Beer bonged: St. Louis lethargic to A-B takeover
You know, St. Louis’ precipitous drop from being America’s fourth-largest city to being oft-derided as a “big town” has taken its toll on our collective egos. As a city, the ghost of St. Louis past haunts our present and teases our future with the possibility that once again, the world-class city that captivated the globe in 1904 can overcome the myriad problems that led to its decline in popularity, influence and population. For the first time since my father rode a wooden horse in a near north side backyard, St. Louis city stopped its population loss (though it took a 2006 Census revision). Knowing that the city had tasted a scintilla of government-certified revitalization, I thought that news of InBev’s offer to buy Anheuser-Busch would cause a populist groundswell of resistance and light-hearted Eurobashing as St. Louisans circled the wagon round those bell-jingling, white-ankled Clydesdales in an effort to keep one of our biggest national claims to fame American-owned.
However, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Depressingly wrong—and most importantly, lazily wrong. I knew the reaction wouldn’t be what I expected upon gazing at the June 14 “protest march” that meandered through downtown. The protestors shouted “Hell no, Bud won’t go,” but they couldn’t make that much noise because the crowd was thinner than heroin-chic considering the stakes involved.
In between the announcement of InBev’s bid and the long, slow inevitable march towards the usurpation of Anheuser-Busch, there were other grumbles of resistance and protest, but mostly of the e-variety. Ed Martin, former Chief of Staff to Gov. Matt Blunt, former head of the St. Louis Elections Board and former Arch City Chronicle columnist engineered the most impressive e-resistance. His website, saveab.com (which is still active) collected some 75,000 digital signatures protesting the takeover.
Boycottab.net let St. Louisans vent their opinions about the takeover, and a community MyFoxStl blog sprang up as well. Sadly, between Boycottab.net and theMyFoxStl blog, only 35 comments were left. When the Post-Dispatch finally broke the news that American ownership of A-B wheezed its last death-rattle, there were only 545 comments left (as of August 4). That’s not even 600 comments total. That’s one big MEH the size of Carl Icahn’s wallet. Saveab.com’s 75,000 digital signature collection is well and good, but any instrument of protest that required more than a couple of key-strokes simply did not materialize.
One man who did do something was local songwriter Phil McCrary. His song, “Kiss Your Glass,” echoes many unexpressed sentiments. Here is a snippet, the full version is available here: http://www.myspace.com/philcumbersomemusic.
Now God Blessed the Clydesdale, the Arch and Old St Lou,
Mr. Buck and Mr. Shannon God Blessed both of you too...
Every time I think of Baseball, Busch Stadium, Cold Beer...
It’s A.B. Products that makes every memory Clear...
I drank a bunch of cold Budweiser’s, watched Dale Sr. rule the track,
Toasted a frosted mug of Bud light,
To every soldier in Iraq
I got silly drunk and crazy,
Praise the Lord I never wrecked,
I had a designated driver the day I married my best friend Bud Select.
I like beer as much as the next guy, but between McCrary marrying his beer and thanking God for saving innocent lives because he didn’t kill someone in a fiery drunk-driving wreck—all thanks to AB’s irresistible Bud Select, I can’t condone all of the song. But, at least he gave it the old college try.
Why St. Louisans didn’t take to the streets en masse and get downright ugly is somewhat of a mystery. Maybe we just don’t care. Maybe we realize that any boycott will hurt the workers. Maybe we realize that stopping market forces can be a quixotic exercise. Maybe gas prices are too high to pay attention. Out of the thousand “maybe’s” that I could assign to the lack of protest, the most-important “maybe” is in the mirror. I cared. I cared deeply, but I didn’t walk with the marchers, I didn’t leave an impassioned comment on any website, and I didn’t even sign a digital protest. The scary thing is I really don’t even know why.
You can e-mail Lucas Hudson at lucashudson@thevitalvoice.com.
