Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

Lately I’ve been liking lighter beer more and more, mostly because it goes better with valium. Joke!

But the part about lighter beer was no joke. In fact, it’s rather serious. You see, I love a good craft-brewed, thick as War and Peace, kick-in-the-ass ale. But it’s sort of like cake when you’re 10 versus cake now. When you’re 10, you want to eat the whole cake, and you might do just that if given the opportunity. As an adult, you usually find some restraint, particularly if other people are watching, and have only one piece of cake…

That analogy can kiss my ass.

It’s a bad analogy, I realized, because as an adult I have the utmost restraint when it comes to cake, but I have very little restraint when it comes to beer. And if I’ve had between 6 and 16 beers, I no longer have restraint when it comes to cake. So it’s much more complicated than a “cake when you’re 10” story would suggest. And I’ll be damned if I haven’t been able to simplify most things in life with a “cake when you’re 10” story.

So I guess what this discussion is really about is analogies. What are they? I hate to point out the elephant in the room, but “anal” makes up more than half of the word “analogy.” But why is that? To me, an analogy is like when a writer takes creative license and bends the truth, only in an analogy it’s obvious the actual analogizing is just an example, hopefully one that represents reality in a simpler way than reality itself does. So an analogy is to reality as algebra is to everyday life. Because you use algebra in everyday life, if lying math teachers are to be believed.

But sometimes reality is a bummer. And that’s when beer comes in handy, regardless of whether it’s light or dark or cake-flavored. I think we can all agree on these points I’ve just presented.