The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Soundtrack

November 4, 2026

— Lou Waxman

As a young pup in the 80s Clint Eastwood made Lou’s day. Eastwood was probably Lou’s favorite actor. The Dirty Harry franchise first and foremost, but Lou watched any and all Eastwood movies. Escape from Alcatraz, Tightrope, The Gauntlet. Lou even liked it when Eastwood monkeyed around with an orangutan. Lou watched all the Westerns of course. Many say that Unforgiven is the greatest Western ever made. Lou would beg to differ. The Wild Bunch shoots its way to the top. As Public Enemy said so eloquently “Motherfuck John Wayne”.

Lou likes Unforgiven just fine. It is no doubt one of Eastwood’s best films. Not movie mind you. Unforgiven is a film. It is art. To Lou’s mind in terms of Eastwood Westerns, it is Eastwood’s The Tempest, the Man with No Name breaking up his guns, like Prospero breaks his wand, and riding off into the sunset. But Lou wanted to ride with Josey Wales. The Outlaw Josey Wales was Lou’s favorite Eastwood Western. Sure, Unforgiven was the better film, but Wales was a more enjoyable movie. Just like Aliens is more enjoyable than Alien. Alien is a film, but Aliens was one of the most exciting movie experiences of Lou’s entire life.

As Lou turns into an old coot, he finds that The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the one that he returns to. Like Unforgiven, this is also a film. This is art. It is visually spectacular, but what gets Lou now is the soundtrack. When Lou walks into The Vogue, the theme to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is what plays in his head. That said, the best track on the album is “The Ecstasy of Gold”, which plays during the Mexican standoff in the graveyard at the end of the film (not movie). This is the stuff. Unfortunately, Lou cannot hear it any more without thinking of Modelo beer commercials.

With Lou it all comes back to beer. And porn. Correct Lou if he’s wrong but Modelo was at one point the best-selling beer in America. What is going on? Lou is all about the beers that made America great the first time around. Second acts are farce if you’ve read your Marx. Mexican beer and IPAs have taken over the market. What’s with all these illegal ale-iens on tap in my local public house? Speaking of Marx, he should be required reading for the entire one percent. In order to be a ruthless capitalist, you need to read Das Capital.

On a related note, something similar is what is wrong with gender and identity-based literature. What do Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou, to name a few, all have in common? They all immersed themselves in the Western Canon. They all reacted against it, and they are now all canonical. Derrida knew every nook and cranny of Western thought, which is why he could deconstruct it so effectively and creatively. It seems to Lou that the auto-fictioneers of the 21^st Century are not immersed in what came before them. They have all skipped a step. You must do more than know thyself. You must know the foundations before you can build anew.

Enough of the Canon, let’s get back to cans. But before we do, let’s note the fact that some say there is nothing as boring as the story of an addict. Addiction is merely the same story repeatedly. But repetition and routine are what Lou finds fascinating. That is why he is a Burroughs and Warhol stan. Lou could listen to Bukowski’s drinking tales all day and night. So maybe you find beer boring but that is why Lou is going to talk beer in verse. In order to liven it up.

Here is a 12-pack of the beers that more or less your grandfather drank. The beers that he drank with his unfiltered Lucky Strikes. And his slippers on his feet. And his Hungry Man dinner on the tray. Dog by his side. Kids upstairs and out of sight. Wife ready to serve all needs. And All in the Family on the TV. Like with the Western Canon, these are the beers you must drink in order to appreciate why the brews of the Great Beer Revolution are so “good”. Lou just happens to think that all this innovation never improved on what was great in the first place. Lou probably just has no taste. As dedicated blog readers know, Lou is often tasteless. What follows is an attempt to make these iconic cans less bland.

INTRODUCTION

During Prohibition
Many breweries
Became bakeries
Hoping to make
Some bread
While gangsters
Made dough
In speakeasies
In honor of this
Great tradition
Of alternative production
Lou pulls this
Brief introduction
Out of the oven
In order to make
This beer collection
A baker’s dozen

National Bohemian

Bohemians
Are known
For giving
The blueprint
For pleasant living
It’s like something
Marx has written
Hipsters taking up
The brews
Of the blues
That’s the irony
That’s current see
What Lou means
In any so called
Dive bar scene
Gentrification
And consolidation
That is the story
You don’t know
Of Natty Boh
In the past
Think about that
As you raise
Your glass
And get drunk
On the blood
Of the working class

Coors

Eastbound and down
Coors is a beer
Of great renowned
Cause you’re gonna
Want a seat
At the banquet
If you can’t get it
Yet Coors is the beer
Of the majority
Cause they don’t cater
To minorities
Was it the beer
Served at
The Beer Hall Putsch
The drink of choice
Of all fascists
Pick up an
Aluminum can
Take the tab
And pull it
But remember
If you’re not
The right kind
Of man
You’re gonna get
The Silver Bullet

Schlitz

The beer that
Made Milwaukee
Was never the same
After it played fancy free
With its classic recipe
And then there
Was its ad campaign
That helped change
The course of
Its fame
This should show
Beyond all doubt
That you never know
What will leave
A bad taste
In the public’s mouth

Narragansett

If you’ve got
City hands
May you still
Respect the man
And crush
The can
Hi Neighbor
This was
What you drank
After a day
Of manual labor
But with
White flight
And the shift
Of factories
Off site
Gansett is now
What you serve
At pool parties
In the suburbs
Who are you
What you
Do for a living
Quint is in his grave
And he must
Be spinning

Pabst Blue Ribbon

Fuck that
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Within the American Dream
A nightmare is hidden
America’s best
In ninety-three
In the White City
During a murder spree
Hipsters drink it
For its authenticity
Now it’s known
As a hard coffee
Keeping it real
Is a hard thing to be
What’ll you have
This one has
The touch
After a few
So does my uncle
We don’t have him
Around much
Pabst is the brew
For rednecks in white socks
And it is the go-to
For those in indie rock
And back in.the day
It was the beer
For those who would box
That’s not a
Bad legacy
To tell you the truth
And if you disagree
Take it up with Frank Booth

Löwenbräu

All the beer
We’ll pour
Must say something
More somehow
And that’s
How it is
With Löwenbräu
Did you know
They probably
Served Jewsbeer
At the Beer Hall Putsch
And now it’s hush hush
The Nazi ties
Of Anheuser-Busch
Did Hitler have
Too much Jew brew
When he tried
To start a coup
And gave a shout
That the revolution
Has broken out
Hitler as Judas
In a beerhall in Munich
One thing is clear
That night was
Kind of special
The lion’s beer’s
History is as twisted
As a Bavarian pretzel

Colt 45

Fun fact Colt 45
Was named after
A running back
But it’s become renowned
As a hand gun round
And the beer of choice
In murder towns
Colt 45 introduced
The double deuce
But it became
More pronounced
As a forty ounce
Once the drink
Of the waiting man
Then the beer
Of dynamite taste
Shilled by the guy
Who poured drafts
At that Cheers place
In the 80s
Came Billy Dee
And selling the beer
To minorities
When your product
Is in decline
This is the line
That works every time

Bud Dry

This shit was
Made in Japan
Like manga
And Rodan
What is
A polite way
To put it
This beer
Was Lou guesses delicate
It was sold
In the marketplace
For having
No aftertaste
That’s a sweet way
To sell it
But let’s tell it
Like it is
This beer was
No substance
And all fizz
And soon it
Fizzled out
So what was
This trend
All about
Why ask why
Big beer just
Wants you to buy
And they will give
Anything a try

Schaefer

From Stroh’s
To Pabst
To Boston Beer Co.
Schaefer is a has been
That has been
Passed around
Like a free round
But it wasn’t
Always so
Lou hears it was big
Once upon a time
in Puerto Rico
And in the US
Who would have guessed
That on the
best selling list
It ranked as high
As fifth
Nowadays if
You’re having
More than one
It is probably
In postmodern fun
As drinking it
Has apparently become
An exercise in irony
Done with
A knowing wink
So it’s sad to think
That Schaefer
A once great brand
With a memorable pitch
Is just a retro can
That occupies a niche
Now ain’t beer a bitch

Ballantine’s Ale

Once upon a time
Writers drank Ballantine’s
Back in the day
Hunter S Thompson
Ernest Hemingway
And Anita Loos
Drank this brew
Jasper Johns
Made it into
Painted Bronze
Long live Ballantine’s
In modern times
Jay-Z and BIG
The Beastie Boys
Even the New York Yankees
Drank this ale
But here in lies a tale
The beer that was
Served at all the galas
Can quickly become
An act of nostalgia
What was hot
Does not always sizzle
Cause beer drinkers
Are nothing
If not fickle

Hamm’s

It’s a story
That bears repeating
Popularity in beer
Is quite fleeting
Hamm’s was such
A well-known brand
That it was
The object
Of a kidnapping plan
Shelley Winters
Was a Bloody Mama
Did you know
Robert De Niro
Starred in this drama
Hamm’s the beer
Of sky-blue waters
That got in deep
Marketing to
Young daughters
The Hamm’s Bear
Was a classic campaign
Lou guesses
Marketing vices
To kids is the
Name of the game
If you think
This isn’t so
Just consider
Cigarettes and
A Camel named Joe
Beer companies
Don’t care
Who boozes
The general public
Are their stooges
But whatever you do
Don’t drink
And drive
Just remember Spicoli
In Fast Times

Olympia

It’s the water
Is the line
That sells
The H2O
Came from
Artesian wells
But the beer
Wasn’t artisan
As one taste
Clearly tells
Evel Knievel
Promoted the brew
He needed
Liquid courage
For his acts
Of derring-do
He wore the logo
On his jumpsuit
And even on
His parachute
Olympia hoped
To go nationwide
But like Evel
That plan never
Quite flied
Benjamin Braddock
Drank this brew
When he was
Trying to figure out
What to do
Clint Eastwood
Drank Olympia too
Turn on a movie rerun
And you might see
A can of
Olympia on the tube
It was pounded
By the Brothers Blue
Lou’s favorite
In this light
Is in movie
The Hollywood Knights
Newbomb Turk
Drank some stubbies
While he was
Cruising around
With his buddies
Lou bets he said
It’s the water
When he took stage
And became
A renegade farter