Happy Hour

At different times, I have seen the Universe from our back porch: reflected in the Butterfly Bush; reflected in kids bouncing on the trampoline; reflected in Evolution Craft Brewing's Lot No. 6 Double IPA; reflected in Walt Whitman or Mario Santiago Papasquiaro's poetry, or Kerouac's "On the Road," or Thomas Merton; reflected in scooping up the dead baby bird that fell from the tree.

The breeze blows over fresh cut grass as I read...

The world gives you itself in fragments / in splinters:

and

in 1 flaming summer you catch bits of the universe licking its face
the moment 1 indescribable girl
      rips her Oaxacan blouse,
just at the crescent of sweat from her armpits

with the hoppy taste of IPA still dancing on my tongue and tickling my brain as crickets take over the soundtrack, backed by cars and diesel engines from the highway.

THIS is happy hour.

The pint glass as reality

I'm into pint glasses. Sure, the connotation of ale or stout contained therein is a part of the infatuation, but it's also how they re-shape and contain whatever pours into them. A pint glass is both a vessel and a lens.

Seeing a pint glass sitting on a tavern bar in front of taps (preferably of Evolution), creates a different expectation than seeing a bottle or can or plastic keg cup in whatever setting. Just like some people wear a suit or uniform to work, a pint glass is a well dressed beverage.

A pint glass is a form. It's like a poem, a song, a short story, an aphorism, a novel, a memoir. The form colors the perception and the experience of what is inside.

If experience is reality, as the Empiricists like to say, then a pint glass shapes reality. John Locke, a pint glass is reality.

We each have our own metaphorical pint glasses, in which we try to contain and order the world. Especially after a few pints.

So pour that in your pint glass and swill. Responsibly, of course...

Is it really real?

We rock around a real Christmas tree. It was a holiday tradition for my sister and I to go out with our parents and help pick out and cut down a tree. It has become the same thing for our girls. Full disclosure, my sister's husband's family owns a Christmas tree farm, and you don't want to be the ones caught with the fake tree.

There is no shortage of places to get a real tree, mind you. The Lions Club, the Optimist Club, community organizations with lots around town, Lowes, Wal Mart, etc. Sometimes I'm asked, why don't you get a tree that's already cut? I could go with the Tevye/Fiddler on the Roof answer...TRADITION! (tradition)! And that's part of it. But there is something more basic, that cuts to how I roll.

I'd rather put money in the hands/pockets of friends or family. This is an across the board philosophy. I've got nothing against Starbucks--they have perhaps improved the quality of coffee, nationwide. But I'd rather give my money to Tim Cureton and Rise Up Coffee (plus the coffee is better). Dogfish and Fat Tire are fine beers, which I enjoy drinking. But Geoff DeBisschop and Evolution Craft Brewing Co. are making the best stuff around and they are friends.

I applaud and try to go with the buy local approach as best I can. But supporting friends goes much deeper. Especially when you have talented friends who are doing cool things.

Plato offered up as one possible definition of justice, helping your friends and thwarting your enemies. It would be hard to argue that as a universal principle for mankind (unless you can do so without having any enemies), but in my limited, personal world, I like it. Particularly the first part.

When I can further a tradition and give a fun, meaningful experience to my family and help my friends at the same time... well, that's tinsel on the tree. A real tree.

A brand world

I'm a brand nerd. But only for cool companies if that wins me back any hip points.

I dig companies and people who put themselves out into the world and say, "Check me out, this is who and what  I am."

When I read Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard's book, "Let My People Go Surfing," I immediately wished I could work somewhere with that vibe.

Watching the Element Skateboards documentary, "Make it Count," on Fuel TV makes me wish I could have married my long-professed love of skateboarding with writing and communications; being a part of  a grassroots up, socially conscious skateboard brand would be the sh$%. Original Skateboards is a company I love seeing what they do next.

I get charged up watching friends at Rise Up Coffee and Evolution Craft Brewing Co. growing their companies and brands--double bonus that they make tasty forms of my favorite beverages...

I think it comes down to putting yourself out there in the world. Of guys and girls having an incredible passion and compelling vision and working like mad and having a blast building that vision and surrounding themselves with people who want to do the same.

It's creating a community as well as a company. It's creating a vibe and groove to bring folks into.

I'm a sucker for a story. And when brands tell a story that I feel includes how I see myself, it's easy to end up a loyalist.

For me, that's a skateboarding, trail running, free form writing, water loving, football/baseball following, coffee and beer drinking, music devouring, manically reading 30-something husband and father of curious girls. Not sure the size of that demographic.