Back on Top, Back in Business

by thebeerdoctor

First thing, I am no longer banned on The Huffington Post. Why I was, and the speculation, lead to a piece for which I received excellent support from readers of Streetalker.com and Truthdig.com. My speculations over content, may in fact have nothing to do with it. It could have been some technical glitch in their system. Since I never received any feedback from Huffpo, I guess I will never really know. To all who sent me encouragement I say Thank You.

But this blog is not about that. Now that the occupation of Iraq grinds on into its sixth year, I would like to tell a true, personal story, that happened to me on May 2,2003; One day after George W. Bush strutted out his flight suit on the aircraft carrier, under the banner MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

It is difficult for some to remember what a jackbooted mentality prevailed at that time. The subservient media were all too complicit in going along with whatever nonsense the government threw out as reasons for this insane aggression. It was generally accepted that overwhelming violence (shock and awe) was not only a tactic but a solution.

At the time, then as now, my business is beer. A new Hofbrauhaus had just opened in Newport, Kentucky. At that time, the Hofbrauhaus in Hong Kong had recently closed, so there were only two in the world: Munich, Germany, and Newport, Kentucky. I was going to make my way over there that evening. I knew, being May 2, they would have their marvelous Maibock on tap. For The Beer Doctor, this was a very good thing.
I should also note that I am an “ale and safety” kind of person. I do not believe in drinking and driving. So I took a metro bus downtown and literally walked across from Cincinnati, using the old L&N bridge that had recently been repainted, as a bicycle and pedestrian thoroughfare, known as The Purple People Bridge. This was mostly an initiative on the part of the commonwealth of Kentucky. The Cincinnati entrance side had not been refurbished yet; in fact it was a kind of public works blight, where the remnants of a bicentennial display of printed metal sheets where either torn off, or degraded by graffiti spray paint. There was busted glass, thrown away cans and the smell of ancient urine. It would be months before the city got around to making the Ohio entrance presentable.

I made my way across on foot, wearing a white cotton barn coat without its lining. I also wore a 100% wool brim outdoors hat from California.

When I arrived at the Hofbrauhaus in the early evening, there was already a line formed of people waiting to get in. I went up to the entrance and said: “I am the Beer Doctor, and I am here to review your beers.” I was immediately ushered in.
What followed was a wonderful couple of hours. I ordered a stein liter of their Maibock which lasted me during the entire visit. I ordered some food which was delicious. The patrons were friendly but there was slight uneasiness. I then realized the cause: I was the only one in the hall wearing a hat that was not a baseball cap.

After a wonderful time, I left, and then I remembered Mother’s Day was only nine days away. I knew that the gigantic Party Source, located about 6 blocks east, sold some of the best greeting cards in the entire area. So sauntered my way over there. A long time patron because of their extensive beer collection, I decided to go to the beer department to see what new brews had come in. This is where the trouble began.

A fairly tall, state trooper looking chap suddenly appeared. I said: “How’s it going?” He said: “I want you to leave.”

Robert Ringer once said that when people with guns talk, he listens. I said: “OK” and immediately proceeded to leave. A shuttle from Newport to Cincinnati stops across the main street from The Party Source. I saw one coming, so I hurried across the four lane road to reach the stop. Then I heard: “He’s fleeing!”

It was the local police. Four prowlers appeared at the intersection, with eight cops in tow. They proceeded to drag me back across the road, where they started flailing me with their batons, studiously avoiding my face, but everywhere else on my body was fair game.

Fully aware of Rodney King and other law enforcement horror stories, I thought what a strange way to die. But then my instinct for survival kicked in, I thought I better play possum. Which I did. I closed my eyes and just laid there as they continued to beat me. Finally, a Sargent I later learned, leaned down and started smacking me in the face, saying: “Hey buddy wake up!” I did not respond. One of the younger members of this police posse, a plumb face patrolman fresh out of high school, nervously laughed out loud: “maybe he’s dead!”

Finally realizing I was not resisting arrest, or for that matter, anything else (talk about satyagraha!), they proceeded to pull me up, throw me into the back of a prowler, where I was taken to the Newport jail.

At the Newport jail there was a person in charge ( I am not making this up) named Officer Slocum. I asked Mr. Slocum if I could make a telephone call. He responded by knocking me down on the concrete floor of the holding cell, where I landed on my left forearm, which began to swell. There were six other “prisoners” in that cell. What crime did all of us share? None of us were driving a car. I had heard of places where they consider pedestrians to be criminals, if not terrorists, but this was the first time I saw it in action.

I will spare you dear reader much of the gory details. Suffice to say it took another day and a half to get out of jail, and another week to get the matter settled, several hundred dollars lighter. It seems they had attached the ridiculous charge of “fleeing” to being publicly intoxicated. This was no small matter, since the local legislature had enacted a law that made fleeing a mandatory one year sentence. All of this was because of another drug war horror story, where a man escaping with grass in his pocket, jumped from the road onto a walkway bridge, where an officer in hot pursuit, attempted the same jump but missed. falling and dying into the frigid Ohio river.

Since the only lawyer who can represent you is one you purchase in the commonwealth of Kentucky, I decided to represent myself. I explained what happened to the judge, and the prosecutor immediately dismissed the fleeing charge. I was fined, which, when you get right down to it, was what this was all about: money extraction. It was most certainly traumatic to say the least. I was terrified to go out of my house for nearly half a year. What was the most difficult part was sensing this new gestapo type America was here to stay. Bush was claiming he knew best. The Microsoft corporation were making claims that they owned the content on the internet. The government had decided that anyone that might be Muslim, could be a person of interest. People were (and still are) being detained, tortured, and never charged.
But much good has also happened in the ensuing five years. People, and I mean the vast majority, no longer consider the Bush-Cheney administration to be valid. There have been too many lies exposed: weapons of mass destruction, Pat Tillman’s friendly fire death, etc. There is only so much BS that anyone can stand.

When I think back to that awful year, I was a terrified beaten individual. But no longer. I write this as testament to say, despite everything, things can get better. The internet has all kinds of open source applications created by ingenious folks who believe communication is for everyone, not just the privileged few. People are beginning to find their voices, so very soon, those who advocated compassion and reason and who were unjustly ignored, will be back on top, back in business.
Thank You is my only prayer. Carpe Diem Vita Brevis.