A Touch Of Class

Rodent Queen and I had a fine night out Thursday at a new restaurant in Martin called The Opera House.
It's pretty cool. An old renovated building, lovely food (fried leeks rule the planet) and a decent bar with some pretty good imports.
The reason why this is significant is the Martin (Home of the University of Tennessee at Martin) has some decent resturants but this is the first one where people can go, have a filet cooked correctly that has a very elegant feel.
Hope they do alright.
There is never enough good food or imported beer.
And yes, we have a headache today not from the fine cuisine, but, you know the other stuff that will remain unnamed.

Road Trip

Rodent Queen and I are headed to Murfreesboro for the Miss Basketball competition and to hang with some TPA folks.
Squirrelly has been busting her chops covering high school prep and has inquired, quite coyly, if she can partake in some affordable beer.
As I am against that and my friends call me Carrie Nation Redux, I was appalled. Being the good friend I am, I have consented.
Bass Draft and my lying ways. Heh-indeedy.

National Beer Week

We at Duff's Astro Lounge have named this week "National Beer Week."
We are thinking that next week may be "National Hopps and Barley Week" but it hasn't been decided yet.
Here's to a good week to everyone.

Land of the Lost Chaka vs. Chaka Khan

After the hair debacle that was American Idol's Paula Abdul in a recent episode, comparisons were made to a not-so-beloved Saturday morning character from the 70s. Chaka from the weird world of Sid and Marty Krofft's Land of the Lost brandished a similar do in both color and sweep to the woman who sits between Simon and that Dawg Randy.
Upon further Internet research, I discovered a debate raging about similarities between Madame Abdul and the tallest Star Wars character, Chewbacca.

I'm no Star Wars geek. I saw the original three movies in the theater. I might have watched Star Wars once again on USA network a hundred years ago, so I'll dismiss the Chewbacca debate and return to something I know much, much more about - Chaka - friend to Will, Holly and Marshall; enemy of the Sleestak.

But once you move the diminutive hirsute cromagnon imp to the forefront, leaving Chewie in the comet dust, you have to bring on his next opponent.
I say let the diva Chaka Khan enter the Astro Lounge ring.

Sid & Marty's Chaka vs. Chaka Khan

Lyrics:
* Chaka - Land of theLost theme song for Season 1 and 2:
"Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition,
Met the greatest earthquake ever known.
High on the rapids, it struck their tiny raft.
And plunged them down a thousand feet below
To the Land of the Lost."
* Chaka Khan - Covered Prince lyrics and got cameos from Stevie Wonder and Melle Mel and worked with Ray Charles
* Advantage - push (Prince, for crying out loud, yet the TV theme song brings to mind images of that tiny yellow raft going over the waterfall)

Longevity:
* Chaka - Landof the Lost lasted three seasons (1974-77 original episodes) and then reruns aired for two years (1985-87).
* Chaka Khan - her first release with the group Rufus came in 1973, won a Grammy in 1984 and 1990, released a best of CD in 2005.
* Advantage - Chaka Khan

Politics:
* Chaka - joined with the humans and squared off on a weekly basis against evil Sleestaks
* Chaka Khan - Sang at 2000 Republican presidential convention
* Advantage - Chaka

Hair:
* Chaka - head to toe dry hairball. Makes Bigfoot look like he just got a Brazilian bikini wax.No split ends the only saving grace
* Chaka Khan - luxurious locks in abundance, yet none growing out of her forehead or palms.
*Advantage - Chaka Khan

Samples:
* Chaka - was nearly part of a sampler platter meal for hungry stop-motion dinosaurs on every episode
* Chaka Khan - her song "Through the Fire" was sampled by Kanye West
* Advantage - Chaka Khan

So, by a 3-1 margin, Chaka Khan advances to our next Astro Lounge round, leaving the wee Planet of the Apes reject back in time with Will, Holly and Marshall.

Why Did Bonds Even Consider This?

Explain this one, Rodent Queen.
Why is Barry Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul?
Not enough affordable beer will ever wipe this from my cranium.
I think he sorta looks like an extra on that old comedy "227", but that's just me.

Self-explanatory

newscoma's day:
Worst. Day. Ever.

Of course, this was just my opinion.

Chaka vs. Chewbacca

It appears the American Idol debate over which pop culture character Paula Abdul most resembled with her huge hairdo the other night raged in more places than just the Commune.
I found this tidbit on the Entertainment Weekly site comparing Madame Abdul's Do to a famous Star Wars character and to Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in the Man In Black's recent biopic.

I'm still leaning toward the Land of the Lost lovable little freak. Strike that. Make it just "little freak".

Guilt Post

Newscoma has given me unmitigated hell over not posting here, so here it is. I did drink beer yesterday, it was a Hobgoblin dark english ale, yummy. Today was a scotch day. There you go.

Oh and Miller Lite is not beer, therefore beer was not stolen.

Under the influence of art

It's an old site and you may have seen it before, but if you feel like you've spent too much time farking or boinging or porning or blogging and need a bit of high-brow "culture," I've got a museum site for you to check out.

Now, this is not just any old hoity-toity museum.

This place features art your weird uncle may have painted in your grandparents' basement or something maybe your grandma whipped up at the Senior Citizens Center craft class.

It's all great stuff and even finer if you've raised a few pints already. Libations deepen the appreciation.

Go check out the Museum of Bad Art. A collection they call "Art too bad to be ignored."

The piece I've pulled to feature is the painting that began it all - Lucy in the Field of Flowers.

Bravisimo!!

squirrel in the cups

Believe it or not, the Squirrel Queen did not have to go to a basketball game last night.
Instead, she was out for an afternoon on the town with a stop at a couple of her favorite local saloons.
My visits to the liquid lounges involved partaking of beverages in 12 ounce servings.
It was fluid manna from heaven and a break from the grind that's had me standing on the sidelines pretty much nonstop for the past couple of weeks.

A toast to freedom and socializing.

Stealing Beer

It wasn't us.
We swear. We're in Tennessee anyway, so I think we have alibis.
Thieves took nearly $27,000 of Miller Genuine Draft and Miller Lite from a trailer, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This is what they took:

• 384 24-packs of Miller Genuine Draft in 12-ounce glass bottles valued at $5,760;
• 560 18-packs of Miller Genuine Draft in 12-ounce glass bottles valued at $7,280;
• 980 18-packs of Miller Genuine Draft in 12-ounce aluminum cans valued at $12,740,
• and 40 24-packs of Miller Lite 16-ounce plastic bottles valued at $600.

How the hell did the thieves get away with this?
Heh-indeedy.

Our Bad Day

The day started off as many do but it soared into a world of sewage within a matter of hours.
I went to work knowing that it wasn't going to be an easy day. When you work at a newspaper, everybody wants something, so you learn to deal with that you have something they want and you try to gauge what is reasonable and what is not. There is no way to make everyone happy, and honestly, I don't even try.
So, all day, people wanted something, and I found myself starting to get testy. I looked in my back account and realized there would be no quick trip to Memphis or Nashville in the future to see the Oscar-nominated movies which has been a tradition over the past decade because taxes, a whopping two grand, is due.
The headache grew, snippets of despair started washing over me like a cold, ice-filled rain and when you think things won't get worse, they invariably do.
As Squeegee, Rodent and I all live in The Commune with Squeegee's wife, Homer, and the two kids, I realized the revelance that things do get worse.
Lice.
The girls, Corn and Bear, brought home a pet parasite home from school for all of us to enjoy. I have never had to deal with Lice in my life, but apparently there is an epidemic of it going on in the Weakley County School System.
As a proud and verifiable slob, I must say that my housemates are not as bad as I am and how they put up with me, although I like to think I have other mad skillz that contribute to the The Commune, I do not know but I digress.
Homer is one clean woman. There is always a bottle of some type of cleaner sitting randomly around the house sitting like a piece of art. A can of Pledge on the entertainment center, bathroom cleaner on the table next to the bathroom and copious bottles of generic Febreeze are always within sight.
She compulsively cleans the toilets and her vacum cleaner is always at her side like Dirty Harry's big ass Magnum.
One of her recent delights was the purchase of a steam cleaner, so if you are thinking it's a dirty abode, you are sadly mistaken.
So we spent much of the evening cleaning bed linens and kids' heads, swearing under our breath and convincing a six year old and a nine year old that they were not going to die, although we pondered a suicide-homicide death pact between all of the adults due to our sheer exhaustion and frustration but we know that Corn and Bear don't know how to cook or drive so we decided to see another day for their sakes.
Homer has been our leader, Squeegee has turned into a forty-year old curmudgeon about it and Rodent is just staying away.
As for me, realizing that affordable beer would not help this situation, I just went to my small living room (we all have one) to break this down in my head.
I don't have lice, just the kids, but I don't like it. I don't like seeing them freaked out because they are little and afraid, although hearing Bear wander around the house saying in one of the deepest southern drawls I've ever heard, "We got The Lice. It's like a Tick, but it ain't the same thing." sorta was amusing. I hate cleaning as much as I hate jello (which I do despise with my entire being because it makes me gag.) I also was going though my own emotional stuff before I ever walked through the door because recently I have felt extremely underappreciated and I just can't shake it.
It wasn't a great day.
But to see the kids dancing to American Idol later in the evening asking if Paula Abdul has ever had "The Lice" because her hair looked funky kinda made me chuckle as I exhaustedly fell out on a chair watching them dance to one of the male contestants slaughter a song (okay, I'm leaning for the gray-headed guy, who actually did a pretty good job.)
Life will go on.
I really need that trip to the city.

The Chaka-Paula Abdul Connection

Slow night in West Tennessee, so Squeegee, Rodent and I are sitting around watching American Idol.
I have never seen this show before. Well, that's not true, I have passed by it while surfing the channels but Squeegilicious loves it, so we sat down to ponder why people do this to themselves, and then of course, why are we watching it in the first damn place.
After a night of lamb vittles (blech) which sort of rocked my world, I decided to stay home.
I get American Idol.
Lots of vibrato shaking us up, and we decided that, although it goes without saying we couldn't do any better, the performances were still nothing to right home about.
So, we are waiting patiently for Anderson Cooper, because we like him but we were given some enlightening (not really) revelations about karaoke singers looking for a record deal on Fox. (No disrespect to Kelly Clarkson who won some Grammys but we don't buy her CD's either.)
Rodent thought that Paula Abdul, with her ill-advised hairdo, looked sort of like Chaka from Land of the Lost. Squeegee explained to me that Randy Jackson says "Dawg" because the other Idols are in a dog pound (okay, I don't get it, but I've never seen this show, so give me a break) and of course we made fun of him for knowing this information in the first place and Simon Cowell, well, he sort of made me laugh because although he's rude, he's also right about all of spectacle so we sort of liked him. (He is Squeegie's Idol and he shares my birthday, so he got some love from us.)
So the sad, pathetic truth is we need to get out more and that next week, if we watch the show which we will, we will need some affordable beer.

Beer Good, Lamb Fries Interesting

I have been to a varmit supper.
I am not kidding.
As you would have guessed, it was at the American Legion. There was beer, of course, but no Bass and as much as I'm dismayed to say it, I ate me some lamb fries, duck and raccoon.
I didn't like the 'coon. It tasted weird, but I eat sushi, so what the hell.
I thought to myself, I am not afraid.
I would try all of these southern delicacies bravely and with little fear, although I was a tad bit worried, although after ingesting 'coon, I realized that I personally had been through worse things in my life.
I have to say the joint was jumping and everyone seemed to be having a really good time, including me.
Squeegee says absolutely NOT to ingesting any sort of fried animal testicle, as he sort of knows about this thing. Squirelly was at a ball game, so I was out at the Chez Varmit dinner by my lonesome.
If you are asking about this holiday evening where testes were cooked in honor of President's Day, I will say yes, I ate some weird shit.
And, if you were wondering, the stereotype of the lamb testicles "tasting like chicken" applies here. It was just white meat fried up ready to strain blood vessels in any lesser person's heart attacking their cholesterol level with glee.
Did I mention there was beer?
A great deal of it?

Next Morning Update: Lamb Fries do not agree with me. Tried 'em, probably won't do it again. Blech.

The Saucer And The Dempseys

So, we were sitting around and we thought the best way to start this blog is to talk about places we like to drink beer at in Tennessee. We figure we will talk about other things we like to do as well, but the universal honest-to-goodness truth is, we like beer.
All kinds of beer and we like lounges, because it's the best place to drink a beer unless you're home in your underwear watching "Gunsmoke."
Being that our local VFW and The American Legion doesn't have a web site, we decided to discuss places that do.
First in lounges that we like to spend our money at is the Flying Saucer, in all of it's luscious locations. And with locations all throughout the state, we thought we'd send you there first.
We especially like the Memphis location, because we love The Dempseys. Don't get us wrong, they play everywhere, but they just ooze Memphis.
They tend to play at the Saucer quite a bit. Slick Joe Fick and the band were just in "Walk The Line" and if you haven't seen them with a beer in your hand, you haven't been to rock-a-billy heaven, Memphis style.
Doesn't take much to please us.
A little rock-a-billy and a hopps and barley beverage, and we are happy campers at Duff's Astro Lounge.

The One Where We Say Hello

Welcome to Duff's Astro Lounge. A group of northwest Tennesseans just kicking back, having a beer and looking for Elvis everytime we pick up the glass.
And we know he's out there.