Well it looks like Anheuser-Busch has some changes coming. The St. Louis brewery – one of the last American beer giants – was acquired, as promised by InBev, for a mere $52 billion.

According to Business Week, there are big changes coming. The CEO of InBev doesn’t do business anything like the Busch family, and I’m sure Anheuser employees aren’t relishing the impending shakedown. Check this list of soon-to-be-history perks for workers:

• Two free cases of beer per month for every employee
• Free admission to all Busch theme parks
• Swanky hotel accommodations, company cars, first-class flights for execs

All of that, going by the boards. Not only will InBev’s Carlos Brito make employees fly coach and stay at Motel 6, he’ll likely take steps to liquidate some of A-B’s extravagant holdings…like, oh, the aforementioned Busch Gardens theme parks, the philanthropic work for communities that Busch has done for decades, and maybe even the precious Clydesdales themselves, who probably lead better, more luxuriant lives than you and I put together.

Can InBev survive the “culture clash?” It remains to be seen. In a way, it’s sad to see one of the few remaining American-held large corporations going the way of (in this case, hostile) takeover from across the pond. But Brito’s money — 87% of it borrowed from banks — talked, and August Busch, forced to listen, sold the family farm. A man’s gotta do…

Commenters on the article predicted Busch laughing all the way to the bank as the Belgian invader comes in and makes a hash of things, eventually unloading the company for pennies on the dollar. Maybe Busch will laugh, but I wonder about the amusement threshold of his 6,000 local employees, and indeed, the city of St. Louis as a whole.

Fink out.

…one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, but for the last time. They’re tearing it down.

Oregon State Hospital, the site producer Michael Douglas chose to make his groundbreaking, disturbing 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, will finally — actually, at long last — face the wrecking ball.

The movie, filmed almost entirely at this dilapidated, overpopulated mental facility, hit the Grand Slam at the Oscars in 1976, winning not only Best Picture, but Best Director (Milos Forman, later of Amadeus fame, another Oscar BP winner), Best Actor (Jack Nicholson) and Best Actress (Louise Fletcher, as the evil Nurse Ratched). Throw about a hundred other awards in there, and you pretty much have it covered. It’s also listed at #7 on IMDB’s Top 250 of all time list. (Look at #1…cool.)

My parents would have never let me see it in the theater (I was a sophomore in high school when it came out), so it wasn’t until the late 80s that I actually saw it, on video, for the first time. In a word: chilling. And realistic.

For those who don’t know — and if you don’t, you really must rent it — the film is about a guy named Randle Patrick McMurphy, a repeat felon who avoids another prison sentence by pretending he’s crazy. What happens to him at the mental hospital is both funny and depressing; hopeful and desperate — and horrifying and profoundly sad in about a dozen different ways. That’s all I’ma say about it. If you haven’t seen it, do so. It’s an emergency.

Right, so this post was supposed to be about the hospital. Remember the OSH story that broke in 2005? They found thousands of cremains from a hundred years ago through the 1970s in an abandoned room. Patients, largely forgotten in life, were left forgotten by family in death. Yep, time for the old place to come down. Apparently, the state is building a new, state-of-the-art mental health facility in its place.

Speaking of mental health…mine is dwindling at the hands of Gustav Mahler. Alas, I must get back to work on it.

Fink out.

Photo credits: Oregon State Hospital – Associated Press; Jack Nicholson – Fantasy Films

Man! This has never happened. I had 2 correct answers. Bando submitted her answer at 4:16 via email, and Stoney posted her answer here at 4:13, but I didn’t see it until after I notified Bando that she won. So…ya both win.

Am I good to you people or what???

The right answer is listed by Stoney below. Good job, y’all!

Fink (sendin the chocolate) out.

But first…it’s the 15th of the month, and you know what that means…

RtB Contest #5!

Big fat ol’ Hershey bar (either in person or through the mail) goes to the winner. Today’s fun is a 2-parter:

1. Who created this work of contemporary art?
2. What is its huge significance in pop culture history?

Send your answers (it’s gotta be both of ’em and both of ’em gotta be right) to ratfink at finkweb . org to claim your yummy prize. Out-of-state players: that means people outside the grasp of my rat claws here in Ohio – the USPS and I are tight, so don’t be afraid to play — I’ll be happy to send your luscious chocolateness through the mail.

===============================

Random Neuron Firings

~ This one’s for my friend, RD. “Revenge is mine,” saith the center fielder. HA

~ Parents: fear not. Banana safety has finally arrived.

~ *gAsP* (Speechless)

Sixty-three years ago tomorrow, the mad scientists behind the Manhattan Project performed the world’s first nuclear bomb test, in New Mexico (although this photo was definitely not taken in the American desert). The 18-kiloton blast shattered windows 120 miles away.

Hate to leave you on that note on a beautiful Tuesday morning, but my Mahler assignment is calling, and Jason will be here soon, and my hair’s a wreck and whatever shall I do….

Fink out.

Oh, and play the contest, why don’t ya? Search, my little philomath. Search.