If you’ve ever sat down to watch The Empire Strikes Back and thought to yourself, “This would have been awesome in 1950,” then hooboy do I have a treat for you. Behold:
I wouldn’t bet against Greg Hardman.
So when he says that in 10 years, he sees Christian Moerlein as one of the top American-brewed and American-owned beer companies, I’m going to figure Miller should be shaking in its bottles in 2020.
It isn’t bravado. Greg is one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll ever meet. When I refer to him as Cincinnati’s Beer Baron (a widely used moniker for him), he laughs it off. He admits only to being a regular guy who really likes beer and really likes Cincinnati.
Christian Moerlein has already grown by leaps and bounds in the years since Greg bought the rights to the name, the recipes, and rights of refusal on the other Cincinnati brands. Bringing back Hudy, Burger, and Little Kings wasn’t part of the plan. Nevertheless, in 2009, all three were brought back and have remained (as shown by the 12-pack of Hudy Delight in my fridge). Now, beer-brewing is coming back to Over-the-Rhine and a pinnacle of the Riverfront Park will be the Moerlein Lager House. And while there have been some surprises, things have gone more or less according to plan.
It was in the mid-80s when Greg decided he wanted to bring beer back to Cincinnati. Jurassic Park, the beer version, began when Hudepohl invited Greg to come visit their factory and see a Reds game. While the Reds game was a great time, he was truly affected by seeing the last Hudepohl to be brewed in Cincinnati. He decided he would do everything in his power to save Cincinnati from beer famine.
Luckily for Greg, it turns out that part of his plan enabled him to be CEO of Warsteiner’s US operations. As you may have heard from various media outlets, being a CEO can be a pretty sweet job, and of a beer company on top of that? He was traveling the world while drinking beer and getting paid for it. He gave it up. To save Cincinnati and her beer.
Greg went from being CEO to CEO, but things changed quite a bit. It’s still not the same (when I got to Findlay Market’s Biergarten to interview him, he was hanging banners). But he’s beginning to see the fruits of his labor. His success is due in no small part to his favorite trait–authenticity. Greg keeps it real–and there is no better indicator than a story I was told at a wedding this past weekend.
I was the maid of honor and telling some friends about interviewing Greg. The wedding photographer stuck his head into our group and said, “did I hear someone say Christian Moerlein?” I confirmed and he said, “they are awesome!” He said he had emailed the site to tell them how he had gotten a case that was a little skunky–and he was excited to keep the bottles, but he just wanted to let the company know in case there was something wrong with those barrels. Greg wrote him back–and personally delivered a replacement case.
Greg asked me if I was surprised at how quickly he replied to my emails. And I said not really–because that’s Greg. He remembers you. He’s the real deal. He will neither give nor receive bullshit. I asked why Moerlein didn’t have more of a presence on Twitter and Facebook (the new media de rigeur). He said, we talk when we have something to say, and only then. He hopes Cincinnati follows suit on the authenticity–being Cincinnati… not Portland, not Pittsburgh, not anywhere but the Queen City itself. Cincinnati is cute, smart, and she’s got a great personality. She doesn’t have to be anyone but herself and once she learns to love herself, she’ll attract people who love her the way she is. Greg does offer beer goggles to get you used to her, though.
Greg Hardman bets he can make you fall in love with Cincinnati all over again. I would bet he will succeed. Because he’s on the side of beer.
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Quick-fire Round
Favorite beer by his brand: Christian Moerlein Over the Rhine pale ale
Favorte non-CM beer: Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
Biggest surprise: The deep, emotional connection Cincinnatians have to their beer
Worst thing about being a Beer Baron: Everyone wants to buy you a beer, and you can’t possibly drink them all.
Anything he regrets: “Being the CEO of Warsteiner was really, really fun.”
Streetcars?: “I believe in the streetcar.”
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carnesaurus/3367591958/
I so won’t bother explaining the concept behind the forthcoming film Human Centipede, but let’s just say that the title hides about as much as Snakes on a Plane did.
But that’s not really what this post is about. Somebody broke off a brilliant piece of programming to bring us “Human Centipede the Game.” Can you guess what it resembles? Yep. You got it.
Photo courtesy of DreadCentral.com
h/t Dread Central
You could be the proud owner of Napoleon’s junk. If the price is right.
One of these things is not like the others...
For the benefit of those who missed it, Time.com had a fascinating story this month about famous stolen body parts. That includes the old saw about Napoleon’s dick getting lopped off. It’s really your typical story: short guy becomes French emperor, French emperor conquers much of Europe, emperor bites off more than he could chew and becomes ex-emperor, ex-emperor is exiled to a tiny island in the South Atlantic, exile dies, doctors cut off exile’s penis and give it to a priest in Corsica.
Happens all the time!
Turns out a urologist in New Jersey of all places bought Napoleon’s penis in ’77. This was even before Antiques Roadshow on PBS. The urologist is now dead, and his daughter has fielded at least one offer of $100,000, so you’ll need to start saving. Maybe trade in some of those video games you don’t play and put your guitar on Craigslist. Who knew that all those women in the 90s banking on Beanie Babies to pay for their retirements should have collected former emperor penises instead?
So I did some research, and it turns out Napoleon’s fuck stick has been on display. Here are some descriptions it has earned over the years:
Something to think about next time you’re eating beef jerky. That’s basically Napoleon’s main vein, only with Teriyaki flavor.
You can download an awesome NPR interview with the author who actually wrote a book about Napoleon’s penile odyssey here.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennymoto/517252866/
In the past few days, I’ve started paying closer attention to news storiies inside the world of music. I thought to myself how fun it would be to share a few of them with our audience and make them a little bit more, well, me. Heres some of the schtick. It was reported this morning that Britney Spears has once again flipped her wig, or flipped for a wig, because oops, she went nuts, locked herself in the bathroom, and shaved her head. Again. Long gone are they days of America’s little debutante dancing around in her skimpy little school girl uniform. Just goes to show that as much as her public relations team, as well as her management has tried to take the raging hillbilly out of poor Britney, they have failed miserably. Maybe it’s time for Britney to stop all the trailer park shenanigans, leave her pretty hair alone, and just cut off her own fucking head.
Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne is suing senatorial candidate Charlie Christ or the use of the TH’s song “Road To Nowhere” on his campaign trail. It has been reported that Mr. Byrne is ”pretty upset” and is seeking $1 million in damages. It has also been reported that Mr. Byrne wanted to tack on another million when Mr. Christ asked when the Talking Heads reunion was going to happen.
Green Day is being sued by artist Derek Setzer for supposedly ripping him off and using one of his paintings as a backdrop on their current tour. Green Day has secretly denied the charges but are keeping it quiet due to the fact that it makes them actually still look “Punk Rock”.
Finally Axl Rose is suing former manager Irving Azoff for a cool 5 million for “sabotaging” the latest incantation of GnR by “Setting up a plot to destroy them”. If Axl wants to blame anyone for destroying GnR maybe he should try suing himself.
A few albums to look out for this week. Namesake anti-christ Hank III will this time be releasing a Country album called The Rebel Within. Former Sepultura frontman Max Cavelera and his band Soulfly release their newest, Omen. And the biggest release this week is from the reunited, and rebounding Stone Temple Pilots with their new self-titled album.
Just a couple shows to look out for this week and both rocking out on Friday night. First up its Post Punk, poster boys Noise By Numbers playing at the Southgate House. At the Mad Hatter on Friday it’s former Wu-Tang Clan member GZA, also known as The Genius, spitting the truth according to Wu.
That’s it for this week. More news, releases, show dates, and drudgery next week. Rock on!
Judging by the sheer number of responses in the Cinblogosphere yesterday, the chances are pretty good you’ve already seen this. If you know TCM, however, you know that we can’t resist a bit of commentary on the matter. First things first: yesterday’s Enquirer paid to have a poll done, and then said that this poll means something.
It doesn’t mean much of anything, truth told.
There are a host of problems with the poll and its accompanying story. First of all, it doesn’t seem like the poll takes into account many of the demographics (specifically, geography–neighborhoods should have been considered vital info) of those polled. Second, it appears that the poll was conducted only to landline telephones, which led to a sample size far too small to take seriously in any way (a survey 600 people in a city holding 333k & 2 million in the region is a joke). Third, the Enquirer has clearly had an editorial slant against the Streetcar plan (though they’ve referred to it as “asking questions,” it’s even got puns in the first line so you know they care extra) from the beginning. The use of a poorly conducted poll without any kind of real editorial oversight of data quality is at best a boner on the part of the paper. At worst it’s exactly the kind of activism many critics rail against journalists for.
So what does the poll tell us? Quite simply, it only tells us the information that the polling company gives us. Much of the inference we get comes directly from the Enquirer. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to make the story an editorial.
You could argue that this is a direct, purposeful act on the part of the Enquirer. This would make them wholly evil. This is something you might be able to convince some people of. It’s also possible that all the folks involved in the creation of this story are just stupid, too–and this is something that wouldn’t take a lot of convincing for me to believe, either. So, which is worse?
One thing that I can say with a measure of certainty, however, is that The Enquirer (and all media, for that matter) caters to the audience it wants. The audience it wants, for the record, is the one that will most readily respond to its content and its advertising. Like it or not, the lifeblood of mainstream media is the value of its advertising. The true value of a source’s advertising can only really be measured in the long term by how much consumers spend on the products and services that are being advertised. If you, as a citizen of the Cincinnati area, have a problem with your mainstream media sources, break the machine from the bottom up: stop shopping at the companies advertising through those media sources. Tell the companies that you’re doing this and explain why. Now, I can’t be entirely certain that the editorial leanings will change, but if you’re affecting their money situation, they’re certainly going to be more inclined to change something.
Now, all this said, I think it’s important to note here how important newspapers and mainstream media are–and can be, especially when they take care to present the news from a firmly objective perspective. We need newspapers to help define us as a city, and the Enquirer seems to have ignored this fact to some degree–especially young professionals who can identify, value, and have a need for objectivity. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of blogs around town to pick up the slack, but even your more popular Cincinnati blogs can’t hold a candle to the reach and circulation of the Enquirer, local television stations, and local radio.
So what do we do now? Watch the Enquirer defend poorly-conducted polls, or actually do something about it?