I was quite rudely awakened this morning by the guttural clucks and sonic honks of an obnoxious flock of Canadian geese.  I could tell they were Canadian by their stupid accents.  My initial inclination was to grab the shotgun, kick the door open, and blast those clucking Canuck fuckers right out of the sky.  But I knew that would not only wake up the entire household, but would also likely shake the neighbors awake and set them off on another wasted day of half-assed Jayson protests and limp-wristed bitching.

This all started a couple of years ago, when I de facto adopted a squirrel that I subsequently named Bath Salts for his rather maniacal and often seemingly drug-induced behavior.  Our relationship began a few years back when he began showing up at the door of my writing office, seemingly wondering what I was up to inside.  I thought this was a rather ballsy approach, and I rewarded him with nuts.  We quickly fell into a routine when he would show up at the door each morning, check on my progress, get some nuts, and go deal with squirrel business the rest of the day.  But I quickly noticed that my new friend was being rather brutally harassed almost constantly by a flock of blackbirds that had, unbeknownst to me and certainly without my permission, occupied the Italian Ficus trees in the back field.  I don’t know the depth of my dear reader’s ornithological knowledge, but it is certainly deeper than mine.  I had previously that “blackbirds” referred to crows and ravens, and for all I know, it does.  But upon witnessing these malignant black bastards with their beady yellow eyes aggressively pecking and divebombing my beloved squirrel, I knew these were the “blackbirds” from nursery rhymes that one would want to bake in a pie.  It was around that time that I started engaging the blackbirds with my .22 while they were molesting Mr. Salts (Salts was a bit freaked out when the bullets first started whizzing by, but he soon realized that I am downright surgical with that thing).  After a few days of this, the scourge of the blackbirds was ended, and the whole obnoxious flock fucked off for more hospitable conditions.

They’ve sent scouts in the spring during the last couple of years, but these are quickly dispatched, and any plans they have had about reoccupying my Italian Ficusses (what the hell is the plural of Ficus?  Ficii?) disappear with a soft, dull “thud” and an explosion of black feathers floating slowly to the ground, where a very grateful Bath Salts gathers them up to upholster and reinsulate his nest for the winter.  All of which I find rather poetic.

The neighbors have no appreciation for poetry.  I actually doubt they know how to read.  So to hell with those illiterate gypsies, and to hell with Canadian geese.  And may God help them if either one dare disturb my slumber again, especially on a Sunday morning.  Heathens.

Had a rather intense meeting with Mgmt yesterday, the result of which was me being put on a somewhat impossible schedule that will control my existence for the next few months.  They’ve decided which book I need to complete, and that if I don’t complete it, Bad Things will happen.  They sort of hyperventilated about exactly what the Bad Things would be, but none of them moved my needle at all.  Still, I know they are right.  This is the book that needs to come out, and this is absolutely the year it should happen.  So I agreed to their ridiculous timeline.  What the hell else was I going to do?  It’s not like there are people lined up to try to manage this chaos.  Besides, it’s high time I started writing on deadline again.  Of course, I had some conditions before I agreed to this arrangement.  The first, which was a daily delivery of one large Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee to the Safe House, was agreed to quickly.  The second was met with a bit more resistance.   Part of the book involved Tijuana, and what’s written is 100% accurate, but in my opinion could use an update.  It’s been ages since I danced on the dark and bloody ground of TJ with the girls in the red dresses, ever since President Houseplant opened the border and created a massive and depressing humanitarian crisis in what was my favorite vacation spot on the planet.  Before that, I was making a Run for the Border two or three times a year.  I was on a first name basis with the owners of most of the bars and restaurants on Revolucion Ave, as well as the staff of my favorite farmacia, who used to call me “Jugo” since my hair reminded them of some big-deal soccer player or something.  I was just another gringo writer down from the States to take in a bullfight or two, lose some money at the dog track, maybe do some light weapons- and/or drug smuggling, and everybody was fine with that.  Sure there was the occasional “arrest” by the TJPD, and one unfortunate episode of kidnapping by the cartel (which was surprisingly easily resolved), but in my business, those are just occupational hazards.  The price of doing business, as it were.  But then everything went to hell.  The entire Zona Norte was inundated with all manner of drug-addled cannibals from weird countries so far south of Mexico that very few Yankees had even heard of them, the names of which even fewer could pronounce.

Now all of that is finished, America’s long nightmare is over, and I am more than ready to return, if for no other reason than to update my story.  But Mgmt and their attorneys don’t seem to be having it.  They seem to be under the impression that since Big Don recently listed the 12 largest cartels as terrorist organizations and presently has fully armed Reaper drones circling directly over the heads of the leaders of each organization, that should he use said drones and cut all the heads off the Cartel Hydra simultaneously, something worse than civil war would instantly break out across Mexico.  Which is likely completely true.  But Mgmt seems to think this would be a problem for me and is using it as a reason not to let me go.  Which I contend is pusillanimous bullshit.

Shit…they just called.  They want to see today’s pages in the next hour.  One day into this new schedule and I’m already questioning everything.  I gotta get to work.

N.P.: “Blue Lights On” – Texas Hippie Coalition

A very happy birthday to Quetin Tarantino, who was born on this day in 1963.  Sure, he’s a filmmaker, but his scripts—like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs—are literary as hell. They’re dialogue-driven gut punches, drenched in pop culture and violence, with a rhythm that’s more poetic than most novels. While typical script writers write scenes, Tarantino crafts chaos you can’t look away from. His work’s influenced a generation of writers to ditch the polite and get messy, and strive for badassery.

For the English majors, on March 27, 1964, Arthur Miller’s After the Fall opened in New York. This play’s a brutal, semi-autobiographical gut-spill—Miller wrestling with his marriage to Marilyn Monroe and the fallout of McCarthyism. It’s not subtle; it’s a man staring down his own flaws and society’s hypocrisy, no punches pulled. Critics were split, but Miller didn’t give a shit—he kept digging into the human mess, cementing his rep as a playwright with steel in his spine.

N.P.: “Waffen Waffen Waffen” – Eisbrecher

March 24, 2025

KQED Fundraising Department
2601 Mariposa Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

To the Smug, Sniveling, Commie Alms-Takers at KQED,

Here’s your pitiful, puling “urgent” screed back, you sanctimonious jackals—rammed into your own pre-franked envelope because I wouldn’t deign to squander even a penny’s postage on your groveling, guilt-tripping hustle. Month after month, you blitz my mailbox with these mendicant missives, a relentless paper parade of desperation, as if I’m some mark to be fleeced by your cloying, faux-noble bleating. Enough!  Strap in, you pious fucks, because I’m not tossing you a nickel—not now, not ever. I’d sooner torch my wallet in a gasoline-soaked Ethiopian tire pyre than let one cent trickle into the festering maw of your woke-addled, tax-sucking empire.

You and your PBS/NPR ilk have metastasized into a rotten, ghastly, self-parodying abomination—a once-noble experiment in public edification now reduced to a slobbering, liberal-propaganda-spewing she-beast, its tendrils coiled tight around the throats of the unsuspecting. And nowhere is your perfidy more galling, more viscerally enraging, than in the way you’ve hijacked kids’ programming—Sesame Street, that sacred sandbox of innocence, now a Trojan horse for your relentless LGBTQ catechism. You’re not enlightening tender minds; you’re mainlining ideology into their pliable little skulls, a cultural roofie slipped into the Kool-Aid while you preen and prattle about “inclusion.” It’s a betrayal so rank, so predatory, it demands not just defunding but a full-on exorcism—cast you lot into the void and salt the earth behind you.

And the money—oh, sweet Jesus, the money! You guzzle $535 million a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a grotesque tithe pried from taxpayers’ pockets, while your execs—those overstuffed, overcredentialed mandarins—pocket half-mil salaries to sit atop this rotting edifice. For what? To churn out tendentious tripe and flout FCC regs with underwriting spots so brazenly commercial they’d make a used-car salesman blush? Elon Musk’s DOGE brigade, those feral efficiency hounds, are circling your fetid trough—they’ve got the scent of waste, the paper trail of your grift, and the FCC’s own damning audits in their teeth. Word on the street is they’re slicing through the federal budget like a chainsaw through a butter sculpture, and your little sinecure’s next on the block. I can hear the squealing already, and it’s music—pure, discordant, glorious music.

You’re not a public good; you’re a public malignancy, a leech gorged on coerced largesse and sanctimonious cant. If you can’t stand on your own without this ceaseless panhandling and federal handouts, then collapse already—let the weight of your own hypocrisy crush you into dust. I’ll be there, front row, popping champagne when DOGE’s axe falls and your signal goes dark. Consider this my RSVP to the funeral: I’ll bring the matches.

Suck on that, you preening parasites,

JG

N.P.: “Tri Tra Trullala (Herbergsvater 2024)” – Joachim Witt, Timo Maas, King Brain

During yesterday’s Hangover celebration, I did have my eye on the news, and there are a couple of items I would be remiss and lazy in not addressing.

Let’s talk about real men doing real shit before I even get to the pathetic little crybaby known as Tim Walz. While this whiny fuck is out here bitching about his “masculinity” being questioned, actual badasses like Elon Musk and the SpaceX crew are out there making history and showing the world what real grit looks like. I mean, let’s fucking celebrate for a second: a massive shoutout to Elon, SpaceX, and the crew of the ISS for pulling off a jaw-dropping mission that the Biden administration abandoned in space like a bunch of gutless cowards. The SpaceX Dragon capsule splash-landed like a goddamn champ in the Gulf of America, and you know who greeted them? An adorable pod of dolphins, probably more impressed than any of us at the sheer balls it takes to pull that off. That’s masculinity—building rockets, saving astronauts, and making the universe your bitch when the democratic government sat on its ass and DEI NASA fumbled the bag. Elon’s out here showing what a real man does: he steps up, takes charge, and gets shit done, no excuses, no whining.

Meanwhile, what’s Tim Walz doing? Oh, right, he’s crying to Gavin Newsom on a podcast about how Fox News doesn’t think he’s “man enough” because he sips milkshakes through a straw. Are you fucking kidding me? While Elon’s bringing people back from space, Walz is out here throwing a tantrum because someone called him a pussy. Boo-fucking-hoo, you sorry-ass fraction of a man. You wanna talk about masculinity, Timmy? How about you take a page out of Elon’s book and actually do something worth a damn instead of running your mouth about how you’re some tough guy who can “kick most of our asses”? Yeah, we all heard that.  You fat fuck.

So prove it, asshole. First off: nobody gives a flying fuck about your straw-sipping, milkshake-drinking, “I’m not masculine enough for Fox News” bullshit. You’re out here crying about how the big bad conservatives are picking on you for not being “man enough”? Maybe if you weren’t such a spineless, vaginal politician who can’t even handle a little criticism without whining to your buddy Gavin, people wouldn’t think you’re a pussy. You’re a fucking governor, not a goddamn toddler—act like it.

And then you have the audacity to say you could “kick most of our asses”? Cool. Then you should know you don’t get to talk that kind of shit and then hide behind your little podcast microphone like a bitch. Anytime you feel like actually backing your words up, I’m right here. I’m a red-blooded, combustion-engine-driving, gun-toting, whiskey-chugging American who doesn’t take kindly to some useless chubby-fuck bureaucrat talking smack.  You wouldn’t last two seconds in a real fight, you soft-ass piece of shit. I’d have you on the ground begging for mercy faster than you can say “#MeToo.”

You wanna talk about masculinity? Real masculinity isn’t crying about how people don’t think you’re tough enough while you sip lattes with Newsom. Real masculinity is stepping up to the fucking plate when someone calls you out. You said you can fix a truck? Great, I’ll break your right arm and you can fix that too. You’re out here saying conservatives are “scared” of you because you’re not “bullshitting” about who you are? You fat fuck… we’re not scared—we’re just laughing our asses off at what a pathetic joke you are. A beard and a truck don’t make you a man, you limp-wristed poseur. Actions do. So fucking act.

Here’s my challenge, Timothy: let’s do it. I’m inviting you: anytime, anywhere…Atlantic City, I don’t care.  No need for cameras, no podcast, no bullshit. Just you and me, one-on-one, in a ring, on a field, hell, I’ll even come to Minnesota and whoop your ass in your own backyard. You pick the spot, pussy, and I’ll be there. You think you can kick my ass? I’ll fucking bury you. Bring your little straw and your milkshake—I’ll shove ‘em both down your goddamn throat.

And don’t give me any of that “I’m a governor, I’m above this” crap. You started this, fat ass. You wanted to talk shit about how you can take us? Well, I’m right here, ready to make you eat those words, anytime. When you don’t show up, everyone’s gonna know what we already do: you’re a gutless, fake, soft, womanly fraud who can’t back up a single fucking thing you say.

Ask your ugly-ass wife and Kamala nicely if you can please have your testicles back from their respective purses, and if they give you permission, I’m here, waiting.

N.P.: “Stitch” – More Machine Than Man

Good day, dear reader.  Apologies for my absence from our ongoing colloquy yesterday, but as you should know by now, yesterday was the day my people and I celebrate Hangover.  What follows is some background for the uninitiated:

March 18th isn’t just the day you regret wearing those shamrock suspenders. It’s Hangover, the Irish American holiday where the only parade is the shuffle to the fridge, and the only green you’re chasing is the Pepto-Bismol bottle. Born in the blurry aftermath of St. Patrick’s Day, Hangover is the chaotic lovechild of too much stout and not enough sense. Grab your sunglasses and a fistful of bacon—here’s how we celebrate this glorious disaster.

Hangover isn’t just a state of being—it’s a cultural institution. Legend has it that Irish immigrants in America, after a long night of toasting their heritage on St. Patrick’s Day, declared the next day a sacred time to nurse their aching heads and share tales of the night before.  I imagine a bunch of Irish American great-granddads, circa 1880-something, waking up after St. Paddy’s with heads pounding like a bodhrán drum. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” one groans, “we can’t let this misery go to waste!” And so, Hangover was born—a day to turn last night’s shenanigans into a badge of honor. It’s less a holiday, more a group apology to your liver, wrapped in a shamrock and a smirk.

Hangover doesn’t mess with fancy floats or fiddles. It’s less about parades and more about perseverance. It’s a gritty, greasy, glorious mess of traditions that prove we’re too stubborn to let a hangover win.

1. The Greasy Brunch Bonanza
   At the crack of noon—because who’s waking up earlier?—we stagger to the table for the Greasy Brunch Bonanza. Think piles of rashers, eggs fried in last night’s bacon fat, and soda bread so buttered it could lube a tractor. The motto? “If it doesn’t clog your arteries, it won’t cure your head.” Bonus points if you accidentally pour ketchup on your coffee and drink it anyway.
2. The Wearing of the Shades
   Sunglasses are the unofficial uniform of Hangover, worn indoors and out, regardless of the weather. It’s a badge of honor, signaling that you survived St. Patrick’s Day in true Irish American style.  Sunglasses are non-negotiable—indoors, outdoors, upside-down, whatever. They’re not just for the blinding light; they’re a shield against Aunt Maureen asking, “Did ya really need that fifth pint?” Rock those shamrock shades or the scratched aviators you found under the couch. You’re not hiding; you’re heroic.
3. The Tale-Spinning Circle
   By afternoon, we collapse into the Tale-Spinning Shenanigans, where bleary-eyed survivors compete to tell the dumbest St. Paddy’s story. “I swore the barstool was flirting with me!” “I did a jig with a traffic cone!” The winner—decided by who gets the loudest “Oh, Jaysus, no!”—scores a tepid coffee or the couch cushion that doesn’t smell like spilled whiskey.
4. The Hydration Station
   Every Hangover home has a Hydration Station: a wobbly card table with water, Gatorade, and a half-empty stout for the lunatics who think “hair of the dog” isn’t a cruel joke. It’s littered with crumpled shamrock crowns and a lone sock nobody claims. The pickle juice chug is the dare of the day—finish it without gagging, and you’re the King or Queen of Poor Life Choices.  Some families swear by the “pickle juice chug” and its restorative powers.
5. The Quiet Oath (That Nobody Keeps)
   As the sun sets and your skull stops auditioning for Riverdance, it’s time for the Quiet Oath. Over a cup of tea—or a sad bowl of cereal you dropped on the floor and scooped back up—we swear, “Never again, so help me St. Patrick.” Everyone nods, knowing full well we’ll be back at it next year, because Irish stubbornness beats common sense every time.

Hangover isn’t some polished Hallmark holiday—it’s a sloppy, hilarious middle finger to dignity. It’s the day we laugh at our own stupidity, bond over bacon grease, and prove that Irish Americans can turn even a splitting headache into a party. So, next March 18th, when you’re cursing that last jig and the leprechaun who dared you to chug green beer, embrace Hangover. It’s the holiday that says, “Yeah, we’re idiots, but we’re our idiots.”

Sláinte—or at least a shaky cheers with a water bottle!

N.P.: “Credo” – Fish

Top o’ the mornin’, dear reader! Today, March 17th, we raise our glasses—brimming with the emerald elixir of Guinness or a fiery shot of Jameson—to celebrate the most badass of Irish brethren to ever don a shamrock: St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. But this isn’t your gran’s Sunday school story, oh no. We’re diving deep, rewinding the clock to 461 CE, to a time when this holy hellraiser kicked the bucket on the very day we now paint the town green. So, strap in for a tale of rebellion, redemption, and sheer, unadulterated Irish grit that’ll make your liver quiver and your mind explode with the ferocity of a thousand fiddles at a Galway hoedown.

The year is somewhere around 405 CE, and young Patrick—born Maewyn Succat, a name that sounds like a Celtic sneeze—is just a snot-nosed teenager living in Roman Britain. Life’s peachy until a gang of Irish pirates—yes, fucking pirates—swoop in like a swarm of whiskey-soaked locusts, kidnap the lad, and drag him across the Irish Sea. He’s sold into slavery, forced to tend sheep on the rugged hills of County Antrim, where the wind howls like a banshee trying to collect back rent. For six years, this poor bastard endures the elements, starvation, and the kind of soul-crushing isolation that’d make even Nietzsche weep into his mustache. But does Patrick break? Hell no! He gets tougher. He prays, he schemes, and he dreams of freedom, channeling a spiritual ferocity that’s pure, unfiltered proto-punk energy—think Iggy Pop snarling through “Search and Destroy,” but with a shepherd’s crook.

Then, in a moment of divine intervention—or sheer ballsy determination, depending on your theological bent—Patrick hears a voice. It tells him to haul ass to the coast, where a ship awaits to carry him back to freedom. This isn’t some passive, sandal-wearing Jesus shit; this is a jailbreak, a middle finger to his captors, a teenage runaway saga that’d make Jack Kerouac proud. He treks 200 miles—200 fucking miles—through hostile terrain, dodging raiders and starvation, and somehow, against all odds, makes it to that ship.

But here’s where the story gets really wild. Patrick doesn’t just go home, crack open a mead, and call it a day. No, he doubles down. He studies, becomes a priest, and—get this—chooses to return to Ireland, the very hellhole that enslaved him, to spread Christianity. This ain’t forgiveness; this is revenge through redemption, a spiritual Molotov cocktail hurled at the pagan kings and druids who thought they could break him. By 432 CE, he’s back on the Emerald Isle, armed with nothing but a staff, a Bible, and a set of brass balls the size of Galway Bay. He’s not just preaching; he’s fighting. The druids, those mystical bastards with their oak groves and human sacrifices, try to take him down. They curse him, they plot his death, but Patrick? He laughs in their faces, allegedly using the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity in what can be best described as a theological mic drop.

Patrick’s life reads like a 5th-century punk rock epic—a raw, autobiographical screed that lays out his trials with an anarchic defiance. His Confessio, a memoir of sorts, isn’t another flowery hagiography; it’s a gritty, unapologetic account of a man who stared down kings, druids, and his own demons, all while converting an entire nation.

He dies on March 17th, 461 CE, in Saul, County Down, but his death isn’t the end—it’s the capstone of a saga that’s been spun into legend ever since. The Irish, we indomitable, poetic, hard-drinking bastards, take his legacy and run with it, turning a missionary’s life into a cultural juggernaut that’s got the whole damn world wearing green and chugging stout every spring.

Now, let’s talk about the Irish themselves, because St. Patrick’s story is just one thread in the tapestry of their ferocious, whiskey-soaked history. These are a people who’ve been through the wringer—Viking raids, Norman invasions, British oppression, the Great Famine—and yet they’ve never lost their fire. They’re the underdogs who always come out swinging, with a pint in one hand and a poem in the other. From the ancient Celts who painted themselves blue and charged into battle buck-naked, to the rebels of 1916 who stared down the British Empire with nothing but rifles and a dream, the Irish have a knack for turning suffering into art, pain into song. Think of the literature—Joyce’s labyrinthine Ulysses, Beckett’s bleak fucking genius, Heaney’s peat-soaked poetry. Think of the music—those haunting ballads that can make a grown man cry into his Bushmills, or the Pogues’ raucous anthems that’ll have you trying to dance a jig whilst puking in the alley.

And let’s not forget the drinking, because if there’s one thing the Irish do better than anyone, it’s throwing a party that’d make Dionysus himself blush. St. Patrick’s Day isn’t just a holiday; it’s a global middle finger to sobriety, a day where the world gets to channel the Irish spirit of excess and exuberance. In Dublin, the streets are a sea of green, with fiddles wailing and glasses clinking. In Boston, the Southies are three sheets to the wind by noon, singing “Sweet Caroline” like it’s a goddamn hymn. Even in Tokyo, they’re dyeing the rivers green and sipping sake with a side of Irish stew. It’s chaos, it’s beautiful, and it’s all thanks to a 5th-century badass who refused to let the bastards grind him down.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to be, and how it has always been until about 5 minutes ago.

The Ireland of today is facing a crisis that’d make even St. Patrick himself weep into his holy ale. The Emerald Isle, that bastion of green glory, is under siege—not by Viking longships or British redcoats, but by a tidal wave of illegal immigration that’s threatening to drown its very soul. In 2024 alone, asylum seeker numbers in Ireland surged by nearly 300% compared to five years prior, a statistic that’s got the rural towns of this proud nation reeling. These aren’t just numbers; these are entire communities—places where the Irish have become minorities in their own ancestral lands, overrun in what feels like a single, devastating swoop. The government, accused of zero action and zero accountability, is allegedly funneling money overseas while the voices of the Irish people are left to scream into the void.

Enter Conor McGregor, the notorious MMA fighter and, from this American Mick’s perspective, a modern-day embodiment of Irish defiance, who’s taken it upon himself to sound the alarm. Today, March 17th, 2025, on this very St. Patrick’s Day, McGregor strutted into the White House to meet with President Trump, a man he admires for his work ethic and no-nonsense approach. McGregor, decked out in a green three-piece suit, didn’t mince words in the briefing room, calling the situation in Ireland a “travesty” and warning that the country is on the cusp of losing its “Irishness” to what he terms an “illegal immigration racket.” He’s not just there to complain; he’s there to learn, to listen, and to plead for America—Ireland’s “big sibling”—to help its little bro get back on its feet. McGregor’s got big plans: he’s eyeing a run for President of Ireland later this year, aiming to take on the establishment with an anti-immigration platform that’s as fiery as a shot of poteen. Though he’s a long shot—needing the backing of 20 parliament members or four local councils to even get on the ballot—McGregor’s got the kind of populist, middle-finger-to-the-system energy that could just shake things up. Irish leaders like Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris have been quick to distance themselves, claiming McGregor doesn’t speak for Ireland, but the man’s got a following, and he’s not backing down.

So, here’s to St. Patrick, you magnificent bastard—patron saint of Ireland, proto-punk icon, and the guy who turned a slave’s suffering into a nation’s salvation. Here’s to the Irish, a people who’ve taken every punch the world could throw and still come up laughing, with a story to tell and a drink to share. And here’s to Conor McGregor, who’s fighting to preserve the Ireland that St. Patrick built, even if it means ruffling some feathers in the process. On this St. Patrick’s Day, let’s honor them all the only way that matters: with a glass raised high, a curse on our lips, and a fire in our hearts. Sláinte, you brilliant fuckers—may your day be as wild as Patrick’s life, and may your hangovers be the stuff of legend.

N.P.: “In the Name of the Father” – Bono, Gavin Friday

I shouldn’t be in such a fine mood today, dear reader…not nearly enough sleep last night, for no good reason at all.  Actually, the steroids may have had something to do with it.  Maybe not.  Regardless, I didn’t get to sleep until around 02:00.  Which would have been good enough if all else had been equal.  But all else wasn’t.

Fecal Creek is and always has been a railroad town.  This town formed around a massive Southern Pacific railyard which served as a central junction for all railroad traffic in California, but particularly between Sacramento to the west and the Gold Country to the east.  When officially founded during the Gold Rush, it was called Shotgun Junction, a rather badass tribute to the massive armed presence of militant civilians protecting the equally massive amount of gold flowing into and out of the town from bandits, river pirates, and thieving Mexicans.  Almost 200 years later, not much has changed: most of the civilian population is armed with shotguns, and the train traffic is heavier than ever.  Which train traffic was exactly what interrupted last night’s slumber, when it finally arrived.  Shortly after 04:15, some sort of disagreement apparently broke out between two engineers on two different trains over the right of way.  At least that’s what I’m guessing it was about…I have a police scanner that includes the Southern Pacific channel and probably could have clicked that thing on and found out exactly what was going on, but that would have involved getting out of bed, which was not something I was willing to do at that unholy hour of the night.  Anyway, whatever it was about, these two engineers decided to battle it out through a series of train-horn blasts lasting over 35 minutes.  I’m confident it woke the entire town up…certainly everybody in this house was brutally and rudely awakened by the sonic assault.  The goddamn puppy went all to pieces, choosing to run around in little circles in a pathetic effort to just deal with the pre-dawn nonsense.  It was awful, and by rights, the whole goddamn town should be cranky today.  And they probably are.  But not me.  I am mighty.  And smirking.  The writing is going extremely well.  Which brings us to the business of this day, March 16.

On March 16, 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne detonated a goddamn literary bomb in the sanctimonious gut of Puritan America when he published The Scarlet Letter, a vicious, white-hot screed that left the moral fascists of Boston reeling. Ticknor, Reed & Fields couldn’t keep the thing on shelves—2,500 copies obliterated in ten days, a middle finger to the theocratic killjoys who thought they could brand Hester Prynne with their scarlet “A” and call it a day. Hawthorne was not fucking around; he was a man scorned, freshly canned from his gig at the Salem Custom House, his blood boiling with the kind of rage that doesn’t simmer—it erupts. He turned that fury into a blade, slicing through the Puritan hypocrisy that festered like a plague in early America, exposing their obsession with sin, shame, and conformity for the sadistic charade it was. The Puritans, those black-clad, joy-hating bastards, thought they owned morality—Hawthorne showed they were the real sinners, their hearts festering with cruelty masquerading as piety. Not only did The Scarlet Letter become a cornerstone of American lit—it rewrote the rules, flipping the script on moral storytelling with a snarl that still echoes.

Hawthorne saw the Puritans for what they were: the original thought police, the blueprint for every moral panic that’s choked the life out of this country since. They demanded absolute obedience, using the fear of hellfire to keep the flock in line, their sanctimonious fingers in every pie, policing behavior, speech, even thought itself. Now, in 2025, their ghosts are back, and they’ve got new skin to wear. The Woke have arrived, and they’re the new Puritans, now on steroids, only worse—more insidious, more relentless, armed with the digital guillotine of cancellation and a dogma so rigid it makes the old witch-burners look like they were just vibing. These self-appointed arbiters of virtue don’t just want to control what you do—they want to control what you think, their ever-mutating lexicon of “microaggressions” and “systemic harm” a weaponized scripture designed to keep you on your knees. They’ve traded the Puritan’s hellfire for the hellfire of public shaming, their Twitter mobs and callout posts the modern-day stocks, their performative tears and hashtag activism a mask for a power grab so blatant it’s obscene. They’re not here to liberate—they’re here to dominate, and they’ll crush anyone who doesn’t bow to their gospel of moral purity.

The hypocrisy is enough to make you scream until your throat bleeds. They rail against “oppression” while building their own empire of control, a Kafkaesque nightmare of speech codes and behavior policing that strangles free thought like a garrote. They demand “accountability” while ignoring their own sins—their complicity in the same capitalist machine they claim to despise, their selective outrage that spares their allies but damns their enemies, their own unexamined prejudices festering beneath the surface of their sanctimonious word-policing. They’re the new magistrates of Salem, hunting heretics with a zeal that would make Cotton Mather proud, their digital pitchforks dripping with the blood of the canceled. And they’ve been winning, goddammit—they’ve been winning because we’ve been too scared, too complacent, too busy scrolling to fight back.

But not me. Not now. We’ve just hit an inflection point in this country…more of a breaking point, and I’m not sitting this one out. We need a new Scarlet Letter, a book that doesn’t just whisper dissent but screams it from the rooftops, a literary Molotov cocktail to burn this Woke tyranny to the ground. And I’m writing it—right now, in this moment, my hands shaking with a fury that courses through my veins like wildfire. I’m mainlining adrenaline and deliciously powerful American whiskey, my pulse hammering with the urgency of a man who knows the clock is ticking, the testicularly-lacking enemy is at the gates, and the time for polite discourse is over. This book isn’t going to pull punches—it’s going to swing an electrified shithammer, smashing through the Woke’s sanctimonious facade to expose the rot beneath. It’ll be a feral, unhinged takedown of their egregious hypocrisy, a call to arms for anyone who still believes in the raw, chaotic beauty of free thought. I’m channeling Hawthorne’s rage, every ounce of my own disgust into this thing, and when it hits, it’s going to hit like a freight train that doesn’t need to rely on it’s horns to demand the right of way. The idiot Woke won’t see it coming—they’ll be too busy, as always, policing pronouns to notice the revolution at their door. But it’s coming, and it’s going to be a beautiful, terrifying thing to behold. Buckle up.

N.P.: “Euthanasia” – Psychotica

Beware the Ides of March, dear reader!  Today is March 15, also known as the Ides of March, a time to remember that your best friends, your closest confidantes, even your immediate family can and in all likelihood will betray you just when you need them the most.  Thus, it is a darkly significant day on the Gallaway calendar, and it should be on yours as well.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, and/or you weren’t an English major, allow me to elucidate while once again including you in my nightly prayers. Let’s set the scene: March 15, 44 BC, and Rome’s power-hungry Senate is a pressure cooker ready to explode. Julius Caesar—conqueror, dictator, and all-around larger-than-life legend—strides in, blissfully unaware of the betrayal brewing. A pack of senators, led by his so-called friend Brutus, decide it’s time for a regime change. In a flash, they turn the Senate floor into a crime scene, stabbing Caesar 23 times in a frenzy of blood, treachery, and ambition. Shakespeare immortalized this savage betrayal in Julius Caesar (1599), giving us the haunting line, “Et tu, Brute?” (“And (even) you, Brutus?”)—a gut-punch that echoes through time. The Ides of March became the ultimate symbol of backstabbing doom, inspiring literary giants from Dante to Robert Graves. Caesar’s epic rise and brutal fall lit a fire under centuries of writers, proving that the rawest dramas aren’t fiction, but the messy, bloody stuff of history.

If you have ever been betrayed by your entire personal cohort, you (should) know well the lessons of the Ides of March.  If you have not yet been devastated by betrayal by those closest to you…you need to pay special attention to this, because no matter how immune you think you and your life are from this sort of treachery, you are overdue, greatly increasing the likelihood that It Is Coming: someone close to you is plotting behind your back.

With that in mind, here are my 5 Tips to Avoid Betrayal This Ides of March:

1. Trust Sparingly If At All: Keep your inner circle tighter than a duck’s pucker and your trust even tighter than that. Caesar trusted Brutus, and look where that got him—23 stab wounds! Vet your allies like a Roman general sizing up a legion.
2. Limit Your Circle: The fewer associates, the fewer knives at your back. Logically, your circle will be more of a stick: a single person, if you must have that.  But as Kobayashi reminds us in The Usual Suspects: “One cannot be betrayed if one has no people.”  An absolute minimalist, fiercely loyal crew beats the hell out of a big, fickle crowd every time.
3. Stay Ruthless When Needed (And Ruthlessness Is Always Needed): Don’t hesitate to cut ties with anyone showing shifty eyes. Caesar’s leniency with his enemies was his downfall—show strength, not mercy, when the stakes are high.
4. Watch for Signs: Keep an ear to the ground. Whispers, odd alliances, or sudden flattery? Those are red flags. Caesar ignored the soothsayer’s warning—don’t make the same mistake!
5. Control the Narrative: Stay one step ahead by shaping what others know about you. If they can’t predict your moves, they can’t plot against them.

The key behind this seemingly paranoid strategy is surviving the betrayal because you were expecting it, as opposed to Ceasar, who only realized the extent of his betrayal as his best friend was sliding a knife fatally into his back, when it was far too late.

The Ides of March whisper a blood-soaked truth: “When you come for the king, you best not miss.”  Emerson said that in “Self-Reliance.”  The more popular, punchy version – “When you strike at a king, you must kill him” – comes from a 20th-century paraphrase of Emerson by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.  Hesitate, flinch, or falter, and the crown doesn’t just endure – it crushes.  I’m sure Ceasar’s ghost would agree.  When the conspirators draw steel, but their trembling hands spare their empire’s tyrant a moment too long, what follows isn’t mercy – it is the king’s justice, a vengeful tide of retribution that will drown them all.

N.P.: “Auf die Zunge (feat. Schattenmann)” – Eisbrecher