Work, Fame, and Other Things

There's an essay worth reading in the 5-13-2007 issue of the New York Times Magazine: "Sex, Drugs, and Updating Your Blog," by Clive Thompson.

Here's the link. If you don't want to register at the Times in order to read it, here's the gist: Some young musicians today are using the internet to build their fanbase by blogging, posting music for free, and building a presence at MySpace and other internet sites.

That's obviously not news. What sets this essay apart is Thompson's focus on the flip side of that self-promotional coin: when the strategy succeeds, it becomes a double-edge sword, and the fame a burden: Too many people demanding too much of one's time. Hundreds of emails that the musician feels obliged to respond to, a task that devours his or her day. Too much closeness ("intimacy") with fans, who assume and expect you will respond to their every suggestion, every demand, every email.

It's an unusually thoughtful piece and it affirms my belief that this blogging/MySpace thing ain't all it's cracked up to be. And that they're deadly traps that can ensnare the unwary.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE hearing from people who've read my work. I.m nearly ecstatic when I hear from a reader who has taken the time to read one of my books. I enjoy using this space to spout off about whatever bug I currently have up my ass.

But there's a limit to how much time I can spend online. Why? Because I have work to do. I have a book to write. And it's not clear to me how anyone can spend hours answering email, finding "friends" at MySpace (yes, even this old fogie knows what MySpace is); trying to get noticed at YouTube, etc. -- and still get any work done. Or, more accurately, I COULD spend part of the day working and the rest building a "fan base" -- but if I do, then what happens to my "life"? I have a husband, two fabulous stepdaughters, an amazing son-in-law. A mother. Friends (the 3-D kind, not the online kind) (although I have some of those, too).

So let's say I spend part of the day working on my new book and the rest online trying to become both rich and famous. (Because let's be honest: musicians, writers, and others cultivate their online presence so that they can sell whatever it is they have to offer so they can make dough and become famous-in-their-field and sell even more of whatever it is they have to offer and make even more dough.)

But where would I find time for the rest of my life? For walking. Talking with my husband. Hanging with friends. Enjoying my family. Watching old movies and "The Sopranos" (which is crucial to my quality of life). Making love. Eating. Cooking. Sitting in a quiet place.

Answer: I wouldn't. My life would consist of a keyboard and monitor. A younger person, one more attuned to the virtual world, would say "So what's the problem? Being online IS life." And that's a legitimate response. But it's not the response I choose.

It comes down to this: I can write books and have the kind of life I want. Or I can write books and try to become famous by cultivating an online life, spending hours each day in frantic self-promotion (again, let's be honest)

Again, don't get me wrong. Self-promotion is utterly crucial to success in publishing. Utterly and totally crucial. I've promoted the hell out of the beer book. But eventually I stopped because I had to get on with my work: I need to -- want to -- write another book. And the only way that will happen is if I disengage from a large part of the world around me, deposit my ass in a chair, usually at a library or archive, and get busy.

I spent five years working on the beer book. My new project, a history of meat in America, will take about as long. And that's me working more or less fulltime on it, with "time off" to spend with family, friends, and myself. (Which is why my blogging borders on the non-existent). (Indeed, I'm posting this piece today only because I'm about to go on vacation and am taking the day off to prepare.)

So yes, "fame" and "success" represent a trade-off. If you do what you love, and become "successful," you run the risk that you won't have time to do what you love because you'll be too busy being successful. This has happened to several writers I know: they self-promote because they want to make money, achieve some kind of "success," only to discover that, well, they're making money but no art. Or thanks to the random churns of the universe, their book hits a bestseller list (and most bestsellers are flukes) and are inundated with demands on their time and frustrated because those demands cut into their workday.

So, sure, I could go the self-promotion- internet route, blogging constantly, working the virtual halls of MySpace, chat rooms, writers' forums, Gather.com, whatever. I'd probably be better-known than I am now and would certainly sell more books. (Although even that's a crapshoot: the average Jane on the street doesn't realize that writers earn money from sales of new books.) Instead, I choose to do what I love. Fame will have to wait.

Beer = Passion

From Crookedtimber.org, here's a great example of people's passion for and about beer. Thanks to Antimeta for the link. One minor correction to Daniel Davies' blog piece: In 1876, Budweiser was owned by Carl Conrad. It was brewed on contract by his friend Adolphus Busch, the mastermind at Anheuser-Busch. A-B only acquired the brand/trademark and outright ownership in 1891.

On a related note (beer = passion), last week I spoke at a regional meeting of the Master Brewers Assocation of America in New Ulm, Minnesota (home of Schell Brewing, the nation's second oldest brewing company). As always, I met with and spoke to an amazing group of people: talented, smart, funny-bordering-on-hilarious. We toured the brewery and heard about Schell's attempts to create a plastic container for beer. The folks there have my admiration -- and sympathy: as the history of canned beer demonstrates, it ain't easy to "contain" beer. Researchers spent a quarter of a century trying to figure out how to can it. I have no idea how long it will take to capture beer in plastic. Eventually we gathered back at the tour center for the group's business meeting and my talk about beer's history.

Then it was time for the main event: eating, talking, laughing, telling stories. Enjoying the moment, the grand spring evening, and the beer. Toward the end of the evening, I was sitting with a small group that included Ted Marti, the brewery's president. Mark Sutred, founder-president of Summit in Saint Paul, came to the table to say his good-byes. He shook hands all 'round, then leaned down, embraced Ted's shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. A rare display for an American man, but a typical expression of friendship and affection for the people who work in the brewing industry. Made my night!

Oh, groan -- Part III

Okay, there are trans fats and there are trans fats. Some are made in factories by mixing various oils with chemicals and food coloring. They’re not exactly found in nature and they’re sure as hell not something you want to stick in your mouth. Then there’s the kind of trans fat found in meat, butter, and other “real" foods.

There’s evidence (albeit limited) that the human body needs those kinds of trans fats. According to a recent piece in the New York Times, trans fats that occur in nature help the body “can be used by the body to synthesize conjugated linoleic acid, a good fatty acid that could help prevent diseases like cancer." (From Kim Severson, “Trans Fat Fight Claims Butter As a Victim," NYT, March 7, 2007).

The amount of trans fat in a tablespoon of butter is minuscule. But it’s there and it’s probably useful.

Too bad, says the FDA, which has pronounced all trans fats equal and equally bad.

The result? Big companies like Starbucks are requiring their food vendors to eliminate ALL trans fats, even the ones from butter. No more real croissants, at least not at Starbucks. Just another example of the cult of victimization run wild. Another example of various bureaucrats believing that Americans don’t have enough sense to think for themselves.

Another example of common sense tossed right out the window.

Common sense? What, you ask, does that have to do with trans fats? In my opinion, everything. If Americans would eat REAL food, we’d all be healthier and happier. People who try to “diet" by eating fat-free cookies and cheese are missing the point -- to say nothing of missing out on honest nutrients that the human body needs and wants.

You want to eat “healthy"? Fine. Eat a balanced diet of proteins and fats. Vitamins and minerals. That means eat REAL food, not the fake shit being passed off by manufacturers and the government as “good" food. But here’s the scary part. Know what else contains trans fat? Meat.

So what’s the next stop on this slippery slope of irrationality? A ban on meat? No more burgers? No more chicken nuggets? Or worse yet, the introduction of “fake" meat that contains no trans fat -- and no nutritional value? Who knows. But stayed tuned for the next episode in The Decline of Civilization As We Know It. Meanwhile, I probably can’t persuade people to stop drinking Starbucks coffee, but I hope they’ll think twice before they shell out big bucks for the “food" being sold there.

Better yet, track down a copy of Michael Pollan’s piece titled “Unhappy Meals," in the January 28, 2007, New York Times Magazine. It’s a well-reasoned plea to eat real food. Here’s to ya.

Oh, groan -- Part II

Sigh. Jay Brooks is a great guy and his blog is eminently readable. But, Jay, why oh why didja have to use the image of the big-boobed woman in the can’t-breathe-tight dress? And then add a caption noting, wink wink nudge nudge, that all of us readers would be happy that you did? (For those of you just tuning in, see his entry for March 9 titled “Here’s to Beer Alive and ... Well, Here Comes Phase 2.")

Please. Gimme a break. It’s 2007, not 1957. I’ll say one thing about the guys behind “Beer Advocate" magazine: So far the magazine’s covers have been paragons of good taste and restraint. Not a single big-busted blonde to be seen. At least they’re giving potential readers credit for possibly being something other than male -- and for believing that their male readers might think with something other than their dicks. Which is why I’m actually paying money to read “Beer Advocate." Now if the rest of you “guys" would get with the program.........

The Enlightened Bracketologist

Okay, so this new book has come out, The Enlightened Bracketolgist. You can read about it at Amazon. If you know what bracketing is, you've already figured out. If not, take a detour to Amazon (or any other online bookseller). There's a review of it in SI.com (I had to go to the site to figure out what SI means......) Here's a link

Just two points: 1. No, I'm not a beer "expert." 2. I have no idea who David Wells is. I googled and I think he's a baseball player. In any case, the book is a hoot, and I, too, love the Bald Guys category.

History, Significance, and Moral Integrity

Like any book, Ambitious Brew has generated a bit of minor controversy. Not everyone is happy with my treatment of microbrewing. Others think I went too easy on "Big Brewing" -- and some of those assume I must be a paid mouthpiece for one or more of the giant brewers. (I'm not.) I've been called a neo-conservative and a femi-Nazi. That's okay. People are free to like or dislike the book, or to disagree with my conclusions. They're free to complain about my writing skills or lack thereof.

But now one of my critics has described me, in print and in public, as "intellectually dishonest." Has attacked my moral integrity and, in effect, called me a liar. Why? Because I opened the beer book in 1844 instead of in 1644.

Let me explain why I made that decision. As a historian, it's my job to read newspapers, letters, diaries, and other documents in order to find out "what happened," a task that requires several years spent sitting in libraries and archives. Once I've figure out "what happened," I turn my attention to every historian's primary job: I weigh the facts and evidence and determine what is "historically significant" and what is not. The concept of "historically significant" is the bedrock of the historian's work. It means that a person or event or series of events affected, changed, or shaped the larger course of history.

During the colonial period in North America, beer possessed no historical significance. Sure, plenty of people drank beer, but its importance and popularity paled in comparison to cider and rum. Most people made some beer at home, but commercial breweries were scattered, small-scale, and, in terms of the economy, statistically immaterial.

Rum production, in contrast, was widespread, lucrative, and shaped not just the colonies' economies, but the texture of people's daily lives. Rum changed the course of colonial history, economically, socially, and politically.

But again, there's not much to say about colonial beer or brewing -- at least nothing of historical significance. Did Ben Franklin concoct recipes for beer? Sure. Did Benjamin Rush try to persuade his fellow colonists to drink beer? Sure, but only because he thought it would be better for them than the rum and whiskey they preferred.

Indeed, the fact that some colonial leaders felt compelled to lobby for more beer drinking and better brewing is itself evidence that beer wasn't important. If colonists had been drinking beer in large quantities; if brewing were central to the colonial economy or in people's diets, those colonial leaders would not have wasted their energy trying to persuade people to switch to beer or to improve brewing practices. During the colonial era, beer was historically insignificant.

That changed when the Germans began arriving in the mid-nineteenth century. They built breweries and beer gardens, raised awareness of the pleasures of moderate drinking, invented a new kind of American lager, and persuaded Americans to give up whiskey in favor of beer. By the 1890s, brewing ranked in the top five of the nation's industries. Put another way, beer became historically significant to the American diet, to the economy, and to our national history only after the Germans arrived.

Were there breweries before the Germans arrived? Yes. As my critic notes, Dale P. Van Wieren and Donald Bull compiled a list of them in a book titled American Breweries II. But Van Wieren and Bull's list is just that: a list. It does not endow those breweries with any kind of historical significance. I could compile a list of, say, lesbian schoolteachers in the 1830s and 1840s. But that's not enough to endow those women with historical significance. I can list the names of men who designed, built, and manufactured steam engines in Philadelphia in the 1720s. But that's not enough to endow their efforts with historical significance. Their inventions did not survive; their work did not shape the history of steam power in either the colonies or, later, the United States.

To repeat: I opened the book in 1844 instead of 1644 because, in my informed opinion, that was when the story of beer's historical significance began. In the colonial period, beer was available but its historical significance was nil. It had no effect on the main currents of colonial history, either as a beverage, an industry, or as a wheel of the larger economy.

How and why do I say that with such certainty? Because I's a careful historian. I spent five years reading thousands of documents. (By the way, I conduct all my own research; I do not rely on hired assistants.) And then, based on what I'd read and learned, based on the evidence I had gathered, I drew conclusions about what mattered and what did not. About where beer's "real" story began and about where it ended. About what was historically significant and what was not.

Readers may not agree with my conclusions, but they have no grounds for claiming that I arrived at them by cheating or lying.

But now one of those readers has denounced me in print and in public as "intellectually dishonest." Should I overlook it? Maybe. After all, most people aren't professional historians and so they don't understand how historians "do" history. They don't understand how many years of research, and how much reading and sifting and assessing, goes into making a book of history. (That's not a criticism, by the way. I have no idea how to do an engineer's job, or a mechanic's or an accountant's.)

But this particular assault is impossible to ignore because my attacker is a journalist. He earns a living putting words together. He understands the power of words; understands, too, the additional impact words gain when they are published. So when he calls me "intellectually dishonest," I know that his assault is intentional. That he is deliberately attacking my professional and personal integrity.

I've met this guy and carried on perhaps fifteen minutes of conversation with him (most of it in the form of an interview). That's the extent of my contact with him. I know virtually nothing about him. Whether he's married or has kids. Where he lives. What religion, if any, he practices. I don't read his work on a regular basis so I can't even speak to its quality. But he's a human being, so I have to wonder how he would feel if, hypothetically, someone were to attack him as morally bankrupt. If someone were to accuse him of ignoring journalistic ethics. If someone were to accuse him of twisting the facts to promote an agenda.

If, in short, someone were to accuse him -- in public -- of being intellectually dishonest and thus lacking in moral integrity. I doubt that he'd be happy about it.

Rest assured: I'm not accusing him of those things because, again, I know nothing about him or his work. I know nothing about his moral values, nor am I qualified to render judgment on his work as a journalist. Indeed, I can't do anything about my critic's attack except let my work and my personal and professional integrity speak for themselves. Because I believe, as Anne Frank said, that "people are truly good at heart" and that they will recognize integrity when they see it.