One Take On Cities With Microbrewers In Town

[Jim O'Bryan]

From "The New Republic"

It starts with the local brewpub. Always with the goddamn local brewpub, located in some renovated craftsman schoolhouse or 1920s fire station with the locally sourced Czechoslovakian-style hops and the brewmaster with the certification from the Golden Barley Council or whatever governing body oversees alcoholic hipsterdom.

Whenever some self-appointed hometown convention and visitors’ bureau rep (and sometimes it’s an actual CVB rep) takes you to that cool little place in the downtown renaissance district where they actually make their own beer—So cool! Nobody does that, right?—you know you’re in trouble. Or, more precisely, you know you’re in that bastion of municipal mediocrity: the newly anointed “It” City.

Read the rest here: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112372/chunk-thompson-against-it-cities-and-their-microbrews#


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[Paul Schrimpf]

That poses an interesting question ... what establishments/areas would you take someone interested in a discovery tour of Lakewood, in chronological order?

[michael gill]

To help a visitor discover Lakewood, Paul, I'd take them to some of the same places many people would list: St. James, Screw Factory, TJs Butcher Block, Root, Blackbird, Beer Engine.

To respond to that article, I'd say that was pretty easy and insubstantial derision. Fun, sure. But it's all one joke.

If you can mock people for being enthused about locally brewed beer (in an age when something like 90 percent of the market is completely controlled by maybe three companies), then you can mock them for pretty much anything.

You like your local bakery? hahahaha! You must be some kind of naive stupe! Every town has local bakeries! Who cares?

You like having a local tailor to adjust your pants?? Ha, you goof, you're just like everyone else!

You think it's cool to have food that came from an hour's drive, instead of having been shipped from California? What, do you think you're from Portland, or something?

Why did you bother with that, Jim?

[Matthew Lee]

In my opinion, what a poorly written, self-congratulatory, "look how cool I am because I can dismiss what other people think are cool" article.

I don't know the author but he lost me with his statement about "People in Texas used to hate me when I said if Austin wasn't surrounded by Texas, it would be Sacramento". Really? How many times did you actually say that? Did you just wander around the mall muttering it to yourself? No wonder they hate you.

The biggest problem with the article is he never defines what he would rather have. Does he want big corporate America in every town? Or does he just hate when other people are more hip than him?

[stephen davis]

Michael,

I read this, enjoyed it, then looked at some of Thompson's other writings. He seems to be a pretty sardonic guy, but not without merit. Perhaps his best point, relative to your complaints, was made in the last paragraph.

And maybe that’s the point of it all. We’re all happening now, no one better than anyone else, no city that’s any more “it” than any other. Pretty cool. Or so they tell me.

His only mistake was that he didn't recognize Lakewood as pretty-much-cooler than other places.

Steve

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[Jim O'Bryan]

Michael

Damn, all I did was post something I found interesting and off you go killing the messenger.

No matter, my take-away was a pet peeve of mind. "Oh this micro-brewey will now make us
cool, or cooler. Which is right there with, if we build this stadium, rock hall, stadium, casino
it will solve our problems...

What Lakewood needs is a ___________________________ and that will make us cooler?

It is so faux.

Now it is funny that you went "local" as a way to answer back, as you know I am all about
local, local sustainability, etc. So my question to you would be, what if the "micro brew"
was not local but a chain from a massive mutli-national corporation, trying to both cash in
on "local micro breweries" and trying in their business plan to run local brewers out of
business for national profits?

Not that anything like that would ever happen here.

PS - I do not drink beer so maybe I am missing the point.
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[russell dunn]

I might have missed this article had it not been referenced here, and I confess to
having stuck with it through the positive and upbeat finish. Thanks to that guy from
Russia Times, or wherever, that provided the link.

[Jim O'Bryan]

I might have missed this article had it not been referenced here, and I confess to
having stuck with it through the positive and upbeat finish. Thanks to that guy from
Russia Times, or wherever, that provided the link.

Спасибо гражданина


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[michael gill]

Jim posted this without comment on it, so maybe we're reading too much into the fact that he posted it. But from other things he says ... at the risk of assuming ... maybe he takes issue not with the people starting those businesses, but with that layer of society that is not starting the business-vwith the people whose job is pushing the "coolness" as if to tell us what we need.

I appreciate the reaction against people professionally telling the rest what factor du jour makes a place cool. On the other hand ... and this is where I take issue with that story (besides the easy, solution-free tone of mockery): yes, local breweries and artisanal cheeses and other local foods, plus bicycle culture and independent musuc, and DIY everything ... all that has been broadly recognized as cool, even by people who never had an original thought in their lives. Broad recognition that locally made stuff is cool ... that's good for the economy, for small business, and for quality of life. I hope this trend lasts forever.

[Jim O'Bryan]

I might have missed this article had it not been referenced here, and I confess to
having stuck with it through the positive and upbeat finish. Thanks to that guy from
Russia Times, or wherever, that provided the link.

Спасибо гражданина


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For those that cannot read Cyrillic, which is a very cool thing to do, this says,

"Thank you citizen."

Michael said:

"all that has been broadly recognized as cool, even by people who never had an original thought in their lives."



And there is the crux of the problem. "It's cool" always followed by whatever that person deems as cool. Look at your list, it is what Michael Gill does, hence, it must be cool, and therefore it must be cool for others, after all, it is cool, look I do it.

I could talk to your kids, and because kids know parents are not "cool" they would probably list something else as "cool." Or they might mention what their friends have deemed as "cool," and then use peer pressure to make sure their friends know it is "cool" for them. And of course it works in reverse. Take a single person that has "cool" factor and piss them off, and tell them they are not "cool" and instantly they will decide that whatever it is that they can't do to is un"cool."

"Cool" is not a brand, it is not a description, it is a pitiful crutch that weak people, generally uncool, desperately search after like a shiny object, and as soon as something else is described as "cool" off the weak-minded go to the next shiny object. "Cool" is not solid, nor anything worth building a community on. Generally, to quote my old friend Kenneth Warren, the moment something is described as "cool," it is not. Then he would smile and say, "But Jim you are one 'cool' cat." It's like the Higgs Boson, so fleeting and hard to "catch" that it never really exists in real life. Matter of fact because it is so subjective on such a personal level that it become meaningless unless your job is to manufacture it. Like Mundo, Backstreet Boys, My Little Pony, beer bongs, polyester pant suits, wide ties, no narrow ties, I mean wide ties.

What I took from the story is that it is pitiful, not to have the microbrew but to homogenize community after community until they all look the same, not in an effort to have sustainability, not in an effort to use common sense, but in an effort to catch "cool" in a bottle as a way to move a community forward, and this is where I think you get confused. Food security, something I believe in, locally-owned, something I believe in, green, something I believe in, because they are real, not because they are "cool." Makes sense, so yes the locally owned micro-brewery can be great for a community especially if sustainable. But is the multinational chain of micro-brews that aim to put the local micro brewers out of business "cool?" I mean using your examples, a small locally-grown media project would be the coolest thing in America, especially after competing with a large mutli-billion dollar media empire designed to shut them down and trick the consumer into thinking they are the real locals, while monetizing local news for their own pockets out of the city, with no regard to the community. Right?

But here is the problem Jim sees with all of this. Organic = sustainable, non-organic = not-so-sustainable. Organic, grown from the ground up to serve a need, and the issues of a person, a street, a community, a county, state or country = sustainable. Non-organic, designed from the top down designed to fool, fleece with NO REGARD for the community, only its bottom line = not sustainable. Which is more important for a community, which is really "cool?"

Ask any "Hipster," their grandparents are not cool, though they are real hipsters. How faux, how sad, how pitiful. Parents spend a lifetime teaching their kids to be themselves, only for them to see their parents and their city worry if they are "cool," or just like every other city. No wonder they are all medicated. (Parents and kids.)

Again what I took from the story, is a microbrew "cool?" Possibly. Is it "cool" for a city to think it will help their brand as "cool?" To quote Mad Magazine, something I always thought was "cool" as an adolescent, "YEEEEECH!"

But hey, that's just me, and I never sought out "cool." Only what appealed to me. I never wanted to be like every other city in America. I just wanted to live in a community that was so sure of themselves they did not desperately have to chase after the Higgs Boson day after day after day to feel good about themselves.


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[Valerie Molinski]

the moment something is described as "cool," it is not.

Then it becomes... over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGqN3AKOsA

[Valerie Molinski]

Honestly, Jim, your latest rants are getting to be a little off the reservation. Who appointed you, or even the author of this article, the purveyor of cool? Or what's right? Or what's sustainable? Or real? Or fake? It is just such an odd article to post, very grumpy old man stuff. It's such an odd thing to get so riled up about. I agree with Michael Gill here....

[Peter Grossetti]

Perhaps Jim posted the OP only to watch the "collateral damage." That is one of my favorite pastimes!

It's just a conversation!

[stephen davis]

I'm pushing 60. I have no idea what cool is. What follows is just random thought.

Ask any "Hipster," their grandparents are not cool...

Cool must change a lot.



How many Lakewoodites thought is was cool when one of these showed up on Sloane Avenue?



C'mon, be honest.

Weren't Speedee and the arches cooler than Ronald and the McRib?

A couple of years ago I was at the Airport FedEx to send some Sweet Designs chocolate to my mother in Maryland. I typed "Mom's chocolates" and the tracking number into the Notepad on my iPhone. The tracking number turned into a link. I thought, "Huh?" When I touched that link a window popped up with a button that said, "Track Shipment." I touched that, and it took me to the FedEx tracking page for my package. Right out loud I exclaimed, "That is so cool!"

Cool is a funny word. So is new. Over 30 years ago I was involved in a Cleveland arts organization called NOVA. NOVA was an acronym for New Organization for the Visual Arts. No organization, or product, should have new in its name. New isn't even sustainable. If it is new now, what is it next month/year/decade?

So, what is the future for a cool new place/group/thing?

Unrelated to any of this, a friend was talking to me last week about the future of antiques.

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[Peter Grossetti]

The flavor of this thread is starting to reek of "late on a Friday afternoon."

Some random quotes about "cool"

"Rather be dead than cool." ~Kurt Cobain


"So there's nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who's cool hates - and then making it cool." ~Lady Gaga


“Elves are cool, man.” ~Orlando Bloom


and a Yogism ...
Mrs. Lindsay - "You certainly look cool."
Yogi Berra - "Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself."

and the epitome of cool ... from West Side Story:



COOL
Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy!
Don't get hot,
'Cause man, you got
Some high times ahead.
Take it slow and Daddy-O,
You can live it up and die in bed!

Boy, boy, crazy boy!
Stay loose, boy!
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.
Turn off the juice, boy!
Go man, go,
But not like a yo-yo schoolboy.
Just play it cool, boy,
Real cool!