FOOLCiRCLE

Hopefully this whole trip will seem funny to someone besides me, but I’ll tell you what, Austin, TX was a fun-ass trip!

Click here for all the pictures from our Austin, TX trip!

I’ll kinda try and go through each day without it being too boring or stupid. So, as part of the prize for coming in Third Place in the Dogfish Head Off-Centered Film Competition was a flight for one to Austin, TX to see the “world premiere” of out short film, World Wide Clout, plus three days two nights in a hotel, plus some spending cash. So, we took the spending cash and bought two more plane tickets so all three of us, Erik, Robert, and myself, could go down. We started pricing out tickets for the flight and realized it was actually cheaper for us to leave a day early and pay for an extra night at the hotel then it was to pay for all three of to go down on the original day. So we turned a Friday to Sunday trip into a Thursday to Sunday trip, sweet!

Thursday: So Thursday started WAY early for me. We had a 6AM flight to Austin, which meant we should be at the airport like 4AMish, which meant I was getting up like 3AMish, which meant I should be going to bed like 9PMish the night before, which meant I really went to bed like 12AM – so I got about 3 hours sleep before the trip began – did you follow me there? Fortunately the beginning of the trip went off without a hitch: made it to the airport on time, the flights were easy and lazy (about 5 hours of flying, 6 hours with layovers), and no one appeared to stress too hard which can happen with lack of sleep and traveling. So essentially we arrived in Austin, TX at out hotel around 1PM, too early to check in, but late enough for some lunch. Our hotel was near a Hooters and we were beat, so that was stop number one. We were all out of it, kind of just staring at each other and being like “I don’t believe we’re in Texas right now”, while everyone in the restaurant was kind of just staring at us and looking like “Those guys aren’t from Texas” – it was surreal. Anyway, we drank a couple beers, had a sandwich, some wings, and some fried pickles. The fried pickles were the thing that sticks out, tasty but way salty.

We finally checked in after lunch and relaxed a little. I think we talked about what we were going to do and then we all fell asleep without discussing it. By the time we woke up it was starting to get dark. We talked a little bit about whether we wanted to stay in and chill or go out and do something – going out won over, though we all really just wanted to chill, but why stay in and eat pizza when you can do that any night, we may never be in Austin, TX again! A couple people had told us about a bridge in the city that over a million bats lived underneath, and supposedly at dusk all the bats came out and it was supposed to be crazy. It sounded a little weird, but that was about our speed. We finally made it down to the bridge; there was a barge in the water with a bunch of people, a deck at a restaurant with a bunch of people, a ledge near the water with a bunch of people – we were definitely in the right spot. We waited, and waited, and waited until it was almost dark – I think I saw like 20 bats, for real. A lot of people said it may have been too early in the year, but it was lame.

After the bats we went to 6th Street which is suppose to be the big party/hang-out spot. We walked up and down 6th Street once, it was very . . . college-ish, dirty, fake . . . I don’t know, I wasn’t picking up on the vibe. Basically it was like: bar, blues bar, souvenir shop, bar, blues bar, tattoo parlor, bar, blues bar, pizza spot, and so on and so forth – very not where I was at. On the way into town we passed the Ginger Man bar which I had heard good things about on BeerAdvocate and Robert had heard good things from Garrett, so we figured we’d give it a shot, it was only a couple blocks away. The Ginger Man was MUCH more our pace and mentally where we were at. It had about 50 taps plus a nice bottle selection, room at the bar, no live band, open air seating in the back, and darts. We tried a few different beers and we all kind of agreed on this rye beer that was on cask as the fan favorite. So we grabbed a couple casks, a set of darts from the bartender, and picked our own music off the jukebox – very cool. Later we went out back and enjoyed another beer in the nice weather of early April in TX, pretty sweet. After the Ginger Man we cruised through a jazz bar briefly and then I think we just went back to the hotel and fell out, Erik and Robert sharing a queen bed and me on a pull out couch.

(Originally I was going to do the whole trip as one post, now I think I am going to break out each day separately.)

It has been WAY TOO LONG since my last post, I apologize.

I have a TON of stuff I want to talk about regarding out short film, World Wide Clout, but I’m going to try not to vomit all the information at once and instead try to spread it out over the next couple of days so everyone can enjoy it. So since we have gotten back from our Austin trip for the film festival I have been sick, 14 days as of today. I am finally on antibiotics (a Z-pack) and will hopefully find my way to health soon. That’s part of the reason for the lack of posts, I also have been training for my annual Half Marathon run that Robert and I do with the Trail Dawgs. Training for a half marathon while totally sick with a sinus infection do not go together, take it from me. And with all the lovely rain we’ve been getting, let’s just say it has been optimal training conditions all the way around. Plus, there have been some technical difficulties with getting thing all lined up with post-film production.

But, no more excuses, time for more information! Obviously, as I have all ready stated, Erik, Robert, and myself came in Third Place in the 2009 Dogfish Head Short Film Competition with our short film World Wide Clout. Many, many thanks go out to all that helped in their own way, but especially Shay, Karen, and Corey for their help in front of and behind the the camera. The whole experience has been surreal; from coming up with the idea, to realizing we were actually going to do it, to spending way to much time on a five minute film, to waiting, to winning, to Austin, to now – all of it. In preparation to the big internet premiere which appears to be lined up for this week, I am going to release droplets of information and see where their ripples carry us. Below is a post to a photo album of mostly pre-production/behind the scenes type stuff from our film. It’ll give you a rough idea of what some of our costumes looked like and some of the locations we filmed. Later I’ll post a photo album to pictures from our Austin, TX trip for the film festival and talk all about that. And finally I’ll make sure I post (and probably email too) the link to the film itself – too funny.

World Wide Clout – Pre-Production & Behind the Scenes Snapshots

OK, last time, recap from the beginning about the film: Post #1, Post #2, Post #3, Post #4, Post #5 – And what someone else may be saying here at MichellMusic.com, April 2009.

Oh, and since this is a homebrew website, I have also been up to a little bit of brewing stuff too – I brewed a new batch of a Pale Ale (33% Wheat), transferred some beer to kegs and secondaries, saw the movie Beer Wars, yelled at myself about hops, and have set up a couple trades too. More on all of that later, this week: film stuff!

World Wide Clout, bitches, WORLD WIDE CLOUT!

Here it is, the official cover to the movie, and the official announcement – we came in 3rd Place in the 2009 Dogfish Head Off-Centered Film Fest! For real.

This is what Dogfish Head has to say so far:

2009 Off-Centered Film Fest Winners Announced

Thu, 03/19/2009 – 1:10pm

Another year of the Off-Centered Film Fest meant another great night of watching short films, drinking Dogfish beer and making tough decisions. The competition was fierce and the arm-wrestling was fun, but in the end we had three short films that we look forward to showing you in Austin, TX for the April 3 & 4, 2009 Off-Centered Film Festival.

Without further ado, here are the winners:

First Place:
Christopher Rose Dogfish Head Commercial
Director, Christopher Rose
Austin, TX

Second Place:
Psychedelic Dogfish Head Beer Commercial
Director, Dax Norman
Sunnydale, CA

Third Place
World Wide Clout
Director: Erik Mitchell
Philadelphia, PA

These three films, with a selection of the additional entries will be screening at the Off-Centered Film Festival on April 3 & 4, 2009 at the Alamo Drafthouse, Lake Creek in Austin Texas. Event information, ticket pricing and information about the event are available through at the Off-Centered Film Fest website.
Thank you to everyone involved in the film submitted to the 2009 Off-Centered Film competition, we had a great time watching all the entries!
Stay tuned to www.dogfish.com to watch the winners (we’ll get them up after the premiere in Austin!) and for information about the 2010 Off-Centered Film Fest!
We’ll also post a list of additional films to be screened at the fest once we get it.

And, if you’re just coming up to speed, this is what I’ve had to say so far: here, here, and over here.

I really don’t know too much information yet. I do know the Fest is the first weekend in April, April 3rd and 4th (two weeks from now!), in Austin, TX. And, I know my ass is gonna be down there one way or another! More later.

It has been several weeks since I have mentioned anything about our DFH Short Film Competition entry.

I’ve been trying to wait for the results to come from DFH, but I guess I’m just being impatient, but the anticipation is killing me! Above is a little taste of what’s to come. This picture isn’t really from a scene in the movie, but all of the components in the picture are in the movie. A few people have actually gotten a chance to see the movie, and most seem to like it/think it’s funny.

I believe we are going to have the ‘official’ movie release after the winners are announced. I’m not trying to say that I think we are going to win, but I would really like to win! After the official release I believe the plan is to post it to the interwebs for all to see, so keeps you’re eyes peeled, I can only assume by the first weekend of April at the absolute latest there will embarrassingly funny video shooting around here. Stay tuned!

A couple days ago on Friday I was invited to a “free” happy hour event at ZoT restaurant in Philadelphia.

My friend Sharon won a “free” happy hour for her work by putting her business card in one of those things on the bar, but she doesn’t remember putting one in there. Anyway, the happy hour was from 6:30-8:30PM and included free mussels and 1/2 price drafts – at a Belgian bar – you know I’m there! Basically the deal worked out that it was 1 free kilo of mussels (however you’d like them prepared, and they had like 30 preparations) for every 4 people that came. We had 10 people show up and kind of had to pry a little to get the third set of mussels to come out. Plus, I was surprised that they advertised over 150 beers but only had like 6 drafts, 3 beers from Belgium and like 3 American-style Belgian beers – whatever still cool.

All-in-all it was a really fun time and we didn’t leave until like 12:00AM. I would totally go back there again. And not to compare it to Monk’s (as I am sure every other Belgian bar in Philly is), but in comparison to Monk’s it was much easier to get into, much more room, and the wait-staff seemed less douchey. If you’re in the Philly area and what to check out another Belgian bar, check out ZoT! Thanks, Sharon.

It’s a wrap, or whatever such nonsense they say when all the shooting for a film is done. So, now time to celebrate!

We actually finished shooting yesterday, Monday, February 16, 2009. We were suppose to finish on Sunday, but we had technical difficulties and had to re-shoot a scene on Monday. The good news is the Monday footage was even better. Still, I’m not going to say much about the film. But, it is due to DFH by March 1st and the Film Fest is the first weekend in April, so probably between those two dates it will become available to all to watch. Now it’s time to finish the editing, focus on the soundtrack, and add some sound effects. It’s going to be sweet, though more of the burden has been shifted to Erik and Sharon now. Break a leg, or some other such nonsense

I don’t even know where to begin . . . especially since I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag too soon. But let’s see here, maybe just a tasty morsel to help us all out . . .

Again, I don’t want to say too much, though all will be revealed in due time, but basically we’re making a movie – sort of. Let’s just say that DFH has an Off Center Film Fest that we have talked about entering for the last four years – well, we’re finally doing it and today was the first real day of filming, and it went really well in my opinion. Hopefully only a few more major scenes to film and some editing, and then the whole world wide about can see how moronic we really are. Enough . . .

So yesterday was the 2009 Lewes Polar Bear Plunge to support Special Olympics Delaware. Once again Robert and I went down and had a blast.

Normally we roll down the morning of the event and hang out with all the good people all morning. This year, we went down the night before and crashed at my Dad’s beach house. By going down earlier it totally changed the pacing of the day, much more laid back, but I did sort of miss the early morning anticipation – oh well. Another difference this year for us was that Dogfish Head’s brewpub in Rehoboth was closed for renovations, which is normal post-Plunge place to get warmed-up, but we made due.

So pre-Plunge we spent most of our time like normal, walking around sipping on coffee and Jager staying warm and looking at all the freaks and fun going on around us. We also ran into Captain Carson and his sister and cousin who were down for the Plunge. This was Dave’s sister’s 11^th year doing the Plunge, good for her. We hung with them briefly and made plans to catch up post-Plunge. Afterward, we all went to Grand Slam, a Grotto’s Sports Bar, and shared some food and beers and hit the pike to come home.

It’s funny how much time, energy, money – whatever goes into the Plunge, and in all actuality I bet we are in the water for less than 10 seconds. I do really enjoy going in the ocean in winter for some reason, I think next time I may attempt to see how long I can reasonably stay in – a couple minutes maybe?

Also, sorry about the lazy weekly posting action, maybe if I was more interesting I’d have more to say – enjoy!

Yesterday was at Iron Hill’s event Belgium Comes to West Chester at their West Chester, PA location “hosted” by Chris LaPierre, the head brewer there.

Erik, Sharon, Robert, and myself arrived at West Chester at about 1:30PM. There was about a 20 minute wait for tables, so we put our name in and grabbed a beer. I knew I would be drinking Belgian-style beers all day, so I decided to start with something else. I got IH’s seasonal beer an American Brown, it was really good, but I think the one that Garrett and I brewed packed in more flavor.

After we got a table we all ordered the 10 beer Belgian sampler. At $20 a piece it was a good way to try a lot of different beers. I felt slightly bad for our waitress because she was going to have to bring out 40 little cups, but at the same time she already hada $80 tab running and we’d only been there 2 minutes, I guess it’s fair. Anyway, we got to try a pretty good selection of the beers, here are the ones I can remember:

• Eddy – Iron Hill, West Chester
• Abbey 6 – Victory
• Mad Elf – Troegs
• Cherry Dubbel – Iron Hill, North Wales
• Abbey Extra – Sly Fox
• Chocolate Indulgence – Ommegang
• Lil Pylon – Earth Bread + Brewery
• Honey Saison – Iron Hill, Phoenixville
• Otay – Nodding Head
• White Gold – Ithaca Beer Company
• Permanent Midnight – Iron Hill, Lancaster
• Stumblin’ Monk – Stewart’s
• Belgian Mild – Flying Fish
• Tripel Lindy – Manayunk Brewery
• Wild Hibernian – Harpoon
• Belgian IPA – Yard’s
• Heywood – Iron Hill, West Chester
• Oak-aged Quad-father – Iron Hill, West Chester

And, those were only the ones I tasted, there were others that kicked before we got to taste them and others that hadn’t gone on tap by the time we left around 7:30PM. Basically they had 10 designated taps in the back with a A, B, and sometimes C beer that would come on. So depending on when you ordered your sampler or what time it was when you arrived it would depend on what was available. I think we got to try a pretty large array. I think my two favorites were the Cherry Dubbel from Iron Hill’s North Wales location that the guy who worked there kept referencing as Larry’s Cherry which sounded all sorts of weird/wrong to me. Also the Permanent Midnight from Iron Hill’s Lancaster location was really good too. One weird thing about that beer, Robert pulled two plastic “pubic hairs” out of his sample, it was pretty bizarre. Fortunately he didn’t choke on them or anything. He really could have made a fuss with the management, but he played it cool instead and just wanted to warn them that it happened so hopefully to avoid any situations with other patrons.

Overall it was a real good time and am looking forward to going up again next year. My one piece of advice, if it is at all doable, to Iron Hill would be to have all of the beers on tap at once. That way, say there are 20 beers available, they could have four 5 beer samplers available. The samplers wouldn’t be so overwhelming for the waitstaff, there would be more beer options for the patrons, and you could choose more carefully what it was you are trying to drink if there were specific beers that you really wanted to try. Just a thought.

Recently back from our third year in a row of celebrating New Year’s Eve at Dogfish Head Brewpub.

(This picture just seems to capture the New Year’s vibe)

You can click here to check out the rest of the pictures.

Per usual DFH put on one hell of a party! For NYE DFH has two dinners available, an early seating at 6:30 so you can have a good dinner, but plan your own NYE festivities, and a late seating at 9:00 so you can have a good dinner, AND plan your NYE festivities around DFH. The first year we opted for the early dinner and to go back to the beach house and do our own thing, fun, but not as fun as it could be. So last year and this year we chose to do the late seating and get a hotel room within walking distance, smart – very smart. Things were only slightly different this year than last, last year I believe dinner last year was at 8:30 and was $75, this year it was at 9:00 and was $85. The difference? I think it gave DFH more time in between the two dinners to make sure everything was straight, plus the $85 included gratuity as the $75 did not. I liked that it was included, but it makes me wonder how many of the wait-staff got screwed last year?

The menu was bangin’, actually I think my favorite of the three years so far. Typically there is some course that I am not really big on, not really so much this year. Anyway, here’s the menu:

• Truffled Butternut Squash Soup paired with a pint of Punkin’ Ale
• Warm Lobster Salad paired with a 10 oz of Midas Touch
• Seared Foie Gras and Lingonberry Jam on Brioche Toast paired with a 10 oz vintage Black & Blue
• Prosciutto-Wrapped Beef Tenderloin paired with a 10 oz Palo Santo Marron
• Brown Honey Rum Tiramisu paired with a 10 oz vintage World Wide Stout

I’ll try to briefly run through the menu, but you know how briefly can go sometimes. I am not a squash kind of guy, I don’t really dislike it anymore, but it is not my friend. Anyway, the soup was ridiculous, I could have eaten enough for a meal. It was paired with the Punkin’ Ale which makes sense, but after about a half pint of Punkin’ – I’m good. The Lobster “Salad” was my king of salad! A big pile of homemade roasted garlic mashed potatoes, with freshly steamed big chunks of lobster, a little arugala spread around with large slivers of parmesan on top – delicious. None of us had had Foie Gras before so we were all excited and apprehensive about trying it. It was OK. This was actually the course I was looking the most forward to and it was the one I was closest to being disappointed about. I would definitely like to try it again, but it wasn’t a big seller for me. When the beef tenderloin came out I almost lost it. For a fourth course plate this baby was full! It was probably an 8 0z cut of beef wrapped in prosciutto (I liked this better than bacon), along with blue cheese mashed potatoes and some random veggies. I barely ate the veggies, and the mashed potatoes were great, but I had already grubbed on the ones with the lobster, but the beef, – the beef was delicious. I really could only eat half by this point, but it didn’t matter. My only complaint was they were not cooked evenly, in the sense that all of ours were medium except for Dave’s and his was medium-rare and tasted that much better. Oh, well. Finally the tiramisu (probably my favorite dessert of all time) was bangin’. Very well made with just enough rum for flavor but to keep it from getting boozy, I could only finish half of this also.

And the beers . . . ah, yes, the beers. We arrived at about quarter of 9:00 so we had time for a pre-game beer. Originally I tried to order a brewpub exclusive porter called Arms Akimbo Porter, but they had taken it off for the night for the special beers, bummer. So I went with a 60 Minute IPA which lasted until the beef tenderloin came out, geez. As I’ve already said the Punkin’ was fine, but not my favorite. Midas Touch was a good change because I hardly ever buy it, mental note – buy Midas Touch more. The vintage Black & Blue was OK too, I’d rather it was Red & White, but I understand the choice for it paired perfectly with the lingonberry jam. Before the Palo Santo Marron came out I was talking it up to Dave as one of my top 3 favorite DFH beers, he was stoked to try it. When it came out he took one sip and pushed his glass over to me saying I could finish it, different strokes I suppose. Then we ended with the WWS which is always an ass-kicker. I always know it, but always forget about it. WWS is one of those beers you should drink alone, not five beers in and drinking more later. Let’s just say this was the beer that made the night shift perspective, not completely in a bad way.

Also, for the second year in a row, Nate Myers and the Aces were playing. They are a blues-rock-harmonica-heavy band that randomly covers some fun hip-hop tracks, I really dig these guys. Also, they have a song called “Jager & Waffles” so you know they’re good in my book! Of course we picked up the CD.

The next morning found everyone in decent shape and we rolled like we meant business. A little greazy diner breakfast followed by out traditional shot and a beer at Irish Eyes. The shot and a beer kept on expanding until half the day was gone and we were all feeling fine. A Nic-O-Boli for lunch and we were ready to call it a day. New Year’s Eve has always been fun times for me, I think I enjoy the safe but ruckus NYE-style. Until next time I suppose!