The beer muse is, Velvet produced by the Staropramen Pivoray (Brewing Company). It is “A bottom-fermented beer, 5.3% alcohol, with a remarkable visual appearance and taste, whose development was inspired by a traditional English recipe.”

Truly, the beer does live up to it’s name. And somehow the Original Hooligan Tribe is inspired to infuse the beers plush moniker with a diverse array… Well, anyway it’s all explained in the letter.

What started as nothing more than mention of a Czech lager prominently named, Velvet, leads to a Hooligan skit inspired universe? We are not sure if the beer comes from Czech Republic but is a British beer or if it is a Czech Beer made in Britain. Somehow thee Majesties royal country is involved and we proceed to first, carpet bombing all of the Bond films: The most memorable and somehow more hysterical appropriation being, License to Velvet, funnier even than both Dr. Velvet and Octavelvet. Die Another Velvet or Velvet Another Day are not bad choices but sadly disappointing when put next to Velvet Pussy! GoldVelvet offers its funnier counterpart in Velveteye or Velvetfinger. From Russia with Velvet  seems too decadent and deprived. You Only Live Velvet sucks. It just doesn’t cut it, not in any rearrangement including and limited to: You Velvet Live Twice, Velvet Only Live Twice and You Only Velvet twice (perhaps the best arrangement from this bunch). Diamonds Are Velvet is too much of an inquiry rather than a statement.  Without proper punctuation and when reversed, Velvet are Forever, sounds like a new post-rock band, rightly consisting of members from older better bands.

The Man With the Golden Velvet is mysterious and plush, only to be rivaled by, The Velvet with the Golden Gun as well as, The Man with The Velvet Gun, no matter how predictable.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Velvet is a bit implicative, causing a raised brow, but not so much a giggle. This is also attributed to this being not a memorable film in the Bond series. In fact, no suitable alteration of this title injected with velvet, will give the desired effect so, let’s keep moving.

The Spy Who Loved Velvet reminds me too much of Peter Sellers or Austin Powers, which could lead to a slapstick funny. Velvetracker though, is just plain vulture-like, primal and congenial at once!

Velvet Your Eyes Only, okay. A View to a Velvet, The Living Velvet in so far as these are poetic gestures… The Velvet Day Lights, dangerous and dreamy. Velvet Never Dies, too much infomercial-like. Where as, Tomorrow Never Velvet and The World is not Velvet are just too somber thoughts. For if the world was truly velvet we wouldn’t need houses or food or clothing.

“like deer antlers” muttered Pipe half awake.

Thanks to Panman Productions and FreestyleLife.com everyone can enjoy the antics of the Original Hooligans.

An old book that smelled old

Not too long ago, upon returning home to my apartment after work I found a little gift from heaven wedged between my screen door and wall. A small package from the Pilgrims of Pleiades themselves! Huzzah, what could it be? Such excitement.

I tore into the package and discovered inside a thoughtfully written birthday postcard and a book all about pipes and pipe smoking. Thanks guys!

An old book, Weber’s Guide to Pipes and Pipe Smoking by Carl Weber (and Illustrated by Charles Fellows), was good nonetheless and I read it with aplomb in one sitting! What thoughful countrymen and women the hooligan pilgrims are, to assist me in rekindling my old love and desultory daliance into the world of pipes and pipe smoking. I have, afterall,  adopted the moniker of Pipe Adams.

Indeed.

Reprinted in 1973, the original 1962 tome describes the hobby and art of pipe smoking from top to bottom. Mr. Weber will guide you through the history of tobacco cultivation, the evolution of piping from the European discovery of the tobacco plant until today, different materials and methods used in pipe production, the differences between tobacco types, the process of picking and choosing the right pipe for you, and strategem for lighting and keeping your pipe lit. A photo spread detailing pipe making, titled “A Pipe is Born” is a source of particular delight! For of course, just like all living creatures -pipes are not made, they are born!

Pipe smoking is a wonderful and sacred art that the hooligan iconoclast can relish and enjoy both for its medicinal and relaxing qualities but also for the fact that it is an extraordinarily unpopular pursuit. Any young hoodlum caught puffing away on a pipe is bound to provoke consternation and confusion in even the most fashionable of hipsters. That is the hooligan way. Of course, it is only a matter of time before the Williamsburghers are puffing away on trust fund bought meerschaums and waxing their handlebar mustaches.

Perhaps while tooling around on penny farthings?

No irony is too great for these people.

Thats fine.

While I am an iconoclast through and through and my personality (defect) prohibits me to enjoy any pursuit if others deem it to be fashionable or ironic, know that I’ll still be puffing away on my pipe from now until eternity.

Pipe Adams came first and is the ultimate authority on pipes for his generation.

If hipsters want to know anything about pipes they can ask me.

For instance, did you know that at European pipe smoking competitions, it is nom de rigeur for contestants to scream at the top of their lungs while smoking their pipes?

Of course you did.

And for those of you in the know, I need not tell you about the dark side of piping.

But as for the rest of you…

stay tuned.

lulu and yo soy.

You just can’t believe that your partner, my partner, Lulu doesn’t mind the McDonaldizzation* of another natural wonder. A force of nature fortified by malls, ticket booths, boarder crossing stations, hot-dog carts and parking lots. I went on to suppose by the logic of it all that millions of gallons of water falling every second down a rock face splitting up into tiny particles of moisture and coming back up wasn’t enough of a spectacle for most people. Tour-rides, Ice-cream, and commemorative paraphernalia was in order too.

Lulu felt that a marvel of this proportion should be made accessible to all. One would feel disgrace to admit otherwise, but my displeasure was far more penetrative. Who ever designed this damned tier access fuck-show was a wo/man worthy of a lynching party in their honor.

Let me paint you a picture: The VIP section for certain ticket holders offered the ability to ogle through mounted binoculars for an added fee. Which I could begin to understand if not for the simple fact that the Falls are visible for miles. That is had they not been unobstructed by Wallyworlds* and like constructions.

Maybe if the park had at least a mile buffer zone away from all establishments it would be more bearable, but this is not the case. When I took a moment to breathe it all in, I instantly realized the cheap absurdity of this juxtaposition. I held my breath and filled up with rage, my voice inside my head booming with defiant orders, defiant gestures.

“Plunge your feet into the fucking river. At all costs!”

“At all costs?” I asked back.

“Do it!  Do it now! You must.” answered the dialogue.

The “No Swimming Signs” are rampant in my determined way.

I stumble, I mumble under my breath, “At all costs. Lulu will understand that I mean what I say. Fucking bastards! How can they rape! At all costs. At bottom dollar. The utter ignorance. I want to kill everyone!” Some kind of twisted Nine Inch Nails melodramatic industrial tune jazzing me up for the task at hand.

at all costs...

Fucking park rangers policing the coast like vultures full of barbiturates. Full of –tude. That is if they catch me. I’m under the cloak of the Voice. But Lulu is devastated by my behavior, my voice, my words, at odds with me and my  spooled up belligerence. Daggers are pocking through my eyeballs, my skins, through everything I find seemingly outrageous with the state parks system of NY:  the people that visit these places flock-like thinking that they can buy a better seat to nature by paying extra, the people who take their money and complain that on holidays they should be paid time-and-a-half for their efforts, the efforts that remain lazy and crappy and dumb. I’m even mad about people such as myself who come here in defiance of the circumstances to prove nothing to no one-one more time. Maybe I’m just mad at the world at large, or at myself, or my dad-eternally? Who the devil’s hole knows?

I make my way over to an opening in the guard railing system. I prepare my trajectory between the Rangers. No matter, the Rangers are disturbed by a professional camera crew filming the shit out of a tour bus. One can never have enough b-roll of a tour bus, hence it is my perfect cover.

With Lulu completely distraught by my behavior, but mostly my words and tone thus far, I forcefully jam my feet, pants and all, into the brutal rapids.

There! Ha-ha! In yo-fucking face all of the world. It’s fucking done!

That’s what the Original Hooligans do, we plunge our fucking feet into water as a gesture of commemoration. Why? Just because! Always and forever.

Trust no one!

We were having our biggest, baddest, fight of the trip. With the American Nightmare -Niagra Falls USA far behind us, Lulu was staring out the window with tears streaming down her face.

She wondered if I, Marlo, would continue this motif at say, Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon of all places? This was something I just couldn’t speculate on. At least not in this current state. I had never been to those mysterious places.

at yellowstone.

She had been to those places and knew in her heart of hearts, her eyes of eyes, that these very places had been molested and bastardized by the paternal hands of development.

My argument was that these places were designed without any concept of nature, they were the worst thing about a free market economy embraced by our capitalist system. These were examples of where gross profit dictates design… How many overfed souls would have to be pushed through the gates to turn the most profit. These calculations preceded even the slightest contemplation of “respect for wonder, for nature.”

Lulu stated that my naive and juvenile views of the world at large were interfering with more prominent concepts of fun and free spirit. It’s true they were and they always have.

But just like you can’t turn your back on rape of humans (can you?), how can you turn your back on the rape of nature. Not even private rape, away from the unguided eye (like the pulp forests, natural gas fields, and oil sanctuaries we were going to encounter later on in the journey) but rape right there in front of you for a fee. I think that we should enact this as mandatory live viewing. Yes, the actual metaphor where the New York Parks system chooses by lottery from the visitors that come and pay to see nature raped. Now, they too stand a decent chance of having themselves publicly splayed and  ambushed. Yes, this is a good idea since there is not enough time to meditate anymore on what the hell’s going on around us. We should have all poetic and visual metaphors and allegories available live, for a reasonable cost of course. I wont patent this idea (since I’m too lazy), but you should. It is grossly ambitious.

clear-cut case.

Lulu stated that, I need to chill the fuck out! It is what it is and I already know that I can’t change it. That was something I never wanted to hear from anyone, yet alone her sultry lips. It hurt me in the worst of ways to hear that.

As we drove we untangled the knots of our conflicting views and agreed that the most dire problem is communication, language itself, and that the only way to fill this chasm was to start with education.

We agreed to work on resolving our issues by dealing with ill-communication, recording our findings, and by demonstrating  them to each other and then leaving them up for further discussion.

We knew that challenging each others views, emotionally, physically, sexually, and with desire was of absolute necessity to impregnate each other with the paradoxical point of view that could then circulate without order or meaning.

After we left NY state we could consciously say that the Park system was fucked up; a paid entry parking lot for travelers mostly wheeling around in their over sized homes.

I would have to interject that the obvious idea of leaving most creature comforts at home makes sense when you go into nature.  However, I’m sure that I am in the minority when I witness double decker buses with antennas, satellites, and heli-pads, plugged into the parks providing electrical outlets. Most of these people don’t even bother building a fire. They have an electronic fireplace right there in their bedrooms, and living rooms, and toilets.

For anyone on a budget, NY state will run you a fortune if you want to stay in these grassed up parking lots. A sad truth that we hope other states will contradict.

*Wallyworld: any 100,000 square-foot box-like structure that sells commercial goods at rock bottom prices.

*Lulu’s actual point of view as pointed out by her upon hearing this diatribe is that, “it’s not that I don’t mind the McDonaldizzation of these places -it’s that I have accepted it as a sad fact of life.” To which I must remind her of a popular Clash lyric, “When They come to your front door, / how you gonna come? With your hands upon your head?/ or on the trigger of your gun?!” Which is not to accuse her or anybody of anything. But it is a worthy exercise to inform yourself of your intent about who ever, “They” are.