Corn Flakes and Smoked Clams

Family dinner is an important priority in our family. That's the time for bonding, for sharing, for burping loudly while discovering important, unexpected nuggets of childhood development.

And, of course, it's the time for complaining endlessly about the food on the table (and desiring either plain corn flakes or smoked clams...maybe both) while kicking siblings under the table.

As much as I hate to disrupt such honorable revelry, a few weeks back I took the opportunity to interrupt the enthralling proceedings and get philosophical.

"Girls, where do you see yourselves in 20 years?"

All action at the table ceased. I was met with a wall of blank stares.

"OK," I tried again, "when you're 30, what would you like to be doing? How will you be earning money? Where will you be living? How will you be getting around? Tell me what you see."

They quickly got it and started throwing out some soundbites: "I'll own a bunch of horses," "I'll be working for Pixar," "I'll own a house and a car," "I'll have corn flakes/smoked clams for dinner every night," etc. etc.

"Good, now...how are you going to accomplish that?"

Blank stares.

"OK..." I started again with a deep breath, "what are you going to need to do between now and then in order to ensure all of those things will come true."

McKenna chimed in, "Go to college?" Reese added, "Get good grades?"

They were on the right track, but I wanted them to see it more clearly. I wanted to motivate them.

"Think about every kid in your class - think about every kid in your grade. Now think about every kid in your grade at every school in the city...in the nation...around the world. Overwhelming, right? But to put yourself in position to do everything you want, it's really simple: you just have to work a little bit harder than everyone else. A little bit harder in school, a little bit harder in your jobs, a little bit harder in any effort that requires your attention. You'll rise to the top and you'll be able to accomplish everything you want."

I let this bomb drop, sat back and waited...sure it would ignite a firestorm.

Reese was the first to explode, "I'M GOING TO BE THE BEST IN MY CLASS! I'M GOING TO WORK HARDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!!!"

Awesome. I looked over at McKenna - she had her head down in her plate, moving her broccoli around in endless figure 8's. I was expecting an, "I'M GOING TO BE TOPS IN MY CLASS! I'M GOING TO INTERN AT APPLE WHEN I'M 18," or, at the very least, "I'M GOING TO INVENT A SMOKED CLAMS MACHINE!"...

"What about you hon?" I asked, lighting the fuse...

She looked up and confidently replied, "Mmm, I just want to be somewhere in the middle."

In my head I was screaming, "WHAAAAAAT?!?!?" ...but somehow I had enough restraint to speak through vice-clenched teeth, "WHATDOYOUMEANHONEY?"

"Well, if I'm somewhere in the middle, then maybe somebody who isn't as fortunate as me will have an opportunity to be successful too."

Hot air instantly instantly started leaking out of my ego. How could I argue with compassion? What kind of a monster would I be to insinuate she had her priorities screwed up...? But then an idea hit me...

"That's really beautiful - your sentiment is in exactly the right place. The challenge is that helping people requires effort as well. Working harder than everyone else will put you in the best possible position to help the most amount of people in the most effective way."

I considered my response a victory when the broccoli stopped doing figure skating tricks and went down the gullet, but the true test will be what my kids will be doing 20 years from now. Will they be playing Anchorman with warm Coors Light, or self-sufficient, comfortable in their own skin, and satiated on corn flakes and smoked clams?

Of course this conversation is the first thing that pops in my head when I see the absolute train wreck of Survivor's last episode.

In 24 seasons, never have we seen a tribe voluntarily give up immunity to go to tribal council. Not only is it pure idiocy, but it's deserving of the worst move of all time...and that's among stiff competition.

The whole of the strategy at this point in the game should be numbers. Period. Enter the merge with numbers, and you've got an enormous advantage. Look what happened last time: one by one, every member of the smaller tribe was picked off. It automatically puts you in in the final 6. But when a tribe is more concerned with politics at this point in the game...the writing is on the wall, and it says: buh-buh.

Colton is the perfect analogy for the current brand of the Republican party. Rich trumps all. Yes, even being gay. Colton despises Bill solely because he's not well off, and yet Bill works his ass off in a valiant attempt to pursue his life's passion: comedy. He pays the price of scraping by in order to do what he loves to do.

"I'm sorry, but I'm a Republican, I don't DO handouts," Colton spats in a private interview. But his entire existence is based on handouts. He's never worked a day in his life, he's received every dime he's ever had as handouts from his parents, and he only knows minorities as servants.

Bill's exit was poetic, "He judged me for my differences while I accepted him for his." Bravo.

But Colton is still in the game, and that's important. As much of a despicable human being that he is, he's playing a better game than Bill. And like the current Republican party, there's now so much fear about speaking out against absolute insanity that nobody even attempts to say something logical for fear of being targeted and marginalized. It's Lord of the Frickin' Flies.

And yet, Probst dropped the ball as well... When he said, "Only time will tell if this strategy works or not," he couldn't have been more wrong. The strategy already failed. There never was any upside to stupidity. Never an upside to voluntarily disadvantaging themselves. Never an upside to looking like assholes to 25 million TV viewers.

How I wish I could have sat down with them before that tribal council for a casual dinner and asked, "So, where do you see yourselves 20 days from now...and how will you get there?"

Because in the absence of education, of critical thinking, of debate and logic and respect for others, the one who screams and whines the loudest, using fear as a false uniter, will prevail...but only temporarily. I still have faith that integrity trumps stupidity in the end.

And after my talk, Colton would have been booted, Bill would have been spared...and perhaps, just perhaps, someone would have invented a smoked clams machine...

What a glorious world it would be...

H8TR

I realize this is not going to come as a huge shock to some of you...but I hate people.

No, really.

I hate. People.

OK, technically not all people...but the alternative is definitely the exception.

Put aside the growing political trend of not just tolerating ignorance, but embracing it and holding it up as something to be admired (while vilifying the educated). Put aside the "everyone's special" diseased mentality that psychologically adolescent parents instill in their kids (sorry kids, but you're not born special, you have to EARN it through hard work). Put aside the "we're all winners and there are no losers!" cesspool of fecundity that permeats our society, with every kids sports team receiving "participant trophies" and the absolutely baffling elimination of slaughter ball and smear the queer from school playgrounds.

Too many people think their shit doesn't stink, and I'm not afraid to say that I hate them.

Recently it seems like I've been placed right in the crosshairs of numerous people that deserve to be hated, because in the past few weeks I've encountered a triumverate of these human blights.

On a plane from Los Angeles to Sacramento, I found myself seated next to a guy in his late 20s. The plane was parked at the gate as everyone boarded, and I took the opporutnity to build my bubbleboy cone of silence in window seat 5A, reading quietly and making as little impact to those around me as possible. Soon, this guys takes seat 5B, and he's got no bags, no books, no iPod - no nothing - just himself. Literally three seconds after he buckles in, his knee starts vibrating non-stop in a manic display of OCD that I know will not subside for the impending 60 minute flight.

"Don't say a word, don't say a word..." I tell myself, convinced that if I can just last out the next hour, I will avoid an unpleasant scene that would likely result in me screaming obscenities at him... But as I try to maintain my focus on my book, the seat vibrations were so severe that I literally couldn't focus on the words. It was like I was sitting on a cushioned jackhammer.

I think I deserve some credit for lasting the six minutes that I did, but just as I screamed to myself in my mind, "YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SAY A WORD!" I watched outside my own body as I suddenly and unexpectedly turned to him and spat, "ARE YOU OK?!"

He looked at me completely confused. "Huh...?"

"Are you OK? You're shaking - I didn't know if...there was a problem."

He was offended. He scoffed. "That's what I do."

"You shake? That's what you do?" I gave myself permission to get pissed. "All our chairs are connected; I can hardly keep hold of my book - can you not shake your leg?"

Now he was pissed, "We're on a plane, PLANES SHAKE."

"NOT WHILE PARKED AT THE GATE THEY DON'T!" I replied.

Thankfully (for both him and me - more for me, because I'm not sure what I would have done otherwise), he stopped shaking and ignored me for the remainder of the flight.

The next week I was in the San Francisco airport with about 90 minutes before my next flight. I headed to the food court, but quickly realized that every table was taken. I looped around twice before a table opened up and I grabbed it. Halfway through my lunch, I heard an older guy behind me ask the next table if he could join them as there weren't any open tables. But nope - he was denied. He turned his attention to me and I quickly invited him to join me - I had space and (usually) I'm not an asshole.

As I turned back to my Sports Illustrated and sushi, the guy parked his luggage, set down his lunch, sat down across from me at the small, 2 person table, and...pulled out his f-in phone. With his face two feet away from mine, he then proceded to call three separate people and loudly drone on one-sided about absolutely nothing.

Little flecks of spittle dusted my spicy tuna roll.

Visions of Larry David encoutering the same situation...but rather than stage a whole scene (ballsy and brilliant), I intead tucked my testes back in my underbelly, scarfed my hamachi and blew the joint.

The final straw happened at the most unexpected moment.

I run most mornings before sunrise on the stunning American River Parkway. It's the only time of day that I can get out for an hour or so without it disrupting my family, and besides - I love the solitude, the peace, the still beauty...the hypnotic silence down by the river with only a trail and the wilderness to keep me company.

On this particular day I was having a particularly good run - I had pushed myself, was sweating freely, feeling alive...I was fully immersed in the very real "runner's high." With just a mile remaining, I started thinking to myself how great this was for my health; not just my physical health, but moreso for my mental health. With all my vitriol and hatred for the preponderance of assholes out there, I was surely heading down the path to an early cardiac arrest...but sweating out my toxins was my cure. I could literally feel my mental health healing its scars with each pounding footstep.

As I complimented myeself on my meditative prowess, I half-noticed a bike light coming toward me on the trail ahead. It had rained the night before, and I was approaching a section of the trail that had no shoulder, and with my dog on a leash with me, and it being still pitch dark (even though I too had a headlamp), I moved out on to the grass and weeds, navigating the puddles and mud rather than battle the biker for space (the trail can accomodate two going in either direction, and I actually had right of way with no shoulder).

But the biker, a morning commuter, was having none of it, and as he approached, he actually swerved toward me and muttered, "Goddamn asshole, get out of my way..."

You've never seen someone in such a deeply meditative trance go from zero to a billion on the heart attack scale so quickly - less than a milisecond. I had, "MOTHERFUCKER," "PIECE OF SHIT" and "COCKSUCKER" out of my mouth before his rear tire had passed my heals.

Look, I'm not proud of it - heck, I barely had anything to do with it. It happened beyond my control. My asshole tolerance levels had peaked and brimmed, and they needed a release. Thankfully, they rained on someone who most definitely deserved it.

And as we kick off the 24th season of Survivor, I have to admit, I have learned to revel in the abandon of assholes. No longer does Mark Burnett staff these things with people from all ages and all walks of life. He has a quota of assholes to fill, and by god, he fills 'em. After just one episode, it's apparent that this season is brimming with assholes.

And as we all know, watching assholes is light years more rewarding than dealing with them face-to-asshole.

We hardly get any real drama in this first hour, but the promise of asshole-spewing is ominously tremendous. Alicia with her universe-revolving-around-her mentality, drips with "you owe me respect" assumptiveness. Colton with his "no straight guy is worth my time" attitude, uses uncomfortable, venomous humor to construct flimsy relationship bridges.

It's unlikely I'll encounter any of these self-promoting dolts in an airport restaurant or on the bike trail at 4:45am, but if I do...watch out.

Of course all those bikini-clad hotties are all just fine the way they are...

God, I'm such an asshole.

Until next week...

Tourette It Be

Some things always change.

My hair to grey. (One of) my kid's clothes. Bob and David.

Some things never change. McRib's groundhog-like seasonality and inexplicable excitement. McRib's recipe. A McRib left out on a counter for a thousand years.

Change sustains us. Makes life interesting. Keeps the Tooth Fairy in business.

When life throws a beanball at your head when you it's physically impossible to duck out of the way, nothing is more frustrating. At the moment when you most crave change, it keeps it out of arm's reach. It can eat away at your soul and slowly drive you insane.

For example: my evil neighbors and my ensuing dream of a vacant lot behind our house...

Speaking of which...

Nothing much has changed since I last wrote about these two. Well, that's not entirely true. It's gotten worse. More floodings, more cursing, and tenfold more yappy barking.

This past summer, we decided that if they won't change, we will. So whenever their yapping rats were left yapping for more than five minutes, we'd call. That conversation would typically go something like this...

"Hi, this is your neighbors, can you please stop your dogs from barking?" It was always answered by the wife, who would drawl out a long whiny answer, "Ohhhhhhhhhh, Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay." Then a few minutes later we'd hear her calling the main culprit's name, Lucy.

"LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?! COME GET A TREAT!!!"

This would be repeated half a dozen times over the next ten minutes until the dog, smartly, realizing that the more it barked, the more likely it was that it would get some delicious treats, would eventually make it's way back to the house for a reward. The cherry on all this was that the lady spent 90% of her time on the back porch talking on the phone, so she was RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOGS THE WHOLE TIME while this was all going on, but refused to say anything until we (or another neighbor) called her.

But hey, we can call just as often as the dogs can bark.

And we did. In fact, we probably called 30 times in the span of about 6 weeks.

One time she actually told Paige (during one of these compaint calls) that she wanted her dogs to bark because they'd recently lost one to cancer and another also had cancer and hadn't been very active lately. "This shows that she's getting better!"

"Can you let her show it in a way that isn't an obnoxious intrusion to everyone else's lives around you?" Paige replied. The humor was (unsurprisingly) lost on the neighbor.

Still, this was a glimmer of hope. Karma appeared to be methodically taking these dogs out one by one...

One day I returned home from a particularly grueling day at work - Paige and the girls were off somewhere else. My mind needed badly to decompress, so I walked out into the silent backyard with my dog to enjoy the quiet stillness, the rustling leaves in the soft breeze, the smell of the freshly-cut grass and summer flowers...to toss the ball a few times and relax. Ahhh...tremendous.

Suddenly, "YAPYAPYAPYAP!"

The neighbor's dogs' snouts were popping through the fence in a frenzied attack at my smouldering but entirely silent mind.

My blood pressure began to boil.

I took deep breaths one after another trying to calm myself. "YAPYAPYAP!" I could hear the nieghbor yapping herself on her phone not twenty yeads from me across the fenceline. "YAPYAPYAP!" Red began to completely obstruct my eyesight as my chest contracted...five minutes...ten minues...

I couldn't take any more.

Somehow, I managed to restrain the tone in my voice as I calmly said in a bold but not loud voice, "Excuse me, " "YAPYAPYAP!" "...but can you please," "YAPYAPYAP!" "...stop your dogs," "YAPYAPYAP!" "...from barking?!"

"YAPYAPYAP!YAPYAPYAPYAPYAPYAPYAPYAP!"

The yapping increased in frenzy for a good twenty seconds as the neighbor waited just long enough to make me think she wasn't doing what I wanted her to do, but that she was doing it on her own, then, "LUUUUUUUUUUUUUCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! WAAAAAANNAAAAA TREAT?!?!"

Suddenly, from the side of the fence next to my house, sharing the back fence with the evil neighbors, came a booming voice, not ten feet away from me,

"SHUT UP BITCH!!!!!"

My mind imploded as it tried to comprehend what just happened, and then I instantly understood: it was my neighbor's 21 year old son who had Tourette Syndrome - he had been standing in the corner of his backyard where our fences met the evil neighbor's fence. She and her dogs had pushed him over the edge.

I didn't know whether to laugh uproarishly or be embarassed - my voice and his voice had basically just come from the exact same part of her backyard fence for all she knew. Clearly she must think that I had just screamed at her to "SHUT UP BITCH!"

Silence reigned. For the first time the dogs were quiet, she was quiet and the world was (gloriously) quiet. For a good fifteen seconds nothing happened, and then suddenly from her back porch came a shrill, pleading scream,

"YOU SHOULDN'T TALK TO YOUR NEIGHBOR LIKE THAT!!!!"

If there's a heaven, I was in it.

I sauntered back in the house, suddenly relaxed, calm and completely at peace. All was well with the world, as I smiled, envisioning her husband calling me later that evening when he returned home, "Did you tell my wife to 'Shut up, bitch?'" I savored my expected response, "As much as I understand and sympathize with the sentiment...it actually wasn't me. It was our neighbor - you know, the kid with Tourette's..."

But the call never came. They must have figured out what had happened. I had gotten exactly what I wanted: not just quiet solace, but a definitive, explanation point-like smackdown to get it...and I didn't even have to be the one to do it.

A little bit of change had gone a long way.

And since I'm supposed to tie this all in with Survivor - clearly a little bit of change would make all the difference in that world as well. A season brimming with potential has been sorely lacking in drama to date. Ozzy's incredible sacrifice? Anticlimactic. Cochran's backstab? Anticlimactic. Brandon's certifiable insanity? OK, that's pretty dramatic. But Coach's Svengali-ism? Meh. The problem is that it's working too well. The dominos are falling one by one without drama. It's predictable, boring and desperately in need of change.

Had Coach flipped this week, he most likely would have locked up not only a final tribal council berth, but a win. Partnering with three hated players: Cochran, Edna and Albert? Money. Now watch: Coach will go down soon. It's inevitable.

Coach: all bark and no bite.

Too bad my neighbor's kid wasn't lurking around their island.

Take it from me: everyone could use a covert neighbor with Tourette's.

Speaking words of wisdom...

Hot Seat

In the early 1980’s, we’d get some strange TV shows on the non-network channels late on Saturday nights in Northern California. Most were unedited versions of British comedies like Monty Python, Benny Hill and Bizarre…but then there was also this crazy talk show from Southern California: “Hot Seat with Wally George.”

Hot Seat was completely different than anything we’d seen before. At that time, insane, one-sided hatemongering political shows were simply a pipe nightmare. Hot Seat predated them all. And like the ebola-ish political pundits of today, Wally catered to the lowest common denominator: white trash. The one difference (that we didn’t really understand at the time), was that we couldn’t really tell if he believed his own load of drivel or not…was he more Stephen Colbert or Rush Limbaugh?

If you’re not familiar with Wally, YouTube him. Perhaps considered tame by today’s sheer volume of babbling, offensive noise, Wally was one-of-a-kind 30 years ago. It was crazy, unique, disturbing, hilarious, yes – even daring. It was Jerry Springer mixed with Glen Beck: loud, raucous crowds, fake security guards taking away every guest (because each guest inevitably was kicked off the show right before the commercial break), over-the-top conservative “opinions” decreed as fact…and yet there was something comfortably funny about it all – like you were in on a joke that you didn’t fully understand.

Hot Seat only focused on two topics:

1. Ronald Reagan: God Jr.
2. Pot smokers: evil incarnate.

Everything, and I mean everything, could be deconstructed into one of these two camps. And, perhaps the best part of all? It was all delivered under the single worst hairstyle mankind has ever known:

When I started at UCLA in 1987, it was an obvious transition that instead of waiting for Hot Seat once a week, I could now watch his daily 30 minute call-in show on Channel 56 out of Ahaheim. At that time, this station had just enough juice to reach the 20 or so miles north to Westwood – it would come in full of static – wavering in and out in alignment with the weather patterns…

This version of Hot Seat was a real treat. Wally would literally spend 30 minutes in front of a giant U.S. flag at a desk with a picture of the space shuttle on one side and Reagan on the other and simply take calls.

But these weren’t the type of calls we’ve come to expect today on talk radio; instead, they were potheads calling up to mess with Wally.

Constantly.

“Hi caller, what can I do for you?” Wally would ask.

“Wally – something died on your head.” (hair-related calls were big…)

“GET OUTTA HERE!” he would yell, waving his thumb in the air with a scowl. “Next caller!”

“Yeah, Wally – I ran out of toilet paper, can I borrow your bad hair piece?”

It was…brilliant. LITERALLY every call berated Wally or promoted weed. Sometimes it was both.

“Hi Wally?”

“Yes caller, what question do you have?”

“I was just taking a massive bong hit, saw you on TV and was wondering if you were actually an albino version of Mushmouth from Fat Albert?”

“GET OUTTA HERE YOU FREAKING IDIOT! That caller clearly has BRAIN DAMAGE! Too much of the GREEN STUFF polluting his mind. Hey caller, I hope you fall in that “BONG” of yours and find a clue!”

Wally’s comebacks weren’t always that good, but his (feigned?) supreme anger trumped the need for a snappy retort. It was all delicious.

Of course, being a college kid with time on my hands, I couldn’t resist…

I started calling him every now and then, pretending that I was asking a real question, and then devolving into weird noises right in the middle of it all.

“Hi, Wally?”

“Yes, what’s your question?”

“I was wondering what you thought about the recent congressional vote abouoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOI!”

“GET HIM OUTTA HERE!!! YOU FREAK!!! OK, next caller…”

It was inane, adolescent, brainless…but so much fun. It was a good way for me to let off steam during my freshman year, and I would constantly try to change my voice before slipping into the weird noise.

Wally hated me.

Many times, after 15 non-stop minutes of berating phone calls, Wally would get so angry he’d threaten that if there was one more crank call he was just going to stare at the camera and not say a word the rest of the show. I was lucky enough to be the very next caller…

“Wally?”

“Yes…this better be a real question – I’m warning you! What’s your name?”

“Hi Wally,” I started in a nice, friendly voice that slowly changed into a low, guttural moan, “this is SATAN FROM HELL!!!”

True to his word, Wally vitriolically frowned into the camera for the next 10 minutes without taking another call. Pride soared to a new level.

Not having Beavis and Butthead yet, my roommate and I thought this was just pure hilarity. Then we hit upon the idea to actually get tickets to his weekly live show and catch him in person. Soon, we were on I5 heading south toward Anaheim one afternoon, tickets in hand for that day’s show with special “guest,” Mr. Bud Green (a “regular” on the show – having been booted at least a dozen times over the past year).

But we weren’t just going to watch; I had a plan…

I wanted to get kicked off the show. I knew Wally took questions from the audience at the beginning of each show, and I knew what needed to be done…

The 40 or so in the audience filed in and sat down – leather, tattoos, the acrid stink of pot smoke wafting from them all – it was a barnyard. The show began and Wally sat at his desk berating all things non-conservative (Mondale, Kennedy, whales, diet soda…); the crowd would react uproariously with every crazy declaration, pontificated with an angry pound on his desk, then they went to commercial.

Someone asked if anyone in the audience had any questions and instructed us to get in a line near a microphone. I got up and got in: 3rd. We came back from the break and Wally went right to the audience questions…

The first guy complimented Wally on his love of Reagan or some such nonsense and tossed him an easy softball about Robert Bork. Whetted, Wally went to the second guy who expressed his lust toward Wally’s “new” girlfriend Janice - who was this British beauty that Wally clearly hired to legitimize his celebrity (Wally feigned anger/disgust, but then expressed how much she loved Wally and America).

Then it was my turn.

I approached the mic in a leather jacket and sunglasses.

“Hi sir, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“Hi Wally…” I took a deep breath and tried my best not to smile, “I just kind of wanted to know abouoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOI!”

The crowd went crazy.

“GET HIM OUTTA HERE!!!” Wally yelled to his security guards who lovingly grabbed me by the arms and walked me off camera. But as the audience continued laughing uncontrollably, Wally pointed to me with a smile and said, “So YOU’RE the guy who does that?!”

The “guards” escorted me to my seat and departed with a fist bump.

The Hot Seat wasn’t all that hot…

Kind of like last night’s Survivor finale. Have you ever seen a final tribal council in the past 22 seasons in which the opening statements of the first two contestants completely admit their own incompetence and definitively decree that the winner should be the 3rd person?

Not that it should have been any other way… Natalie was purely a leech, and Phillip was an a-hole. Still…we expect more in the final hot seat…

Where was Phil’s promised “solid”, winning argument? I’m telling you, he could have garnered a couple extra votes if he had said it was all an act from day one, but instead he just seemed nervous and unable to put together coherent sentences (except when he was berating the jury and telling them not to vote for him – typically a poor strategy…).

In the end it really didn’t matter – Rob’s victory was a foregone conclusion if there ever was one. It wouldn’t have mattered if Ashley was there, Mike, Grant, Jesus; as David so appropriately stated, this was Rob’s game, and he played it brilliantly. When Jeff later said that it was the single most perfectly executed performance in Survivor’s 22 seasons, he was right: impressive, dominating, satisfying.

Still…we love the heat. That’s why we watch Survivor, right? No matter how much we may argue that the person who played the “game” the best should win, the unpredictable human component always seems to come into play. Friendship vs. strategy. Relationship vs. execution. Too many times we’ve seen the wrong person win because people take things personally. That’s what CBS banks on, and that’s what seems to deliver more times than not (see Russell’s two 2nd place finishes…).

But the trade off is that it can become unsatisfying. Like my Hot Seat experience, in which I soon lost interest in goading someone who only wanted to be goaded, Survivor should be more aware of this. Get rid of Redemption Island and contestants that have no right to have a chance to win after being booted off. Reinforce the "outwit/outplay/outlast" concept like a judge instructing the jury prior to deliberation. Stop setting the table for disappointment and instead let things play out on their own without intervention, without breaking down the third wall.

So which is right? Is it a game, or is it life?

I’m here to tell you, the answer is simple.

It’s…oiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiyoiYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOIYOI!

Until next season...

Balls + Taints + Statatory Rape = Heartwarming Hilarity!

As a child, it can be an extremely traumatizing experience to watch your parent getting injured.

One time when I was ten, my dad rode his bike over to my friend’s house to pick me up for dinner. He stuck me on the handlebars and off we went. About a half block away, a neighbor drove by and waved. Trying to be a good kid, I waved back, but the action required a counterbalance move to ensure I didn’t fall off.

Unfortunately, that move was me sticking my foot directly into the spokes of the front wheel.

The bike flipped head-over-heels and my dad landed half on his right arm, half on his face. My dad’s ample blood, scrapes, scratches and gravel-embedded road rash were minor compared to the arm broken in multiple places...and even that was secondary to the fact that when he landed on his face, the impact of his glasses literally gouged a chunk out of his nose in between his eyes.

(On the positive side, his glasses have never slipped down his nose since…)

I felt horrible, but perhaps not as bad as my friend Bill felt about tainting my mom a couple years later… (Don’t worry, this isn’t a sordid “May-December” romance story gone bad…nor is it a story about taints…)

12 years old, Little League baseball game…all the parents sitting in the stands watching and cheering. Bill hit a foul ball high over the dugout and slowing arcing toward the crowd. Everyone quickly stood up and scatted like Birthers at a pro-brain convention.

Unfortunately, my mom hadn’t picked up the trajectory of the ball when it was hit and went into the tried and true “cocoon of incorrectly assumed safety”, attempting to shield herself from the ball.

“Crack!” We could hear it out on the field. My poor, broken handed, hospital-bound, fear forevermore-ingrained mom…

No, really - she was truly traumatized after that. In fact, about four months later, just after the cast came off, we were at an Oakland A’s game, great seats, about two rows behind the A’s dugout. My dad had just loaded us up with hot dogs, popcorn, sodas…the works.

First inning: Carney Lansford hits a high foul ball… My mom, hyper-sensitive to balls by this point (..my poor dad…), immediately jumps up out of her seat screaming,

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

…and in the process of doing so, throws her arms up and out, crazy with fear.

Of course, the giant tub of popcorn and 64 oz. vat of Coke went flying as well…directly onto the head of the guy sitting directly behind her.

And then the ball landed…forty rows behind us. In the upper deck.

“It’s Ok,” the poor guy managed to say through a thick coating of wet, melting popcorn and fizzy, runny corn syrup.

My mom was beyond embarrassed. (My dad, on the other hand, was probably hoping she’d learned a valuable lesson about all balls not necessarily being dangerous…)

So why have I been discussing balls, taints and statutory rape? What, isn’t it obvious?

Irrational, overly sensitive fear is the deathwish of a Survivor contestant. Sure, you need to be realistic and aware, but everybody is a target; if you can’t remain calm and focused, you’re gone.

I recently read Aron Ralston’s great book, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” (renamed “127 Hours” once the movie came out with James Franco). Highly recommend it – the guy is an absolute stud, and it’s one of the most inspirational stories I’ve ever read (*spoiler* - he cuts off his own arm!).

Of course everyone knows the story, but to hear it in his own words, minute by minute throughout the ordeal is incredible. By the time you get to the moment of truth, any doubts you had wondering if you could have done it yourself if you had been in the same situation are wiped away. In my mind I was shouting, “YES! YES! CUT THE DAMN THING OFF!”

But an interesting detail about his +/-90 minute self-amputation was that the pain was relatively bearable as he broke his bones and slowly sawed through the skin, muscles and sinew. The real roadblock? The nerves. The pain was beyond belief – but he powered through it with his 2” dull blade.

Survivor is all about sawing through your nerves with a dull blade. And there’s only one person remaining who has the balls/taint to do it: Rob. Any other winner this season will be a joke. He clearly wants it more than anyone, and he’s the only one who will do whatever it takes to be the sole survivor. Cut his #1 friend? See ya Grant. Consider cutting his #1 promise? Sorry Natalie, it’s just a game.

Meanwhile, this whole “Redemption Island” thing? Colossal lameness. If you’re voted off, you need to go home, period. If any of these people actually gets back in the game and makes it to the final tribal council, there is no way they deserve even a single goddamned vote. They lost. Anyone who votes for them simply doesn't understand the concept of this show.

And godboy Matt? Puh-lease. I’m glad he’s got God’s batphone number to help him overcome his impending disappointment, because anyone who gets booted TWICE deserves either our full scorn, balls randomly hitting them from different directions (something Ashley may actually like…), or the taint-side of the jury’s disdain. In Matt’s case I’m hoping for all three.

Was Rob wrong to boot Grant over Natalie? Look, he’s rolling the dice. There’s no clear right or wrong yet, but he showed he’s willing to cut through his nerves. Grant is probably a bigger threat in a final tribal (having won a couple immunities), but Natalie may be a bigger threat getting numbers together to boot Rob. On the flipside, Natalie already showed she was more aligned with Rob than with Ashley, so who knows? Maybe Rob chose right.

All I know is that come Sunday’s finale, Rob’s dull blade will be poised and ready for surgery.

Watch out for flying balls.

Blood, Sweat and Nudity

A few years back my brother, a couple running buddies and I met for an early morning tempo run.


A tempo run is a mid-distance run in which you target a specific pace and consistently hold it for the entire run. By all indications, we weren’t expecting anything out of the ordinary; it should be a typical, Saturday morning, out-and-back 10 miler on the bike trail. Get a good run in, get back home by 7:30, relax with a cup of coffee and the newspaper while basking in the rich aromatics of the miasma slowly emanating and wafting from my slowly cooling crotchal region.

The quintessential, family-friendly Saturday morning.

Not so easy.

As I drove over to our meeting point a little after 5:30am, I noticed the temperature gauge on my dash said it was already 88 degrees. Bad sign.

Even worse, when I climbed out of the car, I was hit in the face with the sticky weight of unprecedented (and extremely unusual) humidity, like a heavy, face-first Big-Ball bounce on Wipeout. Sacramento gets hot in the summer (regularly over 100-110), but it’s always a dry heat.

Not this morning.

The four of us nervously addressed the brutal atmosphere as we walked the 1/8 of a mile to the trail. Sweat was already pouring down our faces as we discussed our planned paces, the potential need to refuel our water bottles along the way, and how we thought the heat and humidity might affect our performances.

On top of this, my brother was freaked out because there had been some house invasions in his neighborhood the past couple days and the neighbors were getting panicked, completely on edge. Every sound he’d heard throughout the night had been someone trying to break in, and he hadn't slept very well.

My plan? Hold 7:30’s. But holding 7:30’s was an assumption based upon my ideal, nipple-scabbing chill temperature of 30-40 degrees. It was already going to be a struggle at 50-60 degrees (the expected temperature), but 88?!

I readjusted and publicly stated that my goal was 7:30…but I’d be happy with…just finishing.

We all stood together on the trail resetting our watches… 3…2…1…off! Everyone took off at different paces, ensuring we’d each be running alone, but knowing that we’d pass each other near the 5 mile turnaround while offering words of encouragement.

At first, with the wind rushing by and the early morning rustle of rabbits and birds keeping things alive and interesting, I began to rethink my concern. Heat and humidity? No problem.

By the end of mile 1 I looked at my watch: 7:29. Just gotta maintain. But soon after, absolutely drenched in wetness, it felt like I was running underwater. By mile 2, my splits had changed to 7:45, and as I moved into mile 3 I was quickly losing the ability to recognize my surroundings, let alone increase or (heaven forbid) maintain my current pace.

Which is probably why when I ran past the first drinking fountain/longdrop bathroom, it didn’t fully register in my mind that there was paint splattered everywhere: “fucking kids holy crap I’m dying out here why is there paint everywhere no I really am going to die shriveled up like a mummy’s dusty and dehydrated scrotum…”

I pushed on through mile 3 and 4, my pace well beyond 8:00 and slowing toward 8:30 when one by one the three other guys passed me going the other way as I neared the turnaround point, each painfully conveying in their own fleeting fashion how horrific this all was.

I was on the brink of a comatose, dehydrated death when I passed the same drinking fountain/longdrop toilet on the way back, but this time the dozen police/ambulance/firefighters milling about the now yellow-police-tape-surrounded area caught my attention: “dying dying what’s this all about dying dying…”

I stumbled through the final mile out of my head thirsty and hurting, crossing the finish line like Julie Moss in the 1982 Ironman competition…

Actual photo of me on the run...

The other three were already in full conversation, “Did you see?” “Can you believe?” “What happened!?”

Momentarily putting aside our insane fatigue, dehydration and mental instability, we each had our own story to tell about the fountain/longdrop location. Apparently, what I had seen wasn’t paint – it was blood. One of the guys had actually stopped to get a drink and that’s when he noticed that the fountain, the walls of the toilet and the entire surrounding area were splashed with vast amounts of blood. We must have come across it soon after whatever happened, happened.

We found out later that two homeless men had gotten into a knifefight, carnage ensued, one killed and ending up in the bushes near the river. Brutal. I had struggled to survive in the humidity on my run, I couldn’t even imagine trying to survive in that humidity in a knifefight to the death…

Shaken, stinking and drenched to the bone, we slowly made our way back to the cars. I stripped down to my running shorts and nothing else – but even that was an uncomfortable necessity as I made the ten minute ride home. My brother, on the other hand, took it all off – everything - tossing the dripping heap of clothes in the back of his SUV and pulling away with a hoot and a wave.

Heading home commando-style.

Windows open, A/C blasting, crotchal miasma spreading, he drove home in the still early morning sunshine, relieved to have the run behind him and confident of his ability to pull into his garage, close the door, and walk straight into the shower – nakedness a non-issue. Other than an 18-wheeler trucker sitting up high in his cab catching a glimpse of my brother's sweaty junk, what could possibly go wrong?

But as he turned into the neighborhood near his house, a crowd of people standing in the street raised their arms…

STOP.

Holy crap! What in the hell was this throng of frazzled people, completely on edge in the wee hours of the morning doing…? What was going on?! Did this have something to do with the bloody carnage we'd just witnessed not to far away...?

He stopped the car about twenty yards from the group and rolled down the window, “What’s going on?” he asked innocently, trying his best to sound as non-chalant and normal as possible…

“Someone just broke into that house down there,” a guy pointed to a house three down, “and the owner scared him and he ran off. We’re all looking for him…” The guy eyed my brother suspiciously, “Who are you?”

It all ran in front of my brother’s eyes at that moment like a bad episode of Cops: angry mob, looking for the bad guy that had just broken into their house, stumbles upon an unknown car, approach to discover a random, sketchy looking guy driving around, casing the neighborhood, 7 in the morning...

Completely nude.

Dripping wet.

The dozen other neighbors, sensing my brother’s hesitation, started making their way over to his car…

Surely you’ve found yourself in a situation like this…right? Well, maybe not wet, stinky and nude, and surrounded by an angry mob assuming you were a child-molesting, home-invasioning, sick, psychotic lunatic, but, you know: the wrong place at the wrong time?

Survivor is all about the wrong place at the wrong time. What makes it interesting, is that it’s a rare occasion when the person caught in the web of the angry mob actually realizes they’re about to be throttled. Usually it’s a blindside: tar and feathered, dragged from the car, beaten to a pulp, extinguished torch…

Andrea was in the wrong place, wrong time last night. Full dismissal of the competing tribe complete, it was time to start picking off their own, and someone had to provide even the flimsiest of reasons to have the neck exposed. Andrea has a thing for godboy? See ya.

So let’s talk about the godboys for a second.

It is so comforting to learn that with all the turmoil, sickness, poverty, injustice, war, death, love, births, NFL wide receiver accomplishments, last second NBA shots and teenage boys pledging for God’s enduring servitude if they can just get to 2nd base with the braless hottie from Geometry class, that God has instead dedicated His attention to the reality TV show: Survivor.

Well, more specifically, to two contestants on that show: Matt and Mike.

You guys are so frigging special.

Too bad you’ve been voted off a combined 3 times, losers.

Still, their belief is so strong, even I was surprised when Matt’s special someone that came to meet him on the island wasn’t God Himself (alas, it was only his lame brother). Can you say “letdown”? Perhaps God had more pressing matters in a piece of toast soon to be listed on Craigslist Tijuana…

And Mike? How fortunate that he learned from the bible just moments before the challenge that God wanted him to break some tiles with a ball in some hokey, meaningless game in order to continue living on a desert island purely to line the pockets of CBS and its advertisers! (What was that biblical passage again? Summerseve 5:16?)

Oops, sorry, how dare I misrepresent Mike’s deeper religious connection! My apologies to all. It wasn’t that God wanted him to make good TV, it was that God wanted him to win a million dollars!

How very Jesus-like!

When my youngest daughter was 3 years old, we went to the funeral of the priest at my parent’s church who was beloved by the community. We holed up in the kids annex where we could hear the ceremony, but the noise of the kids didn’t disturb the rest of the standing-room only congregation.

About halfway through, McKenna had to go to the bathroom, so I picked her up, told her she needed to be completely quiet, and walked into the church, hugging the side wall all the way to the back where we could exit to the toilets. The ceremony droned tonelessly on on as we plodded down the thin purple carpet.

As we walked past the endless stunning stainglass windows lining the wall, McKenna suddenly saw the Stations of the Cross statues on the pillars in between.

“Daddy!” she whispered. I ignored her.

“Daddy!” she said louder, thinking I hadn’t heard her. Wanting to keep her quiet, I mouthed, “What?”

She pointed to one of the statues, and, thinking that my silent response meant that I couldn’t hear too well, shouted, “BUDDHA!!!”

It echoed throughout the giant holy space, “BUDDHA-OODA-OODA-OODA-OODA-OODA!”

Clearly, she had associated the word, “Buddha” with “statue,” as we had a small Buddha garden in the backyard and she didn’t understand the difference.

But the shocked looks from some of the people…wow. It was like we had let out an evil fart or something…

The point is this: get off your high horses, Matt and Mike.

You’re on a reality TV show. You’re playing for money and fame. If God was really talking to you, He’d be saying, “What the Hell are you doing wasting your time with this drivel? Get out there and help some poor people. Got it? OK, now, gotta get back to that teenager in Geometry class…”

Nobody's special here. Except maybe Rob.

And me. Oh, did I forget to mention that God told me how fantastic I was about predicting Phil's final tribal council speech and strategy?

Hey...do you suddenly smell something evil...?

Until next week,

PB

Innocent Orgy of Nastiness

Onion Pig.

Sounds delicious, right? But seriously, with a name like "Onion Pig," how couldn't it be?

Onion Pig was the name of my very first homebrewed beer back in early 1990, courtesy and all credit going to one of my oldest and hop-lovingest friends, Dr. Larry. Dr. Larry had himself recently been exposed to homebrewing, and being the selfless (buzzed) human creature that he was/is, held my hand throughout my first batch, talking me through the mash, the wort, the sparge, the pitch and the (glorious) fermentation. Six weeks later I was standing in the kitchen of my small apartment near UCLA toasting glasses with Dave, Jim, Greg and Irwin, all of us equally stunned, impressed, surprised and yes, perhaps even a little incredulous at how truly tasty this beer was.

I was hooked.

Soon, I was brewing all the time. I joined with a homebrewing club (Temecula Valley Homebrewers Association), subscribed to Zymurgy magazine, visited the Blind Pig Brewing Company as often as possible (Vinnie Cilurzo, the owner/brewmaster prodigy eventually closed Blind Pig and became the head brewmaster at Russian River Brewing Company - regarded by most industry experts as the best brewery in America - topping even Sierra Nevada...), and, yes, fell head over heels in love with yeast.

My first muse.

Back in 1990, it was nearly impossible to locate decent beer for sale. You pretty much had to scour seedy liquor stores and hope they carried one of two only known options to Southern Californians at that time: Pete's Wicked Ale and Samuel Adams Boston Lager. These beers were the platinum standard in an industry 99.99% smothered by corn and rice beer mavens: Bud, Coors and Miller.

Brewing your own beer was really the only way you could even somewhat reliably have decent beer around when you wanted it.

Ah, but of course I couldn't just make beer to have good beer. Somehow, I had to find a way to turn it on its side, give it an edge, shake things up.

Soon after college I took a job with McCormick - yes, the spice company. My next muse.

No longer would I be hobbled by the centuries old German brewing standard of only using four ingredients (water, hops, malt and yeast). No longer would I be uninspiringly following in the footsteps of tried recipes and expected outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly, no longer would I be judged by reliable and proven taste standards...because things didn't always turn out the way maybe I thought they would.

I tried everything, and sometimes things worked out pretty damn well:

• Gnarled Earwig Ale - a nice, light honey ale with a crisp finish and just a hint of coriander and nutmeg on the palette at the end.
• Snail Trail Pale Ale - my first IPA...and one of my first beers brewed with whole vanilla beans - a tremendous start for a developing hophead.
• Dog Leg Left Lager - brewed at the first Brew It Up! in San Francisco with my twilight golfing buddies Bill and Jen. When Brew It Up! found out that I wasn't using their "mandatory" prewritten recipes and instead was using my own grain ratios and *GASP* even tossing a little ground mace in as well - they nearly kicked us out of there (no joke). The recipe author was pissed. The end result 6 weeks later, however, was 10x better than his.
• Zutroy's Response Porter - in one word: infamous. My chocolate/banana porter - brewed numerous times, and nearly always with great results. The first time I couldn't decide what type of chocolate to use (typically people use unsweetened cocoa powder), and finally decided to patronize a small candy shop in Belmont Shores where I purchased 5 lbs of fresh dark chocolate fudge and dumped the entire thing into my brew kettle. Paige nearly throttled me (...until she tried the final product...)
• Redbeard Bitter - leaving the naming convention aside for another time (...), this celery seed ale - although strange in concept - ended up being one my best brews. Surprisingly fantastic.

Over the course of about five years, I entered many beers in the Great American Beer Festival homebrew competition and won quite a few golds, slivers and bronzes. I wrote a monthly column for the homebrew association under the pseudonym "The Spiceman" in which I pontificated and spewed nonsense (strangely similar to this) about all things beer related. I even convinced my MBA entrepreneurial class to choose my idea for a microbrewery as our team project and built a comprehensive business plan around it (unfortunately, I could never come up with the $250k start up costs while living on a $30k/year salary at the time...although we did get an "A").

But of course, with the good comes the bad as well...

• Xmas Rex Stout - an oatmeal stout with (gulp) 69 cloves...somewhere between a refreshing after-dinner mint and black mouthwash. We kept saying that it would mellow with age...but when we popped the last bottle some 8 years later, it instantly cleared my sinuses.
• Cranberry Ale, in which I used something like 6 pounds of fresh cranberries, placed the 70 bottles on the top shelf of my walk-in closet, and returned home one day from work to find them going off like grenades due to all the residual sugar continuing to ferment, sending foamy red sticky beer and endless glass shards splattering the walls and soaking my clothes and carpet. (As a side note, the only unexpected discovery worse than this is returning home to find your dog has diarrheaed all over the house... Even worse than this is when your dog diarrheas all over your walk in closet and clothes...)
• Dill Weed/Maple Syrup Ale - I honestly can't explain how or why I ever thought this would be a good idea...I think it started to dawn on me when I noticed that the half-fermented branches of dill week packing my 6 gallon carboy were slowly growing a Who-ville universe of mould. I just threw the entire thing out - carboy and all.

But could you blame my unbridled enthusiasm? I'd go to homebrew festivals where you could experience an unbelievably creative and disturbing gamut of brews...from chicken beer to habanero beer (the later deliciously painful). From Blueberry Stout to Parmesan Bock. One time Vinnie took me aside and poured me a cold one from his "special stash": a light, crisp raspberry ale in which he expertly "floated" some chocolate/mint stout on top. Spectacular.

But even with all of this, one beer stands alone...

I'd experimented with vanilla beans countless times. Well, maybe not countless. 18 times. I'd reached a point in the mid-nineties where I realized that I needed to stop brewing something new and different every time and instead try to perfect 3-4 receipes. One of these was a long path in which I tried to perfect a Vanilla Bean Ale.

The concept was simple: a lighter ale (slightly lighter than Sierra Nevada) in which the subtle and abstract vanilla flavors perfectly match up with the mouth-watering aroma and bitterness of cascade hops, creating an otherworldly inspired result, taking the imbiber to a spiritual place.

Oh sure, I can hear you all scoffing right now, small pustuoles of spittle peppering your iPad screen in unmitigated disdain. Vanilla and hops, balanced?!

I'm telling you, I had a vision. And my muse was yeast.

A dozen times over the first year I brewed this beer with inconsistent results. I'd get close, just make a small tweak, and the next end result would be at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. I was getting frustrated.

Right around this time, my good friends Steve and Sonja were planning their wedding and came to me with a sincere and heartfelt request, asking me to brew them a keg of vanilla bean ale for the reception.

I was touched. I was honored.

I was sure this was going to turn out like that pie-eating scene from "Stand By Me..."

But I enthusiastically said "yes!" and focused my mind and efforts on making the single best vanilla bean ale my yeast had ever had the pleasure to digest.

At the time I was living in Walnut Creek, California. Their wedding was in late October; that meant I needed to brew in late September. Uh oh... Walnut Creek routinely hit the 100s during the summer, and my small apartment had no air conditioning... Still, it had been mild that year, and with the bulk of the fermentation happening in October, it shouldn't even be an issue...

So I forged ahead. Everything went great, I transferred it to the carboy, pitched the yeast, and soon the billion organisms were immersed in their swirling, magical, frenzied, innocent orgy of nastiness. After a week, they settled down and I transferred it to a second carboy, straining off as much gunk as I could. After a second week, all activity appeared to be nearly stopped and from what I could smell, everything seemed...OK. I kept my fingers crossed.

At the end of the second week I was called out of town by work on a five day trip. I returned late friday afternoon to a 110 degree heatwave. In mid October. When I pulled into my driveway my neighbor saw me arrive, "Boy, it seems like it's never gonna let up, huh? Five days of 100+ degree weather?!"

My heart clenched in pain.

I ran up to my door and somehow got my key in the lock - hands shaking like crazy. The second the door opened it released the vaccuum oven of hot air that had been trapped inside for the last week. If it was 110 outside, it was Death Valley in my apartment.

I was afraid to look at my carboy, convinced there would be some alien-like creatures morphing inside the gelatinous, fetid mess. But when I unwrapped the towel around the glass...it looked...normal. Still, the glass was hot to the touch; ales should ferment at a consistent temperature - around and below 80 degrees. It doesn't take much to ruin a whole batch: an unwashed piece of equipment, the top left off for a short while, a drop of impure water infecting it... Heat was one of the worst.

But what could I do?

I was heartbroken, and felt horrible for Steve and Sonja. But there was no time left. Angry and frustrated, I stuck the carboy in a small, uninsulated storage shed in the backyard, intending to transfer it to my keg, but was so disillusioned that it ended up sitting out there - unchecked - for the next two weeks. Two days before the wedding, I dragged myself out there, transferred it to the keg (refusing to taste or even smell it), and stuck it in my trunk.

I would tell them what had happened, force them to try it, and buy them a keg of Sierra. Everyone would be happy and nobody would know the embarrasing tragedy that had occurred.

The morning of the wedding up in Lake Tahoe, the icy snow was incredible - one of the earliest, worst snow storms they'd experienced in recent history. I hadn't yet told them my story at the rehearsal dinner the night before, so as we were setting up for the wedding I grabbed them both and privately led them out back in the snow to my keg. They were instantly excited.

"Before you say anything, you have to try it," I prepared them, further instructing them to just take a small sip (I didn't want them to get sick).

Sonja's eyes grew wide, she smiled and spoke first, "It's amazing!"

Huh?

Steve was next, "Dude - this ROCKS."

I grabbed a glass and poured myself one. It was phenominal. The perfect balance of hops and vanilla. Incredible body. Crisp finish. Unbelievable!

During the reception, the Vanilla Bean Ale was empty in about half an hour - long before there was even a dent out of the Sierra Nevada keg.

People still talk about this beer to this day (almost 16 years later), and, of course, I've since tried to recreate it easily another dozen times. Never have come even close. I've considered fermenting a batch in a sauna...but haven't yet been bold enough to try it.

So what's the point of the story? Well, that where this week's episode of Survivor comes in.

You see, all these contestants are like different brews. You've got your Phil: Xmas Rex. Grant: Redbeard Bitter. Ashley: Gnarled Earwig. Matt: Cranberry Ale. Rob: Dog Leg Left Lager. David: Dill Weed/Maple Syrup Ale. You know what I'm talking about.

Each has great intentions of winning the money, but you have to wait and see how the elements affect them. How the other ingredients influence them. How the yeast defines them.

They're all stuck together in an island carboy, constantly swirling around, bumping into each other during challenges, letting off offensive aromas...

Probst is like that perfect Vanilla Bean Ale brew...except he's the same every goddamn time. How does he do it? If only the yeast could talk...

The interesting one is Phil. How great would it be if Phil makes it to the finals, and during his final speech he turns to the jury and says, "Friends, it was all an act. I spoke with CBS prior to coming here and explained that my plan was to create a character that was crazy, psychotic...yes, a numbnuts. I worked hard in everything I did to convince you that I was crazy, 24 hours a day, from my insane meditations to my racial rantings, because I knew that whomever was going to make it to the finals would have to take me along with them because they'd be convinced that nobody would vote for me. And maybe when you came here tonight you weren't going to vote for me either. But my strategy has been rock solid since the beginning, unwavering, and executed perfectly, and every one of you on the jury would have taken me too. My plan was infallible. I am here as I knew I would be, and I deserve to win."

I'd vote for him.

Xmas Rex just upgraded to Zutroy's Response.

But no matter what happens, let's give credit where credit is due.

When you're making bread. Making beer. Or making love. Only one thing matters:

Yeast.../Probst.