Grandpa drank Grain Belt. I remember him sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, pulling on a cold can. It’s thirsty work, farming; it’s dusty work, too. After a day on the combine you’re covered with a fine layer of pulverized straw, and if you don’t think a beer is a welcome addition to life at that moment you have no concept of its healing powers. The kids got Shasta, of course. But I was always curious what beer tasted like. Even a six-year old detects the particular satisfaction that crossed an adult’s face when they took a sip of beer; it gave a special pleasure no soda could impart. Eventually you screwed up your courage, and asked: can I taste it?

He leaned over with a grin I would not understand for another thirty years, and said sure. I took a sip from the can. The lip was sharp. The beer was tepid. It tasted like robot urine. I would not drink a beer for eleven years.

In high school the illicit peer-beer was Pabst, and I didn’t like it any more than I’d liked the Grain Belt. In college I worked in a beer hall selling 3.2, a particularly obscene variety of beer that lacked both flavor and purpose. But one day in the summer of 1984 it was humid and hot and I was lonely and underemployed, and a mad daft thought entered my mind: why not a beer. Why not. I went across the street to the convenience store, laid my hands on the cans to see which one was the coldest, sat on the stoop and opened it up. Psssstt. Foam. I drank. Grandpa had been dead eight years, but I thought of him then. Ah. Now I get it.

This led to an interesting journey through the world of beer, and eventually I became something of a beer snob – I’d praise the simple craft-brewed lagers for their naïve presumptions, press thick bitter beers on my friends to educate their palate. Then one day my pants didn’t fit. I went Atkins, cut out the beer, and lost a good deal of weight. Felt great. Had a beer a year later: it was like inhaling a bread smoothie.

I love beer, but I don’t drink it anymore. Still, I remember the days in which I loved it so much I considered brewing my own. Why? Why go to all the bother, when there’s so much incredible beer to be has for a small sum? Well, I could design my own label. That had a certain appeal. But I never did brew my own, because there was something sort of . . . nerdy about it all. For some reason I thought the guys who made their own beer would be like the nerdy bearded fellows who showed up to recreate medieval battles or play Dungeons and Dragons or swap old circuit boards. Unfair, I know. But the minute I saw the name of this disk, that’s the mental picture I had of its host.

Mind you, I haven’t even put it in the DVD player yet, but that’s never stopped me from having a deeply-held opinion.

Well, let’s give it a shot.

Okay. There are two hosts – the Brains of the operation, and Silent Bud, who seems a little self-conscious. He doesn’t say much at first; he just picks up things, then puts them down. It’s shot in someone’s suburban kitchen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not a few miles from my own house; I recognize the local brand name on the water they’re using. First we’re making a beer the host describes as having an East Coast flava. Represent! They have at least a dozen ingredients on the table, and they’re ready to make beer. It occurs to me that the one thing you’d want to do after a long day of making beer is have a beer, but you can’t. You have to wait. Or drink something you made before. I suppose it’s worse in the single malt scotch business; the gents get together, make the stuff, then look down at the vat, sigh, and say “well, see you in 12 years, mate.” Then they go have a beer.

I have to admit: I fast-forwarded through the entire thing, because the only thing less interesting than watching two strangers drink beer is watching two strangers drinking beer. I’ll give them huge credit for the old-timey documentary footage they use to set off the chapters; it’s a nice way of setting off the various steps involved in beer-construction. Towards the end they’re stirring the stuff in a plastic bucket you get at Home Depot, which doesn’t realty sum up the romance of the brewer’s art – but I suppose it’s like legislation and sausages. One ought not to see it made. At least we see the beer put into bottles.

Charming moment: one of the host’s kids wanders into the scene and wants attention.

Laconic beer-man moment: they sniff the final product and declare: “Smells like beer.”

It ends with a scratchy old recording of a song called “Hey Joe, Two Beer,” and shows our hosts drinking their product. Neither man falls over and convulses, or goes suddenly blind. It has some great extras, too – public domain industrial films about the glories of beer. The inclusion of these amusing artifacts tells you a good deal about the fellows who made the movie – they’re serious about beer, yes. Serious about good beer. Serious about making good beer.

On the other hand, it’s beer, dude. Did I learn anything? No. Then again, I didn’t want to make beer, so I wouldn’t have watched an instructional film about assembling your own automobile, either. I would just go buy one. If you’re interested in beer-making, you’ll probably find the host’s low-key everyman persona a comfort. I enjoyed the extras more than any other instructional DVD I’ve ever seen, so I’ll give it a big hurrah.

Grandpa might not have liked their beer, though. It looks like that really good stuff. Grandpa, as I said, drank Grain Belt.

Brewing a Better Beer can be found in the Hobbies:Brewing/Beer Making section.
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I only saw my dad spit up coffee once, and that’s when I asked about Spanish Fly. We were at the dinner table, talking about normal ordinary matters. Perhaps it was taco night, and Mom had served that weird Spanish Rice that seemed like ordinary rice drowned in thin ketchup, and that prompted the question. I knew it wasn’t an insect, but some sort of spray. You would put Spanish Fly on something and then something happened, but I wasn’t quite sure what. Girls seemed to be involved. I was ten.

He asked where I’d heard about that. I said it was on a Bill Cosby record. They were talking about Spanish Fly. What was it? He must have signed and wondered if he’d have to give the Newhart records a second listen, too.

Spanish Fly was the first thing I thought about when I slid “Cooking with Aphrodisiacs” into the DVD drawer. It would be handy if it came in spray form; you could use to grease the skillet. So to speak. But the disk would probably concern those old staples of lore – the oysters, which seem about as sexy as a tuberculosis loogie, and Ginger, which the ancients thought stirred the passions. Of course, it did no such thing. People probably bathed before dinner, for a change, but we don’t consider water an aphrodisiac.

Why anyone takes the word of the ancients on these matters is a mystery. Perhaps they believed that cauliflower increased potency and desire; they also thought the world rested on the back of a gigantic turtle. If I want scientific advice on which foods increase desire, I’ll go to civilizations that invented space travel, cheerleaders, and Jack Daniels. Because they’re less likely to insist that horseradish is sexy because the guys who smeared themselves with blue paint and yelled at the sun said so.

Other suspicion: this disk is aimed at women. For many women, talking about food has an aphrodisiac effect. The actual consumption has the opposite effect, because now they feel fat. This is not to say men are immune to the erotic implications of food; give them a hot dog and an onion ring, and it’s hours of laughter.

Chapter One: Aphrodisiacs 101. Right away, we hit a stumbling block the size of Gibraltar, for the first entry is “asparagus.”

Says our hostess: “It’s by far one of the more phallic vegetables you’ll find on your dinner plate. The long, slender stalks stand at attention, waiting to be plucked.” After this we see her put some on the cutting board and chop them with a gigantic knife. I’m getting a mixed message here. Let’s move along.

Avocados. Our hostess tells us that the Aztecs called the avocado tree “the testicle tree.” Okay, now guac’s off the menu. She notes that a mummy was found with avocado seeds, and some theorized that the ancients believed the avocado’s erotic powers might be useful in the afterlife. Perhaps so, but I’m too much of a modern Western rationalist, and I’m here to tell you that any society that puts seeds in the pocket of a dead guy so he can facilitate whoopee in heaven has nothing to tell me about getting a date in the mood. Of course the Aztecs called them testicles. It’s not like they had an overabundance of objects against which to match the shape. Some primitive societies probably called the moon the Sky Boobie. So?

Artichokes: they were created when Zeus caught his mistress sneaking back to earth to see her family. He was so furious he turned her into an artichoke. Oh, great: so it’s an aphrodisiac with battered-woman syndrome.

Oysters: the hostess explains that many think they’re erotic because they resemble, er, female parts. This is followed by a shot of eight oysters. The association forced by that statement and the subsequent image is sufficient to make any impressionable young boy swear off sex until he is blind. Don’t the shells cut you? Why is there ice?

Enough. We move on the drinks section, which is hosted by a fellow with hypnotic eyebrows; you cannot stop watching them. His entire face seems to be an eyebrow-support system. What’s he making? Oh ho! Spanish Coffee! Might it contain Iberian fly, as well? No. Kahlua, rum, sugar, coffee, and some pyrotechnics – you have to set the drink on fire, then toss cinnamon into the flames to produce sparkles. Note to guys: putting a Black Cat in a half-consumed can of Bud will not have the same effect.

Production values: excellent. It’s one of the best-shot instructional videos I’ve seen. It says it’s shot in HD, and I believe it. Presenters: the bartender guy’s charms were lost on me. The main presenter has a great voice, sultry without being suggestive, but she has the manner of one of those people on cable shows who talk about marital aids in a matter-of-fact fashion. Bottom line: women will love it. Men will wonder where they can get Cheetos with Spanish Fly.

Cooking With Aphrodisiacs can be found in the Culinary:Cooking section.
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John Cleese: Wine for the Confused. Are the SmartFlix crew insane? Do they expect me to critique the work of a comic genius, this fine, honorable man whose boots I am not worthy to kiss? Then again, it’s an apt fit; I like wine. Enough of it makes me confused. I have avoided learning too much, because I would like to remain satisfied with simple – i.e., inexpensive – wines. The idea of spending $57 on a bottle of wine seems ridiculous; for that amount of money you could have a fine scotch that’s been waiting for you for 18 years, and will last a good while beyond the night. Expensive wine may have pleasures unknown, what with their jammy finishes and top notes of teak, grass, and the soft exhalations of a dreaming lark, but if it means that my favorite Australian wines will suddenly make me convinced I can taste the feet of the people who stomped the grapes, no thanks.

Hold on; I’d better have a glass while I review this. Back in a minute.

There. I’ve chosen a Shiraz from “Yellow Tail.” It’s very drinkable, which is something I like in a wine. I hate when you have to get out a stick and tamp it down your throat. Let’s hit play.

“Wine for the Confused” begins with a typically Pythonesque conceit: we seem to be watching a bad French sex farce from 1982, complete with subtitles, horrible haircuts, Gallic dorks talking about women, and lots of wine glasses. You expect Mr. Cleese to enter the frame at any second, ask if we are confused, and proceed to teach us about wine. As it turns out, this is a promo for an upcoming DVD release of “The Decline of the American Empire.”

After a few more promos for more DVDs I would accept only if I were stranded on a desert island and needed something reflective to signal planes, we begin: over footage of some Roman types quaffing wine, we hear Cleese in his taunting-Frenchman voice celebrate the mysteries and complexities of wahn. It’s funny. A little. Somewhat. Sigh. Well, “Holy Grail” was a long time ago, and –

- Hold on, what’s this? We cut to a shot of Cleese at his computer; he presses the eject button on his keyboard, removes the DVD we were presumably watching, and tosses it out the window with casual contempt. “There,” he sighs. “That’s just the sort of nonsense that helps perpetuate this awful snobbery about wine.”

Ahh. That’s our boy.

It takes about 17 additional seconds to realize that Cleese has probably never made a bad industrial or instructional film in his life, is constitutionally incapable of doing so, and appears to be one of the more well-balanced, contented, and amused men of our times. This could be an instructional video called Teach Yourself Ball-Bearing Repair At Home, and you’d watch it.

His main point: wine should be a pleasure; wine-snobbery is for bullies and bores; your tastes are your tastes. “There is one thing I do know about wine,” he says. “Don’t let anyone tell you what wine you should like.” Bravo. After a brief montage of the wine-making process we move on to a celebrity tasting: Mr. Cleese has assembled a dozen good-looking friends at his California house to sample wines, and we presume that some cheap brands will be mixed among the hoiter and/or toitier brands. I did this once while writing a piece on Beer Snobbery; served my friends a wide variety of lagers, including one glass that consisted of small portions of every other beer. It was judged the most undrinkable, and hence the most expensive, and probably Belgian. The winner was Harley-Davidson beer. The loser was the expensive upscale beer with the best label. Everyone was abashed. No one switched away from the expensive upscale beers with the best label. That’s the thing about wine: you can’t always pick up the proper status clues from the label, and once it’s in the glass, well, it could be anything. Stand in a bar with your fist around the neck of a beer with the right label, though, and you send out more messages than Western Union on Christmas Eve.

But I digress; Mr. Cleese is having a garden party. Everyone comes up with simple adjectives to describe their choices, and thus armed with descriptive terms, we follow Mr. Cleese through the California wine country to explore the attributes of various grapes. Almost nothing Mr. Cleese says is funny; he’s not trying to be funny. He’s not trying to be amusing. The general effect, however, is cheerful and relaxed. You know how you see an old star on an infomercial and feel bad for him, because it’s rather sad that he’s selling gravestone polish and automatic prune de-seeders? There’s none of that here. If Cleese spent the first and most famous part of his career as a Python, he’s spent the latter half bringing a delightful intelligence to the promotional and instructive genre – dignity and persona intact. He’ll drop a little story about the Pythons here, mention a lunch with the Queen a while later, but it’s done off-handedly, and if there’s anyone in the video who doesn’t appear to be overly impressed with John Cleese, it’s John Cleese.

You learn things, too – and unlike any other video I’ve reviewed, this is information I can put to practical application.

(Hic)

Verdict: high production values; crisp editing with notes of vanilla; smart script devoid of pretension; makes standing around talking to guys who drink wine all day look interesting; contains generous portions of Mr. Cleese’s inexhaustible charm. Five out of five grapes. Did you know they could make dry Riesling wines? They can.

(PS: there’s only one Python reference in this entire review. Did you find it?)

John Cleese: Wine for the Confused can be found in the Culinary: Wine section.
To read all of James’ columns here at SmartFlix, subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed at http://smartflix.com/blog/wp-rss.php.