"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." - Frank Zappa

Lately I've begun to feel that our most important national sports holiday, while delivering some superb drama in recent years (and Sunday's game was certainly no slouch), has a decidedly anti-climactic subtext.  The two weeks off after the conference championship games is a huge momentum siphon; the Pro Bowl is, ironically, the single most pathetic display in professional athletics and media day has developed into the most preposterous circus imaginable.  Post-season melancholy started to seep in at halftime of the NFC Championship Game.

This year however, in what is historically a down week, I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic, and it's in no small part due to the above quote I ran across recently.  Mr. Zappa displays some keen insight to nation building: give them beer, fear, and something to cheer (and for god's sake don't charge them extra for their checked baggage).  I would also add a few more requirements: you should have a respectable band or two, a few competent film directors, and a bobsled team; because honestly, if you can't produce four guys to push a sled, and Jamaica can, than who are you kidding?

We are, of course, very fortunate to be part of a nation that is flush in all categories, and that is why I am so filled with hope for the forthcoming year, even in the wake of the Super Bowl:

Four Peaks is now ground zero in the beer department with Double Knot debuting as a distinctively American tour de force.  We had to introduce a new case of snifters to our glass racks this week just to keep pace.

In music, 2010 will feature new American albums by the Strokes, MGMT, and Beck just off the top of my head, probably a few from some dynamite new kids we don't even know about yet.  Also, Canada's finest, Arcade Fire is due for a May release.

The scheduled 2010 film releases include remakes of A Nightmare on Elm Street, The A-Team, Robocop and Red Dawn (seriously!), in addition to Iron Man 2, Seth Rogan as The Green Hornet, TV's Arrested Development in a film adaptation, and the Farrelly Brother's production of the Three Stooges featuring Jim Carrey, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro.  Also Johnny Depp channels Hunter S. Thompson again in The Rum Diaries; Sly Stallone directs a team of mercenaries including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Dolph Lundgren.  And perhaps the biggest buzz is circling around a mystery project from director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Michael Caine, and Joseph-Gordon Levitt.

In addition to the World Cup, the sporting life will bring us the newly titled Waste Management Open, perhaps the last 65 team NCAA tournament field, and a highly anticipated appearance by the new Tiger Woods at The Masters.

We'll cover weapons and air travel in a forthcoming dispatch perhaps, but in the meantime you can shoot flying geese and other fast moving game in our newly acquired Big Buck Hunter Pro that's taking over the game space upstairs.  We also have $3 "you call its" every evening from 10 pm to 1 am, a Four Peaks Grill & Tap exclusive as well as the best kept secret in Scottsdale.

Finally, although "Show Us Your Cans" is on hiatus this week, we want to announce Jeff Garelick as January's winner and recipient of Four Peaks Kilt Lifter or Sunbru 12 pack for his photo of Sunbru at The Cathedral of Seville.  Congratulations to Jeff, and keep those photos coming everybody!