So I'm feeling conflicted. And need your help deciding how I should really feel about this situation. There is a small brewery in your lovely former state of Vermont that might be run out of business by Monster energy drink because they call their beer, Vermonster. I'm on this dude's side, obvs. I mean look at this.
And Monster energy drink blows a nut.
But here's where my internal conflict arises. Monster Energy Drink is owned by Hansens Corp. that makes Hansen's Natural Sodas. These sodas sustained me the summer I was on tour. So there's a soft spot for warm cherry vanilla Hansen's in my heart. Conflict #1. #2 is that obviously Monster is the Man. Obviously this guy in Vermont is more 'real' because he makes this beer in his basement. BUT. If I saw this beer in the fridge of my local shady corner store or on tap at the 'hip because its shady' bar I was hanging out in that weekend, I WOULDN'T buy it. It may taste okay, but I hate that fucking kokopelli shit. 'Rock Art Brewery' its called. And they picked the most generic fucking rock art shit that ever lived. AND its the kokopelli playing the horn, not the original one where he has this huge phallus and is holding it - which if Rock Art Brewery had used this as their logo, I'd no doubt drink their beer. But they use this shitty kokopelli that is the typographic equivalent of using papyrus. AND this shit kokopelli is playing a fucking flute because old school oppressive Spanish priests trying to convert Native Americans objected to this fertility god as obscene. Like a naked dude into bondage crosses hanging in every Catholic church in the world isn't fucking obscene. Or molesting small boys for that matter. Fuckin' A. I can't even find a good picture of an OG Kokopelli on the nets. We have a couple in books here at the office that I'll scan at a later date. The Catholic church obviously controls the netz. I found this one though:
But I digress. Seriously digress.
The point is MY conflict with this situation. To review. Fact: I would buy a Hansen's Natural Cherry Vanilla soda (even if its warm) over a Rock Art Brewery's Vermonster. What's more real? Hansen's natural makes no qualms about who they are, except maybe the whole 'natural soda' thing. But I really have a huge fucking problem with this dude's beer and his whole "I'm gonna fight the Man" crusade, when he picked this dumb ass image created by the original makers of the Crusades, to sell his beer. I kinda want to tell them both to go fuck themselves and brew my own basement beer. Except in my garage, cause Texas has no basements. Or at least Austin doesn't. No tornadoes or snowstorms. What do you think?
OH! AAAAND I found out thanks to the netz, that the Vermonster is also what Ben and Jerry's calls their giant ass sundaes they make at festivals or sumthin' with a bunch of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in it and fat people eat it as fast as they can and wear tshirts proclaiming how proud they are of their fat exploits. So even the name isn't OG. I dunno. It's all making me really tired. I think I'll just stick to PBRs and Diet Coke. Of course. Diet Coke is made by Coke who like ownz the planet. And I read this on PBRs wiki:
Marketing and Revival
The beer experienced a sales revival in the early 2000's, largely due to its increasing popularity among the 20-something demographic in cities like Portland, Oregon. Despite its website featuring art competitions and photos of young people dressed in alternative fashions, Pabst has not fully embraced the countercultural label or appeal to it arguably because the very same "authenticity" that made it popular would be challenged by over-marketing. Instead, the company has opted for subtlety, finding clever ways to target its growing niche through the surreptitious sponsorship of indie music concerts, local businesses, dive bars, and radio programming such as National Public Radio's All Things Considered. These techniques have proven effective and have been rewarded with remarkable growth in sales - the production of PBR has more than doubled since its revival in the early 2000s.
But that's just good marketing. Even Carles would approve of that.
