Tag Archives: history
My favorite pictures
Since I took down tons of pictures on here, I have gotten emails asking to put some up. Fine, I will. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past few years. Enjoy.
Here I am fresh back from Ireland in 2010 (see shirt). With me are my friends Shannon and Kelly. No offense to my friend Shannon, doesn’t she look hot in that hat? BTW, I survived a few nights in Dublin. Millions of brain cells did not.
Halloween 2010. Besides Brett (The Penguin), no one is sober in this picture.
I was 20, maybe 21 here. Man I was good looking once. What happened?
Ireland 2010, again. My favorite thing is next to me. Her name was Rosie O’Sullivan. Lovely and I can still hear her beautiful accent like it was yesterday. O’Sullivan means “dark eyed-one” in Irish. This beautiful angel did have dark eyes.
Aww, Shannon and Kristen with me, with Shannon’s husband in the background. Both married, both lovely and I’m still a nerd.
I’m no thug. I’m not ghetto. My alter-ego “T-Bone With A-1″, well, that’s a whole different story. Yes, the gun is real.
It was New Year’s 2013….. I have no clue what’s taking place here. I was on beer #16 along with tons of Bourbon already down my throat.
My favorite person from work with me one night at the Highlands Taproom. Emily beyond beautiful like always!
Halloween 2012. Gilligan’s Island. We came in 2nd. Rigged ass contest.
Sad….. my last night in Ireland 2010. This was me along with some of the staff from the Arlington Hotel. These people were beyond nice and showed me true hospitality. I never felt home sick due to them and I almost didn’t want to leave. If Rosie O’Sullivan would have been mine, I would have never left……
Even though I was not in this picture, this is beautiful to me. This was Ireland. This is where my DNA came from. The forefathers of my dad came from here. I am proud of that. Seeing Ireland firsthand was a dream come true. My dad never got to see Ireland. I made it a goal in life to do so. It was even better than I ever dream it could have been. I am proud of my short-tempered, whiskey drinking, folklore believing, hatred of the British, lover of red-heads and Celtic DNA.
Where did the name “Strange Brew” come from?
I have gotten probably 100 emails asking why our site is called Louisville’s Strange Brew. That is the most asked question I get from fans (and enemies). The name is actually something I came up with some 15 years ago. There is nothing special about the name. I’m a nerd and I picked the name in the nerdiest way possible.
In 1998, some friends and I created “Strange Brew”, a local public access show which ran for two years. The show was known for its vulgar language, pranks and stoner humor. The cast included guys named Steven Crawford, James Sayre and David Hanes (yes, my ex Liz’s brother) along with me as the main cast. The show was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. It sucks that I have lost or damaged all the tapes I owned. I contacted David a few months back to see if he had any tapes, but he would not answer me due to the lies from his sister.
(no, the name was not taken from 80′s cult classic, “Strange Brew”)
Months before we started our show, we recorded hours’ worth of skits. We didn’t go public sooner because we couldn’t agree on a name. One day while in my room I was looking through Cd’s and came across one my brother-in-law Bill had gotten me. It was a greatest hits album by Cream called “Strange Brew”. I told the guys “Let’s call the show Strange Brew,” and oddly they agreed. A few weeks later Strange Brew aired on channel 98 and the IQ of Louisville went down about 5%.
Last year I decided to create a horrible local website. Once again I could not think of a name that I liked. I finally picked Louisville’s Strange Brew. I didn’t want to simply call it “Strange Brew” out of respect of the former cast. That was our show. This is my website so I wanted something somewhat different. Louisville’s Strange Brew is now over a year old and doing well. I have stuck to my roots and haven’t sold out.
(we have nothing to do with Strange Brew Beer, located in Louisville)
See, nothing special about how I came up with the title. It was from my teen years. That was a fun period of my life. I am too old to dodge Roman Candles, be thrown off of cars that David is driving or stealing giant balloon Easter Bunnies. I’d rather sit safely behind my computer and write horrible, vulgar and childish things. Safer for my health and not as dumb as the TV show. Strange Brew has been some of the best times I’ve ever had in my life. I hope my website for those who read it is half that enjoyable.
(this is where I stole the name, “Strange Brew” from)
Irish History – Timeline
c 10,000 BC Earliest settlers arrived in Ireland, in the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age period. They crossed by land bridge from Scotland. These people were mainly hunters. See what archeology is finding out about them and the Ceide Fields of Co Mayo!
c 3000 BC Colonists of the neolithic, or new stone-age period , reached Ireland. These people were farmers. Remnants of their civilization have been excavated at Lough Gur in Co. Limerick. They traded in a limited form in products, such as axe-heads. One of their monuments, a megalithic tomb at Newgrange in Co. Meath, has survived. Visit the ancient tombs in Knowth, Boyne Valley. (Six pages, one photo per page)
cc 2000 BC Prospectors and metalworkers arrived. Metal deposits were discovered, and soon bronze and gold objects were made. Items (such as axe-heads, pottery and jewelery) made by these bronze-age people, have been found.
1699 BC Beginning of the MILESIAN GENEALOGIES
early ages The time of legends. Who were the Fianna?
c 1200 BC More people reached Ireland, producing a greater variety of weapons and artifacts. A common dwelling of this period was the “crannog”, an artificial island, constructed in the middle of a lake.
c 600 BC Celts started arriving in Ireland, from central Europe. They continued to arrive, up to the time of Christianity. They soon began to dominate Ireland, and the earliet settlers. The Celts belonged linguistically to the Indo-European culture.
c 200 BC The Celtic culture of the La Tene civilization, named after a Celtic site in Switzerland, reached Ireland. Celtic Ireland was not politically unified, only by culture and language. The country was divided into about 150 minitature kingdoms, each called a ‘tuath’. A minor king ruled a ‘tuath’, subject to a more powerful king who ruled a group of ‘tuath’, who was in turn subject to one of the five provincial kings. (Early on there were five provinces, with Meath as a separate province.) This caused constant shifting in power, among the most important contenders. Celtic Ireland had a simple agrarian economy. No coins were used, and the cow was the unit of exchange. There were no towns. Society was stratified into classes, and was regulated by the Brehon Laws, based largely on the concepts of the ‘tuath’ as the political body, and the ‘fine’, or extended family as the social unit.
c100 BC Arrival of the Gaels
200 AD Beginnings of High Kingship at Tara, Co Meath
c 300 AD Ireland inhabited by tribes known as Scoti
377-405 Naill of the Nine Hostages, High King
428-463 AD King McNeill reigned
431 AD Pope Celestine 1 sent Palladius to the Irish, as their first Bishop. Palladius died soon after.
432 AD Arrival of St. Patrick to help convert pagan Gaelic Kings to Christianity.
550 AD onwards Irish monks re-Christianize Europe
TV these days suck
I use to be a big fan of the History Channel, Travel Channel and Discovery Channel. The channels at one time had many educational shows. You could learn about other countries, cultures of other people, good places to eat, ancient history, historical figures and science. I’m not saying these channels don’t have educational shows these days. Educational shows are however, few and far in between.
These channels are now mostly based on reality TV shows. Instead of learning about ancient Germany I’m stuck watching trashy repo people take cars from spoiled brats. Instead of learning about outer space I’m stuck watching people visit a Pawn Shop. If the show isn’t following truck drivers around I’m stuck learning about ancient aliens, which we have no proof existed other than some cave painting the “historians” claim prove they existed.
How many worthless shows can we make about Big Foot? I could care less about a group of losers with no life searching for a creature we have no proof exists. I could be learning about American slavery instead. Slavery is part of history. We live among people today who came from slavery. Big Foot is more than likely (99% chance), make believe. I would be interested in Big Foot the day they find a body or catch one.
These channels are filled with shows about jobs. We watch fishermen, lumber-jacks, pawn shop owners, truck drivers, repo men and miners. What’s next, a show about cab drivers, eye doctors and camera men for baby commercials? I would much rather be learning about history, science or something useful. I admire these people because they work and earn a paycheck. I could care less about how many crabs they caught, how much ice was on the road or what moron they just ripped off at the pawn shop.
When Larry The Cable Guy got a TV show I knew the History Channel had went downhill. Maybe next week the Discovery Channel will give a show to Richard Simmons. Maybe the loud mouth from the “Nanny” will host a show on the Travel Channel. The ideas of worthless shows are endless. I’m never shocked about what I see on these channels. There’s little history, historical information or useful data these days. It’s all about “ratings” and nothing more.
I can see why America is getting dumber and dumber. Just look at what we watch on TV. Educational shows are about 50th on our list. Our TV viewing is spent on childish cartoons like South Park or Larry The Cable guy making fart jokes. I’m shocked the creators of South Park aren’t making shows for the History Channel yet. I miss the days of staying in during a cold or rainy day watching TV to learn something. Those days are almost completely gone.
