The Best and Worst of the Akumal Comedy Festival.

Best: Sol Beer.


Sol!




I had never seen Sol beer before going to Mexico. I don’t know if it’s not available in the US or you just can’t find it in the midwest but I soon got to know Sol beer very intimately. I didn’t drink much beer the first few days as beer gives me troubled trousers these days so I mainly stuck to a drink I invented called “Pool Rum”. Here’s how you make a Pool Rum.



1. Grab a bottle of rum.
2. Drink it in a pool.



As the week went on I got a little more courageous with the beer and by the end of the week I was pounding Sol pretty hard with no gut troubles. I’m no scientist but I think that this means that Sol is a tasty magic Mexican beer and they don’t carry it around here because the government is afraid people will learn of it’s healing properties.


Worst: FUD Hot Dogs



FUD





On the third night I picked up some brats, hot dogs and buns for some late night drinkey snacks. We ended up moving to a different rental house the next day and while I remembered to bring the hod dogs and brats, I forgot the buns. That night we were getting into the Sol and pool rum and wanted something to eat but the only food was the brats and dogs. The brats were Johnsonville, a brand that’s everywhere in the states so we knew what we were getting. The dogs were FUD brand.



According to Wikipedia, FUD (pronounced “food”) is an acronym for the Spanish words Fino, Unico y Delicioso (Refined, Unique & Delicious). Looking at it through american eyes you just end up saying “Food” and really over pronouncing the “u” like it’s something you’d find at Ikea. Whatever. It’s pretty hard to fuck up a hot dog, right? We put them in a pan and threw water in to simmer. Festival Comedian and friend Nate Abshire manned the pan while the rest of us got back to drinking.



After a few minutes I looked over to the pan and the hot dogs had swelled to literally three times their size. Their smooth texture had been replaced by a wrinkly one. I asked Nate to describe what it looked like this morning on facebook chat and here’s what he gave me.



“They looked like an uncircumcised penis, riddled with leprosy, slowly becoming engorged with malignant desire.” He’s not wrong.



When they were taken out of the water and off the heat they shrank back down to roughly their original size but the wrinkles and cuts from their hulk out remained. Now they were just withered little things that we had no choice but to eat because we had the drunken munchies and you don’t want to waste food (there’s starving Children in America). They tasted like wet pencil erasers. No amount of hot sauce made them palatable.



The wikipedia article for FUD states that they just struck a deal with a US company to license and distribute the wrinkledick dogs up here. Consider yourself warned.

We Need to Talk.

This is really hard for me but it’s something I’ve needed to say for a while. I can’t be with you anymore. I love you. Of course I still love you. How can I not? I’ll always love you but you’re not good for me and this relationship is becoming toxic.


Please just let me get this all out. I know we’ve known each other for so long that It’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t together. I first met you when I was just a kid. I honestly didn’t like you at first. You seemed bitter and off-putting but all the older at the people were so enamored with your charms. When I became older I started to see why. I’d keep running into you at parties and by spring break on my senior year of high school, we were inseparable.


Those nights we spent together in the first few years were magical. I’ll never forget. People warned me about you and how you chewed up and spit out stronger men than me but what we had was different. We were meant to be together. It was stupid to think that it would be like that forever. People grow and change but you started getting demanding as I got older. You wanted to do all the things that we did early on but I just can’t keep up anymore. I can’t be out all night, throwing my money away at you on the bar just to feel awful the next morning when you aren’t there. I just can’t drink you anymore, beer.


I thought we were special. I really did. When I was in my early twenties I could drink a dozen of you and not have a hangover as long as I had 6 hours of sleep. I thought maybe it was because I was special, because I was different than anybody else but lately I can’t even drink four of you without spending the entire next day on the toilet. What did I do to deserve this? I’ve always treated you with such reverence.


Now I know that I may be developing a mild gluten intolerance and there are gluten free versions of you out there but they’re so expensive. Sure, I’ve spent plenty of money when there’s a decent Belgian selection of you at a bar or I want to treat myself to some craft beers but one of the things I loved about you is that you were really affordable when I needed you to be.



So this is it. We’re done. I just can’t be with you anymore.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to drink vodka and whisky but you and I are through. I’ll miss you.


A lady at the bar drew this picture of us together on St. Patrick's day. You always loved St. Patrick's day.