Driven to Drink

Questions.

This final 2016 Drunkin Punkin podcast asks questions.

For example, a “blanket scarf” is a thing.  Would you call it a, “blarf” or a “scanket?”

Who are the most spot-on doppelgangers in your life?  (Here you’ll learn about our Alanis Morrissette.)

Would you want to meet Juan Gregory Del Duca?

Is rain on your wedding day ironic?

(No.  No, it’s not.)

What percentage alcohol by volume is too much?  (The only beers I’ve had at 10% or above that I’ve loved are dark and come from Southern Tier.  Otherwise, the damned things get too boozy.  If I want booze, I’ll drink booze.  When I want beer.  Well, I want beer.)

Do you like taffy?

Is your name Tammy?

Would you chat with this guy?

Questions.  You read them here, and perhaps they don’t make a whole lot of sense.  However, if you listen to the podcast, then come back to them…they’re amazing.

It’s all about context, right?

The music?  Alanis Morissette, of course.  “Ironic” and “You Oughta Know.”  And also, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.  Good stuff.

We present to you the concluding chapter of, “Drunkin Punkin 2016 (pt 4).”

Sequins.

That’s the word that I could not remember.

Sequins.

Anyway, you’ll get to that when you listen.

Today, we arrive at the penultimate 2016 First Annual Natrona Heights Drunkin Punkin Fest podcast.  (Search engine optimization be damned!)

We drink a Whole Hog Pumpkin Ale (7.5% abv), which is my favorite pumpkin beer this year.  It’s not quite as complex as Pumking, but it emulates an actual pumpkin pie better than anything I’ve ever had.  It’s big, at 7.5%, but not at all boozy.  It’s spicy and satisfying without any added sweetness.  It’s just a good beer.

In this episode, we move through The Beatles “I, Me, Mine” (George Harrison, thank you very much) and “Yer Blues” (John Lennon, thank YOU very much), as well as a little Adam Sandler, “Lunchlady Land.”  Hoagies and grinders and such.  You know the drill.

Next week, we conclude with a big finish.  But for today, I present to you a music-filled, polished and edited, “Drunkin Punkin 2016 (pt 3).”

It’s almost 1 p.m. on a Saturday, I’m alone, all in the world is exceptionally well, and I’m drunk.

Here you will continue with our First Annual Natrona Heights Drunkin Punkin Festival.

Here we drink Southern Tier Pumking (8.6% abv, amber, depth and complexity like whoa) and Dogfishead Punkin Ale (7.0% abv, brown, depth and complexity like okay-fine).

Here Greg will teach you about music.  (Please note: If you are a musician and listening to this, your head might implode or explode given the confidence with which Greg “teaches” Jen about various aspects of music theory and performance.  Gregory Del Duca is to music what Donald Trump is to…just about anything…but certainly geo-politics.)

Here Tilly (…the Basset Hound with righteous ass-balls and a cavernous neck-gina…) will interrupt in the most amusing and endearing manner.

Here we ask, “How do you say the word YOLK?” (With or without a distinct “L” involved?”  And for that matter, how about FOLK?)

Here we play the following tunes:

“Nasty Boys” by Janet Jackson
“The Great Pumpkin Waltz” by Vince Guaraldi Trio
“In the Heights (Opening)” by the cast/band of In the Heights
“La Grange” by ZZ Top

Here we present, “Drunkin Punkin (Part 2),” enjoy!

I had notes prepared, but I’m foregoing them to share an insight I *just* had.

What is Driven2Drink?  In particular, what does Driven2Drink, the podcast, communicate, particularly when it’s Jen and me?  Who is our target audience?

What we represent is a 40-something-year-old, service-oriented, gloriously flawed, (upper case “T”) Truth-seeking, (lower case “l”) liberal couple (of only children, mind you) dealing with all manner of life and trying to figure it out.  We’re real people, and we love each other.  Also, I think we’re individually smart, fun, funny, kind, inclusive, ethical, anxious (…so fucking anxious…), flawed people.  But together, we’re compelling.  We are.  To someone.  You’re here, so that proves it.

But ultimately I love my wife and she loves me, and we both have extensive histories and experiences which brought us together and provided us with curses and blessings.  (My favorite Indigo Girls lyric, “A curse and a blessing are one and the same.”  Indeed.)

Anyway, this is the first of three parts.  Our “First Annual Natrona Heights Drunkin Punkin Festival.”  Here you have two sober people.  Next week, you’ll have us buzzed.  And in two weeks…I have no idea but I can’t wait to hear it along with you.  (I listen to these just a day before I release them, so I’m kind of on the ride with you.  In the front seat, of course, but still with you.)

The music?  Vince Guaraldi’s, “Great Pumpkin Waltz” and James Taylor’s, “You’ve Got a Friend.”  You do.  Really.

We present to you, “Drunkin Punkin 2016 (pt 1).”

-G

Welp.  We’re back.  Just Jen and Greg, and…to bring this endeavor full circle to some of the very first recordings from almost precisely two years ago…Kate, the Springer Spaniel with reflection obsession disorder, and Tilly, the Basset Hound with ass balls and a neck-gina.

We begin with cholesterol.  Currently I sit at my office computer as a quartet of thirteen-year-old girls eat McDonalds….hearts and arteries laughing in the presence of trans-fats, sugars, processed flour, and all manner of disease-causing carbs.  But I’m 42, and there’s a family history of high cholesterol…so I need to say bye-bye to butter, bacon, cheese, salami, sausage, and all of the very delicious things in this world.

Speaking of sausage, we move on to “sausage legs” and other urban dictionary worthy terms.  “Dog in the Bathtub” anyone?  No?  No.

And we finish with the PPAP song.  You don’t know it?  Oh boy, get ready for the most insistent and annoying ear worm since…I dunno…Gangham Style?  We Built This City?  And we start things off with my boy, dropping Sikh beats, Daler Mehndi with, “Tanuk Tanuk Tun.”

We present to you, “Sausage Legs and Apple Pens. (SLAP).”

Jen decided it was time to get a little tipsy and watch, “This is Spinal Tap.”  See, she’d tried in the past and found the whole thing patently unfunny.  This both shocked and disappointed me.  It might have been a deal breaker when we were dating back in the mid 2000’s.  But life moved forward.  And Jen’s the best.

Jen loves everything from Christopher Guest, et al (e.g. Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman, etc.) and also Rob Reiner (e.g. The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, etc.), but Spinal Tap remained an outlier for her.  (Notably, Jen also loves everything involving Sam Raime and Bruce Campbell…except, “Army of Darkness.”  I need to try and resolve this as well.  But, one movie at a time.)

My favorite quote from what you’re about to hear?  It’s Jen’s, “This is the date rape of podcasts.”

My favorite insights from Jen after having watched the movie?

1. Tony Hendra (Ian Faith in the movie) has chameleon eyes.  His vision disorder, or comedic ability to independently control each eye, is un-googleable.  Really, nobody has ever explored this.  And if you watch the movie, Hendra’s eyes are something to behold.
2. The song “Rock and Roll Creation” must have be influenced by the Riverbottom Nightmare’s song in Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas.  (This one blew my mind.)
3. The theme and thread of unrequited love between David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel, made hilariously, albeit subtly, obvious when the two show up in a scene with mirror image cold sores. (Here you are.)
4. Fred Willard was actively cracking everyone up in his scene.  Watch. (Four Jacks and a Jill.)

I also speculated, “If we traveled back in time to our druid forefathers and foremothers, at Stonehenge, and gave them an amazing contemporary treat, like my wife’s chocolate chip cookies, what would they think of it?

And finally, the music.  In order: Gimme Some Money (Spinal Tap), Stonehenge (Spinal Tap), Rock and Roll Creation (Spinal Tap), and Riverbottom Nightmare Band (The Nightmare).

We present to you, “An Evening with Spinal Pap.”

Dear Yinz Guys,

I’m 42 today, so I get to say whatever the hell I want, right?

Wrong.

(Get back to me tonight when I’ve consumed the alcohol of two hearty 21 year olds.  Maybe then some astonishing shit will come out of my mouth.  Maybe.)

If you toggle back one post you’ll find, “The Politics of Nostalgia.”  This is a companion podcast for that post.

You’ll also hear, “Solamente las Claves,” by Conjuntos Cespedes and, “Bring the Noise,” by Public Enemy.

You’ll also be hearing a lot of road noise in the podcast proper.  I reduced as much as I could, but this is certainly not going to be the best sounding voice recording you’ve ever heard…particularly not after you take in the soft, silky, dulcet, baritones of my voice in the intro.  (Yes, I’m being facetious.)

I love you.  Please listen.  Here is, “Great for Everyone.”

-G

(source)

We’re back, and just about as good as we were the last time you heard us.

But also, you’re back, and better than ever…so thank you!

Today, we continue to watch Grease Two in all of it’s glorious, cheesy, incredibly rapey splendor.  (It’s very rapey.  These kids are not hip to any reasonable, and certainly not literal, definition of consent.)

Anyway…

Be prepared for another fun ride, and a little soul-searching by me at the beginning.  Also, David Bowie, “Let’s Dance,” and Queen (…with David Bowie…), “Under Pressure.”

More tunes.  More booze.  More laughs.  Less Rape.

We present to you, “I Say Reproduction, You Say Rep Protection (Grease Two, pt 2).”

I found this wonderful video on YouTube (here), described by the person who posted it, “I took Steve Reich’s Section I from Music for 18 Musicians and slowed it down by 800%. I got some of the most peaceful ambient music I’ve ever heard. Wonderful for sleeping and meditation or just observing the sky on a summer day.”

I also recorded  ambient sounds from Cook Forest and the Clarion River, and layered those on top of the slowed-down Reich piece.

In there you will find the introduction to, “Profoundly Unapologetic.”

Finally, I continued an exploration of a Tibetan prayer bell and small kalimba…and recorded a piece of prose I wrote and published several months back.  (Here is the piece)

If you have 10 minutes, I would appreciate your ears and the time.

I present to you, “Profoundly Unapologetic (Story).”

Have you seen the movie Grease 2?

Yes?  Good!

Do you love it?

Hate it?

Love to hate it?

Hate to love it?

Well…have I got something for you.

Jen and Jim, both of whom actually love to love said sequel, sat with Greg, who had, for most of his adult life, simply hated it.  Maddy came along for the ride because, a.) Jim is just awesome, b.) So is Jen, and c.) both of them consistently called Greg on his bullshit and assholery throughout the recording.

You may remember the, “Llewellynsanity” trio of podcasts from several weeks back.  Well, the “Grease Two” trilogy, the first of which is just below, is a continuation of the same evening.  That means quite a few ounces of alcohol have flowed by the time you hear Greg, quite obviously inebriated and having just tripped over the recorder and lost an entire podcast’s length of material, say, “Driven to Drink.”

Here you’ll also hear the classic (…classic, really?  Perhaps…) songs, “Cool Rider,” and “Reproduction.”

Strap in, comb some oil-based pomade through your locks, and throw on your goggles and helmet so that nobody recognizes you.  We present to you, “The Balmudo Triangle (Grease Two, pt 1).”