
In my younger and more vulnerable years my friend gave me some advice at a party that I’ve been turning over in my mind of late.
“Bud Light is piss beer. All fuckin’ watery and weak. It’s the worst,” he told me, “but just remember that all those who party in this world haven’t had the advantages of drinking this goddamn exquisite New Glarus Spotted Cow like you have, old sport.”
I knew he’d say a lot more, as we’d always been unusually communicative when in a liquored-up way, both understanding that things that had a great deal of meaning needed to be talked about a great deal, points repeated throughout the night, scrawled into our skulls, until the meaning was lost and we passed out. So he went on to talk about Bud Light and selling out, how the drinking of the former was an act of the latter. It was a small act but, as he said, “It’s those fucking small acts that get us, old sport. It’s nefarious. We let them slide and repeat them and then, you know, like, years later, you’re voting Republican.” Whenever we split off at that party, he would find me again to point out someone with a Bud Light and mutter “Nefarious,” or “Republican, old sport.”
But what of Pitbull? I wish I could ask my friend. A crowd in ecstasy at his feet, one fist pumping to the heavens, the other clutching an ice cold Bud Light. Look how joyous Pitbull is. What’s nefarious about that? If that’s not happiness, I would ask him, WHAT IS HAPPINESS? But he’s a Republican now so I don’t speak to him.




