I think I mentioned this the other day in a post either here or on my own site, but I'm much more of a beer and wine person than a regular drinker of hard alcohol.

Which is not to say that I haven't accomplished my share of truly heroic feats of hard alcohol consumption. Because I have. But as far as my (damn near) everyday routine is concerned, that's not really my thing.

Maybe when I'm older.

In the past few years, it's been suggested that the precipitous decline in hip-hop album sales, which can't possibly just be due to file-sharing alone, has had to do with the increasing focus on materialism and misogyny, which a lot of people find off-putting. Probably because they're poor and ugly.

But is that really the case? I'm not sure. Defender of free speech that I am, of course my tendency is to want to say that it isn't. One thing I will say though, is that I'd feel a lot more connected to hip-hop if there was a permanent moratorium on southern rap more of an emphasis on beer-drinking.

For whatever reason, these days you hardly ever hear about a rapper tilting back a 40, a tall can, or my own personal ignorance delivery method of choice, the longneck bottle. (Which never was particularly popular in hip-hop, probably because it costs a little bit more per case. And who's got the money for an entire case in the first place?)

Today, whenever you hear about a rapper being associated with some sort of alcoholic beverage - which might actually be reaching heights unparalleled since the days of St. Ides malt liquor - it's usually either vodka, or some other hard alcohol-based beverage that's somehow even fruitier than vodka. Or motherfucking champagne.

Meanwhile, when's the last time you saw a rapper pictured with... like, a draft beer? Probably never.

Which is a shame, really, because I'm sure I'm not the only one here who appreciates the sheer joy of pouring Budweiser down your throat until you have to piss somewhere that's not actually a restroom.

Part of the problem is that beer-drinking gets a bad rap. These days, I think it's generally thought of as something primarily enjoyed by cracka-ass crackas in flyover states, but it used to be the case that black dudes in America's ghettos drank beer - especially malt liquor, which provides a bit more ignorance per liquid ounce - like it was going out of style.

Remember back when bums used to stand out on the corner with a paper bag, with some bum wine or some Colt 45 in it? I can't help but feel like I missed out on those days. I would drink outdoors every once in a while when I was in college, but I don't even know if you could pull some shit like that around here. There's all of these laws now against that sort of thing.

The thing is, I'm at a loss for what purpose those laws really serve. A lot of them were passed in the late '80s, at the height of the crack era, and I'm pretty sure it was crack that was the problem. It's not like all of those people who got shot got shot by winos. Sure the presence of a bum is somewhat of a blight in itself, but making them go inside strikes me as a attacking a symptom rather than the root cause.

If the TIs don't want these bums standing outside drinking, why don't they focus on finding something better for these bums to do than stand outside and drink? Otherwise, I'm not sure why they shouldn't be able to. After all, it is their neighborhood. If anything, the strategic deployment of winos might help cut down on the ridonkulous level of gentrification going on in some of these areas.

Speaking of which, student of history that I am, I suppose I should've known it would only be a matter of time before cracka-ass crackas tried to steal public drunkenness from old black men the same way they did rock and roll.

And wouldn't you know, just now I came across a story in AdvertisingAge about how Pabst Brewing Co., makers of the hipster favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon, are attempting to bring Colt 45 back and market it towards white people. In order to make the 40 oz. trendy again, they've introduced specially-designed brown paper bags with illustrations depicting scenes of public drunkenness.

Wow what's next, a TV spot with two crackety-cracks 40-tipping? (I'd describe what that is, but it would almost certainly violate this site's acceptable use policy.)

Probably not, but still. It's a damn shame that this kind of drunken foolishness was ripped out from under the black community in the first place. We ought to focus on bringing it back, before it becomes almost entirely the domain of cracka-ass crackas. Like good rap music.

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