Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #17: Beer Party Trumps Tea Party Any Day
bart plantenga
A discussion with activist cartoonist and BEER MYSTIC host, Ken Avidor [here posed as Greek God of Mini-Golf, Nkolfus, in Asbury Park, c. 1984].
I knew Ken [aka Weiner] for many years in NYC, during its – or was it jus...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #16: Books – Increasingly Illegal Intoxicants?
bart plantenga
An interview with Karen Lillis
When I was just beginning high school I was one scared, miffed, gawky, pimply kid, unlike the rest of the kids somehow. But what kid of 13 didn’t feel that way? (photo: Karen in the ...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #15: Beer as Therapy
bart plantenga
It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners
• Albert Camus
You gotta chortle in your beerhead at the maxim “Beer Is Cheaper Than Therapy,” a tongue-in-cheek saying fraught [...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #14: Beer = Food = Books
bart plantenga
Apparently I said “In NY the louder and crazier you sound, the more attention you seem to get,” and this was quoted in the Sunday Boston Globe about our Cambridge gig. Luckily they used a photo of Judy Nylon and not me.
...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #13: Without the Voodoo of Hope
bart plantenga
Hitching through mid-1970s Canada usually meant Canadian Border Services stopping you, inquiring how much money you had on your person. If it was under $25 they’d refuse you entry, which meant hitching the long way round ...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #12: Stroh’s Cans to the Head
bart plantenga
I suddenly have vivid memories of survival in Flint, Michigan, Motor City Jr., birthplace of GM. I was a stranger here because I rode a bike with books of poetry in my back pocket and some locals could smell this alienness ...
More...
Essay
Beer Burp #11: Obsolete Drunken Nirvana
bart plantenga
Rich Dana, is not just the editor of the retro-future activist aesthetics journal Obsolete but also a guy doing battle – and making his own peace – with the various seemingly overwhelming forces of displacement, corpo...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #10: The Amble, The Ale
bart plantenga
The Amble, The Ale: Walking Nowhere Into the Pale
“Freedom knows no propaganda more effective
than people calmly enjoying themselves.”
• Raoul Vaneigm, The Revolution of Everyday Life
I was pointed to a youtu...
More...
Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #9: Beernuts are People Too
bart plantenga
You can make a lot of friends on social networks if you’re into beer. You can do that quite adequately in bars as well. You buy a few elbow jockeys a round of canned goat urine and you might have friends for life, the kind...
More...
Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #8: Eddie Don’t Do Beer
bart plantenga
No, Eddie Woods don’t do beer, he does white wine, anything above 3 euros is just fine. Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay is more than OK by him. Not before 5 and thereafter, he switches to red – Merlot [EW correction] or Beau...
More...
Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #7: Beer = Liquid Cartoonist
bart plantenga
BEER MYSTIC Burp #7
X-Large I see is the new large in clothing sizes. Size matters, so now a medium cup is like a trough of soda at McSubWenNuggests. They even try to super-size you when you rent a car, from an obese sedan ...
More...
Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #6: Plagiarism and Unpaid-for Beer in a Paris Swamp
bart plantenga
BEER MYSTIC Burp #6
We made a toast. “To he who casts the first kidney stone.” Clink of beer glasses, tink-tink, small amber waves sloshing over the sides, beer-head mustaches as our only disguise in the Pik-Clops in th...
More...
Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #5: A Mental Jersey Leads to Spirited Beer Consumption
bart plantenga
BEER MYSTIC Burp #5
Before Jersey Shore was a TV show, it was already a socio-anthropological phenomenon of some steroidal bonehead beach bum magnitude. Summers were and still are an excuse for so-called [or seemingly] norma...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #4: A Weird, Bloody Barroom Ritual Remembered
bart plantenga
Beer Mystic Burp 4: A Weird, Bloody Barroom Ritual Remembered
Imagine this, you walk into your local bar, a place where you know where to hang your truss, and upon entering you instantly sense something is amiss, awry –...
More...
Essay
Beer Mystic Burp #3: Pivo is Czech for Beer
bart plantenga
Pivo Is Czech for Beer But Also An Alter-Ego
In 1993, you could live like a bastard prince in Prague – if you had dollars to spend – on a pauper’s wages. Beer was 15 US cents – and we would repeat the names ... Pi...
More...