Life Without Beer

For so long, it was the most common gift I received for birthdays and Father’s Days: a six-pack of beer – something unusual, or perhaps a variety pack – or a bottle opener, a set of coasters or beer steins. From my freshman year in college, when my roommate Todd and I evolved (or devolved?) from our preferred drink of choice – Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers – to drinking piss-poor American lagers because, well, that’s what was provided at the jam-packed house party where two dollars would get you a red cup and the privilege to partake of the keg of Hamm’s housed in the kitchen, all the way to six months ago, beer had been a constant companion to my adult self.

Want to shoot the shit with a friend? Crack open a beer. Want to watch the Packers game? Crack open a beer. Want to find something to do in an unfamiliar city? Find a microbrewery. Want some attire that announces something to the world? Get a t-shirt from said brewery. Want a funny magnet, coaster or birthday card? Something having to do with beer would be a good call, especially one involving Homer Simpson.

I’ve been to a fantastic Chicagoland barbecue that employed a cicerone – the beer equivalent of a sommelier – to pair malt beverages with pulled pork or burnt ends. I’ve had friends who’ve introduced me to weird-ass flavored beers with marshmallow or cotton candy or pistachio overtones. I’ve learned the differences between porters and stouts, lagers and pilsners, and IPAs and American pale ales. I’ve even tried brewing my own beer with mixed results.

I’ve met new friends while drinking beer and a few girlfriends, though not for over 30 years. I’ve sang loudly to Jimmy Buffet and Buster Poindexter songs while consuming beer. I’ve written a few songs about drinking beer. I blew an opportunity to catch a home run hit by Eric Thames because I had a scorecard in one hand and a full beer in the other. I’ve had spirited debates over a beer, a few nasty arguments, and even one fistfight (I didn’t start it, and my participation wasn’t consequential, but I did take a punch and throw one of my own).

I went from spending $23 for a half barrel of Old Milwaukee to $12 for a case of Rolling Rock to $20 for a 12-pack of Dale’s Pale Ale. The amount of time, energy and money I’ve devoted to beer for close to four decades is staggering. I’ve fortunately never been a “drink-a-six-pack-a-day” kind of guy, but I still shudder to think about how much of my home could be filled with all the beer I’ve consumed in my lifetime, and I shake my head when I consider how much money I’ve spent on beer over the decades.

But no more.

Six months ago I had a gout flare-up – the kind of flare-up that puts the fear of God into you, that kills any thoughts of the future, because, well, if the future consists of this piercing pain, then it might be better to call it a day. Fortunately, I live in 2025, and four different medications helped to relieve me of the worst symptoms, and another has allowed me to slowly but surely return to modified normalcy. Modified, because I no longer drink beer, and I’ve refrained from red meat and most seafood since last April as well.

In hindsight, last April’s flareup wasn’t my first bout with gout. I’d been having a few mini flareups a year from as far back as 2019, when my toe pain was originally misdiagnosed by a surgery-happy podiatrist. And because neither of my parents had properly shared their health history with me, I didn’t know what gout was and that I should be on the lookout for its symptoms. Now I know.

So for now, beer is no longer on the menu. Last month I invited neighbors to come to my basement and consume what remained of my beer supply and take leftovers home. For a few months I didn’t really drink any alcohol at all, and I lost over ten pounds from my lanky frame that can ill-afford to lose any more mass. For the past few months, I’ve experimented with drinking gin, bourbon and an occasional wine, and this seems to be a recipe for success if I want to indulge a bit.

But now when I go to a backyard barbecue, I’m drinking a water or Diet Coke. When I meet friends at a brewery, I’m ordering a mocktail. And when my kids buy me a birthday or Father’s Day present, they’re going to have to dig a little deeper than buying a six-pack at the grocery store.

The Grayness of Human Beings

A couple of months ago, a patron at a Chicago White Sox game made some very meanspirited and personal remarks to Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte, and the fan was subsequently banned from all MLB games indefinitely. Reports are that the 22 year-old was “very apologetic and remorseful,” which is promising; I hope he uses this unfortunate experience as an opportunity to recalibrate his life. I also hope that Major League Baseball doesn’t banish the fan for life, or even for a year, but rather invites him back to enjoy baseball with his regrettable indiscretion behind him.

People can be cruel. People can be dumb. The world is run by cruel and dumb people, for crying out loud. But I’d also like us to give people a little more leeway than what is often offered on social media, podcasts and YouTube. Lord knows that if I were held accountable for all the stupid shit I spouted as a 22-year-old, I’d be banned from all sorts of businesses, websites and homes – including my own! I’m wiser today, I’ve smoothed out some of the rough edges, and I try not to utter every stupid thought that pops into my brain.

As we look around the world today, on the news or on internet comments or social media, we’ll witness words and actions that exemplify the worst of humanity. If we look a little harder, we’ll also see words and actions that exemplify the best of humanity. It’s so easy to observe the worst in someone and use it to summarize their entire being. One false action, one slipup of a remark, one viewpoint that doesn’t correspond to our own, and WHAMMO! You’re now an asshole. A pariah. A “them.”

This isn’t the best way to go through life, for it too easily distills a complex human being into a one-word pejorative. I’ve had discussions with my children about this. There is a celebrity who’s done some amazing things but who’s also made some remarks that my children don’t agree with. This celebrity is now banished from their lives, relegated to the island of assholes who aren’t worth their time, which is unfortunate, because it doesn’t address the full human being; it cherry picks the one thing that they find abhorrent and ignores all the good they’ve done.

People are gray, sometimes impressing us with their words and actions, and sometimes letting us down. Goodness knows that I don’t always live up to my highest ideals. There are a multitude of words and actions from my past that I wish I could take back, but it would also be wrong for someone to take a few of those words and actions and make a blanket statement about who I am as a person. I am more than my missteps. I’m also more than a guy who holds a different viewpoint that you do about a particular subject. It’s OKAY to have an opinion that doesn’t align with yours.

People are numbskulls. People are geniuses.
People are despicable and amazing.
They’re pathetic and inspiring.
They’re disappointing and promising.
They’re mean-spirited and kind, cowardly and brave.
People are dishonorable and commendable, capricious and steadfast,
stingy and generous, hypocritical and trustworthy.
They’re hateful and loving. Weak and strong. Lazy and indefatigable.
They are painfully serious and side-splittingly funny,
They’re boring as hell and engrossing.
They are black and white and red and orange and yellow and brown and…
GRAY.

Let’s try to refrain from painting a broad brushstroke about someone’s entire being based on one or two things that we don’t appreciate. Okay?

The Dreaded Resealable Vinyl Sleeves

If you’ve done any record shopping at all, you’ve surely noticed that most used records are protected by a transparent record sleeve. Perhaps not the dozens of ring-worn copies of B.J. Thomas, Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow, but any record worth more than $10 is likely covered in some fashion (and please note that I’m not knocking any of those artists – it’s just that their records are, well…plentiful).

In most stores, records are stored in a certain way:

1)      The records themselves are front-facing for ease of flipping.

2)      They are housed in plastic outer sleeves whose open ends are pointed towards the album cover openings (apparently called a “cover mouth.” I just learned something!).

3)      The inner sleeves that house the record itself are also pointed toward the cover mouth, allowing would-be buyers to extract the vinyl record without any unnecessary steps.

Some albums don’t play nice with this storage – Elton John’s Honky Chateau comes to mind – but for most part, this type of format works well, and as a guy who buys a fair number of records each year, I’ve grown accustomed to this protocol.

But more and more lately, I’ve had the misfortune of perusing used records that are housed in resealable sleeves, the kind that fold over and adhere like a Post-It note, leaving the album cover completely encased – even the opening that houses the inner sleeve and record. This obviously makes checking the record quality tedious, because I have to peel back the sticky fold of the outer sleeve to extract the record, and if I’m thumbing through a couple hundred items, it makes for a cumbersome visit and an unhappy camper.

Some stores go to even greater lengths to spoil my record-buying outing, turning a potential customer into a sworn enemy. Outside of Phoenix, one particular establishment (who shall remain nameless) turns a record quality check into about a minute-long ordeal on the front end, and then another minute-long ordeal on the back end. To wit:

1)      The records are stored in resealable sleeves. My happy disposition is already marred.

2)      These resealable sleeves are pointed north so that the “cover mouth” isn’t exposed even after opening the outer sleeve. Because of this, the album cover has to be completely extracted from the outer sleeve.  Now I’m starting to mutter a few obscenities.

3)      This store takes things a step further: the inner sleeve is also pointing north, meaning I can’t take out the vinyl without first slipping the entire inner sleeve out of the record cover. By this point I’m giving the stink eye to the poor clerk at the cash register, and she probably has nothing to do with this madness!

4)      Once the record is freed from this insanity, I hold it between my hands and tilt it from side to side. And wouldn’t you know it? This particular copy of Working Class Dog by Rick Springfield is marked up beyond any reasonable collector’s threshold, and by this point I’m fuming, because…

5)      I now have to reverse the process to put the album back the way I found it!

I certainly wasn’t going to go through this procedure again and again. I walked out empty-handed and spent my money elsewhere.

I’ve been told by my friend and podcast partner Chris that if a store is going to use resealable sleeves, an accurate grade of the record should be marked on a sticker so that the buyer knows what he or she is getting. But even then I’m skeptical, because I want to see what I’m buying, and not every grading system is consistent.

Sure, if you own a record store and have a mint copy of Prince’s Black Album, go ahead – put it inside a resealable sleeve. In fact, put it in a safe and just display a photo of the record for interested parties! But for most merchandise in the $10 to $250 range, please do us all a favor and stick to the protocols that make record-buying a joyful experience.

Radical Amazement OR Living Every Day as if it's Your First

You may have heard of Suleika Jaouad, a musician and best-selling author of Between Two Kingdom’s, but she might be even better known as the wife of fellow musician John Baptiste. That’s how I discovered her. Together they were featured in the 2023 documentary, American Symphony, which focuses on Baptiste’s musical career as well as his wife’s struggles with leukemia.

Jaouad has a new book called The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, which includes contributions from several musicians, writers, activists and actors. I haven’t yet read the book, but I was taken with something that Jaouad said recently on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as part of her promotional tour. After being diagnosed with her third bout of leukemia last year, her doctor advised her to live every day as if it were her last, a common refrain when someone is faced with a terrible illness.

The trouble, Jaouad claims, is that it’s terrible advice.

I encourage you to watch the clip, but Jaouad explains, “It is exhausting to try to make every family dinner as meaningful as possible and to carpe diem the crap out of every moment.”

So what’s a better way to look at life when faced with a deadly illness, or a way to look at life in general?

She goes on, “Instead I’ve had to shift to a gentler mindset, and I am trying to live every day as if it’s my first. To wake up with that sense of pure uninhibited creative freedom, that sense of wonder and curiosity that a little kid might.”

We would all do well to apply Jaouad’s advice, and we certainly needn’t be faced with cancer to do so.

By some stroke of luck, a few days before seeing the above video clip, I attended a lecture at Elmhurst University, during which Rabbi Steven Bob celebrated the life and teachings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a prominent theologian and author in the 20th century. In Heschel’s 1951 book, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, he discusses a concept that aligns very much with Jaouad’s: radical amazement. It’s this concept that Rabbi Bob highlighted in his lecture.  

Heschel writes, “Human beings must stand in radical amazement that they exist at all…to be so in awe of every aspect of the world and its creator that one cannot help but do one’s part to make it the best it can be.”

Upon learning Heschel’s phrase and – just a few days later – having it reinforced by Jaouad (in spirit, if not in exact words), this idea of radical amazement has been foremost on my mind. I’ve caught myself several times a day actively being in awe of something that might otherwise be categorized as mundane. A flower. The sky. My wife’s smile. A warm bed. A heartfelt laugh. A hardy meal. My body’s movements. There is no shortage of things to be inspired by, and tapping into the beauty of the mundane is a large part of what attracted me to Judaism in the first place, as it’s largely a religion of elevating what might be considered normal everyday activities into something more, something spiritual, something meaningful.

Of course, one doesn’t have to be Jewish or Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or anything else to consider the philosophy of radical amazement. One just needs to be human. There are loads of wonderful articles and videos online to spur you on your journey to embracing the wonder of life. I’m going to dig deeper into this concept, and I suspect that starting with the books of Heschel and Jaouad might be great places to start. If you find another great source, let me know. Good luck with your journey.

Smartphone Addiction

A while back I read an essay by August Lamm, whose journey from social media influencer to ditching her smart phone struck a chord with a lot of people, including a book publisher. The plan was to write a short pamphlet called “You Don’t Need a Smartphone” and follow it up with a full-length book. By this point, Lamm was using a flip-phone, but that didn’t stop the publishing team from sending massive amounts of emails, texts, calls and Google invites about Zoom meetings, deadlines, Google docs, press releases, social media strategies, and the like. Lamm explains it far better than I do – she’s an excellent writer – but the upshot was that her efforts to write about downgrading and reclaiming her life was leading her to do the exact opposite; she was glued to an electronic device at all times, stressed out and not sleeping.

Ultimately, the pamphlet did get published, and I was intrigued enough with the topic to buy a copy, not because I feel like my smartphone has taken over my life, but because I wondered how she advised people on issues like how to enter sporting events or concerts without a phone, or how to pay bills or send people money? It’s no secret that a lot of things we used to do without smartphones are becoming increasingly reliant on smartphones.

Which is the point, says Lamm. It’s not an issue of self-control. Smartphones are designed to keep us on them, and there are powerful entities making sure that you do. But “screentime is not your time,” Lamm writes. “It’s an aggregate of other people’s time – their words and images, their pleas and ploys.”

My kids and I were some of the last people I knew to own a flip phone. I remember people making fun of me about it, asking me about how I could leave home without a phone. “I’m going shopping at Target,” I’d say. “Who do I need to talk to?” I finally acquiesced when familial logistics problems arose, and flip phones became useful tools in the interest of family harmony. Around three or four years later we purchased our first smartphones, which means I’ve owned a smartphone for less than twenty percent of my life, but that hasn’t stopped me from fully integrating it into my daily activity. And I’m not immune to picking up my phone to do one specific task, only to see that I’ve received a text message, and after checking the text completely forgetting why I picked up my phone in the first place. 

That’s a big part of the problem, says Lamm. The smartphone has combined dozens and dozens of everyday activities into one convenient package. Lamm is a big believer in disambiguation, restoring single-purpose devices into one’s life. Want to listen to music? Grab an old iPod, or better yet, play a CD or record (I still do!). Want to add some numbers? Get out the old calculator you left in your drawer a dozen years ago. Want to make a phone call? Get out your flip phone. Want to start dating? Join a club and socialize. Want to drive somewhere? Get out a map. Hell, I spent 45 years driving from place to place without the use of Google Maps, but I’ll be darned if it didn’t take just six months or so for me to become addicted to this tool.

“Precisely,” I can hear Lamm saying to me.

Lamm says that once she downgraded and broke the cycle of relying on her smartphone, a funny thing happened: she got her time back. She started doing things with more intent. Her book-reading increased, and sometimes she even started doing…nothing. Just being and not worrying about every minute of her day being productive. She writes, “As long as you are experiencing this time more vividly than you did screentime, you are reaping the benefits. Be bored. Be annoyed. At least you’re feeling something.”

Here's my quick take: smartphones are this grand experiment that we humans decided to enter into whole-hog without really understanding the repercussions (a common human trait), and I think it’s important that Lamm and others are discussing the issue of smartphone addiction, particularly for young people who’ve never known life without one. Her message has resonated with a lot of users.

As for me, I find that separating myself from my phone isn’t all that difficult for two big reasons: I don’t do social media or play games on my phone, and those to me are the biggest culprits of smartphone addiction. After all, these apps are designed to be addictive, and they lead to an incredible waste of time. And sure, I’ve wasted many hours on my phone, but most of the time I’m on it to do something specific, which is really what all of us should be striving for – do live with intent.

Reading Lamm’s pamphlet has inspired me to do two things: keep my phone out of my bedroom and keep it out of reach when I’m watching a movie or TV.  That will go a long way to keeping me engaged with what I’m doing.

For those who feel like their relationship with their phone has crossed a line, Lamm’s pamphlet may provide a roadmap for how to untangle oneself from this device. I wish her huge success with the publication, and I really do hope that one day she can write the book without it sucking her back into the world of electronics.