9/20/08, by George

Molly's note: Well, here we are at the 100th blog entry of 2008, and somehow it's only appropriate that this entry is by a SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER, my brother George. George is often the unsung hero behind this blog, because he pushes me to write when I don't want to, he gives me ideas when I feel that nothing is blog-worthy and he assures me that at least one person will always read these ramblings of mine. (I'm assuming that one person is him but perhaps that's presumptuous).

Anyways, George's entry is the last in our three-part series examining the marvel and majesty that is the Asheville tradition of Brewgrass. I believed I used the adjective "Tarantino-esque" to describe what I thought he was doing, but I might have overlooked the fact that George has taken to walking around in huge sunglasses and a shotgun. Without further ado, I give you the gonzo world of my brother.

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Fear and Loathing at Brewgrass
-A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.

We were somewhere in Asheville on the edge of downtown when the beer began to take hold….




I found myself on a baseball field littered with people, tents, kegs, and pretzels. There must have been 40 breweries, 48 portable toilets, 7 police officers, 2 security guards, 5 musical acts, 100 different types of beers, and 8 different food tents. But the only thing that worried me was the toilets. There is nothing more horrible than having to use a port-a-potty. Nothing… That’s why this journey starts out at the church...

I had been given the assignment to cover the 12th annual Brewgrass festival, a gathering of breweries, music, and food for a blog I do some project work for. I had gotten the call from my editor earlier when I was in Atlanta drinking Flying Dog in the middle of the afternoon. The blog’s editor in chief had given me the tasks to write a blog on the upcoming beer festival ….

What I found was a joyous celebration of the making of BEER. Beer is one of the world's oldest and most consumed tasty beverages. It’s fucking from the 6th millennium BCE and is recorded in the written history of Egypt and Mesopotamia (thanks Wikipedia). Hooray Beer!!!

Pilsners, Ales, Weizenbocks, Wits, Stouts, Wheats, Barley wines, oh my. This joyous festival provided me with beers of different taste, color, style, alcohol percentage (fuck you Great Divide, when I say “brewers’ choice”, I don’t want the shit no one has been asking for all day, 10.5%, fuck off!). Not only was this festival a showcase of a great tasty beverage, it’s a gathering of people who REALLY like beer. Who turns out, are my type of people. Very friendly. Very opinionated. Very drunk. And sometimes very creepy.

HOLY SHIT is that a pretzel necklace!!! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? Not only were these people wearing pretzels around their necks, there were Oktoberfest hats, beer bottle shaped glasses, and bags of kettle corn the size of garbage bags (the BIG kind of garbage bags, not those 1 gallon bathroom size)…



As the beer/water ratio became a little weighted… I found my thoughts wondering to the broken levies, terrorists, rising gas prices, recessions, Russia (which you can’t see from Asheville, NC), low funding for stem cell research, John McCain, childhood obesity, and rising food prices. However, when people come to enjoy their fruits of their labor and put pride in the beer they are making (not looking at you Great Divide) it just all seems a little bit better. Beer is what was able to bring people together today. Beer drinkers are friendly people who surprisingly don’t read Steinbeck novels.

As our arrangements were made to get home to a dinner of turkey cutlets, we left Brewgrass with a little more beer knowledge, a little less hydration, and a sense of a hopeful future. However, we were given another assignment after being picked up: find a gas station in the Asheville/Enka-Candler area that has gas.

And with that, we re-entered a strange world, a different world…. a world without gas, rice, or enough pretzel necklaces. While we are preparing to fight a lady over waiting in line to get gas, I remember a better time and realize that Brewgrass is not just a festival, it’s a state of mind. I am looking forward to Brewgrass 2009. I’ll be the one wearing the pretzel necklace…

9/20/08, by William

Molly's note: In order to present Brewgrass from all angles, I’ve asked my brothers for their takes. Also, I need more entries this month. That means it’s time for SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER!!!! My brother George is a bit of a slacker because he still hasn't written his entry yet, though I guess it might take extra time because he used the phrase "Tarantino-esque" to describe what he was going for.

But never you fear about the delay, because we will now hear from a brand-new SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER, my youngest brother William. William is 21 years old, though he has been drinking like a 21-year-old for years and years. He's a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, which apparently has quite the football team. He enjoys barbeque, country music and long walks on the beach. Here is a picture of the two of us at Brewgrass:


Let's hear his version of the events that transpired on September 20, 2008, shall we?

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Molly has invited me to be a guest blogger alongside George to share my experience at the 12th Annual Great Smokies Craft Brewers Brewgrass Festival at MLK Park in Asheville, NC. The experience started much like that of any major holiday at the plantation. In this case Molly very enthusiastically came in to my bedroom, jumped on my back and asked me “Guess what day it is?” I straggled out of bed and took my position on the top stair so dad could take our picture, a holiday tradition. I sat there for a minute and realized today is not the day for celebrating the birth of Christ. Today is the day we celebrate the birth of delicious nectar we all enjoy… BEER!

Going into the day we realized substance was a very important factor in the festivities that would be taking place. So keeping with family traditions we took the Blue Ridge Parkway to our favorite Saturday lunch spot, Chick-Fil- A. A quick 8 pack of nuggets and some fries would be my only meal going into a 7 hour “beer tasting.”



While dining, George and I realized some last minute necessities were needed to make it through the festival. We traveled up to the Big K-mart in search of sunscreen and sunglasses. Protection from the sun while drinking can make the act of consuming beverages a much more pleasurable experience. Being almost fall, it was difficult to find spf 30 to protect the nose and neck from the heat of the day. Now, I don’t know if many of you are aware that I spent a summer unloading 18-wheelers and stocking shelves at the big red K, but this was about 2 years ago this past summer. We walked into Kmart with mom, we being 3 of only 12 people in the store including employees. I happened to run into an employee who worked at this particular store that I had worked with at another store. After saying hello, I asked her where the items we needed to make our beer festival a better experience might be. She looked at me with a disappointing look almost expecting me to know where I had stocked something 2 years ago. Like they never change store layouts at the worst retail store on the planet. A quick purchase and we were on our way to MLK Park to enjoy beers from 40 brewers around the area.

Now growing up we always had to rush home from whatever trip we may have been on in order for George to heed the call of nature. George can only heed the call of nature in bathrooms that he’s familiar and comfortable with. So it should have been no surprise that ON THE WAY to the event nature would call George’s name. So to deter our trip even more we had to beeline it to our church, which was in the vicinity, in order for George to make room for beer. After this pit stop we were officially on our way to the festival.

Tickets in hand we were dropped off at the side entrance to the field. We snapped a quick pic and made our way to the line of fellow beer aficionados. Our tickets were scanned, a glass was grabbed and eyes went wide. Imagine Charlie getting that golden ticket to the factory, that’s how I felt but my ticket was a glass and the factory was a field full of breweries.

I know there has been a lot of anticipation leading up to my account of the actual festival, but I’m not going to go into all 40 beers I tried. Now our glass could only hold 4 ounces so I didn’t consume 40 beers, however, medical staff was on standby. I would probably be in some sort of made up Olympic event Molly likes to sponsor like “interesting names for presidents.” You would be very surprised how drunk a bunch of little beers can get you in a 6 hour period. We started in left field and worked our way all the way around the perimeter of the field to home plate. We worked our way farther and farther away from any food to compensate the amount of alcohol we had consumed. Finally we decided it would be a good idea to get some food. As a group we settled on kettle corn. Kettle corn was probably not the best idea but it had the shortest line. Other than randomly opening up our bag of corn we spent most of our time waiting in line to get a beer only to wait in line again. We enjoyed getting different beers at each brewery and sharing both what we had and how we felt about it.

I’ve decided to share my top five favorite beers with the fans of “I Wiggle it just a little bit.” I recommend these beers if you can find them at your local beer supplier.
1. Pisgah Brewing (NC)- Endless Summer
2. Asheville Brewing (NC)- Shiva IPA
3. Depot Street Brewing (TN)-Whistlestop Wit
4. Ham’s Brewhaus (NC)- Tiki’s California Gold
5. Natty Greene’s Brewing (NC) Southern Ale

The Brewgrass festival was a great experience and I could not have asked for a better time or better company. This is my first blogging experience so I hope it was up to par for Molly. I guess if I make the cut, I will feel I have accomplished something more than what I could have out on that field full of beer drinkers and their one true passion.

Special thanks to:
Whoever made our Kettle Corn?
Johnny on the Spot
Mom and Dad

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-best weekend ever!

Call me George…cause that’s my name. (That’s a literary reference, you bastards.)

If you’ve been reading my comments lately (and why wouldn’t you?), you know I’m pretty, pret-tay, pret-tay upset about the frequency of Molly’s posting. So I decide to come down to HOT-lanta to straighten things out.

The trip was no easy task. Battling high temperatures, traffic, gas prices and the state of South Carolina, I endured great obstacles on my journey to see my sister (have any of you driven through South Carolina, Really?). And I intend to inspire and write enough blog postings to make this journey worth it…you bastards.

Do you think I’ll see Outkast? I hope so!

Craziness, surely will ensue, so lock your doors, crank up your AC and stay close to the computer. Keep hitting refresh, cause we’ll be posting a lot…well, actually, we’re getting ready to go out for a few hours, so you have time to go to the store for snacks and beer. I’m a chips and salsa kinda guy if you need a recommendation.

Tom Russell, you bastards

This past week was a pretty good week for concerts…last Monday I saw Iron & Wine and this weekend I saw the Avett Brothers. Both put on excellent shows, two of the best I’ve seen all year. Still, not too much happened that would be interesting to blog about. Luckily, my brother George went to a concert recently and wrote a review, which means it’s time for another installment of SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER!!!! And this is a great one, although be warned, it does contain some inside jokes based on lyrics you may or may not know. George and I discussed it, and decided if you don’t like it, that’s your problem, you bastards. So take it away, George!

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Last time I was a special guest blogger, I wrote about my sister and the choice ways (blatant abuse) of exposing (forcing) music on me through mix tapes. I enjoyed writing the blog and recently went to a Tom Russell concert and figured I would share. And to be honest, I’m struggling with the frequency Molly has been posting lately. Quite frankly, I’m not sure this recent Comcast cable dilemma and the new fish will pan out in terms of any new material for Molly to blog about… I mean 9 posts in March, what the fuck? If Molly keeps up this pace, we’re right on track for Molly trying to write 6 posts a day in the month of December to meet some arbitrary goal she set out doing for the year… But who is counting and enough about Molly. This blog is about Tom Russell, you bastards…

Tom Russell sings songs about love, heartache, floods, prisons, drunks, fighting roosters, cowboys, Indians, the Rio Grande, trains, drinking, hard work, horses, oppression, traveling, loneliness, heroes, antiheros, death, immigrants, whore houses, posses, outcasts, war, and searching for meaning and existence.

Now that I think about it, Tom and I have very similar things we choose to write about. My previous blog had underlying themes similar to Tom Russell’s songs. Like Tom Russell, I write about oppression and hardships. I guess I appeal to everyday people who long for freedom and equality. People who see and deal with injustices on a daily basis. Whether it’s enjoying the simple pleasures of having a choice to what tape you are going to listen to one day (out of two years) while riding in your sister’s car or feeling the pains of honest Americans being laid off of work after years of labor in a steel mill in Tom’s song “U.S. Steel.” I think everyone sees the link between the two. Right?

I started listening to Tom Russell when I was 12. My dad learned about Tom Russell through my uncle, or “Bill from Sioux City”, as Tom Russell knows him due to over 14 concerts and a train tour with him. Along with The Eagles, The Beatles, Nanci Griffith, and Jimmy Buffett, my dad regularly played Tom Russell’s CDs while riding in the car and around the house. As a little kid I really didn’t get a choice in what we listened to …(surprise surprise)…

Later in life, I found out that other kids really didn’t listen to this kind of music. As a kid, I NEVER owned or listened to a sing-a-long Disney tape that’s main purpose was to teach me to share, wash my hands, or count! I left the car/basement singing about wanting to “get high with a little help from my friends” and pondering why you would need a “waterbed filled up with Elmer’s glue”. That’s just ridiculous… That being said, I can also tell you that there is no fucking way my kid is going to be listening to any Lion King/Mufasa sing-a-long shit. If/when I have a kid, his or hers first record is going to be The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. That’s that. …Noticing a theme when it comes to my family, control, and music?

However, getting drunk and screwing or developing alter-egos and taking acid trips was child’s play when it came to Tom Russell. There was no singer that I feared more growing up than Tom. As a 12 year old, you just can’t shake songs about roosters pecking each other to death as their owners bet their livelihood to save the family farm. I’d say songs about Japanese internment camps were a little much as well.

Needless to say, Tom was a little advanced for me when I was 12. I guess I really wasn’t able to relate in terms of different life experiences. At that point, the only flood I’d experienced was in our basement when the water heater broke. The biggest thing I had ever searched for was my Hulk Hogan action figure that my brother took from me. I only related bourbon whisky to my grandmother who drank it before dinner while we watched the 6 o’clock news. Now that I think about it, the last example is kind of random and a little awkward…

Jump 12 years ahead… Tom puts on a great show and is as intense as ever. To be honest, I’m still fearful and easily the youngest person in the audience. At times, I feel like I’m sitting in class listening to an American history lecture or getting my Masters in Folk Music. Tales of dinner with Johnny Cash and drinking in NYC apartments channeling Bob Dylan were great. He played a lot of new stuff but closed with a good old song about cockfighting and taunts the audience saying he’s not doing to “play no stinking rooster song”…

Anyway, Tom has been posting to his blog more than Molly has, and if you are interested in getting a brief glimpse into Tom’s mind, I highly recommend it. You could also read the account below, where I tried to channel the man himself. The concert review written with a Tom Russell style…

We rode into Charlotte after 50 miles of rain soaked asphalt. The grey colored clouds linger heavy like the cheap speed and Cognac we enjoyed the night before. We find the dive where our fate awaits and decide to eat across the street at Boudreaux’s. A Louisiana kitchen that time forgot about. Billy, our waiter, moves slow bringing us beer and fried alligator before our meal of crab cake croissant sandwiches. People say gator is like salmon in how it takes on the flavor of what is cooked with. I disagree, Billy is a bastard. I think of the salmon fisherman up in Alaska and the time I spent up there. We tip our hats and leave singing Ava Maria, or at least the parts we knew.

We get to the show early, as dad doesn’t like to sit far back. I wait as dad grabs more beer. It’s cold in here. The cold reminds me of the winter of 93. It was cold back then. I wish I brought my Columbia fleece vest that’s out in the car. That would warm me like the warmth of her love before she headed down the Rio Grande like so many before. A man dressed in black sings his heart out and I’m reminded of Amsterdam and the Dutchman. As the show goes on it gets warmer in the dive. I sit back and think about how crazy I was for thinking the vest was a good idea. I’m glad it’s in the car, where it should be. That would have been way too warm. Way too warm. Intermission. (Intermission.) That’s a fragment, but I don’t give a damn, you bastards…
We get up and make our way over to the man in black. I’m amazed at the fearlessness that dad approaches him. Wait… Typical, now he’s explaining who he and his brother are. I don’t think he understands. I’m relieved. Wow he’s signing my poster. We talk about the poster. It’s old. Old like 12 years of time rubbed dark and raw. I mutter that I’ve been a fan since I was young. Tom repeats what I say. I don’t know where this is going. I’m confused. I’m going to go sit down. Wow that was close… He could have killed me.

Another set and an encore. I leave amazed and satisfied, like I just had eggs over a t-bone steak. We saddle up and try to figure out the way back to the highway. We make a couple of wrong turns and end up in a bad part of town. Real bad. (another fragment, you think I give a shit) I don’t think this part of town would appreciate the American craftsmanship that went into my fleece vest. I’m going to take it off. Wow, next time, I’m just not going to bring this fucking fleece. It’s been so much trouble. Dad lock the doors. This isn’t good. Why do all the stores have bars on them? I mean French-Canadian Racketeers and rednecks from down south I could have anticipated and fought. But 12:00 on the other side of the tracks, the tracks the Japanese laid down, is not good. Oh thank God, a sign for the highway. Let’s stock up on more cheap speed and coffee. Tomorrow we will go to work, but tonight… tonight we ride…tonight we ride…