Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Holy Trinity

I said I'd post today and goddamnit, here I am.

But with nothing in particular to talk about, I thought I'd discuss a saying that I must spout off at least once a week. Of course it will always be open for amendment, but as of now it goes like this: "There's no such thing as bad beer, pizza, or ice cream." I mention this because I know someone will disagree, but allow me to defend my position before the debate rages.

Let's start with beer. There are a lot of shitty beers out there, famously sporting nicknames like Natty Light (Natural Light), the Beast (Milwaukee's Best), and the now less-common Shitz (Schlitz.) All of these are undoubtedly the worst representations of the craft of brewing, but they are all still beer and beer is good. I'm a bit of a beer snob myself, but I spent my latter college days working through sub-$6 twelve-packs of Southpaw Light, and I still feel that the worst pisswater you can find nonetheless deserves to be quaffed. Sure, I've met a few brews in my day that I'd prefer not to revisit, Heineken and Sweetwater Blue come to mind, but even these will probably do the trick with a hotdog in the other hand and a pitching duel or fourth-quarter comeback unfolding before me. Beer is good.

Pizza is also good. Remember that stuff they served in elementary school with the grid of tiny holes on the bottom of the rectangular, soggy crust and the little cubes of pepperoni? That crap had to be the worst pizza ever, but it was still good, especially sandwiched on the calendar between Meatloaf Monday and Salisbury Steak Wednesday. It's tough to fuck up bread + sauce + cheese + the nastiest geometrically uniform frozen meat they could find, and, try as they might, it was still the best thing on the menu. Because pizza is just good.

As is ice cream. Have you ever had bad ice cream? Me neither. Yeah, I know that stuff they sell in the grocery store in the three-gallon plastic buckets for three bucks probably is not quite as tasty as that $6 pint of Ben and Jerry's, but I bet it's still good as hell. I split the difference and go for the premium store brand and I'm a happy man. I once read about an ice cream shop in Hawaii that served salmon-flavored ice cream and included a bucket with every purchase for the adventurous glutton to then puke into. But I've never been to Hawaii and until I have, ice cream is good, period.

So that's my list. Three things that you can never go wrong with. Agree? Disagree? Any proposed amendments?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

My personal litmus test goes pretty much like this:

Would I be happy to eat/drink/watch/smell/read/etc. [insert object here] if someone else paid for it.

And for every beer/pizza/ice cream I can think of, it's a resounding "Hell, yeah."

Aaron said...

Two out of three ain't bad, but I must be the dickswitch who disagrees on the beer thing. Because I hate beer -- all beers. Probably just something wrong with me, though.

Pizza and ice cream, though? Yes.

shelleycoughlin said...

Too true- school pizza day is the best, even when it's the worst.

Also, I had lobster ice cream this summer in Maine and it was... not NOT good, but not good.

Otherwise: total agreement.

Courtney said...

I'm with you on pizza and ice cream, but I'm still not drinking PBR.

Jacob said...

Do you realize that your "I have nothing to say" post is longer than most of your other posts?

And I agree, although I have had a few beers I've had to dump. Cheap icecream just has lower quality flavorings and is full of air, but it doesn't suck. The worst frozen pizza is still entirely tasty, just nowhere near the food of gods that the good stuff is.

And did you drink Heineken from the bottle? Green bottles are just asking for skunked beer. Try it on tap or from a can and it's actually a decent beer, or at least better than any of the ones you mentioned.

Sweetwater Blue is the worst beer I've ever had from a good brewer, though.

The Modern Gal said...

Like Courtney, I'm with you on the latter two but I will take nothing over Natty Light any day of the week.

Noelle said...

I agree with you in theory, but with the caveat that beer is bad when it goes flat and warm (unless it's Guinness), pizza can only be reheated once, and if it's over-reheated, the crust gets ruined, and all ice cream sucks when it becomes a victim of freezer burn.

But other than that, I agree. I'll take almost any pizza, beer, ice cream or sex when it's free.

The Dutchess of Kickball said...

I don't know, as being from NY where we clearly have the best pizza, there is plenty of bad pizza out there.

Anonymous said...

Cheese!

To disagree with Courtney, I actually like PBR. I think it is the best of the shit beers. It is malty.

Unknown said...

All thee of those are like sex, there's never really bad sex, just sex you wish was a little better.

Anonymous said...

Oh, the lobster ice cream reminded me of something that might make me change my stance...

Every year out here, there's an Elephant Garlic Festival during which people create all sorts of ill-conceived concoctions made from the stuff.

One of them is garlic ice cream.

Anonymous said...

Agreed. And the other thing those three have in common? I never get tired of them, no matter how sub-par the quality, and no matter how many days in a row I have them.

Allie said...

I think you should add cake to the list.

Oh, little square cafeteria pizzas! When I lived in Jersey, I ate way too much Elio's pizza. When I moved out of Jersey, I started running.

Julie said...

I would like to disagree with you, but would certainly be called a liar. Only thin people like Courtney can legitimately disagree with you. No one would ever look at me and believe that I would turn down pizza, beer or ice cream even if it is sub-par.