this is why we can't have nice things in poetry

what I’ve learned about beer advertisements
is that they want us to be stupid
they want us to make stupid choices
and they want us to be proud to be stupid

Coors Beer, we already had a device to see if a beer is cold.
It is called a hand.
Most people even have a spare too!
But we can’t trust our own senses, Coors.
We have to trust the colour-change label, Coors.

What I’ve learned from beer ads today
is they’re trying to make people hate well-made beers
in the American anti-intellectual tradition.

It’s like this with soda,
we admit that soda is silly junk and run with it.
It is very very difficult to say “Big Gulp” without a hint of disdain.
Try it. Big Gulp. Big Gulp? Big Gulp!
You can’t. I can’t. No one can.

but it’s not that way with beer.
beer advertises itself for the stupid
in the most seriously stupid ways.
we have to be retrograde
we have to be thoughtless
we must aim everything at the lowest-common-denominator
and we must do this in the most solemn manner.
we must be self-destructive and totally un-self-examined
with a purity that borders on ritual
that borders on religion
that becomes holy.

Many people throw the phrase
“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” lightly
many people will say
“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”
because their lover wears the wrong clothes to a restaurant
or because democracy just happens to not really work anymore
but this is a little more serious.
This is literally why we can’t have nice things
we literally can’t have beer that isn’t terrible
because they have made terrible beer
a cultural sacrament
so they can keep making money.

This is literally why we can’t have nice things.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Because beer advertisements are weirdly terrible.
I made the mistake of watching a full baseball game on cable
from first pitch to last pitch
without reflexively changing channels during the ads.
I learned why we can’t have nice things.
Beer ads are why we can’t have nice things.
I can’t stress this enough.