The New York Times
I have been religiously reading the NYTimes for the past two decades on a daily basis. It all started from a Political Science class in 1997 at the University of Minnesota. I was given a subscription for free and required to read it everyday and come prepared to discuss the world. I’ve been a loyal subscriber since, the world was a vastly different place back then, and I saw everything coming before anyone else are two truths and one lie. That year, I remember reading about how Steve Jobs returned to lead Apple in an actual newspaper (seems antithetic). Nothing more to say there, because we know how that all went. I was fascinated with the Heavens Gate Cult committing a mass suicide in California, seeing images of its members covered in a purple sheet and their black Nike running shoes poking out. IBM’s Deep Blue beats Kasparov and The Lion King made its debut on Broadway. That class at the University of Minnesota either set me on a lifelong journey of learning or indoctrinated me into godless liberal thinking. I don’t know? Maybe I did take the blue pill (no pun intended)? It’s been a long road from reading the actual newspaper with my fingers covered in newsprint, before going totally digital so I don’t have to clip articles and save them in a folder anymore.
My lifelong goal is to submit a guest essay that gets published. This is going to be a moonshot considering I don’t have anything super special to say at this time and they have yet to consider or publish any of my letters to the editor I’ve written over the years. Another goal is to beat my personal best16 day crossword puzzle streak without the help of https://nytcrosswordanswers.org/. The new Spelling Bee has been a welcome distraction during the pandemic. I’ll get all the easy words and revisit the game throughout the day, which helps me to stay away from the vitriol of Facebook and Twitter. In the same breath, the Spelling Bee haunts me in my sleep. The Food section has helped me to become a better cook and I have more than 1,000 recipes saved. Years of reading the NYTimes has prepared me for living overseas by having a pretty good idea of what the local climate (political, social, cultural) is where I’m going. It also gives me a lifeline to what’s going on back home. I was living in Barcelona when my better half Rosalia told me to come into the living room because something was happening at the Capitol last year on January 6th. My online subscription to the NYTimes allowed me to closely follow the events unfold.
Be Mindful
Why did I harp on my love for the NYTimes for this post? Because it’s Dry January and I join the legions of people who overdid it during the holidays to slow their roll. I think all the cookies did more damage than the booze this year, but right now I’m hyper-focussed on quitting drinking for the month of January. Nothing! Nada! Not a sip! In years past, I would read articles in the NYTimes with tips on how to cope and promoting the health benefits of quitting alcohol. Most of the advice is largely positive about putting your efforts into doing something new. For me, I’m going to spend this dry month on my writing and reading. My sister in law gave me Matthew McConaughey’s book Green Lights. So far, so good.
However, this year felt particularly odd and the NYTimes let me down. Those insightful Dry January articles from the NYTimes that were an integral part of my support system were replaced by this new breed of articles like ‘Sober Curious’? How to Embrace Mindful Drinking. NOBODY! I REPEAT NOBODY PRACTICES MINDFUL DRINKING. The only time a drinking person is mindful is when their drink is empty. Check out this golden nugget of advice from the article:
That’s why it’s crucial to establish a plan for mindful drinking ahead of time, he said. This can include drinking with a friend who’s also practicing mindful drinking, making sure you eat while you’re drinking and asking the bartender to use half the amount of alcohol in a cocktail.
NOBODY! I REPEAT NOBODY HAS A FRIEND WHO PRACTICES MINDFUL DRINKING. It’s not only that I don’t have a friend that practices mindful drinking, the stress of asking the bartender to put half the amount of alcohol in my cocktail is just too much considering I will still be paying full price for the cocktail. NOBODY! I REPEAT NOBODY (IN MILWAUKEE) HAS ASKED A BARTENDER TO PUT HALF THE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL IN A COCKTAIL). Bars are often rated solely on how much alcohol is put in their cocktails? Have you ever met somebody on a diet who walks into Subway, pays for a foot long sub and is happy to receive a six inch sub, but pay for a foot long sub? This kind of logic is lost on me. Wouldn’t it be easier to just drink half the drink and maintain what little is left of your dignity? Eating while drinking? Are you serious? The established order for the drinker is to drink first, then seek late night exotic foods to soak up the alcohol like a burrito, taco, gyro, pizza, or a roller dog from a gas station if you’re still hungry.
Why Get Dry When You Can Get Wet And High?
In my opinion, the most underrated part of the NYTimes is the Quotation Of The Day. I like to take a look at this section to see if there is something I missed that I should have read. Twelve days into my Dry January, I was given an out from the Quotation of the Day. According to Jake Bullock whose company spikes drinks with cannabis, “After the last two years we’ve had, no one expects you to be completely sober.” Read about it here. If it was published in the NYTimes, it must be true?!?! Since 1896, the newspaper’s slogan has been “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”
Armed with that knowledge and the validation I was seeking, I was going to go to the local liquor store and get myself a bottle and pour a little out on the curb for my dead Dry January. People! Is any part of Dry January holy and sacred anymore? The idea is simple and let me retort, “Since you allowed yourself certain liberties of imbibing in a few extra drinks during the holidays, it’s time to give your liver a break and focus your attention to something “new” in the new year.” Right now, I need Jake Bullock and Mindful Drinking to stay the F%$k out of my Dry January, because I’m starting to think that I need a drink and it’s ok to have a drink if I’m mindful about it. Are you people insane? I’m also starting to believe the “Liberal Media” is ruining America and I need to reassess my relationship with the NYTimes and find a news source that is “Fair and Balanced.”
Eventually, Your Past Catches Up With You
Adding to the challenge of a successful Dry January this year is I live in a city where drinking is embedded in its DNA. Beyond Milwaukee being “A Great Place on a Great Lake”, Milwaukee is also known as the “City of Festivals”. Every ethnic, cultural, religious group has a festival to raise money to fund their organizations where beer and alcohol sales drive the majority of the total revenue received and provides the impetus for attendance. If any one of these festivals doesn’t boast a beer truck and 80s cover band, they’re dead in the water. If you don’t fit neatly or associate with any of the other festivals, Summerfest is a backstop and catch-all that brings everything together in one alcohol driven Dionysian meet-up.
Back in October, I was in California for work and when I returned to Milwaukee, I was waiting for my luggage at the carousel when I saw an advertisement from Visit Milwaukee for the Brew City Beer Pass. I navigated to the website to learn that the Brew City Beer Pass provides the holder of this pass to Buy One Beer, Get One Free at over 30 breweries around the city and surrounding areas. Milwaukee is at its finest, when it is being unapologetically Milwaukee. I get myself all signed up, go home, drop my luggage, call my buddies, and bring them up to speed on an opportunity of a lifetime: Free Beer! Since October, I’ve been visiting local breweries that I never knew existed beyond Lakefront Brewery and a handful of other ones. It’s been a neat experience taking my mom out for a beer and showing her a different side of Milwaukee.
Here’s how the pass works. You show up at any one of the listed breweries, show the bartender the app (7 in 10 know what you’re talking about), check in, hit redeem, and make your beer selection. After five check ins, Visit Milwaukes’s will send you a can koozy and a T-Shirt after ten visits. To date, I’ve been to twelve breweries on the list. So far, the top beer on my list is a Pineapple Milkshake IPA appropriately named Beach Ball from Broken Bat Brewery. It’s simply delicious and it’s my “one and done” beer. Just a step below, but nipping the heels of the Beach Ball is the Hazy IPA from City Lights Brewing Company and the Happy Place from Third Space Brewing. Honestly, all the beers we tasted from all the other breweries were excellent and it’s been an overall wonderful experience and welcome change to going to by normal hangouts. The only issue I ran into while using the Brew City Beer Pass was at MKE Brewery. The beer was good. The bartender was a jerk.
Final Plot Twist & The Home Stretch
Twelve days into my Dry January, my mom gives me a package I received and inside I find both the Koozie and T-shirt from checking into all those breweries since late October 2021. Actually, I’m wearing the T-Shirt as I write this. Taken together, these all add up to one strange brew. Two articles from the NYTimes telling me it’s ok to have a drink coupled with receiving a can koozy and T-shirt on the 12th of January, 12 days into Dry January after checking in at 12 breweries in 2021 (2021 in reverse begins with a 12) are too many coincidences to ignore. I might want to share this with a Qanon follower for some real insight. Yesterday, I was walking on the Oak Leaf Trail near the Milwaukee Art Museum and saw this felled branch painted completely red and thought about the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village where only 2 colors were prominent throughout: red (sin, sorrow, love) and yellow (innocence). What a weird thing to see on a walk and an even weirder thought. Whereas in the movie the characters open up the box to reveal their past lives, I just opened up a box a few days ago and found a koozy and a T-shirt revealing my past life. Clearly, this Dry January has been particularly interesting. I’m still going to stick with it, because I’m at the point in Dry January where the glass is finally half empty (pessimist). When I do chose to view the glass as half full (optimist) again, I have a few more breweries on the list to visit. Cheers!