ACCOZZAGLIA

I went all the way from the Beer Store near Summerhill station to get what apparently is — according to a third-hand anecdote from the Grolsch rep, as spoken to the Crumpler folk — the last of the swingtops in the city. Specifically, they come in two-four boxes, but this location only had six sets of four-packs. I crammed three fours in the Timbuk 2, and then had six bottles (x2) inside double-bagged, heavy duty Beer Store bags, running the handle loops through both clip-straps on the Timbuk 2.

I nearly killed my back. The Beer Store guy couldn’t believe I was carrying a two-four of 473ml bottles. The weight was so much that I mostly let gravity coast me down Yonge, and later, down Bathurst.

I walked into the Crumpler store thinking “I want my Beer for Bags” in the spirit of Better Off Dead‘s “TWO DOLLARS!”, but I came in, and the same Australian woman who had helped me two weeks ago couldn’t believe I’d just done this on my bike.

Then the co-owner/-founder, Dave, walked out and said that he was truly impressed. I asked the both of them if any other impressive, incoming beer stories had happened, and they said, “Uh, no, this takes the cake.” Then I did this little jig and said, “Yes! A winnar iz I!” So I couldn’t get CS12A, but I did get CS05A (only three colours are on the sale).

Beer in that place is, like, everyfuckingwhere. Their storefront window is jammed to the ceiling with beer, and as per Dave, no one from the provincial government has busted them yet.

photo: Big Bad Benny

So then Dave asked if I wanted a beer. Between Grolsch and Sapporo, I went with the latter. We talked for a bit. He discussed how, before Crumpler, he once started his own messenger service — twice — and the trials and tribulations of that. Then a sort-of sidekick named Benny — who, like Dave, is visiting Toronto from Melbourne — came inside wearing a tacky beige tuxedo, 1979-style, and holding a Nikon D2X DSLR, impressed-as-fuck with my old, green Sekine parked out front. So he took a series of shots and noted he’ll be uploading them on his Flickr account in the coming day or so. Then we got on to talk about Boz Scaggs, and I helped Ben (the photog tux guy’s name) find an obscure Scaggs song, which was actually a cover of a Little Feat song. By then, we were talking about everything under the sun.

So the beer party, and how one gets admission: they take a polaroid with you (and your beer), and you bring that plus I.D. and, well, urine. So I’ll be going there after I play a little kickball in my cut-off shorts (which I made from a dead pair of capris) on Sunday evening to drink some of my Grolsch.

I also bought another Thirsty Al — this in green — for the Fujifilm camera.

As I said to Dave, Ben, and Rachel (who works here and is also from Melbourne but permanently resides in a “town full of hicks” called Perth), the Sapporo somehow made my back feel a lot better. :)

And when I got home, I learned from my tutee that the public speech she gave in ESL was the winner. She advanced to the whole school’s level and, if I understand her email correctly, won at that level, too! This owns.

This should almost be a LJ post. Wait. I guess it now is.