At some point today, I had an interesting thing to write about. And as I sit here now with my fingers on the keyboard, I have no idea what it was. Politics? Sports? Witty observations on the odd things that happened today? Gone.
The beer for this forgetful day is the ESB from Redhook. It has a crystal clear, light amber color in the glass, with a wispy white head. The aroma is straight up caramel malt, and the taste brings you flavors of malt and bread, with some light citrus and a bit of a bitterness in the finish. Maybe not as malty or as flavorful as some ESB's from across the pond, but a nice beer to relax with and eat with my pizza dinner.
Redhook was a leader in the trend of multi-site brewing operations among craft brewers. Originally from Seattle, they now also have a brewery in Portsmouth, MA (where I'm sure my beer came from) to allow for a greater distribution footprint. And, if distribution was a problem before, it's not currently as Redhook merged with Widmer in 2008 to form something called the Craft Brewers Alliance (which later bought out Kona). You want more business deals? Beer Colossus InBev now owns a hefty yet minority share with 32% of the conglomerate. For those keeping score at home, Redhook, Widmer, and Kona are all being treated separately for the purposes of this blog, as they maintained their own production and identity in the M&A process.
Thing to Think About Today:
For a while in the early days of this blog, I felt every other day I was commenting on a legend who had passed away, often too soon. Today unfortunately brings us back to that topic, as Ron Palillo, better known to the world as Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter, passed away today at the age of 63. Many frequent readers will understand that I love sitcoms (and comedies) from the 70's and 80's, and Kotter held a special place near the top of that list. However, unlike many of the celebrity deaths, I had a somewhat personal connection to Palillo. A story, if you'll allow me:
There was a restaurant in a neighboring town when I was growing up that attracted people from miles around for great chicken wings. Particularly enjoyable was their frequent 10 or 25 cent wing night, and the fact that they routinely served my friends and me beer underage. One night on our way to a 100 wing and multiple pitchers of beer order, we saw there was going to be entertainment that evening in the form of the comedic genius of Ron Palillo. I don't think anyone else in the restaurant knew or cared that there was entertainment, but we were amazed by our good luck. Or so we thought... right up until Palillo bombed. It was awful. His scripted material left the audience with completely blank stares, and eventually enough frustration that the mob started shouting, "DO HORSHACK! DO HORSHACK!" Palillo eventually gave in and immediately with the first, "Ooh, ooh, Mr. Kotter" absolutely brought the house down. From there on, the laughs flowed freely, as did the beer to underage drinkers. God, I miss the Chicken Coop.
Never being ones to miss an opportunity, we decided to, um, "borrow" the glossy head shot photo of Palillo hanging in the lobby. This would come in handy later on during our senior year when we decided to run off a few thousand copies and proceed to tape them up all over the walls of our school. Think of it as an guerrilla art installation, just WAY ahead of its time. Needless to say, our Principal wasn't quite as enthused by our new found art appreciation, although somehow he never managed to catch on that we were the ones behind the prank. A particularly fun day was when Governor Bob Casey came to our school for a "State Capital for a Day" sort of deal. On the bulletin board with red, white, and blue bunting were glossy photos of Governor Casey and his Lieutenant Governor. Lieutenant Governor Ron Palillo, that is, as we snuck a copy of our head shot photo into the official materials. Considering the questionable intelligence of the kids we went to school with, it wasn't a big surprise that no one picked up on the fact Horshack's picture was up there, although I would have hoped at least one teacher, civics or history perhaps, would have noticed. Anyway, a long and not entirely funny story unless you were there, but one that immediately came to mind when I saw that one of my favorite actors had passed away. I still have that glossy head shot squirreled away in a folder somewhere, which I suppose I now need to find and put in a place of honor. I like saving things like that, which sometimes (read: always) drives Marci crazy.
Rest in peace, Arnold Horshack. The Sweathogs will never be the same without you.
There's a complete lack of good Welcome Back, Kotter clips on Youtube. Isn't that why the internet was invented? Can someone get on this already?
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