trailing in his wake.

There was a great deal of ennui in the atmosphere, obviously. But it was the glamorous cinematic ennui of the nineteen-sixties that always seems so enviably stylish and sophisticated. A glamorous listlessness that has consistently topped my list of enviable lifestyles. It's ennui that pairs well with sunglasses and Italian shoes, tapping its toes to cool jazz trio soundtracks while thumbing through existential books beneath the umbrellas of sidewalk cafes. I've seen it in the theaters, I bought the VHS, and now I own the Blu-Ray too. Don't get me started on the framed posters and lobby cards displayed in every corner of my mind. 

Provided you know how to mix a Negroni, it isn't difficult to Live Action Role Play the protagonist in this kind of movie once you're suited and booted and have collected all the requisite Italianate props. Nevertheless, I can't imagine anyone sitting through a film of my daily grind for ninety minutes, no matter how much ersatz European chic I exude when commuting to work on the subway. Perhaps it's because I appear in a full color palette and not an artful black and white frame. Or the fact that the only ocean my apartment overlooks is a narrow ocean of wintry grey city streets unlined with either elegant cypress trees or seductive palms. No matter how far apart I fling the curtains, the world outside my window will never be widescreen. So I've decided to finally edit out the suave Neorealist antihero and recast myself as the happy-go-lucky star of a modern TV dramedy, available to stream right now. Whatever happens, I hope the result will be 'binge-able' as they say nowadays.