". . . We should be careful of each other, we should be kind, while there is still time." Phillip Larkin
It’s the traditional photo of us in front of the hops vine at Karben4’s annual Dilly Dally:
We weren’t all that impressed by the beers at the Dilly Dally this year. They were all pretty good, but last year most of the brewers prepared something special for the event, if I recall correctly, and this year they didn’t bring anything that wasn’t normally on tap in their tasting rooms.
When I take photos with my smart phone, it automatically saves them to my Google account, and when I take a series of photos that all look the same, Google makes a flip-card cartoon out of them. The only time I remember this feature is afterward, when I’m looking through my photos and I find one that’s moving.
This photo was taken at the Dilly Dally two weekends ago in front of the wall of hops growing up the outside of the Karben4 brewery.
I did not know that I liked Madonna songs until I went to the Dilly Dally last weekend.
The Dilly Dally is a small gathering of microbreweries from the Madison area: Ale Asylum, Bos Meadery, Capital, Next Door, Old Sugar Distillery, One Barrel, Vintage, Yahara and, last but certainly not least, Karben4, the brewery that sponsored the event. Or at least I assume they sponsored the event, because it took place on their lawn. They had a great big tent set up out by the patio, The Tipsy Cow was there to cater the event and there was even a bluegrass band to provide the entertainment.
The first couple of tunes the band played sounded vaguely familiar, but then all bluegrass tunes sound familiar to me because they all sound more or less the same. I’m not saying I think it’s boring music, I’m saying I don’t know enough of it to recognize a tune when it’s played for me, so they all sort of blur together. Besides, there was all that beer to drink, so I wasn’t really paying attention.
After sampling a couple of beers, My Darling B and I ducked inside for a bite to eat, then came back out onto the patio to sit for a bit. The band was twanging away on another tune that sent a bell ringing somewhere in the back of my memory and, as I paid a little more attention to see if I could get the words, it hit me: it was the Madonna tune True Blue! They were covering Madonna tunes! If memory serves, and I don’t think it does very well at this point, the next song was Borderline, and then they did a cover of the Duran Duran song Hungry Like The Wolf. They did it awesomely!
My Darling B and I parked ourselves right in front of the band and stayed there the rest of the afternoon, taking turns getting beer so one of us could hold our spot. The banjo player came over during the break to talk with somebody right behind us and we had to tell them how much we were enjoying them. He stuck around to talk about the other songs they were working on, and then they went into their last set, when they sang Like a Virgin, which has got to be their signature song. Although they finished off with a scorching version of Rocky Top, which turned into a sing-along. Of course.
This Is Drivel 