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| Boulevard label for the movie "Kansas City" |
The fine folks at Boulevard invited the Gents over for a little happy hour and talk about Payton Kelly's Boulevard art. Every bit of Boulevard's look is a direct result of Payton Kelly's work. From the trade of some beer for some art for the first run of Boulevard's bottles to all of the Smokestack bottle labels and everything in between, Payton has designed it all. They put up a little travelling exhibit of the influences for aspects of each label and the resulting art from Payton. I've never drawn anything in my life so I didn't know that much went into each label.
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| The bulldog on Bully! is modeled after Churchill |
I talked to Payton about the bottles he designed for the movie "Kansas City" which is, if not the worst Robert Altman movie, in the discussion of worst Altman movie. Payton worked real closely with the set designers to design the bottles of Boulevard used in the movie, though only one was shown for a brief moment. I've pored over that movie trying to catch a glimpse of that label and never really got a clear look. Payton said there was one scene that showed a label very briefly. I'll take his word for it, I'm not watching that movie again. But, I really love that label and is one of my favorite Boulevard labels of all time. I bought a lot of Pale Ale when it was sold around town with that retro label.
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| Hey, that's not a single wide trailer |
As we were standing around talking about the Single Wide label I did the thing that makes me so popular around Kansas City. I asked the passively insulting question, my trademark. "Do you ever get complaints that the trailer on the Single Wide label isn't really what most people would consider a single wide trailer?" Of course the answer was no, but I feel better about humanity knowing that no one has taken the time to register such a stupid complaint. As for me, I blame the 2009 Gnarly Wine I was drinking at the time.
After the happy hour was over we headed over to The Foundry for some extra drinks. The same impetus behind the insulting question caused me to devour 2 Foundry tacos in under 2 minutes. We all got some Stone 15 which was much better than the bottle version, which I didn't like very much. I spent some time sitting in a bean bag and drinking beer and watching the Royals on TV. It was a pretty good time overall.
