What Meatloaf and Beer Have Taught me about Audiophiles


Recently in life and online I've had some curious observations about human behavior I thought I'd share.   To begin with, I have recently discovered that a surprising number of My Fellow Americans do not like meatloaf.   As a meatloaf maker and meatloaf cognoscenti I was absolutely astonished at this.  Some people who otherwise like burgers and the like hate meatloaf.  

If you make meatloaf and love it your immediate reaction to this is "but you haven't tried _my_ meatloaf."  That's our natural knee jerk reaction because we just can't imagine.  Related to this I have a bartender.  We'll call him Calhoun because his name is Calhoun.  An otherwise respectable fellow who knows beer and tequila better than most.   I would go in to see what the latest rotation of Indian Pale Ales were.  About once a month they'd get some new "dessert beer."  That is a brew made to taste like a sweet food substance.  The least offensive of which were peanut butter and the worst strawberry shortcake beer.  Calhoun would proceed to push me to sample these unholy abominations every time he could. 

Of course I'd tell him "I don't like flavored beers." Which was partially a lie as a coffee or espresso flavored beer would probably be divine.. but we digress.

Sometimes he was so adamant that the latest beer flavor was the one that would change my mind I'd go ahead and try them.  Of course, they were invariably disgusting. 

My point to all this is that being on both sides of this argument.  It's really hard to accept that our fellow audiophiles don't like something we feel is sublime and we will push our fancies onto them in the hopes of enriching their lives for the better.   It's hard for us to respect that someone else can love music and the stereos that play it and yet not have found their happy place the same way we have.

By the way, I use the Betty Crocker meatloaf recipe and add a tablespoon of chipotle powder.  Amazing. 

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by fdroadrunner

Love meatloaf; hate flavored beer - all I want is beer in my beer.  I don't even like light beer - I want full-flavored: I helped empty countless coolers of Busch Light in college, but now I want quality, not quantity.

The parallel to music is an interesting one.  We want to share what we like because we genuinely want to spread the joy, as a religious disciple would want to spread the word.  But I also know that my own passionate advocacy has rarely landed: "You really like that?"  Yes, I do, and I am confident enough in my taste that I am perfectly comfortable being the only person I know who genuinely loves all the obscure 80's underground bands that I enjoy exploring and devouring.  So what if nobody I know ever shares my love for Guadalcanal Diary or Naked Prey or Green on Red; my ears are the only ones I really need to please.