Weekend Parting Shot: Leave Dylan Alone!

Happy Friday, everyone. If you are observing Good Friday and Easter, I wish you a faith-filled and joyful Easter weekend. May you recognize and realize the significance of the Resurrected Lord. In my own faith, Easter is still a week away, so I’ll join you shortly.

Now that the snow has finally melted in my part of the world and I don’t have to scrape ice off of my wife’s car every morning, I finally had a chance to survey the backyard. We have two medium-sized dogs. The melt has revealed certain “realities” which I must pick up. So my Saturday is pretty much shot. I hope your weekend is better. With that said:

Leave Dylan Alone!

Yes, I know, Dylan Mulvaney has taken over Bud Light and Nike sports bras and everyone is up in arms. First of all, if you drink Bud Light, you need an intervention. The only time you drink Bud Light is if you are at a sports event and that is all they are serving, or if you want to be polite at a family barbecue. Other than that, don’t drink Bud Light. You know you can make your own beer, right? You can do better than Anheuser-Busch. And it’s good to have a hobby.

Dylan Mulvaney keeps popping up because people keep having come-aparts every time he appears on a new brand. You already know that the government and corporations hate you and scent the wind when it comes to marketing. And honestly, you should let them run themselves ragged trying to appease the mob. Just take your business somewhere else. After all, Mulvaney is an attention seeker and an actor. He’s figured out how to make a pile of cash and keep the spotlight on him. He is a performance artist. For example, who did it better, Dylan or Daffy?

Dylan:

Daffy:

I vote for Daffy.

It’s easy to forget that Dylan has a soul. That soul has intrinsic value. And he has mortgaged that soul and his body for likes, clicks, and corporate cash. Because of that, we should grieve for him. But at the same time, he is getting what he wanted by making himself into a cartoon character. Unfortunately for Dylan, no one stays young forever, and the time will come when the spotlight will shift to the next thing, and he will discover that he is not cute, interesting, or cutting-edge anymore. And he will realize that he was used. That is going to hit him hard. But the machine doesn’t care about him any more than it cares about you and me.

Be that as it may, every time someone sponsors him and gives him a little more of the spotlight, we only fuel the machine with our outrage. It’s very cathartic to announce our boycott or even shoot up cases of beer with a high-powered rifle. But our reactions only serve to bring attention to the brand. And the brands get exactly what they wanted. We’re playing their game and they’re winning. I’m not saying don’t protect your children or your family. You need to do that. Especially in light of what happened in Nashville and the assault on Riley Gaines. If you want to see what happens when people surrender their humanity and regress to behavior normally reserved for hyenas, click here. But when another corporation sells out to the latest trend, just walk away and let it die on the vine.

You Will Know Them By Their Roads

Do you want to know how to tell a left-wing city from a right-wing city? Look at the roads I have lived in left and right-leaning municipalities and the one constant has been the roads. The worse the roads, the more leftist the city. Maybe that is because leftist enclaves waste money on woke initiatives and ignore things like business development, crime, and actual infrastructure. One Hopewell, Virginia, man had enough of potholes in which you could hear your own echo and made a stand. WRBC reports that Josh Anderson was tired of navigating around a foot-deep pothole in his neighborhood. After a year of begging the city to do something, he decided to plant a tree in it. As you would expect, the city came and removed the tree, but did not fix the pothole. So Josh planted another one, hung some Christmas lights on it, and posted it on TikTok. It took exactly one day for the city to make repairs. Residents are hoping more potholes become homes for trees throughout Hopewell.

Sometimes you have to ignore the machine. Sometimes you have to lampoon it into action.

Wine Recommendation: Because you need to drink something other than Bud Light.

This week, may I suggest a very moderately-priced red blend? Namely, Dreaming Tree Crush.

This is a really nice blend – you can catch the red fruit in it, mostly raspberry, and it also has a subtle, smoky edge to it. I don’t know if they fire the oak barrels at the vineyard or not, but the smoke is definitely there and the oak in the barrels rounds out the flavor. At the same time, the smoke isn’t overpowering and mixes nicely with the fruit essences. It’s a cinch that red wine goes with meat, but Dreaming Tree Crush is made for meat, in particular, a really spicy dish with a little fire to it. Try pairing it up with something off the grill that has some strong seasoning, a spicy rub, chili powder, and some hot sauce. Conversely, you can use it to accent a dark-chocolate dessert instead of a super-fortified sherry. Maybe a mousse or just a bag of dark, semi-sweet chocolate chips.

That’s it for me. Have a relaxing and blessed weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday.