I thought I might give you a heads up about what my retirement party should look like. You’ll thank me later when I retire and you’re well-prepared. There’s no futzing around with emails to colleagues and friends about what the party should look like. Who wants that? All the headaches of who should pay need to be worked out well before I’m ready to stop working. And you might set up a committee to decide what kinds of drinks should be served.

Full bar is what I’m thinking. Not that the drinks are so important, but a full bar means you can concoct all sorts of goofy drinks in my honor, which almost never happens anymore. The last time someone concocted a goofy drink in my honor was, what, back in the ‘80s? “The Wintry Micks” they called it, naming it after me and a couple of other Irish guys, due to all the Irish liquor in the drink, and it became enormously popular among people who liked a Bushmills and Jameson mashup, with a jigger of Baileys and a shot of Murphy’s, steeped in wild-caught sleet and then flash-frozen.

Of course, they got in some trouble with the name later in life and lost it all. Ah, the vagaries of drinks-naming.

But my retirement party really should have that kind of can-do drinks-naming attitude. People should be given the opportunity to creatively name drinks after me, which will live on well-past my 150 years (or so) of life. Oh, sure, my “life” might be only a few remaining cells of tissue attached to a concoction of plastic, wires, microchips and so on, but in the future that will be all that’s needed, and the public will think it’s really hot.

I’d also like a hot tray of baked ziti.

I consider myself a veteran of Christmas, having lived through 54 Christmas Days with family and friends already, and I have an enormous degree of optimism that I’ll see 100 more years of Christmas Days, give or take. If it all comes to pass as I foresee, it means I’m going to be a real player in Christmas Days to come.

What will this mean for you? Like, no more presents? No more presents is not my style! Instead I’m going to quietly and subtly affect broader themes around Christmas, poking holes in various theories around the birth of Deities and so forth. But nothing about exchanging presents or serving excellent cocktails will be changed.

If I don’t live another 100 years, well, I suppose I’ll have to affect Christmas themes in the afterlife. (But don’t bank on that).

Recent reports in several fake news media outlets have noted the uncanny similarities between you and me, and I totally get why that is. Our world views are both informed by an old-school brand of reach-across-the-aisle politics that’s in terribly short supply these days; as children, we both suffered immeasurably through chronic health issues that made sleep impossible until doctors took the radical approach of amputation, forcing us to go through life without benefit of tonsils; and we both are master beer brewers.

But that’s where our similarities end. Because while you have embraced the “craft beer” movement, I’ve taken the additional step of focusing my attention on the burgeoning world of Art Beer.

Look, I’m not here to complain. Sure, your “golden ale” is perhaps more khaki than gold, but that’s to be expected from the work of a craftsman. And anyway, no one is complaining about the nuances of color in your beer (except that columnist in Brewer’s Quarterly). Truth is, I’ve loudly praised your efforts and have myself called you “innovative” and “thought-provoking.”

But let’s not kid ourselves. A craft beer like your “Old Mr. Brown” is just a Saturday afternoon quaff without any hint of irony. Meanwhile, my “Stout Americain” has far too much character to be guzzled and belched out during a college football game, and provides the kind of social commentary about the relative size of the US waistline that doesn’t just entertain, but also teaches.

And isn’t that what art (beer) is supposed to do? I think so.

Is my art beer without controversy? No. But then again, if it were it probably wouldn’t be very interesting. That’s what I love about art beer: always pushing boundaries, always interacting with person doing the consuming, all while quietly and subtly getting people hammered.

Have you ever been to a rock show where the front person spent the first ten minutes explaining, in an oddly strummy fashion, how to behave during the concert? Be courteous. Be kind. Be forgiving. And so forth.

And you’re thinking, wait, did I make a wrong turn and end up a spectator in a golf tournament? 

You’re still digesting the bacon grenades you ate at Kaiser Tiger a few minutes earlier, thinking to yourself, when the heck is the music going to start? And at the same time, something tells you to let the monologue continue, as you’re not feeling so well post-grenades and a Polish kielbasa sandwich. No one wants to find his fellow rock show patron planting elbows in random eye sockets when he’s feeling ill from too much midwestern pork indulgence. And anyway, elbows in eye sockets are usually delivered courtesy large males, who have been confounding America with their girth and height for years, requiring patriots like you to wear big shoes so you can see the band.

More specifics: Patrick Stickles’ long and relatively boring diatribe to start the set of his band Titus Andronicus fell largely on deaf (large male) ears at The Bottom Lounge, a short walk from where my friends and I had overindulged on Belgian Fries, German Beer and the aforementioned pork products, such that once the band got revved up, the elbows where flying and craniums were getting flung back and forth in total disregard for my personal safety. I kept my distance from the senseless violence, lest I find myself with a case of CTE.

Despite the lecture and subsequent disregard for proper behavior, I would call this one of the best punk rock shows I’ve ever seen. Knowing almost none of the music except what I had crammed in during my long commute from the outer edges of southwestern Boston to Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, I can assure you that it mattered not, as the band’s penchant for loud and boisterous rock made knowledge of the music secondary, if not entirely irrelevant.

The show wasn't without casualties. A fellow to my left, thoroughly meaning to stay out of the mosh pit, caught a roundhouse skull to the nose and left bleeding. Poor guy.

If Mike Doughty had been on stage the music would have ended right then and there, as Doughty means it when he says no slam dancing. But this was no M. Doughty, so despite the nosebleed, Titus Andronicus played on.