Today I went to the supermarket for last-minute supplies for our family visit tonight to the Starlight Bowl for music and fireworks. While surfing the bread aisle, I came across one of those little demo tables where people allow you to taste-test their wares. But this one was unlike any I’d ever seen: a roped off area with a “must be 21 or older sign” and a table displaying booze for free tasting. The nice woman behind the table beckoned me over, and she didn’t have to ask twice.

It turned out that she was offering taste testings of Baccardi Rum, in four different flavors. I’m not a rum drinker, but last week I read a special report in the Wall Street Journal claiming that rum was the best liquor for summer, and who am I to disagree with the Wall Street Journal about summer libations? She asked me if I had an ID, and I said I did, so she asked me if I wanted my rum neat, on ice, or with fruit juice. I opted for ice and no juice. She had coconut rum, grape rum, spiced rum, and strawberry rum. I don’t care for coconut, so I passed on that, and I’ve had spiced rum, so I asked for the strawberry. She poured me out a shot of the strawberry-infused Baccardi Rum and to my delight and surprise, I said, “Wow. This is really good.” Then I tried the grape, but it didn’t compare with the strawberry. Then I sniffed the spiced rum but didn’t taste it. She offered the coconut rum again and again I said, “No, thanks. I don’t like coconut.” Then I finished my strawberry rum.

Then I said, “You know, I think my wife would really like this. She likes wine coolers, and she likes rum. How much is this?”

“It’s only $8.99 a bottle,” she said with wonderment, and I had to agree — that seemed like far too little for such a jumbo bottle of tasty rum.

“I’m buying this,” I said. Finally, I had found something that both my wife and I would enjoy drinking. “Where is it?” She pointed out the area in the booze corner of the supermarket where I could find it and I went to get it.

Twenty minutes later I was home with the strawberry Baccardi Rum. “I bought you a gift,” I said to my wife.

“What’d you get?” she asked.

I poured some of the strawberry rum into a glass with crushed ice, with visions of my wife and I blissfully sipping strawberry rum on the rocks while enjoying fireworks or, maybe, Bryan Ferry music later in the comfort of our own home while children were thankfully finally asleep. “Just taste it,” I said.

She lifted her lips to the glass, took a tentative sip, then wrinkled her nose. “WHAT IS THIS?!?!?!!?!” she said.

“Strawberry rum. Do you like it???”

“GAHHH!!! IT’S TERRIBLE!”

“Oh,” I said, “I thought you’d like it. I know you like rum.”

“IT’S SICKLY SWEET OR SOMETHING! IT’S TOO STRONG! ARGH! THE TASTE!!!!!”

“You like those wine coolers.” (Which I think are ghastly, I didn’t add.) “Well, sorry.” I retrieved the offending drink and sampled it again, deciding I could easily lose myself into drinking the entire bottle. So she didn’t like it. What did she know? “They had four different flavors. They were having a taste test at Albertson’s. They had spiced rum, coconut, grape, and this, and I was so taken with this that I bought it.”

“Blehh,” she said. And then added, “But I probably would have liked the coconut.”

In August of 1865, Jourdon Anderson, formerly of Tennessee, was offered his old position back by the former slave master who had previously owned him. Anderson, now a free man living with his family in Ohio, declined. Here’s his declination.

Mark Chaet, my friend of 20 years, is a terrific guy, and a terrific actor. He’s also very smart — smart enough to take a look at how the odds have changed for screen actors. Mark knows a lot about these things — here’s his IMDB page, with more than 75 credits; and that doesn’t include any of his stage credits. If you’re trying to make a living as an actor, or considering it, this post on his blog is well worth reading.

Here you go.

A former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve tells us why we need less austerity and more stimulus.

Here’s a key takeaway:

“America’s infrastructure needs are so huge, and so painfully obvious, that it’s mind-boggling we’re not investing more. The U.S. government can now borrow for five years at about 0.75% and for 10 years at about 1.7%. Both rates are far below expected inflation, making real interest rates sharply negative. Yet legions of skilled construction workers remain unemployed while we drive our cars over pothole-laden roads and creaky bridges. Does this make sense?”

No, it doesn’t. And it sure doesn’t to my family back in New Jersey, many of them un- or under-employed because there’s no construction work.

It begins with setting up a paper tiger you can knock down easily. Then it goes from there. Here’s how.

Because we all need the upside now and then. Here goes.

David Lowery (of the bands Camper van Beethoven and Cracker) lays it all out: When you’re stealing music, you’re still feeding big corporations — but you’re shafting artists. (And you’re fishing around for self-justification.) This one post says it all better than I’ve been able to do in several discussions and emails with my own kin. If there are artists you like, you need to support them with your cash. (But then, we theatre people already know that.)