Relapx

So the drinking hiatus had to be delayed after all seeing our first show at the new Higher Ground in our new home state of Vermont www.highergroundmusic.com/ with of all people renaissance drummer Jon Fishman and Pork Tornado is not going to be happening again.  Fishman had his family there and explained his wife Briar had requested the Pork Tornado’s return for her birthday.  She and their four children set perched in the small V.I.P. balcony enjoying the festivities and two of the kiddos came down to accept the birthday cake Fishman had for Briar who had no interest in showing her face on stage.

It was distinctly cool as a Phish fan to see the man behind the legend comfortably playing his hometown with his friends and family in a bar band.  I got my ‘Guabi Guabi’ and the band scurried though sheet music to bring us covers from Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra with many, ‘I Touch Myself’, teases throughout the night.  There was a pig’s head on stake next the drum kit and lots of smiles spiraling the venue as they joked about their triumphs reuniting the band.  Fishman mocked Phish’s earlier break up saying Pork Tornado really was glad to have ironed out their differences.

The merch table was ran by the Water Wheel foundation phish.com/waterwheel/ Phish’s charity, plus they had a couple old Pork Tornado shirts and stickers they must have dug out of ten year old pile somewhere in Phish storage land.

The bar proudly served Vermont’s best micro beers and one in particular the Heady Topper was getting lots of attention.  It is a huge Double IPA that as the name indicates is very Heady; you can feel the rush of hops tingling your skull with every sip.  The Heady Topper is out of Waterbury, VT and the Alchemist Brewery www.alchemistbeer.com/ and is the most coveted beer in Vermont.  They are ramping up production but most of their distribution locations only get a weekly delivery and if you miss delivery day your SOL.  I had only one along with several of Vermonter’s go to beers the Switchback Ale www.facebook.com/SwitchbackBrewingCompany out of Burlington and couple of the beers called Just IPA that I am not sure I have seen before.  The Just Outstanding IPA is out of California’s Kern River Brewery http://kernriverbrewing.com/ and had the hoppy freshness I have grown used to from spending time on the west coast.  The Switchback is a flavorful pale but much more drinkable than the bigger IPA’s they do well for long distance drinkers like myself.  The venue did not disappoint, it was huge but the same dark and quaint vibe the old building possessed.  The crowd was refreshing to be around a kin to the muck that I had been immersed in in Eugene, OR for a few years, but with a way less of a drug scene that just comes natural when not on the infamous west coast.  I felt like the fans were all family and there wasn’t some quickly hidden secret I was missing around each group of people I encountered.  The egos did not seem to be as apparent either they are not near as proud of themselves as the chemical enhanced legal medical growing Oregonians.  The day after the show I was hurting and again employed my homemade sauna technique of boiling water and a electric heater in the bathroom for a sweat it all out bath, I only puked once and felt much better after the Heady Topper left the top of my head through the beading sweat that streamed out of my temples.  My poor heart took another one for the experience.  Worth it though it has been along trek from the Grateful Dead soiled west side to Phish’s clean cold cold cold cold freezer.  

That was all on a Wednesday and on the following Sunday I got the biggest reward as of yet for my move to the Vermont, going snowboarding with my oldest daughter for the first time in famous Northeast powder.

We caught a little of winter storm 2013 Nemo’s offerings.  I think Sugarbush www.sugarbush.com/ received around 15 inches of dry soft powdery snow to cushion our inadequate mountain sliding skills.  All of the rest of the Northeast had declared a state of emergency while Vermont wrote it up to meager dusting.  This was maybe my tenth or so time snowboarding with most of my former experiences being on Mt. Hood at the historic Timberline www.timberlinelodge.com/.  This was different and I felt like it was my first time at a real ski resort all though Timberline cannot be any niftier, but you expect nostalgic skiers from the 1940’s to slide past you on hand carved wooden skis with the wool outfits.  Not Sugarbush, it was streamlined modern powdery bliss from one aspect to the next.  My daughter figured snowboarding out quickly and finally got to use her birthday present gear from six months ago.  There is nothing like the stoke that the mountain can bring you.  It cured my cabin fever and reconfirmed my addiction to adrenaline.  The resort is in the super scenic mad river valley and seems very much like the life that would take place, trapped in a snow globe or post card.  The pictures never do the justice a place deserves and this is no exception.  I was very impressed with the well-marked runs and had great time on the twenty-five minute lift that takes you across a huge ravine to the other side of the resort.  Either side of the park would be a resort of it’s own anywhere outside Vermont.  We will be going back for more really soon and should be able to spend more time off of the green runs where my daughter learned the art of boarding.  The last time I tried to give her this wonderful gift was when I tried to teach her how to surf in the freezing tumultuous Pacific Ocean.  It is safe to say she might become a life long ski bum and even though tears that were shed in the surf trip reappeared in the learning process they turned into tears of pure joy by the end of the day even when we accidentally took the lift to the very top of the Ellen Lodge side and had to pray our way down the mountain.  It gives Vermont so much more depth to enjoy the craziness of winter sports.  More to come on Sugarbush that is no merkin, that shit is for real.

   

Now to the next drinking adventure which; I am glad I did not miss out on, drinking on my seventh anniversary with my best friend; whom happens to be my hot wife.  We celebrated in style at the Three Penny Tap Room www.threepennytaproom.com/ in Montpelier, VT, the best Tap Room I have ever been to.  Coincidentally the owners all have spent time in Oregon as well and brought that beer culture back with them.  Vermont does hold it's own though, it boost the most micro breweries per capita of any state, although the 44 breweries in the city of Portland, OR is way more accessible to the inhabitants, Vermont’s being spread out all over the state.  The Three Penny has it all from Vermont to Europe and back around the world back to the Pacific Coast.  Nice light wood, low light, not too much attention on the sports carrying T.V.’s, and the best local gathering of young progressives I have ever experienced.  The conversation is politics and only politics.  I love that at the Three Penny I can have something new every time, but don’t steer far from the Edward from Hill Farmstead Brewery.  It is the perfect IPA, huge grandioso flavor and drinkability together at last.  It is as stank nasty as any fresh hopped double cascade hop delight without any of the drama.  I never thought an East side beer would be my favorite.  The brewery is only about forty minutes from my house and I will be visiting soon.  I am not only one rankbeer.com http://www.ratebeer.com/RateBeerBest/bestbrewers_012013x.asp

 named it number one as well, check it out I hope they ship to you if not make it a destination if you are in the area, http://www.hillfarmstead.com/.  We also bought some Rock Art IPA for the house www.rockartbrewery.com my second favorite beer in existence and with the cheapest growler fill I have ever heard of plus located close to beautiful Stowe, VT in Morrisville, a great place to stop after hitting the slopes of Mt Mansfield.  We visited my new chef friend at the Mad Taco themadtaco.com/ for some delicious black bean and yam tacos and Jedi Killer hot sauce that almost did it’s job.  Seven years ago we were married down the Appalachian Trail in Gatlinburg, TN.  It was the blurriest time of my life.  I remember having a 1/5 of vodka, a 1/5 of Bourbon, six bottles of wine, two cases of beer, a big bag of weed, and some mushrooms.  It snowed and was amazing.  A week after we got home from the rental cabin we stayed in, a bill for over six hundred dollars arrived for the hot tube and dresser we caught on fire.  It would have been a shame not to have been drinking on our anniversary to laugh drunkardly, remembering our younger selves and how we haven’t changed. 

Life’s been easy lately and I am enjoying my new home and like my beard, it's growing on me.

I just recently finished working for the democrats on the 2012 campaign and I am ready to get to my next work project and re-tool Spunirtha.com for it’s own triumphant come back.  I found out yesterday, I’ll be interviewing with the Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) and the Sierra Club for organizing positions at the end of the month.  It would be great to land one of them.  Lastly, thoughts and prayers go out for University of Kentucky’s falling basketball freshman player Nerlens Noel who went down against Florida with a torn ACL.   http://www.ukathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/021313aae.html.  He is special and I hope the best for his future in the NBA. 

Happy Valentines Day!

I sayTornado

 

Sue Wee little piggies cause Pork Tornado is gonnna huff and gonna puff and blow the house down for the first time in ten years tonight back on the Higher Ground.  Pork Tornado’s drummer Jon Fishman (Phish), guitarist Dan Archer (Burlington Recording Studio Owner and Phish’s “Lawn Boy” Album Producer), bass player Aaron Hersey (also with the Grippo Funk Band whose sax player, Grippo, also plays with Phish guitar player Trey Anastasio in the Trey Anastasio Band), saxophonist Joe Moore, and pianist Phil Abair (Vermont Native) will be offering up covers such as; “Kiss My Black Ass”, “When I get Drunk”, “Blue Skies”, and the one I hope I hear the most “Guabi Guabi”, the Zulu folk song about man so poor he had to use the same first and last name.  One story I read about Guabi Guabi was that he was arrested stealing tires to make sandals from his dock job in South Africa and while in the police station an American made tire they had brought into evidence exploded and killed Guabi Guabi and when Guabi Guabi realized he was dead he was three miles down the road from the police station.  His friends wrote the tune and knew it would be heard world round and his life would not have been lived in vein for the credit for the investigations that would begin would all be Guabi Guabi’s.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wa92lMtmI 

Pork Tornado also has my number one favorite all time Political Song “All American” which while less known, one day, hopefully, we all will hold it in as much reverence as we hold, Woodie Guthrie’s, “The Land is Your Land.”  The lyrics are we want a “Fat Black Poor and Handicap, Old Single Mother Lesbian with a High I.Q. / for president / in the Whitehouse / and nondenominational too.”

Pork Tornado is not to be confused with the Pork Tornadoes, another cover band I came across while you tubing the before mentioned.  The Pork Tornadoes play Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Stone Temple Pilots, etc.…  I did not listen them, as I am sure I can’t stand them.

This will be my and my wife’s first time back on the Higher Ground for over ten years and our first time in the new building, the last and only other time being for Brazilians percussionist Cyro Baptista’s (percussionist for the Trey Anastasio Band) band, Beat the Donkey.  The old Higher Ground was a dark tiny ballroom type venue situated right on, almost over, the rushing Winooski River just outside of Burlington in a happening little area of town in Winooski, VT.  The new Higher Ground is in South Burlington, VT on the main road leading into Burlington next the Holiday Inn and not to far from the airport, from driving by, it has sold out some character in picking the new local, I looking forward to checking out the inside vibe.

I did not notice the Pork Tornado return until a few days ago and it kind of comes at an inopportune time for me because I am in one of my rare hiatuses from beer.  The last time I made it exactly four months and twenty days before caving at a brewery over looking the Tennessee River in Chattanooga’s North Shore district.  That was back in hot southern August and I am due a break.  February has 28 days so it seems like the perfect month to get on the wagon.  Not drinking is easy for me and I would drink every day all day but my body and heart are starting to get a little pissed if I don’t dry out every once in a while.  I went to one Bikram Yoga class with my daughter right before I started the detox and almost passed out, I came very close to having to leave and puke, and the teacher even came and sat next to me to make sure she didn’t lose me to the heat.  I knew before then it was time that’s why I went in the first place.  Since then I have been using an electric heater to get the bathroom extremely hot and dumping a pound of cheap salt and stove boiled water into the tub, getting in, and sweating out my demons.  The whole process takes about two hours and through excruciating heart-pounding torment my tight chest loosens, I pour sweat, and I feel as though I might live to see my grand kids.  So only six days into my detox I am just barely getting over the hump and my favorite drummer in which I have invested countless hours of listening, traveling, and an lucidly exploring my own conscience to, is playing 40 snowy miles down the road in my new home of Vermont where he has his musical roots.  It’ll be worth it to start the detox again if I get sucked into the vacuum of the Pork Tornado.    www.highergroundmusic.com @ 8:30pm