FUCKING HELL, I NEED A BEER!

File this under news of the weird. According to the UK’s The Sun, the European Patent Office had to reverse their decision denying a company the right to produce a beer called Fucking Hell, when they were able to prove that Fucking is a real town in Austria. Or rather village, since there are only 104 people who live in Fucking, which is just 2-1/2 miles from the German border.

According to Wikipedia,

It is believed that the settlement was founded around the 6th century by Focko, a Bavarian nobleman. The existence of the village was documented for the first time in 1070 and historical records show that some twenty years later the lord was Adalpertus de Fucingin. The spelling of the name has evolved over the years; it is first recorded in historical sources with the spelling as Vucchingen in 1070, Fukching in 1303, Fugkhing in 1532, and in the modern spelling Fucking in the 18th century, which is pronounced with the vowel oo as in book. The ending -ing is an old Germanic suffix indicating the people of the root word to which it is attached; thus Fucking means “(place of) Focko’s people.”

Brewery spokesman Stefan Fellenberg said they plan to brew a Helles style beer. After years of trying on vain to keep people from stealing their town’s sign, and engaging in intercourse either in front of it or in town, the village instead decided to cash in instead. They may have gotten the idea from nearby Wank Mountain residents, who gave them some advice recently. Frankly, I can’t really blame them, though no doubt the U.S. will never give label approval. Guns and violence, yes. Sex, never. Even the Sun piece wouldn’t print either the word Fucking or Wank even though they’re legitimate place names. I’m constantly amazed at how utterly fearful we are about just … words.

Here’s another humorous addition about the signs in the village. “One version of the sign features the village name with an additional sign beneath it, with the words “Bitte — nicht so schnell!”, which translates from German into English as “Please — not so fast!” The lower sign – which features an illustration of two children — is meant to inform drivers to watch their speed, but tourists see this as a double-meaning coupled with the village name.”

With thanks to Brookston Beer Bulletin!

HMMM...DRUNK AS A SKUNK - OR JUST SOMETHING SMELLING FISHY?

Of course there are more technical levels of intoxication, which Dr. Jeremy Frank, a psychologist from Tuttleman’s Counseling Services, explained.

“The best way to categorize stages of drunk is with Blood Alcohol Concentration,” Frank said. BAC is the ratio of alcohol to blood in the body. “Drunk is from .11 to .15. Very drunk is usually between .16 and .19. Once you get to .25 to .30 you generally are in a stupor, and from .31 and up would be the beginning of a coma.”

Hmm, according to the field of psychology, drunk is “from .11 to .15,” or above the 0.08% that MADD and other groups rammed down our throats in the early 1980s, when the standard was 0.10%, very much in line with Frank’s definition. Interesting.

Thanks to Brookston Beer Bulletin!!

DEVIL'S MUSIC

And mine too, of course. Such a deal, out rummage sale-ing Saturday and pulled off Hwy 27 to a really big sale that we hadn't seen advertised. So, browsing along, boxes and boxes of used CDs. 3/$1 the lady says, holy cow! And surprisingly, some actual gems mixed in with the usual crap.

Mike Bloomfield Live At the Old Waldorf

The Band Music From Big Pink

Rory Gallagher Live in Europe

Hot Tuna Recorded Live in Berkeley

The Velvet Underground and Nico

Gerry Rafferty Over My Head

Colin Blunstone Ennnismore

John Renbourn John Renbourn/Another Monday

And I'm sure if I had more money and time, probably could have found even more stuff, and in good shape too, obviously someone's well-kept collection, or a music shop that went out of business...

Their loss, my gain, life is good...

RIP: RON LUNDY

This past Monday at the age of 75. Now, there's not many of you who probably recognize the name, unless you grew up in the 60s - 70s in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area and listened to 77WABC radio. Yeah, Ron was one of the AM radio DJs (Unle Brucie Morrow & Dan Ingram also come to mind) who played the music I grew up with, especially from 1964 - 1970. All that inane DJ patter, top 10 lists, and of course the top 100 of the year; you could send away and get a printed copy with the DJs' pictures on it. And of course mark off the 45s you'd bought for your collection.

Funny, hadn't thought of Ron in 40 years, but memories came back as soon as I saw the obit.

So I guess if there's a radio station in heaven, they'll have a new DJ;

Rock on, Ron, rock on...

RIP: ALEX CHILTON

At age 59 in New Orleans, most likely a heart attack. Now, apparently most younger people know om Big Star, but those of us in our mid-s50s remember him as the 16 year old singer of "The Letter" & "Cry Like A Baby" with his group, the Boxtops. Not to mention "Sweet Cream Ladies", a leaaser known paean to hookers.

Actually saw him perform at an oldies show in the 70s, he was quite pissed off that they made him sing "The Letter" twice, instead of something newer from Big Star.

Way too young to go,

Rock on, Alex, rock on...

RIP: MICKY JONES

 MICKY Jones, one of the leading lights of the much-loved Welsh rock act Man died on Wednesday, aged 63, after a long battle with ill health.
Treated for a brain tumour in 2002, the guitar player battled on throughout several operations, briefly rejoining the Man line-up in 2004 and playing at the band's annual Patti Pavilion gig, before being forced into retirement by recurring problems and handing his Gibson SG over to his son, George.
Since it began back in 1968, with Micky, Clive John, Ray Williams, Jeff Jones and Deke Leonard, Man has been an unslayable beast, enduring a myriad of line-up changes, high-living in the San Francisco psychedelic days, shifts in fashions and record label wranglings.
Their colourful adventures on the road in Germany and the US were detailed in Deke Leonard's humorous account — Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics. But the death of Mickey closes a pivotal chapter on the act.
Taking their cues from The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, (QMS's John Cippolina was an honorary member of Man on their Maximum Darkness tour of 1975), Man became known for their 20-minute mid-song jam sessions which would career off at all angles with no warning, and Mickey's guitar style was one of the cornerstones of their appeal.

Though coming late to the band (thru a live CD recorded on a tour with Hawkwind), I really enjoyed listening to the band and bought many of their albums. Sorry to hear of Micky's death, a great, great guitar player...

 Rock on Micky, rock on...

AND STILL GOING STRONG

Happy Anniversary to us...36 years today! And there were people who thought we wouldn't make it 6 months.

Hey, just because I proposed on the second date, doesn't mean it wasn't true love, does it?

Apparently, it was...

A QUOTE TO LIVE BY

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will be chaired by Alan

K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erksine Bowles, the

former chief of staff to President Clinton who brokered a 1997 balanced-budget

agreement with Congress. "There isn't a single sitting member of Congress—not one

—that doesn't know exactly where we're headed," Simpson tells The New York Times.

"And to use the politics of fear and division and hate on each

other—we are at a point right now where it doesn't make a

damn whether you're a Democrat or a

Republican if you've forgotten you're an American."

DRAW, PARDNER

Apparently, the week before last, Virginia passed a bill allowing people to carry

concealed weapons in bars and other places that serve booze, less than three

years after the Virginia Tech massacre.

Boy, now there's a really good idea; why not thin out the gene pool by letting

obnoxious drunks shoot each other? How come no-one thought of that

sooner?

Oh,wait, they did, it was called the Old West!

BRRRRR

Well, it looks like another crappy week down here in the 'Sunshine State'. This has been the worst year weatherwise that we've had the 22 years we've been here. All it seems to be is cold & rainy, or cold & sunny. Almost never get to wear shorts on the weekend and had to use an ice-scraper twice to get the frost from my windshield!! Temperature has averaged 10-15 degrees below where it should be, and has been like this since the new year started. And of course the heat runs all the time, which is worse than the air conditioning, since it's never supposed to be that cold for that long here in Central Florida and the heat pumps aren't really designed to run all the time & really suck up the electricity.

I want to open my windows dammit!