There’s a pain in your stomach that can only be cured with Russian magic.

Go ahead, clench the side of your abdomen. C’mon, admit it already! Y’know that you feel an inflammation somewhere in your gut! In the darkest recesses of your tummy! Maybe it feels like a itch at the bottom of your cecum. Or maybe it throbs like a patch of warts in your large intestine. Hell, some of you might even have a burning in the colon, and you’d damn well better pray that it doesn’t keep runnin’ down your digestive tract.

The truth is that you’re afflicted with a goddamn existential bezoar.

Fortunately, the Russians have been attacking these motherfuckers for years. Although Rasputin’s mystical sojourns are well-documented, it’s not often mentioned that he was simply trying to remedy the bezoar ailing Russia’s collective unconscious. Later, during the dark days of the Soviet Empire, the mystic arts would be forfeited in favor of science. But even with the root of these explorations being the same desire to destroy all that ailed, these efforts would also fall short. As such, Mother Russia, proud and noble and willing to die trying, would forge ahead in search of a new solution. And it would be found.

The solution? Beer.

To be precise, tonight’s curative elixir is Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout `12.

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The economy has yet to recover from its monumental floundering in 2008. Most jobs are in short supply. Other Jobs are dead. Nations are entangled in conflicts its citizens don’t understand, don’t believe in, and don’t want to fight. Hordes of the disgruntled are flooding streets, occupying major metropolitan areas and declaring their dissatisfaction. Tumult is proliferating at unprecedented rates.

And yet, it’s Friday. Love is still free to give and receive. Guitars still vibrate-melodious. High-fivin’ a buddy still feels awesome. Even in these most turbulent of times, persistent are those little reminders of why we persevere. It’s one thing to acknowledge the human spirit, but entirely another to know its power.

I know that the general consensus is that everything’s awful and I’m supposed to check my optimism at the door. But I’m not going to.  Tonight, I’m taking a stand against the tyranny of our times. It’s Friday, goddamn it, and I’m going to enjoy my life for what it is and what it can be! Though my flesh-vehicle betrays me and society’s crumbling, art and beauty and truth still exist.

As does beer.

So, in the midst of existential collapse, I sip on BRRRBON.

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