You’ve got New Year’s Eve, you’ve got St. Patrick’s Day, and you’ve got the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Now, I’ve got no mathematical evidence to back this up, but in my mind, these are the three biggest drinking holidays of the year.

Why is this? I’m not sure, but here’s my theory — just about everyone comes home for Thanksgiving. And by home, I mean the place where you grew up. That means returning to a place with a lot of old friends you haven’t seen in a while. Maybe you’ve been away at college, or you moved away for work — whatever. Anyway, what better way to catch up with old friends than at a bar over a couple beers?

So why doesn’t this happen on Christmas Eve? Well, first of all, most people spend Christmas Eve at home with their family. And they typically have to get up early the next morning. With Thanksgiving, the night before the holiday holds very little significance for most people. And generally, the festivities get started later in the day, instead of in the morning. The perfect setup for some pre-holiday drinking.

I’ve always found that Portsmouth gets particularly crowded on Tryptophan Eve. My favorite place to go was always the Coat of Arms. No matter what, I’d always bump into a handful of people I went to high school with. And it was always packed.

My guess is that many of the local bars will be jammed with locals and former locals tonight as well. A number of places are offering specials to draw people in.

The Gaslight will have $3.50 Bud Light Harvest Wheat, and will be giving away free slices of pizza, too. And the Mermaid will have Shipyard XXXX Imperial IPA on special for $4 (that’s right, just $4 for a beer that sometimes goes for $7 or $8!). So you do not want to stay in.

The Dolphin Striker will also be a good place to stop by. Not sure if they’ll have any drink deals, but they will have Truffle playing live downstairs, which is a nice way to start the holiday weekend.
The Muddy River will have karaoke tonight, with $1.99 draft beer specials and 25-cent wings from 8 to 9 p.m. Yum.
And the Red Door, which always does it up big for the holidays, will be having a huge party, featuring Ryan Durkin and DJ Evaredy (one of Cresta’s faves), among others. They promise to be “massacre-ing the dance floor” and making everyone “a sweaty mess”. Sounds like fun. The shindig runs from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and it’s Ladies Night, so house martinis are just $5 for the fairer sex.

One place that won’t be offering any specials tonight will be Poco’s. Though they’d originally hoped to be open in time for the holiday after being closed for two weeks due to the construction of their new deck, they’re now telling us they won’t be ready to reopen until Friday — Saturday at the latest.

Oh, and don’t forget the actual Thanksgiving Day drinking — one of my favorite pasttimes. In response to Rachel Forrest’s recent query, I’m not sure what either myself or The Beer Drinker will be drinking this Thanksgiving, but my fondest Turkey Day beer drinking memories involve drinking Sam Adams with my grandfather. Not Sam winter, not Sam October — just straight Sam. I remember my grandfather (I’ll call him the Original Beer Drinker, or OBD for short) used to always bring over a 12-pack (sometimes more) of Sam for Thanksgiving. Every year, he and I would go beer for beer until he fell asleep. Good times. I miss that guy.

Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea. Maybe I’ll grab a 12′er of Sam this Thanksgiving, and raise a bottle (or 6) to the OBD.

– Mr. X

For those of you yet still unfamiliar with the delightful publication Steampunk Magazine, it’s time that you cast aside your reservations! I only have three different issues: two, five, and six. I have read and re-read each of the various stories and articles with pleasure, and I strongly suggest that you do the same. What could possibly be more entertaining than the science-fiction usually featured in Nostromo? Science-Fiction set in a fantastical Victorian time-that-never-was, based on authors like Verne and Wells. Science-Fiction packed with death-rays, steam-powered contraptions, corsets, burnished goggles, and puttering airships! Yes and yes.

I recently returned to the fifth issue of Steampunk Magazine with my fiance Kathleen while she visited here in Frederick for a few days. Before she had any chance to recognize why I was bothering her for participles and overwrought adjectives, the two of us were embroiled in a pleasant game of Steampunk Madlibs. The following is an excerpt from our mad tale “On the Construction of the Tesla Coil”, originally penned by Margaret Killjoy and Usul of the Blackfoot. Enjoy!

“My fortress in hand, towering determination in mind- for a genius such as mine, once set in motion, can no more easily be stopped than the 8 o’clock locomotive bound for Montreaux- I went to the trunk and withdrew my oven as well as a bottle of ground all-spice. I pulled a hammer from the pocket on my brassiere and went about to my task.

After clearing my inventory of cups, plates, and saucers, I finally had everything I needed. I connected the gear to the orb and set off to spend time at shooting to allow the device adequate time to power up.

“Fi!”, I declared upon my return, “My mouse-in-a-go-kart is not so complete as I had begun to hope!” I walked my shin for a solution, but to no avail. “Hurray! Perhaps I need to replace the bolts with seven kettles.”

Of course, I can assume that the burnished reader is acutely aware of the mistake inherent in such a haphazard workaround. For instead of alleviating the problem, I had only exacerbated it! I had no choice: I decided I must visit the dandy and impose upon him to borrow his monocle.

Three hours later, I had what  I needed. Having installed the monocle into the contraption, I threw the switch!”

BRIAN FALLON, THE render some flash contentheavily tattooed front-man for the Gaslight Anthem, is hanging out in his manager’s New York office one late-summer afternoon. EmailThis is a good thing, because it meansFAQ he’s not working construction. “It’s not cool to be working on a rooftop this time of year,” Fallon says, smiling. Construction work is only part of Fallon’s blue-collar background: Having talked to his real father only once, he was raised by a grant-writer mom and a stepdad who struggled through several jobs. “I always had a sense of uncertainty grc. up,” says Falloju.
That-sjirisc of uncertainty. aVrover The ‘59 Soundjthe^New Jersefy quartet’sejteeflent second album; a erjTTection of tuneful, passionately sung stories about working-class folks and young romance. One standout is the propulsive “Meet Me by the River’s Edge,” in which Fallon refers to factories and cruising dark highways. “No surrender, my Bobby Jean,” he howls on the cut, conflating two titles by Bruce Springsteen, whose shad¬ow looms over the entire record. Though the Gaslight Anthem are signed to the SoCal punk label SideOneDummy and they regularly open for mohawked acts, their sound is only sort of punk: It’s more like a super-charged version of early Bruce

Last week Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were at Gaslight filming scenes for their new movie. The parking lot that houses the SoWa Open Market every Sunday was full of trailers and big trucks that generate massive amounts of electricity and caterers and crew members and security and a bunch more people doing probably-important things…

Here’s a photo of the paparazzi standing around… doing what they do best!

and a photo of a couple of extras waiting for their scene:

Tom Cruise’s trailer was parked right outside our back window at the office. He was there, avoiding the paparazzi, reading over lines. Where are the photos? I’m just not that kind of person! Sorry!
But lucky for you Tom Cruise’s appearance at the SoWa Open Market was captured on camera phone. Ah, technology!

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Si hay un Héroes que nos llega a todos y aunque nunca se haya leído un comic se lo conoce, es sin dudas, Batman. Hoy les traigo 5 historias, en donde Batman es el protagonista, que son realmente geniales, que las disfruten =).

Batman: Luz de Gas

Se imaginan a Batman enfrentándose contra Jack el destripador??, precisamente eso nos cuenta esta historia dibujada por Mike Mignola y escrita por Brian Augustyn.

Batman: Luz de Gas  [RS]

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Batman: Yo, Joker

Esta historia, al igual que la anterior, es un elseworld (historia que se encuentra fuera de la continuidad de la serie) que nos muestra como serian las cosas si Batman fuera el villano y el Joker fuera el Héroe.

Batman: Yo, Joker  [RS]  [MF]

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Batman: Broken City

Luego de encontrar el cadáver de una chica en circunstancias misteriosas, Batman decide tomar el caso pero, a medida que la investigación avanza, todo se va poniendo mas tenso para nuestro protagonista al punto de cuestionarse sus propios métodos, personalmente recomiendo este comic creado de la mano del genial Eduardo Risso y con guion de Brian Azzarello.

Batman: Broken City:  [MU]

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Batman: The Dark Knight Return

Luego de 10 años de su retiro, Bruce Wayne decide volver a ponerse su traje de murciélago para seguir protegiendo las calles de Ghotam City debido a una serie de eventos que lo hacen arrepentirse de haber dejado su rol de caballero de la noche, un comic imperdible con guion y dibujos a cargo del exitosísimo Frank Miller.

Batman: The Dark Knight Return  [MU]

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Batman: The Killing Joke

Y para terminar les dejo lo que para mi es el mejor comic de Batman que se ha hecho. En este titulo el excelentísimo guionista Alan Moore nos revela muchos interrogantes que quizás la nueva generación de seguidores de Batman no sepa, y llegando al final podremos ver una cara totalmente inesperada de uno de los personajes mas importantes en la vida del murciélago, una lectura obligada para todos los amantes de los comic.

Batman: The Killing Joke  [RS]

Saludos =).

If you were to ask my fiance Kathleen what two writers have had the greatest development on me as a person, she’d probably falter for a moment or two before coming back with any definitive response. Hunter S. Thompson, maybe? Victor Hugo? These would, of course, both be good and valid guesses, but incorrect nevertheless. She’d be right that these are indeed some of my favorite authors: men capable of great feats of language. Be that as it may, the writers who shaped my fantasies, my character, my morality, and my aesthetic tastes more than any other are none other than Sir Aurther Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens.

Throughout my early years, my parents would leave my brother and I tucked under our covers with some manner of cassette playing in an old deck. When we were particularly young, these tapes would generally be collections of Bible stories, hymns, or Biblically-themed narratives. I’m not talking about Veggie-Tales here. These were generally dramatizations of Biblical events or expositions on Christian history, morality, and thought. As my brother and I approached adolescence, however, the nature of these tapes changed. We began listening to literary works and collections of old radio dramas like The Inner Sanctum and The Shadow. Most of all, we listened to the exciting adventures of master detective Sherlock Holmes. I can’t tell you how many times in my middle school career I was mocked and jeered for carrying around collections of Sherlock Holmes stories. We only had a few on cassette, and my brother and I listened to these same tales over and over and over. In all honesty, I’m not sure how the cassettes managed to survive without being worn out to the point of disintegration. I can still probably recite every word of “The Red-Headed League” if asked, though that’s admittedly a bit of an exaggeration. In any case, the real point of all this childhood recollection business is just how imbedded the character and world of Mr. Holmes became in my consciousness…. and unconscioness, if such a thing can be said to exist.

The same, of course, goes for Charles Dickens. Although I’ve only actually read a relatively small number of his works, my father watched A Christmas Carol at least a dozen different times every single Christmas season. From Thanksgiving until New Years day, I watch some version of A Christmas Carol almost every other night. The image of the gaslit streets of Camden continues to exist as some strange and ephimeral inspiration in the back of my skull. Very few times in my life have I tried to genuinely express to another person how deeply the pages of these books, this Victorian era of cobblestone streets, tailors, and wrought-iron gates, have affected me. Sometimes it honestly feels as though I’ll never quite feel content unless I too can pace those alleyways, hearing the Church choirs practicing behind wooden doors and seeing the lamp-lighters ply their trade. This, of course, is a common phenomenon. Many people feel out of place in the world of Spectacle, media, the market, Capitalism, and boredom that surround us. Some escape to fantasy worlds when knighthood was in flower. Others whisk themselves away to other times and other worlds through books, films, or just plain daydreaming. I think that this sentiment is one of the many reasons why my trip to Scotland back in 2007 had such an impact on me. It was very intense to see the architecture and layout of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Sterling.

Somehow I started reading Steampunk Magazine. I don’t really know what made me decide to finally send out the mailorder, but I’ve seen the publication on the shelves of Red Emma’s bookstore and coffeeshop in Baltimore at least a dozen times over the last two or three years. I don’t know why I ever took notice in the first place. I do remember my old bandmate Keith having said something about writing a Steampunk novel… a sort of Cyberpunk text set in the Industrial Revolution. The idea sounded pretty silly to me, though I’m constantly impressed with Keith’s storytelling prowess. Eventually I somehow got the idea in my brain that I would write a Steampunk short-story. I decided this, of course, before having any sort of concrete idea as to what Steampunk even was, which is probably for the best. In order to become better informed for my writing project, I ordered a handful of magazines and a pretty green patch to top off the load.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with Steampunk are undoubtedly wondering what in the world any of this has to do with Science-fiction. Isn’t this blog/zine a reflection on robots, machines, cyborgs, hackers, and the like? It is. At the same time, Nostromo is, first and foremost, a documentation of my paradoxical experiences, interactions, and feelings with and towards technology. Steampunk, as wikipedia undoubtedly says better than I, is a sub-genre of Science-Fiction (some would even say a sub-genre of Cyberpunk, though I wouldn’t go that far) set in the Industrial age before electricity was widely available. Steampunk literature is generally based on the classic works of HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Charles Dickens. Popular Steampunk iconography tends to dwell on the airship (dirigible), clock-work, and the inventor-figure. A sub-culture has managed to surround and thrive off Steampunk, perhaps to even greater success than that of Cyberpunk. Some take the aesthetics and ideas presented in Steampunk in a subtly dissident political direction, while others focus on the humorous fashion potentials of the concept.

So why have I taken to Steampunk literature and art with such vigor over the past weeks? Well, like most Steampunk-oriented individuals, I’ve been interested in romanticized notions of Victorian England and quarky never-was inventions for as long as I can remember. Here we have an intersection between my favorite passions: the atmosphere of Holmes spliced with the endless possibilities of science-fiction. Beyond all that, I have to admire Steampunk’s ability to drive individuals to create. If you type in the term “Steampunk” on Google image-search, you will find a wealth of photographs wherein fans have crafted a breadth of Steampunked items: computers with brass typewriter keys, gear-laden guitars, aviator goggles (what would this post be without at least one mention of goggles, huh?), and penny farthings. There is a wealth of art, literature, invention, and fashion that surrounds this silly little term. Personally, I think that’s pretty cool.

So check out Steampunk Magazine (http://www.steampunkmagazine.com). Read The Difference Engine by Brian Sterling and (the ever referenced) William Gibson. Or forego all that and get back to the source: The Time Machine by HG Wells.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming: the androids, blast shields, cybernetic implants, and general sci-fi destruction….

The following advertisements appeared in various newspapers between August 29, 1944 and September 1, 1944.

August 30, 1944 - Dana Andrews, Constance Dowling & Danny Kaye

September 1, 1944 - Fannie Hurst Presents on WSUN

September 1, 1944 - Gaslight movie advertisement

August 1, 1944 - Theater advertisement for "Somewhere I'll Find You" and "Henry Aldrich, Editor"

September 1, 1944 - "Meet the People" with Lucille Ball & Dick Powell

September 1, 1944 - Smilin' Ed McConnell and His Buster Brown Gang

September 1, 1944 - Earle Tanner, Singing Star of "What's Cooking"

So I really have no songs of the week. Only slightly shamefully, I’ve just been listening to Third Eye Blind a lot since yesterday and anything else before that this week hasn’t been terribly notable, because I can’t remember what it might have been and referring to iTunes for my records seems to lack soul.

Instead, let’s talk about movies. On Turner Classic Movies (TCM) earlier today there was an airing of the 1944 film, Gaslight featuring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury in her first role. In the 40s there was this genre that revolved around pseudo-psychology and hysterical and/or insane women. It’s a strange genre that also includes such films as Hitchcock’s 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (I’ve tried numerous times to get through the book unsuccessfully). Hollywood had this interesting fascination for decades with that weird pop psychology that is made so blatantly obvious and tends to cast a veil over the entire film, and while Gaslight was a certainly entertaining film, I felt that so much more could have been done with the concept to make it more elaborate. Charles Boyer plays a charming asshole who marries Paula (Ingrid Bergman) and immediately begins to mess with her head, while they live in the home of Paula’s aunt who was murdered there a decade earlier. Ingrid Bergman plays Paula, the hysterical victim, gloriously.

Looking up the film on IMDb produced Wait Until Dark under the listing of “you might also like”, which is an interesting choice in that the 1967 film taps into that same pseudo-psychological analysis of a woman being left to work around the trickery of men. These particular men invade her home and mess with her head, but the movie lacks the gloom of London in Gaslight and the gothic nature of Rebecca, so stylistically it has a very generic 60s feel about it, however, Audrey Hepburn plays a good hysteric and I find it to be a more intense thriller than say, Gaslight, which can be watched just to see the artistry.

Watch Gaslight here.

Watch Rebecca here. (It’s Part 1, refer to the “related videos” for the rest)

Watch Wait Until Dark here.

Bless you, YouTube and stay gold.

Lorelai tells Sookie she’s going to meet Emily and Gran to discuss the trust fund.

Lorelai: I have to change and go to tea with Gran and the cast of Gaslight.

Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944)

This is Kate Moross’s first car. She painted it with acrylic and markers, keeping it old school! We really love it!!!

Μας βρήκαν! Ο φίλος Διονύσης μας εντόπισε στη Μάνη, στο νοτιότερο σημείο της Ηπειρωτικής Ευρώπης. Eκεί όπου γεννήθηκε η ιδέα του blog, ένα φθινοπωρινό βράδυ, στη μέση του πουθενά. Χθες είδε την πινακίδα (λίγο πριν γίνει σουρωτήρι), την φωτογράφησε  με την κάμερα του (σούπερ φωτό) και αμέσως μας έστειλε email. Στην άκρη φαινόμαστε κι εμείς να πλατσουρίζουμε ακούγοντας Boat Club…Many thanks dinstereo!

En el primer volum publicat de la trilogia amb la que Bob Dylan repassa la seva vida, ens trobem davant de la crònica vital i artística de Robert Allen Zimmerman des dels seus records d’infància a la seva Minnesota natal fins el seu ressorgiment artístic gràcies a Oh Mercy. Robert Allen va arribar a Greenwich Village a l’any 1961 quan encara no tenia vint anys, i amb la seva guitarra es va recórrer bars i petites sales de concerts (sol i sense banda perquè no se la podia permetre i perquè sempre li acabaven “robant” els músics, fisn que va decidir anar per lliure) que li van permetre, a més de fer-se un nom dintre del món del folk, conèixer una série de personatges i realitats que fins aquell moment ni tan sols era capaç d’imaginar.

Cafè Wha?, Gaslight, Dave Van Ronk, Izzy Young, Lou Levy, John Hammond, New Lost City Ramblers, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, entre d’altres, noms i espais que van contribuïr directament a la formació d’un noi obsessionat pel folk i per aprendre i assolir nous coneixements. Ell volia ser un simple cantant, crear les seves cançons, viure tranquilament sense obeïr ordres, ni fitxar, ni en definitiva treballar de res que no fos la seva música. La seva curiositat per aprendre i empapar-se de tot el que desconeixia segurament és una de les claus per entendre la qualitat de la seva música i de les seves llestres i la importància que ha tingut Bob Dylan en la història de la música i de la literatura.

Dylan era un jovenet que si no tocava la guitarra o escrivia cançons, es posava a llegir a autors com Péricles, Tucídides, Sófocles, Gogol, Balzac, Maupassant, Hugo, Dickens o una biografia d’Alexandre el Gran. Punt i a part són les reflexions que fa sobre el llibre Vom Kreige de Clausewitz: “…quan afirma que la política ha prés el lloc de la moral i que la política és força bruta, no fa broma…”; “No em vingueu amb cap d’aquests romanços sobre l’esperança o les ximpleries de la rectitud…Anem al gra: No hi ha cap ordre moral…O bé ets a dalt o bé a baix. Així és com és el món i res no ho canviarà. És un món boig, confús, i l’has de mirar directament als ulls…Llegir Clausewitz fa que et prenguis els teus pensaments una mica menys seriosament“. Reconeix que ell mai havia estat un gran aficionat a la lectura, però un cop va arribar a Greenwich Village i va adonar-se de la seva ignorància, Dylan ja no va parar, no només de llegir, sino d’apropar-se a tot allò que sentia que algun dia el podria ajudar a ser un cantant reconegut que li permetès viure de les seves cançons. Les seves referències culturals són abrumadores, i un dels motors inqüestionables que van empènyer a Dylan a ser qui és.

Perquè en definitiva, d’això tracta el llibre. D’un jove que vol guanyar-se la vida tocant la guitarra i se’n va de casa a provar fortuna; una narració honesta del seu creixement personal i artístic, contrastantnt els moments d’èxit satisfactori amb els d’  èxit insuportable, els moments més creatius, amb els més difícils artísticament parlant. Cròniques de Bob Dylan és l’intens recorregut que va fer Robert Allen fins convertir-se en Bob Dylan, i com és capaç de suportar tot el que comporta anomenar-se Bob Dylan.

A few days ago, either Smuttynose Brewing or the Portsmouth Brewery (same thing, right?) posted a Facebook status update about a deal for cheap wings on some night or the other. Which got me thinking that many of the restaurants in town still haven’t figured it out — all you gotta do is let us know when you’re offering cheap food or beer or hosting a great band and we’ll get the word out for you. It’s what we do.

Some places, like the River House, and the soon-to-be-opened Common Man, have clearly figured it out. And the Black Trumpet and Blue Mermaid are pretty good about keeping us up to date. The Gaslight was giving us some details on their bands, but then they went dark.

So here it is one more time – if you work at a restaurant in town, or know someone who does, tell them to e-mail us at iambeerdrinker@yahoo.com or shoot us a message on Facebook when they’ve got something cool to tell the Beer Drinkers.

Another thing that got me thinking this week was a FB update from the Chop Shop in Dover, letting us know they’ve got a bunch of new craft beers. It might just be time for the Beer Drinker and me to take a road trip to the Garrison City…

-Mr. X

Little Idiot is waiting for us to pick him up…

Last Gas Station invites favourite artists to draw a car
Moby brings Little Idiot in our new session “Beep Beep Gallery”
Gas with us…

automatism: Buffet

A wonderful appreciation by Stefany Anne Golberg of one of my all time favourite actors — Judy Holliday. Beautiful and brainy, Judy also had the most utterly perfect comic timing — if you haven&t seen her in the classic Born Yesterday, …

A wonderful appreciation by Stefany Anne Golberg of one of my all time favourite actors — Judy Holliday. Beautiful and brainy, Judy also had the most utterly perfect comic timing — if you haven&t seen her in the classic Born Yesterday, …

A wonderful appreciation by Stefany Anne Golberg of one of my all time favourite actors — Judy Holliday. Beautiful and brainy, Judy also had the most utterly perfect comic timing — if you haven&t seen her in the classic Born Yesterday, …

Check-Julie Andrews, Faith Prince, Liza Minnelli, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Jennifer Holliday, Judy Kuhn, Bebe Neuwirth, and a host of others including the Rockettes, who are the most literally glittering of the -ati. …

Check-Julie Andrews, Faith Prince, Liza Minnelli, Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, Jennifer Holliday, Judy Kuhn, Bebe Neuwirth, and a host of others including the Rockettes, who are the most literally glittering of the -ati. …

click to enlarge
Ποτέ! Φαντάσου τι θα γίνει από δω και πέρα. Μάλλον ο κύριος που τον σχεδίασε θα πρέπει να κάνει σύντομα update…Άλλος για σαμπλ;