When I was kid, we drank lots of domestic beer.
Bud, Miller, Stroh's.
Remember Stroh's? They were the innovators of my era of bad beer consumption.
They had the Stroh's fifteen-pack.
They had the Stroh's Party Ball.
(Did anyone out there ever have a Party Ball? I seem to recall them getting deflated and looking sort of sad as the beer was drunk. That could be conjecture. Please feel free to straighten me out.)
But mostly we drank Budweiser, in the can.
A big Friday night with my friends usually meant a case of Bud in the trunk, Beastie Boys or the Cult or the Violent Femmes on the car stereo, cruising around town, looking for a party or for chicks.
Good times.
But in the event I had something more resembling a date, I'd go all out. I'd get gussied up, clean my car (or at least throw the garbage away), and buy a six-pack of Michelob.
(Don't ask me how I got my hands on this booze. I honestly don't remember. I know I wasn't old enough to buy it for myself. I suspect a friend's parents took our order and had the booze waiting for us when we got there on Friday night. Can you imagine that today? "What's that, son? You want a case of Budweiser so you and your underage friends can go driving around town drinking and looking for girls? No problem. You sure you don't want some tequila to go with that?")
Michelob was my standard date beer. It was more expensive (not as expensive as Heineken, which was sort of the holy grail of beer in our town; who would ever be rich enough to drink Heineken?), and more expensive always meant better. Michelob also came in these brown bottles with gold foil wrapped around its bottle cap.
Oh la la!
Once, I remember having some Michelob left over from a date night, so I took it for my normal Friday night romp with my friends. One friend saw me twist the cap off the bottle and throw the gold foil remnant away and said, working on his own can of Budweiser, "Ooooo, Michelob." It was clear I thought I was hot stuff, like I'd pulled up for our weekly cruise around town in a shiny new Mercedes.
And maybe that's what Michelob was for us.
The Mercedes of beer.
Or at least the Mustang.
What's the point of this story? Of my reminiscing about my Michelob past?
I don't know.
But maybe we can all make a point this week to think about Michelob just a little bit more than normal. I don't think it's too much to ask.
Yours in laying down the law,
Art
Buy Ghost Notes
Buy Songs from Memory
Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix
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