The Beer Man
People come to Europe on extended vacations for all sorts of reasons. I read in Conte Nast about a man that spent months on the continent searching for the perfect Sachertorte. Another fellow spent his entire summer holiday seeking out every topless beach in Europe. Noble as these quests may have been, they didn’t inspire me. I came thirsty for a premium beverage. Alas, I never found the perfect beer. Try as I may, once I thought I had finally discovered the Holy Grail of Hops, that beer would be followed by one that was equally as good and most often even better. You can only imagine the pain and disappointment. Undeterred, I trudged on for hundreds of kilometers and four countries. I have tried beer on mountain tops where it was as cold as a well diggers posterior and at beachfront cabanas were it was as hot as Hades on a sunny day and I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that the best beer will always be the next beer.
More Useless But Interesting Facts
The Andy Kaufman Routine:
The highly repetitive and ultimately boring nature of “99 Bottles of Beer” means that only a child or a lunatic will actually finish it. Comedian Andy Kaufman exploited this fact in the routine early in his career when he would actually sing all 99 verses. Kaufman was deliberately provoking the audience. Once they realized that he actually intended to sing all of the verses, catcalls, booing, and sullen silence were common responses. Toward the end of the sketch, Kaufman would feign recognition that the audience was not enjoying the material, and he would leave the stage with only 5 or 6 “bottles” to go. At that point, the audience would begin calling for him to return to finish the verses.
“Infinite bottles of beer on the wall.”
Mathematician Donald Byrd wrote this song “Infinite bottles of beer on the wall, take one down and past it around, now there are infinite bottles of beer on the wall.” Repeat. “To Infinity & Beyond”.
I’ve got to go.
