In which I project my own failures onto Matt Stafford
and ultimately fail to make a point about it or anything
Hello and welcome to the first of whatever this ends up being. Probably pictures of dives (duh), probably pictures of other, nicer bars, and some other various things in and around Chicago. Maybe a quick recap of what I am doing instead of going to bars while the pandemic rages on (I imagine this is going to be about sports a lot or like a brief recap of whatever stupid Netflix show I am watching. Future readers will refer to this as “the part you should skip”), thoughts on whatever I am drinking, and above all else, another fake task to give myself weekly (or monthly, or just sort of whenever I feel like it, I suppose) while I remain marginally employed and stuck at home.
Oh, and of course, I will somehow parley this newsletter into finally selling out which I joke about nearly constantly on twitter but also ya know, give me money.
PICTURES
On Monday after the snow, I went around Chicago and took some pictures of random places in Wrigleyville and then downtown. I like Chicago best when the weather is gross. The buildings and architecture really pop on a gray background. I took enough pictures that I will probably just drop a couple today and slowly send out more for this newsletter later. Eventually some might make it on to @picturesofdives but you get a sneak preview. Try not to get too excited, it’s basically a slightly higher quality google street view image from a cell phone. Eventually I will buy a new camera, I promise.
ALTERNATIVES TO BARS DURING PANDEMIC
Bars in Chicago are technically open at 25% capacity which is incredibly tempting but also the idea of being like, the last guy to die of covid when the vaccine is presumably going to end up in my arm here before too long, is just a little bit more embarrassing than I can afford to risk right now. So I’ve been keeping myself busy thinking a lot about Matt Stafford. For the unaware, Matt Stafford is the former quarterback of the Detroit Lions now current quarterback for the LA Rams. Matt Stafford is a weird dude. Not like in the way Tom Brady is actually weird where he has a diet company that might be a cult (allegedly), or is friends with Donald Trump (ALLEGEDLY), or kisses his son directly on the mouth (this one is for real). Stafford is just sort of a very forgettable, middle of the road quarterback, that got traded from a forgettable, middle of the road team, to replace a slightly better quarterback on a slightly better team. Of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, Matt Stafford ranks somewhere around 15th. He’s spent 12 years in the league, has 3 playoff appearances, and zero wins in those games. He isn’t very good at his job, but all things considered, he is still in the top 20 people currently employed as quarterbacks in the world.
I have found myself thinking a lot about where he’s at mentally these days. Trading Detroit for LA seems like a mostly lateral move. Sure, LA is warmer but you gotta drive everywhere and Detroit has Old Miami which is like a top 10 best dives in America (that’s right, brought it back to bar stuff. I am nailing this.) I wonder if he feels like he has wasted the last 12 years and LA is a fresh start or if toiling away in the freezing cold for over a decade with absolutely nothing to show for it has made him cynical, and this is a pure cash grab. It’s got to be a strange feeling being a mediocre NFL quarterback. I work part time as a janitor and I know I am not arguably the 15th best janitor in America. I am not the 15th best janitor at my job which has 10 employees total and just one janitor. How can you not be having some sort of identity crisis, knowing you are technically speaking really good at your job but nowhere near good enough for anyone to actually care?
Anyway the Rams record was 10-6 this year and the Picture of Dives lock-in take is that they will be 10-6 next year too. (It is possible I am projecting nearly all of my insecurities about my own mediocrity onto Matthew Stafford right now and he is perfectly well adjusted and content with his life as a multimillionaire. Who’s to say, right?)
WHAT AM I DRINKING
Jeppson Bourbon
If you don’t live in Chicago you may not know about this dumb thing locals drink called Jeppson’s Malort. It tastes like shit and it mostly just a prank Chicagoan play on people visiting their town, like pretending to enjoy deep dish pizza or watching Chicago Bears for the last 30 years. Awful stuff. I am not from this city and every single day all two and a half million Chicagoan open up what I imagine is the largest group text of all time and invent new stupid things to pretend to like just to fuck with me. I am not paranoid.
The copy on the Jeppson’s Malort website describes the taste as “the aroma and full-bodied flavor of an unusual botanical. Its bitter taste is savored by two-fisted drinkers.” Which frankly is a crock of shit. It’s wormwood-y and unpleasant. Like drinking mystery liquid from a leaky basement.
So I hate it BUT I am a true believer in a cheap gimmick (see: @picturesofdives on twitter, instagram and now substack!) so when the Malort company (itself a gimmick drink) decided to start selling bourbon under their name as a gimmick, well I obviously had to try it.
The Jeppson brand was bought by a place called CH Distillery around 2018 and they already had a bunch of barrels just sitting around, so I guess someone went to business school who knew what the phrase “brand synergy” meant and this unholy creation was brought to life. It took me a surprising amount of time to track one down and I really just lucked across one in a Binny’s yesterday when I was browsing the cheap wines. Sidenote: I talked a lot of shit about Chicago in the beginning of this but Binny’s rocks. An unquestionable good this godforsaken city has produced. It’s really the only place I can consistently find east coast beers I like and until I can safely travel home again, it’s the next best thing to being there.
My girlfriend, a native Chicagoan, and I had a couple shots last night together and our verdict is: it’s fine. I would drink this over ice, or make whiskey cocktails with it, but I also probably wouldn’t buy it again. It’s got a sort of delayed burn and a sweetness that seems more akin to a dark rum than an aged Kentucky bourbon but I didn’t hate it. For the price range ($28.99 was what I paid) you can get better whiskey. Costco has a 7 year bourbon that blows this one out of the water.
Alrighty. So that was uh this… I guess. If you liked it, maybe share it with a friend and if you hated it, keep that shit to yourself, man.