Beer Stories

Those are some really great stories. I don't have anything nearly that cool. I didn't even start drinking until I was 23, mostly because of religious purposes and fear of becoming an alcoholic. I eventually realized that living in fear is not a good thing.

My friend Brian (see picture), kept telling me I wasn't a man if I could finish a pint. We went to this place together called A.J's Pub and I had some amber colored beer and could only drink about 8 ounces of it. I went home that day and bought a case of Corona's and by the end of that case I was enjoying beer.

I remember some of the most memorable tasting beers. The Mirror Pond Pale Ale by Deschutes was the first beer that blew me away. It is a classic Oregon beer. Deschutes also makes Black Butte Porter which I also loved, and for a long time it was the only beer I drank. I also liked the Terminator Stout from McMenamins. Eventually I got more and more into beers by small and local breweries. The Bridgeport IPA, another classic, is possibly the beer I've drank the most of. I remember the first time I drank Russian River's Pliny the Elder, one of the highest ranked beers of all time. It was very good, very fresh. But my current favorite is from Double Mountain, in Hood River, and is called the Double Mountain IRA. My favorite brewery is Laurelwood Brewery, and their brewery is only 15 blocks from my house. They are consistently amazing and have continually released beers that are top notch, such as the Workhorse IPA, Hop Monkey IPA, Straight Up IPA, Vinter Varmer, Moose & Squirrel Stout, among many others. I've never been disappointed with their beer.

But I don't have any crazy stories. Drinking beer is either a social or a private act but it is one that I take seriously, in some kind of weird way. I don't buy cheap beer if I can avoid it. I enjoy going to the pub and talking about things that are on my mind, projects that I've been working on, religion, politics, life, and other things. It's the ultimate form of conceptual productivity for me. That's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in using the act of drinking beer as an art form, or at least a means of communicating ideas. I've done: Drinking Beer with Friends and Working, Good Beer = Good Times, and I'm currently putting together a collaborative beer-cultural experience called Cultivate. I'm very excited about Cultivate. And now that I think about it, in my Utopian Science Fiction Marathon Night I created a supplemental reader, called Between the Cracks, in which I paired images of people drinking beer together with utopian texts.

Today I opened up my first batch from my first homebrewed beer. It tasted like sugary water beer. It wasn't good. I may have opened it a little early though.

By the way, I changed the look of the blog a little and I've added a "parallel readings" section into the sidebar. That has an interview that I'm in with Cyrus W Smith, a top 100 scifi flicks list from Rotten Tomatoes, and this great reading about slacking off. The slacking off reading is one that I have had my classmates read as part of the assigned readings that compliment our practice in some way. I think my classmates joke now about how I'm "slacking off" if I miss class or something. I also get stuck with all the drinking and beer jokes. Anytime anyone mentions anything about beer everyone in the room looks at me or points at me. It's a little weird. Anyway, I've read some texts about labor and leisure, owning your time, how to not work, and things of that nature, so I thought that an essay about slackerdom is a humurous contribution because slackerdom denies itself the label of leisurely, vacation, relaxing, and anything else that has any sort of ends connected to the activity. I don't think I'm a slacker. Maybe I am though, what do you think Zach?
-ps - Why don't you title your blog posts?

How To Deal With The Apocalypse

Last night you and I watched The Watchmen together. You really disliked the movie but I thought it was very good. I understand that they exploited violence and sex to sell the movie, and that the acting was comic-book cheesy, but I thought that there were some really great things happening. A lot of what we saw was how humanity can be extremely violent and it was at times very disgusting. However we have sympathy for everyone when we find out that many of the people in major cities around the world are going to be blown up.

I was telling you about how I want more post-apocalyptic movies to show us how the world is rebuilt rather than showing just the destruction of the world or the search for meaning afterward. The reality of the situation is that if the world goes through some devastation, the survivors will need to rebuild and come together as a community. In The Watchmen we see in the last couple minutes of the movie that there is a new type of peace around the world, and that not even the newspapers have any crime to report. While this may be a little over the top, I think the movie raises interesting questions about war and the value of human life.

I sometimes see our (both yours and mine) art projects as offering an alternative to the state of the world that we live in. Yours for example offers a model of generosity, human interaction and human-effort-exchange where capitalism and monetary-exchange proliferates. As for my work, I attempt to help people see the value in building relationships in my beer projects and in other projects I offer individual-scale counseling, consulting, and teaching. The Cornell Daily Sun blog recently reviewed my beerandscifi.com blog saying that what I offer a post-apocalyptic world (and even this current reality with the screwed-up economy) is information on how to take it easy, relax, and enjoy what's in front of you. I thought that was nice. They also said that I tell people to sit back and get smashed...I don't think I tell people that, but it was still a nice review.

I was curious if you agree with me on my assessment of our art projects?
Also, in relation to my beerandscifi review, I'm curious to know if you have beer experiences that have helped you understand things in life.

I hope this all made sense.

Being Didactic

I know what you mean when you said that you feel like you're going in circles. Maybe we could steer the conversation away from making money and the economy and towards things that I see in common in both of our art.

I think that both make work that is didactic in some way. For me, I know that in much of my work I am actually trying to model a behavior or create a situation that will get others to think about incorporating leisure and a laidbackness into their lives. At least that's the way it is for my beer projects. I want people to think differently about the importance of relationship building; rethinking relationships as a form of labor in a sense. I also do a lot of work that is some form of consulting. In The Committee I worked with a Katy Asher and Chris Hudson to help Rudy Speerschneider think about his goals and his vision for Junior Ambassadors, his wild food cart up in north Portland. This was during his first year of operations. We met with him weekly for a while and then we had our own facilitated meetings where we brainstormed ideas for him; many of which were suggestions that he had actually mentioned, we just expanded them a little. We then created to-do lists and suggestion packets for him. I also did that art building revamp project, where I just created a powerpoint for the faculty showing them what I would change in the building. I think both of those are didactic in a more direct way than the beer projects.

I also just read the book We Make the Road By Walking, which is a conversation between Paolo Freire and Myles Horton. They basically talk about experiential, site-based education and the role of the "teacher." This book has had a profound impact on me, but I think because of Harrell's ideologies I had already been incorporating some of these ideas into my practice, and especially into my teaching. I'm coteaching the undergrad social practice class right now and the main idea behind the class is that students are to become teachers. This has worked well sometimes and other times not at all, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it all out. For my final project I'm going to be creating a class for Stephanie, my wife, because she was recently laid off and has some extra time to think through her priorities and skills. So, I'm putting together a specialized curriculum just for her.

I know that you also have read We Make The Road By Walkind and I was wondering if that book has had any impact on you and your work? Why or why not? If it has, where have you seen it influencing you the most? Also, your work is clearly didactic, do you have anything to add about that?

I'm watching the documentary Commune right now. I don't know if we should change the name of the blog quite yet, but I think we might be able to do it soon. We could change the URL too. Be back soon.

The Shape of Things To Come

Oh, that toilet is not from the women's bathroom that I was in, I just googled the image.

That was a really nice idea to have your family put 1% of the budget into something that would benefit both you and them. It's too bad they didn't go for it, they're probably kicking themselves for it right now. How did that whole situation actually end up working out? Were they trying to start some type of communal land living situation? Or just a vacation spot, utopian idea, or what?

I actually think about different levels of utopia with most of the projects I'm doing. I have a lot of thoughts about it but haven't done a ton of historical research into utopias. I just look for them in sci fi movies and in real life. For example, I see Portland as the microbrew mecca of the planet, the eco-friendliest city in the US, and the bike friendliest city in the US. But we have a few issues, like homelessness, education, and gentrification, that we kind of sweep under the rug and we just talk about how progressive we are here. In movies, utopias are usually just disguised as dystopias. One person's dream and vision for the way the world should work is another person's nightmare. H.G. Well's was brilliant at showing this problem in his early films like The Shape of Things To Come and The Man Who Could Work Miracles.

Here's a video of The Shape of Things To Come. The world has gone through a terrible war and a type of authorian government is in control in order to keep the peace...peace as they know it. The guy in the futuristic black outfit is from another land where a different kind of peace has been created and they attempt to force this peace onto the first group of people. Even in this blissful peace world dissent arises.


The dystopian film The Lathe of Heaven has influenced a lot of my work as well as the way I think about utopias. It was originally written by Ursula Le Guin in the 70's and it portrays Portland, Oregon in a number of different dystopian futures. Basically this guy, George Orr, has these dreams that can actually change history and his dreams become reality. So if he dreams that Portland becomes the sunniest city in the world, it becomes the sunniest city in the world. A scientist/therapist/doctor gets in touch with George and tries to manipulate the dreams for his own gain, as well as to solve all the world's problems. The only problem is that George always interprets the doctor's dream suggestions wildly different than the doctor intended and so things just get worse.

Okay, here's something a little extra:
I'm posting something that you recently sent me that you probably didn't think would end up here in this conversation. The more I think about it, the less it has to do with what we are talking about but I thought I'd put it up here because it's clever. What do you think? Does it have anything to do with what we are talking about?:

eBay item # 300294771244
I tried bidding on it, but the bidding was over so I sent this person an email saying that if they still had it, I would pay for it. The problem is, I don't have a boss or anyone to brown nose up to so it doesn't really work for me.

Ride the Recession Survival Kit

Ride (intransitive verb - to do something successfully and apparently effortlessly, as if carried by a wave.)

The Survival Kit comes in a "Look for the Silver Lining" bag, and includes:

A notepad and pen to keep handy so that you can keep track of who, among the financial companies, received bailouts, yet raised your interest rates, and managed to come up with the money for bonuses, fancy retreats and Super Bowl expenses. (This information will be particularly helpful after the doom and gloom of the recession because it will help you choose who NOT to do business with.) *As an added bonus, I will share with you, the winner, my thoughts and notes from MY notepad; consisting of my list of "Good Guys" and "Guys that can Kiss my Ass".

Package of earplugs so that you can effectively drown out all the B.S. going on around you, i.e. the news, your boss, bill collectors, etc.

Lip Balm so that you can moisten your lips in case you find yourself in a situation where you need to do a lot of butt kissing.

Package of tissues, which are dual purpose: May be used to wipe any unsightly residue off your face from brown nosing, OR, to wipe any tears which may fall due to failure of said brown nosing.

Obviously, this survival kit is meant for entertainment purposes only. I cannot guarantee that this kit will help, but at least it is good for a laugh. AND, the winning bidder will be doing their part to help stimulate the economy because I guarantee whatever I make will be used towards paying MY bills!

Pay

Yes, I went into the women's bathroom and was brushing my teeth with my fingers because I misplaced my toothbrush. The women's bathroom has like 8 stalls and the men's only has 2. It seems a little unfair. And by the way, check out the picture of this eco-toilet...it looks like it would use more energy than its worth.

Those are some really great points you make about art practice and company practice. I definitely don't feel that I SHOULD be paid for what I do, however I would love if there was some system in the United States where artists could get some sort of basic income for being an artist. That would mean that tax payers support artists, and I understand that would be an extremely difficult thing to convince people that artists should be funded that way. I think if I weren't in this field, I probably would not be interested in funding artists with my taxes. This actually brings up "customer satisfaction" and what you were mentioning as part of sustaining a company. The customers, in the case of an artists basic income, would in a sense be the taxpayers. Some countries in Europe support their artist through taxpayer money and I can't remember the name of this particular artist, but one of the artists being funded through the government went around and cleaned taxpayer's dishes for free. I think that's a nice way to give back to those who are supporting you.

Another difference between an art practice and a company practice is that a company usually is providing a product or service that is tangibly fulfilling some sort of need or want to its customers. There is some sort of utilitarian value, even if the service is to provide leisurely activities. Art is not as easily quantifiable. I do believe that a lot of my work is didactic and that what I have to say is useful, important, and generally refreshing. I'm not selling anything though, so it's difficult to make any money doing what I do. I actually wouldn't mind getting a job where my creativity is being utilized for some sort of good, and then I can take my artistic practice into a company.

Again, I don't think that I'm entitled to a fair income just for being an artist, however I would love if there was a better system in place. I've thought about researching things like CARFAC, the system set up for Canadian artists that pay them for showing work, giving lectures, etc. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized that this was not what I wanted to do with my time. It's sort of a catch-22; I have a desire for something to be different but no desire to make that change. I don't feel like I'm being ripped off by society; going to grad school and choosing "the artists life" is a decision I made. I'm fine with it. There is a group, Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), that is attempting to institute something like CARFAC into the United States.

More about Stayton

What do I like about this place in Stayton?
The little town of Stayton isn't as interesting as this house out in the more rural outer edges. I think my interest starts with the history of the place. Stephanie stayed at this house for a few years when we were dating and so I would make the ten hour drive or the 16 hour train ride and get to this cabiny place where all we could do is hang out with each other. You just relax and talk, it's really fantastic to do that. We've made it an important part of our lives to continue to go out there for that very reason. I go there to get away, to escape, and also just to let everything that's happening in the city disappear for a little while. I think it's healthy to do that; in no way is it irresponsible or lazy of me. My life and my relationships are way more important than whatever job I have, or whatever art project I'm working on, and going to Stayton allows me to remember that priority.

The family that lives there has 4 daughters, all of whom are within about 8 years difference of age and all of them are about the same age as we are. They also all married some really cool guys so sometimes we go out there and there's just a big party type thing happening. Other times we go and we are the only ones in the house, that is nice too. Stu, the father, has built his own wood shop and he's making flutes and wine bottle stoppers. Patty is probably the most hospitable person you'll ever meet.

Back to priorities and work though, I think artists often feel that art is the most important thing in the world and they think that art can solve the worlds problems. I don't think this is true. Art seems like a religion when we start talking about how important it is. I'm wondering if I should just see it as a job sometimes. The things I do in my art practices I think are didactic and they model a behavior that I want people to consider incorporating into their own lives. Not beer drinking, but the act of cultivating a relationship. The drinking beer is just a means to get there, and when I pair beers together, the pairing is just a representation of a relationship. There's more to it than that, but if I had to put it simply, that is what I do with those beer events. The difference between my experiences and reasons for going to Stayton, and my reasons for putting on beer events is that with Stayton, I'm not trying to create a project out of that. I'm not formalizing it as work. I might formalize it as not-work, or leisure, or a vacation someday but it is not work. The beer stuff is work, I'm purposefully doing it in order to say something to other people. I should be paid for my beer events, not for my time in Stayton.

I hope this all makes sense, i'm just freewriting and I'm not even going to edit what I just wrote...

I don't really have a dream house in Stayton, although I would love to live out there. I absolutely love the house that I visit regularly, as well as some of the houses of the their neighbors. I would love to have enough money to buy the house from the family when Stu and Patty die or something. That will be a very long time from now, so no worries. If the kids all decide to sell that house, it would be perfect if I could buy it and give it back to them in some way.

Stayton Oregon

I hadn't heard from you in a while so I thought I would share with you a little about my favorite place in the world: a friend's house in Stayton, Oregon near the Northfork River. I just spent my birthday weekend out there.

Little Steen & Sci Fi

As far as my earliest exposures to sci fi goes, I had never really thought about it before but I always was really a sci fi fan and I never knew it. My dad was really into Star Trek The Next Generation and we watched it every night growing up. What I loved about it was that it could be so creative and anything was possible. There were always new alien-looking people coming on board and causing problems, Vulcans could mind-meld, whatever that meant, Commander Riker could hook up with hot babes on the holodek, and the crew transported themselves up and down to planets. It was great.

Some other sci fi that I watched included:
Out of this world.
Would you like to swing on a star? Carry moon beam home in a jar?
I always had a crush on Evie Garland, and a secret hope that when I press my two index fingers together that I too would be able to stop time. It never worked though. I watched this tv show every single day for years. Evie's father was an alien, but he died before she was born. She discovers her secret stopping-time power and learns how to live life without abusing her power.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
My favorite turtle was always Donatello, the inventor, because he was nice and he was smart. You know the story, four little turtles are in a sewer when some toxic ooze is poured into the sewer and they turn into lean green fighting machines. Splinter, their sensai, is a rat/human because of the ooze but he teaches the turtles martial arts and they go around fighting crime. This was my ultimate favorite thing to watch.

I definitely remember watching E.T. and Flight of the Navigator a hundred times or so growing up. Also, I recently watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it turns out that I had seen that one before when I was growing up. I remembered so much of the movie while I was watching it but hadn't recalled it until then. But you know, I watched Aladdin and Lion King and stuff like that too. I didn't know that I was going to be a sci fi fan until very recently.

But movies always played an important role in my family. When someone expressed interest in hanging out, you might hear us reply "what movie do you want to watch?" Stephanie had to get acclimated to this. She would say that she wanted to hang out and when I popped the movie in she would be confused. I learned that she wants to talk when she says she wants to hang out.

Another anecdote: I never knew that my dad was wildly into sci fi when he was growing up too. When he first started reading my beerandscifi blog he was very surprised that I had somehow subconsciously picked up his tastes. He has seen most of the movies I've seen and a lot more of those obscure 60's and 70's movies. Those are generally my favorite ones to watch.

Settling Catan: Games and Glory

We had a Sega Genesis and my brother and I played a lot of Street Fighter and NBA Jam. Nothing else really compared to those games. When we were getting a little older the Nintendo 64 came out and I played that first Mario 64 which was a ton of fun. Arcades were always very important to us as well. We would unload pockets full of quarters on Street Fighter, Time Cop, Area 51, and Virtual Fighter. Fighting and shooting games were always the best. Kevin, my brother, would often get very mad at me if I beat him so eventually just watched me play.

I haven't played much since then although when I do I have a lot of fun. Every now and then I'll go to an arcade and play Ninja Turtles or Time Cop. Pinball is fun. I downloaded a Tetris type game on my cell phone. I play the xbox every Thanksgiving out in Stayton, Oregon, my favorite place on the entire planet. We should talk more about Stayton soon, remind me about that. We usually play Halo 2 but last time we played Rock Band, which was entertaining. I definitely don't care about video games the way I used to though.

I do play a lot of card games and board games though. Stephanie and I play Apples to Apples with friends all the time. We even have a Bible edition just for kicks. We like Dominoes and Cribbage too. Most importantly is a game that I stopped playing because of how frustrated I get. It's called Settlers of Catan, and it's one of those really really nerdy games that people who are into geeky comics and Magic cards and stuff like that would probably enjoy. It's a strategy game where the board changes every game and you try to build roads, houses, and cities. You collect grain, brick, wood, and other resources and can trade with your opponents. It's pretty wild.

This actually reminds me that in junior high I played the Star Trek trading card game every morning before school with my friends Jonathan and Nate. It was ultra nerdy, but you would could wind up collecting Jean Luc Picards card or something and show it off and your friends would be pretty impressed with you.

Speaking of nerdy things, in high school I hung out with a lot of punk kids, although I was like the Christian version. We had our own scene, I put on shows, had my own cd and record distribution, and wrote my own punk zines. My friends were all in metal bands and I tried to get them to start a sludge band with me but they just couldn't figure out how to make the music I wanted them to make. Sludge is like a disgusting slowed down version of grindcore. It's actually a lot like Doom Metal but messier and dirtier. That, if you think about it, can be a little nerdy too...nerdy in the sense that you are a part of scene and other people who are in that scene are into it too, but everyone on the outside is just not as cool, or they don't have it together the way that "we" have it together. Punk rock is kind of like that to me...I eventually couldn't get any deeper into punk rock because I felt like I was just buying into a style and nothing more. Maybe punk rock at one point was a reasonable movement, but when I got to it, it was just a bunch of bands making music and they were confused and if they had a voice they were preaching to the choir. That's what Christianity has been for me often as well...a scene. And often times art feels like a scene and I begin to think "oh man, what have I gotten myself into."

I'll begin with the Christianity thing.

I'll begin with the Christianity thing.
I became a Christian sometime the age of 12. The details of the story are the kind of details that every young kid in a church knows. I was thinking about not wanting to go to hell, because that's what I've been told would happen to me when I die if I did not have Jesus in my heart. Also I was told from a very young age that people are inherently sinful and that this causes a separation from God who cannot be near sin. So we ask God for forgiveness and that's supposed to be it, we're in, we're saved. We pray the sinners prayer.

Of course, starting right then and there you enter into a much larger discourse about what religious affiliation you will have within the Church, are you going to be a Calvinist or will you believe in free-will. If you choose one or the other, some people will think you "aren't really saved." And then people start worrying about if there friend who died last week was really saved or not because, at one point they were a Christian but they have done some "backsliding" recently. Also, there is a pressure that comes from being a participant in a Church to do the Christian lifestyle the way that they think you should do it. For example the group of people in one church may think that you need to wake up at 5:00am to pray for the people around you because this is a more selfless act than if you did it on your own time. Or maybe you have to force yourself to go out and meet a stranger and tell them about Christ, like a colonizing force or something. In the last post, you mentioned "other options" that I may have had when I was young. For a Christian, or at least the Christian that I am describing, there is no such thing as another option.

I got really wrapped up in all this type of stuff and it's all very very embarrassing to me now. I don't think that this is the way we are supposed to live our lives. The funny thing is that my friends in school don't criticize me for my past. I'm usually stuck trying to avoid mentioning the past because I think that many Christians have misrepresented what Christianity is supposed to be and I don't really want to be a part of that Christianity any more. Maybe I shouldn't be too worried about it. Many of the friends I had at a church in Corvallis, Oregon have moved to Portland at the same time as me. Many of us struggle with this same phenomenon.

I don't know if I really want to get into where I stand now on all this. I can say that I haven't turned my back on everything in Christianity, but that's all I really want to say here. You might be able to beat it out of me later though if you want to.

I met Stephanie at this church. She is "generally" from Oregon. Her parents were passing through the area and I ran into her and couldn't really stop thinking about her so we made something happen. We're now married and we still enjoy hanging out together. I say she's "generally" from Oregon because her family is basically a travelling missionary family. Similar to the Paskowitz surfing family, the Markoya's travelled around the country, and into Mexico and Canada, in a small RV that slept upwards to 7 people or so. The children were all homeschooled, they rarely had money and they "lived by faith." That meant that they would just go where they felt they were supposed to go, believing that wherever they went they would be provided for. They have always been provided for, and right now they have spent nearly 6 months in Portland at a homeless house. This is a fascinating story to me and one of the only parts of my Christian past that I am not afraid to share. Daniel, the father, is a talented musician, and he usually sings and preaches wherever he goes. This is a blog that they've tried to keep up over the last 2 years but they haven't kept it up as much as they should. I could tell you hundreds of stories about the Markoya's that are really amazing, I've been thinking about asking the family to record their stories and maybe turn it into a book or something.

Wow, that took up a lot of room -
To answer your other questions: my first memory is being on a scary ride at Disneyland. I remember it in first person though. I was crying and everyone else was enjoying the ride.
Did I enjoy being at school or home more? I didn't think about it that much I guess. School was fun when I was playing basketball but I think I usually enjoyed being home more and playing video games all night long. That was the best.

you bet!

sounds great to me. i'm smiling right now.
but we should go get a beer. i just texted you.
oh, and can you make it so that i get email updates?