"Missing from Mr. Pelzer’s list of books was the Bible, even though he had read it about a dozen times, his son said."

"Mr. Pelzer was a devout Catholic who left the Jesuit seminary for the Peace Corps. 'My friends from high school would always laugh,' John Pelzer, 51, recalled. When they visited, 'he would always be reading in our basement, typically the Bible, and he would be drinking a 40-ounce malt liquor — typically, Olde English.'"

From "He Read (at Least) 3,599 Books in His Lifetime. Now Anyone Can See His List. After Dan Pelzer died this month at 92, his children uploaded the handwritten reading list to what-dan-read.com, hoping to inspire readers everywhere" (NYT).

What do you need to do to get The New York Times to write an article about all the books your father read? You have to put together a website as cool as "What Dan Read."

"Let's just take Superbowl Sunday. Mmkay? It's gonna affect beer. Mmkay? Most of it — Corona, here — comes from Mexico. It's gonna affect your guac. Because what is guacamole made of? Avocados. Both from Mexico."

Chuck Schumer claims that President Trump's tariffs will raise the price of beer because "most of it comes from Mexico" while holding a can of corona.

This might be the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen a politician do lmfao. pic.twitter.com/z4Z0W22gUe

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 3, 2025

Chuck Schumer is attempting to lure Americans away from Trump by tempting us with the humble indulgences beer and guacamole — drinking and snacking — paired with watching television. But even if Americans were hopelessly addicted to these fattening pleasures, we could still, easily, choose a non-Mexican beer and serve those tortilla chips with melted cheese instead of that avocado paste. That might work out well for Wisconsin — home of beer and cheese — and quite badly for Mexico. What is it going to do with all those avocados if we say we'd rather push for Mexico to help us with the border problem than continue to mindlessly consume that that green goo... that sludge... that guck... 

This is fresh fruit, farmed in vast quantity in Mexico, where it will rot if not sold. What am I missing? We will easily win this trade war. And I'm sure Schumer knows all this and is embarrassed to be smarmily plying us with a beer and an avocado.

By the way, Americans didn't use to care about avocados at all. Here's an 2015 article in The Atlantic — "The Selling of the Avocado/How the 'alligator pear' went from obscure delicacy to America's favorite fruit":

Both VP nominees are now participating in the old tradition of responding to questions written on an orange that a reporter has rolled up the aisle of the campaign plane.

ABC reports.

Walz did it first, responding to the question "Dream dinner guest?" His answer (written on the orange and rolled back (more than a day later)): Bruce Springsteen.

(I struggle to resist re-telling the story of My Dinner With Bruce Springsteen.)

Vance's reporters wanted in on this orange action and rolled him the question "Fave Song." Under the circumstances, I would have chosen "Let Me Roll It"...

But Vance rolled back — immediately — "10 Years Gone":

Thank God something light-hearted is happening on this overwrought campaign.

Rivers always reach the sea/Flying skies of fortune, each a separate way/On the wings of maybe....

Why did it take Walz over a day to think up Bruce Springsteen? If you were going to workshop the most politically opportune answer, assuming you'd pick a pop star, wouldn't you pick a pop star affiliated with a battleground state? 

I see that Kamala Harris, on Steve Colbert's show last night — see "The high life: Kamala Harris cracks open a beer with Stephen Colbert" (Guardian)— chose Miller High Life as the beer for the little exercise in relatability" and...

Harris repeated the popular slogan “The champagne of beers”, while Colbert noted that it comes from Milwaukee, in the swing state of Wisconsin. He said: “So that covers Wisconsin. Let’s talk Michigan. Let’s appeal to the Michigan voters, OK? What are your favourite Bob Seger songs?”

Walz could have said Bob Seger! What're his politics?  

Vance answered quickly, and his choice is a bit idiosyncratic, but that doesn't free him of any suspicion of answering what he thought was politically advantageous. He's a quick thinker, and he knows the assignment. But he's chosen British pop stars, and "Ten Years Gone" is not near the top of obvious Led Zeppelin songs.  It's #40 on Vulture's "All 74 Led Zeppelin Songs, Ranked." So there's a good chance it really is his favorite Led Zeppelin song.

Is Led Zeppelin his favorite band? The name appears 4 times in "Hillbilly Elegy." Here are 2::

Sunrise — 5:15, 5:20, 5:20:18.

"Whether Alito was participating in the boycott matters, moreover, for one of the several reasons it matters why there was an upside-down American flag flying at his house on Jan. 17, 2021...."

"...as The New York Times reported earlier this week, and what he knew about that.... Participating in a boycott is undeniably a political statement. And there are pending cases for which participation in an anti-trans beer boycott could be seen as his having a finger on the scale of justice on the side of the anti-trans advocates supporting — and in some cases, defending — these laws such that recusal could be required...."

Writes Chris Geidner, in "Exclusive: Justice Alito sold Bud Light stock amidst anti-trans boycott effort/Alito did not respond to questions about the sale, but its timing raises fair questions — particularly in light of other recent ethical questions" (Law Dork).

Why would selling the stock reveal an anti-trans bias? If anything, it reflects a belief that the stock will go down because other people are biased. To participate in the boycott would be to decline to continue to buy Bud Light beer. There's no evidence that Alito was a Bud Light consumer. I googled Does Alito drink beer and I found this 2006 article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, "A Tiger on the Court: Sam Alito ’72 at Princeton":

"[T]he burgeoning Nads were young Republicans. They had gathered at the Capitol Hill Club to drink cheap beer..."

"... in a room decorated with porcelain elephant statues and photographs of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Sen. John McCain, and listen to a well-built man with a five o’clock shadow and an Australian accent tell them that '"nasty women" are coming for two things: your mind and your testicles!' In some ways, Adams’s shtick is conventionally conservative: He’s Christian, he’s very concerned about there being only two genders, he rails against 'woke.' In other ways, his version of MAGA manhood is so over-the-top, so uncanny that it almost seems like performance art.... He writes about how if your wife is 'high-maintenance' then you’re a 'loser' no matter how hot she is. And about his love of steak. 'Alpha males don’t care about time changes, we wake up at 4AM every single morning regardless of the circumstances,' he wrote on X last month, a few days after the clocks sprang forward for daylight saving time. '64oz tomahawk ribeyes aren’t going to eat themselves!' Is Nick Adams serious?... 'You remember Andy Kaufman?; Adams’s hired security guard told me, referring to the late comedian who was famous for never breaking character.... 'This is not a character,' Adams told me. 'This is not a bit. It’s not trolling. Anyone who thinks this is not me, that I don’t eat steak, that I don’t drink ice-cold domestics, that I don’t repel woke beer, they’re wrong. They’re absolutely wrong.”

Writes Ben Terris, in "The deeply silly, extremely serious rise of ‘Alpha Male’ Nick Adams/Meet the Trump-backed raconteur who is teaching America’s young men the art of being hard to deal with" (WaPo, free access link).

"Nads" = Nick Adams Disciples.

I hadn't heard of Nick Adams until this article. The issue of when a comedian is "serious" is kind of intriguing. I don't think the point of reference should be Andy Kaufman. It should be Andrew Dice Clay. I already lived through that. Another thing I lived through was the TV show "The Rebel." Don't reuse a name that already means something to some people who still roam through the west.

ADDED: As pointed out by William in the comments, there's also Nick Adams, the Hemingway fictional character. I don't have a problem with this new Nick Adams adopting the name in a reference to those stories from a century ago, just as I'd accept a comedian who called himself Hamlet or Captain Ahab. "Nick Adams" was taken as a showbiz name back in the 1950s, and I don't like seeing it reused. 

Kid Rock explains his relationship to Bud Light.

Here's the whole episode. If you want to hear him talk about Trump, start at 1:15:11:

What an expensive screwup that turned out to be.

 

From the London Times.

"Producers of juice-inspired alcohol say they’re not targeting kids at all, but instead adults who are perhaps nostalgic for the familiar flavors of their childhood."

"Even if they don’t drink actual fruit juice much anymore, adults might still feel affection for those colorful cartons and bottles. BeatBox co-founder Brad Schultz says... 'It’s comforting... The majority of people look at the past as a positive, and they look back with fondness.'"

I'm reading "'Juicy' is suddenly what every beer, wine and seltzer wants to be" (WaPo).

Apparently, there's a "juice-ification" trend that includes "multiple brands of 'hard juice,'" "spiked versions of juice-based beverages, including Simply Peach and SunnyD.," mystifying requests for "juicy beers," and wine that doesn't even try to imitate serious wine, but might call itself "party punch."

 

Meanwhile, nonalcoholic fruit juice is declining in popularity — as more and more people come to realize it's not a healthy option. It's loaded with sugar. You'd think people would also want to avoid extra sugar when they're drinking alcohol, but perhaps they're on a vacation from health concerns when they're drinking.

"For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dylan Mulvaney (@dylanmulvaney)

"When things get divisive and controversial so easily, I think it’s an important wake-up call to all of us marketers to be very humble...."

Said Marcel Marcondes, Anheuser-Busch’s global chief marketing officer, quoted in "Bud Light is ‘coming back’ but controversy is a ‘wake-up call,’ Anheuser-Busch exec says" (CNN).

"Then suddenly that bucket is not just cream and sugar, it’s something else."

Said Americus Reed, "a professor of marketing... who studies the intersection of social movements and consumer behavior," about Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which has long maintained an image of hippies located in Burlington, Vermont.

Quoted in "Ad Flap Leaves Bitter Aftertaste for Bud Light and Warning for Big Business/Bud Light’s marketing effort with a transgender influencer has put it 'in the center of the culture wars in a way that no company could possibly want to be,' one observer said" (NYT).

“There’s an authenticity element to what Ben & Jerry’s does.... When you have these large corporations that have a historic brand identity, it just looks inauthentic when they’re all of a sudden getting involved in these social campaigns,” said Anson Frericks.

Suddenly, it's a problem for Miller to use its slogan "Champagne of Beers."

NPR reports: 

The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin "Champagne." The consignment was intercepted in the Belgian port of Antwerp in early February....

It's suddenly a problem because normally Miller is not exported to the EU, but somebody in Germany ordered this shipment. Who knows why? The unnamed buyer "was informed and did not contest the decision" to destroy the canned beer. 

The slogan is 120 years old. Originally it was "The Champagne of Bottle Beers." 

"So now the Bud-lash is a whole thing, as is the backlash to the Bud-lash."

Writes Emily Stewart (at Vox), voxsplaining the fuss over Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light.

Radio personality Howard Stern said he’s “dumbfounded” at all the hullabaloo, wondering on air, with regard to Kid Rock and [Travis] Tritt, “Why do you care so much?” ...

Anheuser-Busch, which is getting a ton of earned media out of this, appears to largely be riding the wave.... 

"Bud Light vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid said she was inspired to update the 'fratty' and 'out-of-touch' humor of the beer company..."

"... with 'inclusivity' in a March 30 interview with the podcast 'Make Yourself At Home' podcast. But her effort to be inclusive excluded the people who matter most — Bud Light drinkers, according to St. Louis-area operator John Rieker. 'It's kind of mind-boggling they stepped into this realm,' Rieker, who owns Harpo's Bar and Grill in Chesterfield, Missouri, told FOX Business. 'You're marketing to an audience that represents a fraction of 1% of consumers while alienating the much larger base of your consumers.'"

I'm reading "Bud Light suffers bloodbath as longtime and loyal consumers revolt against transgender campaign/'In Bud Light's effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else,' says a St. Louis bar owner" (Fox Business).

I've been staying out of this tempest in a teapot brouhaha in a beer can. Too much jackassery. But the phrase "the 'fratty' and 'out-of-touch' humor of the beer company" caught my attention and I want to say a few things. 

"But of all the backward ass campaign cliches to be visited upon the American public, none is more pernicious than 'beer track/wine track.'"

"What an utter abuse of metaphor. Look, I'm a liberal who lives in Manhattan. In my fridge-right now---you can find a six of Red Hook. I love beer, and instantly distrust anyone who doesn't. In fact, in college, I refused to date any girl who didn't drink beer. None of that Midori Melon and a salad bullshit for me; Nothing says sexy like a Sam Adams and chicken wings. I don't think I have a single friend (who isn't a recovering alcoholic) who doesn't like beer. Most of them drink wine too, but the official drink of young Manhattan liberals is beer, no question. Moreover, I detect a hint of racism here. This false analogy leaves no place for the many tribes of black voters--'The Hennessey Track,' 'The Curvosier [sic] Track,' 'The MGD Track.' Once again the media conspires to keep black folks out...."

Wrote Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2008 (in The Atlantic). 

I ended up there after reading this new article at Politico, "Trump’s beer track advantage over Ron DeSantis":

Images of beer-drinking and wine-drinking in Osaka.

My son Chris is taking photographs in Japan:

With the death of the Queen, perhaps it's too somber a time to watch TikToks, so I cautiously offer my selection this evening. There are 8. Some people love them.

1. Two young girls encounter a landline telephone.

2. Experience an oranger orange than actually exists.

3. Is the bird oddly stoical or truly in love with the man and his piano?

4. Is morning beer a deplorable notion or something poignantly sublime?

5. When it comes to questions of politics, I wish more celebrities were like Elvis.

6. The ugliest piece of furniture or the most amusingly beautiful?

7. If this is the definition of a "toxic" person, then I am sure I know who is the most toxic person I have ever met. 

8. The Corn Kid — 25 years later.

Sunrise.

From the same place, but looking more toward the west:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Tonight, I have 6 TikTok videos for you. Let me know what you like.

1. Mandy Patinkin sings "Over the Rainbow."

2. Enough with the breweries.

3. The chickadee wants salted peanuts.

4. The blue accordion.

5. The dog under the table.

6. Speaking of singers in their 80s: Gordon Lightfoot.