Author Archives: Jayson Gallaway

Word of the Day: eldritch

 

Here I am again, sinister reader, entombed in the perpetual, soupy miasma that my humble hamlet of Fecal Creek. CA, has apparently decided to adopt as its permanent personality.  You see, this town, indeed the entirety of Anhedonia County, has been swallowed whole by fog for at least three weeks now, fog so thick you could spread it on toast and call it despair.  Nights are a wet, milky blindness where streetlamps die at twenty paces and every dog refuses to bark because even they know something is listening.   Days are just a brief negotiation with a sun that is now more a rumor than a fact.  Everything drips.  It’s the kind of weather that seeps into your bones, a damp that clings not just to your clothes but to your spirit.  And what does a self-respecting, newly and brutally sober, quasi-hermetic literary type do when faced with such an atmospheric siege?  One leans in, naturally, toward the only honest literature for weather like this.  Because I’m nothing if not a masochist for mood, my reading has become a direct reflection of the meteorological morass outside.  It started, as it must, with Poe, because of course Poe; the man who knew how to weaponize atmosphere understood that the real horror is when the architecture itself wants you dead.  His tales of premature burial and sentient abysses read less like fiction and more like a local weather report.  From there, it was almost a predestined slide back into the embrace of Stoker’s Dracula, because nothing says “cozy” like aristocratic necrophilia in a castle that smells like a crypt’s taint (and because fog and vampiric dread are basically peanut butter and jelly).  Carpathian menace felt perfectly at home here, his vaporous transformations mirroring the air I was breathing.
Now, I find myself deep in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shunned House, a choice so fitting it borders on cosmic satire.  The story’s fungal horrors and subterranean emanations are in terrifying synchronicity with the damp decay that seems to have become the Creek’s primary export.
The combination of these particular fictions with the perpetually unsettling atmosphere has rendered my world a place of profound and disquieting strangeness, a place where the veil between the mundane and the monstrous feels perilously thin.  Which, conveniently, brings us to today’s word, the only one that still works when the air itself feels like it’s conspiring:

Eldritch (adj.)
/weird and sinister or ghostly; unearthly; uncanny; strange, eerie, and unnatural in a way that provokes fear, unease, or dread/
From Scots, probably from Middle English elrich, itself maybe from Old English ælf-rīce “elf-realm” + a twist through centuries of border ballads where the fairies weren’t cute and the night had teeth.  First citation 1508, but it feels older, like it crawled out of a peat bog still wearing the face of something that should have stayed drowned.
And now, because the fog demands tribute, a short story showing the word at work in the wild:
The fog never lifted; it merely thinned to the consistency of a dying man’s breath on a mirror.  I walked the cracked spine of Miner’s Ravine Road where the blackberry brambles had grown so bold they’d begun knitting themselves into arches, forming a thorny cathedral that no priest would ever consecrate.  Somewhere behind the veil, Fecal Creek’s lone traffic light blink its yellow eye, like a warning it had forgotten the point of.  The house at the bend, everyone knew the house, had stood empty for decades, yet every third night its attic window glowed the color of spoiled buttermilk.  I told myself I was only cutting through the yard to shave forty seconds off my trudge to the liquor store, but the fog had other curricula.  Halfway across the weed- choked lawn the ground exhaled.  Not a wind, not a scent; something between a sigh and a belch, centuries of basement rot rising through the soles of my boots.  The mist folded around me until the world reduced to a single wet coin of visibility.  And in that coin, for one heartbeat only, the house was not a house.  It was a face, vast and fungal, its shingles the scales of something that had learned carpentry the way leukemia learns bone marrow.  Its windows were eyes filmed with cataract and ancient hunger, and from the black porch gaped a mouth that had never bothered with doors.  The entire structure leaned forward the way a praying mantis leans before it remembers it is allowed to be cruel.  That was the moment, the single systolic throb, when the night revealed its true and eldritch geometry.
Then the fog inhaled, the face collapsed back into clapboard and neglect, and I was running, lungs full of grave-damp, boots slapping through puddles that reflected no moon because the moon had apparently filed a restraining order.  I did not stop until the neon of the liquor store bled across my retinas like a mercy killing.
I bought two bottles of the cheapest red wine and drank one in the parking lot just to remind my heart it was still allowed to beat.
Fecal Creek is still out there, sopping, listening.
The fog is not hiding anything.
It is showing us, very patiently, what was always here. 

So here we are, spooky reader: a town marinated in fog, a reader marinated in gothic dread, and a word marinated in centuries of linguistic strangeness.  If the weather doesn’t break soon, I’ll be forced to reread House of Leaves and start scribbling paranoid diagrams on my walls.

N.P.: “Temple of Love 1992” – Sisters of Mercy

Pearl Harbor Day: America’s Original FAFO Sermon

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, dear, young, likely historically ignorant reader.  And this morning, with the right kind of awareness, you can still smell the cordite and betrayal, even eighty-four years later.  Imagine the Pacific sun rising over Oahu, sailors still half-drunk on Saturday night liberty, and then the sky itself vomiting steel and fire courtesy of those treacherous, rotten, shit-sucking Imperial Japanese bastards who thought they’d invented the concept of a sucker punch.  Spoiler: they hadn’t.

Pearl Harbor was a cosmic joke gone lethal, a nation’s collective hangover suddenly cured by the shriek of dive bombers and the sight of battleships belching smoke like dying dinosaurs.  America, caught pants-down, coffee not yet brewed, suddenly found itself staring into doom.  And that doom was painted with the Rising Sun.

Cue the doctrine that would later be branded FAFO – though back then it was more primal, less acronymic, more like the raw animal snarl of a country that had just been cock-punched across the Pacific.  You mess with the sleeping giant, you wake up in a nightmare.  And the nightmare came in the form of two massive fuck-off mushroom clouds, each one a vengeful sermon preached from the pulpit of modernity.  Hiroshima.  Nagasaki.  Cities turned into ashtray metaphors, the ultimate “don’t try this at home” PSA.

It wasn’t pretty.  It might not have been noble.  It wasn’t the sanitized heroism of war movies where the trumpet swells and the flag waves in slow motion.  It was brutal, humiliating, and final.  Japan went from swaggering imperialist bully to shivering, sniveling, kneeling supplicant in less time than it takes to say “unconditional surrender.”  The lesson was scorched into the earth itself: America doesn’t just retaliate; America retaliates with biblical fury, with the kind of overkill that makes future enemies pause, sweat, and complete reconsider their life choices.

Pearl Harbor Day isn’t just about remembering the dead – though we must, always – it’s about remembering the moment America decided to stop playing nice.  The day we got sucker-punched and responded by inventing the most terrifying mic drop in human history.

So raise a glass today, not in celebration but in defiance.  To the sailors entombed in steel coffins at the bottom of the harbor.  To the civilians who never saw the bombers coming.  And yes, to the awe-inspiring fire that ended the war.  Pearl Harbor was the opening act.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the encore.

But here’s the part that curdles my bourbon, the rotgut truth that keeps me pacing the floorboards at 3 a.m.: the America that once answered treachery with firestorms and unconditional surrender papers now looks like it’s been neutered by its own self-appointed moral hall monitors, the ones who think hashtags are strategy and empathy for narco-terrorists is diplomacy.  We’ve gone from steel-jawed brawlers to therapy-session sissies, from a nation that could vaporize two cities before breakfast to one that can’t even decide if its borders are real.

Because let’s be honest: the left has been busy sanding down the teeth of the beat, turning the war machine into some sort of pitiful daycare center where Teletubbies go to fuck…where illegal immigrants, cartel apologists, and anti-American imports get tucked in with warm milk while the citizens who’d actually bleed in the next war are told to shut up and check their privilege.  It’s a grotesque inversion of priorities, a carnival of cowardice dressed up as compassion, and it makes me wonder it the next Pearl Harbor will be met not with mushroom clouds but with strongly worded press releases and congressional hearings that drag on until the enemy has already planted their flag on our soil.

The spiraling nightmare is this: we’ve traded resolve for rhetoric, fury for focus, and the raw animal snarl of a wounded giant for the mewling of bureaucrats who thing “restraint” is a virtue when the sky is on fire.  Imagine the next sucker punch – missiles streaking, ships burning, civilians screaming – and instead of the old America rising from the smoke with clenched fists, we get committees, hashtags, and a chorus of “this is not who we are.”

But history doesn’t give a shit who we are.  History only cares who wins.  And if we’ve lost the will to win – if we’ve let the pussification of America become our defining trait – then the next Pearl Harbor won’t be remembered as the day we woke up.  It’ll be remembered as the day we rolled over, pulled the blanket up, and let someone else write the ending.

So here’s the mic drop, the blistering sermon carved into the bones of this day: Pearl Harbor was the warning, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the answer, and the only question left is whether we still have the guts to answer again.  If not, then the obituary of America will read like a parody: a nation that once nuked its enemies into submission but later surrendered to its own cowardice.

N.P.: “Funeral March” – 2WEI

Word of the Day: epicaricacy

 

Epicaricacy is a noun referring to the quiet, delicious, morally indefensible little orgasm you get when some smug motherfucker finally eats the exact shit sandwich he or she spent years force-feeding everyone else.
German has schadenfreude, sure, but that’s the tourist version, the Disneyland of malice.  Epicaricacy is the back-alley, no-safe-word edition.  Think of it as schadenfreude’s eccentric cousin who insists one wearing velvet pants to funerals and ordering wine in Latin while correcting your pronunciation of “bruschetta.”
It’s etymology is a straight up Latin/Greek smash-and-grab:
epi– (“upon”)
chara (“joy”)
Kakos (“evil” or “misfortune”)
So, literally: joy-upon-evil, with a hard middle-finger detour through the medieval habit of pretending you’re enjoying someone’s downfall for “pedagogical reasons.”  The word itself was basically invented in 1715 by some wigged Brit who wanted to sound smarter than the Germans while still getting his rocks off watching dukes slip on ice.  Respect.

The sign outside the cantina flickered like a dying insect: “Carnaval de Gasolina.”¹ Nobody cared. By midnight, the joint was a pharmacological zoo—cheap mezcal poured into motor oil cans, cocaine cut with talcum powder, and tabs of acid shaped like Biden’s neck waddles.²
I was three shots past coherence when Frankie “Dos Cuchillos” decided to rob the bar.³ He didn’t bother with a mask—just stormed in waving machetes like he was auditioning for a narco telenovela. The jukebox kept playing “Sweet Caroline,” which made the whole thing feel like a parody of violence.
Somebody threw a chair. Somebody else threw up. Frankie screamed about “redistributing wealth” while pocketing pesos and half a bag of Doritos. Then the federales showed up, already drunk from the bowling alley across the street. One officer tried to tase Frankie, missed, and electrocuted the jukebox instead. Neil Diamond died mid-chorus.
As Frankie got tackled into a puddle of spilled mezcal, the entire bar erupted in laughter. Not nervous laughter, not relief—just pure, uncut joy at watching chaos eat itself alive. That’s when I realized the word for this exact moment existed: epicaricacy.⁴ The pleasure of watching someone else’s disaster, the giddy schadenfreude of seeing a man with two knives get flattened by his own stupidity.
I lit a cigarette off the sparking jukebox, raised my glass to the carnage, and thought: Mexico, you beautiful bastard, never change.

Footnotes & Citations

  1. See “Semiotics of Neon Failure in Border Economies,” Journal of Applied Cantina Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1998), pp. 45–67.
  2. For a comparative analysis of Biden iconography in psychedelic paraphernalia, consult “Sleepy Joe and the Acid Tab: A Psychoactive Presidency,” Annals of Illicit Semiotics, Vol. 7 (2024).
  3. Nicknames in Tijuana function as both biography and prophecy. Cf. “The Ontology of Narco Sobriquets,” Revista de Crimen y Cultura, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2011).
  4. Epicaricacy: see “Obscure Lexicons of Schadenfreude,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Pretentious Vocabulary, Vol. 1 (2009).

N.P.: “Sad But True” – Mexican Institute of Sound

Season’s Beatings: Das ist Krampusnacht!

 

Even back when I still believed Santa Claus was an actual dude with an actual mailing address inside the Arctic Circle, with an actual toy shop staffed mostly by elves (blah blah blah), I felt, deep down in that dark and vacant space where my soul should have been, that Things Weren’t Right.

Children know monsters exist. Even toddlers understand that evil lurks [see Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment and that study where kids were given fairy tales with the scary parts removed, and they got so pissed off they attacked their teachers’ kneecaps]. Rugrats resent the hell out of adults who pretend otherwise. I certainly did. Which is why the unipolar morality of the Santa story never sat well with me: goodness is rewarded, but evil goes unpunished.

All year long, the promise of every materialistic dream a child may have coming true on Christmas morning is dangled in front of their beady little eyes on the condition of “good” behavior. I always assumed there was some kind of sliding scale: if your behavior was saintly all year, you get everything on your list plus bonus loot. If you were decent for eight months but a prick the rest of the time, maybe you only get a third. But what of the little bastard who is rotten every single day? According to the Santa story, nothing. Not a gpddamn thing. Santa still shows up, maybe leaves a lump of coal. Big deal.

So the neighborhood terror can spend all year lowering property values and ruining lives, then stroll over to Goody Two-Shoes’ house on December 26th, whack him over the head with a board, steal his toys, and swagger home. Ludicrous. Unjust. Existentially unsound. There can be no light without darkness, no goodness without evil. Children know this innately.

But in Disneyfied, bubble-wrapped America, parents quake at the thought of damaging their little snowflakes’ eggshell psyches. Teachers are told not to grade in red pen because red is “too violent.” Little league games don’t keep score because someone might lose. And the results are tragic: entire generations who cannot conjugate the verbs “to lose” or “to fail.”

I say Enough. Ya basta! Children are far hardier than they’re given credit for. Which is why I propose we reset Christmas and celebrate it properly — by resurrecting the full story from Europe: the tale of Santa’s dark counterpart, Krampus.

If Santa Claus is a right jolly old elf, then Krampus is a bad-ass Christmas demon. If Saint Nick is benevolent generosity, Krampus is divine retribution. He’s a satanic-looking satyr with massive horns and a bifurcated tail, draped in noisy chains and cowbells, wielding pointy sticks with which he beats the hell out of children who’ve been assholes all year. And if the offenses are more than venial? Krampus doesn’t just beat them — he drags them to hell, dismembers them, or eats them right there in front of God and everybody. Don’t bother running to Santa for help. Santa and Krampus are drinking buddies, existential pals who clink steins at the biergarten while swapping stories about naughty brats.

And Krampus doesn’t stop at punishing kids. No, when he’s not dispensing yuletide justice, he’s goosing attractive women and licking faces like Rick James on a crackful night. Krampus is a straight-up poon hound. Unlike that grandfatherly twat Santa Claus, ever the family man, Krampus crushes mad ass on the reg. There is no Mrs. Krampus. He doesn’t need one. He’s got game, and he wants to fist your mother after he eats your soul.

Speaking of eating, don’t bother leaving cookies and milk. Krampus is lactose intolerant and immune to baked goods bribery. Whiskey and steak might buy you a few seconds, but ultimately, there’s only one way to avoid his wrath: walk the path of righteousness, and avoid assholishness the rest of the year.

 

N.P.: “Overlord” – Thorr

The Marquis Checks Out

 

For a certain subset of us – the literary degenerates, the philosophical deviants, the connoisseurs of exquisite moral wreckage – this date marks the anniversary of an exit.

There’s something perversely satisfying about the fact that Donatien Alphonse François – the Marquis de Sade, aristocrat, pornographer, philosopher, lunatic, prophet of the flesh, the ayatollah of rock’n’rolla – died on this day in 1814, tucked away in the asylum at Charenton like a dangerous animal finally caged, though still scribbling until the last.  The man whose name became a synonym for deriving pleasure from another’s pain.  A name whispered in polite society with the same horrified glee as a newly discovered plague.  The Marquis.  The original.  He went out not with guillotines or mobs with pitchforks and torches, but with the slow rot of institutional confinement.

This wasn’t a gentle passing.  This was the extinguishing of a human firestorm, a man who spent a significant portion of his 74 years (something like three decades, if you’re keeping score) locked away.  Kings, revolutionaries, and emperors all took one look at this dude and his…proclivities…and decided he was better off behind very thick walls.  And what did our boy de Sade do with all that quiet time?  He wrote.  His novels – Justine, Juliette, 120 Days of Sodom – are endurance tests, labyrinths of cruelty and desire where the reader is both voyeur and victim.  They are quite obscene, of course, but also philosophical in the most unnerving sense: they ask whether freedom means anything of it doesn’t include the freedom to be monstrous.

Picture him, dear reader: powdered wig askew, ink-stained fingers, eyes glittering with the manic glee of someone who knows he’s already been damned and is determined to make damnation art.  And when he finally died – December 2, 1814 – the world didn’t breathe easier so much as pretended not to notice.  Because to notice is to admit that the abyss he described is still there, yawning under our feet.  He argued that the ultimate liberty was the freedom to pursue one’s own pleasure, no matter the consequence, no matter the cost to others.  He posited a universe that was not merely indifferent but actively hostile, and the only sane response was to become an engine of pure, unadulterated will.

And so, on this day in 1814, the engine finally sputtered out.  The great blasphemer fell silent.  He left behind a last will and testament that requested his body be left to rot in a forest, his grave unmarked, so that all trace of him would vanish from the memory of men.

Nice try, Marquis.

Because here we are, centuries down the line, and the shadow he cast is longer than ever.  His name is a household word and a psychological term.  His ideas, scrubbed clean and repackaged for academic consumption, bubble up in philosophy seminars and late-night dorm room debates about the nature of freedom.  The man who wanted to be forgotten is utterly unforgettable.  He’s the abyss that, when you stare into it, not only stares back but asks if you’ve got any good ideas for a Tuesday afternoon.

So pour one out for the old pervert.  If you need an entry-level ticket to the madhouse, I highly recommend you check out Quills (starring Geoffrey Rush in all his unhinged glory) – it’s as riotously entertaining as it is sharp.

He was a literary terrorist, dear reader.  And in the sanitized, terrified, and terminally boring landscape of our current moment, you have to admit: there was a certain horrifying magnificence to his ride.  He went all the way.

N.P.: “An American Murder Song” – American Murder Song

December 1, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

World Leaders Scramble as Author Jayson Gallaway Reported Sober

GLOBAL – A seismic shockwave has ripped through the international community today following startling, unconfirmed reports that author Jayson Gallaway has recently achieved total, verifiable sobriety for the first time in recorded history.  The news, which began as a whisper in clandestine intelligence circles, has ignited a firestorm of panic across global markets rarely seen outside of nuclear near-misses, and sent heads of state scrambling for emergency briefings.

White House officials compared the event to “Israel and the Arab states uniting to conquer Europe, but with worse long-term consequences.”  Pentagon spokespersons refused to rule out pre-emptive action.

For decades, Gallaway’s legendary, almost heroic, consumption of intoxicating substances of all species and vintages has been a reliable constant in a world of flux.  His sobriety, should these reports prove true, represents a geopolitical shift not seen since the reunification of Germany, leaving world leaders to grapple with a terrifying new reality: a clear-headed Gallaway.

“We are viewing this development with the utmost gravity,” stated the British Prime Minister from a hastily assembled press conference at 10 Downing Street.  “For years, we operated under the assumption that Mr. Gallaway was, at any given moment, at least three sheets to the wind.  This new paradigm forces us to re-evaluate our entire national security strategy.  We are raising the threat level from ‘Substantial’ to ‘Oh God, He’s Hydrated.’  RAF Typhoons are now escorting any transatlantic flight that might contain a sober American writer.  Pubs will remain open 24 hours a day as a national defense measure.”

Similar scenes of alarm are unfolding worldwide.  Speaking from an underground bunker beneath the Elysée Palace, French President Emmanuel Macron warned, his voice trembling slightly: “We simply do not know what a sober Jayson Gallaway is capable of.  The man once wrote an entire novel while drinking nothing but absinthe and children’s tears.  Total clarity of mind represents an asymmetric threat to European cultural stability.  Effective immediately, France is closing all borders to anyone carrying a laptop and a suspicious lack of hangover.  Cultural attaches have been deployed.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared visibly shaken: “This is worse than 1989, because then we at least knew what a sober Germany looked like.  We have no precedent for a sober Gallaway…it could be just as disruptive. The Bundeswehr has tripled air patrols over the North Sea as we brace for literary shockwaves.”

From Beijing, a spokesperson for President Xi Jinping issued a terse statement: “The People’s Liberation Army has been placed on high alert. If Mr. Gallaway begins producing literature at full cognitive capacity, the ideological fallout could cross the Pacific in hours.  We are prepared to intercept any manuscripts launched by balloon.”

Even the Vatican weighed in.  Pope Francis, speaking from the papal balcony, urged global prayer: “We fear this may be the End Times, only with better punctuation.”

Economists are equally baffled.  The stability of several key industries, from distilleries to late-night pizza delivery services, has long been tacitly linked to Gallaway’s lifestyle.  One analyst noted, “His sudden departure from the marketplace could trigger a recession.  We’re in uncharted territory.  It’s like if gravity just decided to take a day off.”

Indeed, whiskey futures plummeted 47% in after-hours trading.  The entire state of Kentucky has reportedly entered a state of mourning.

In an unprecedented joint statement, leaders from several G7 nations expressed their profound uncertainty. “What are his intentions?  What does he want?  We simply don’t know what this new, sober Gallaway will do.  We are calling for calm, but we are also moving our nations to DEFCON 2.”

This publication has repeatedly attempted to contact Mr. Gallaway at his secure, undisclosed suburban compound commonly known as “The Safe House.”  All messages, smoke signals, and carrier ravens have gone unanswered.  Neighbors report hearing only the ominous sound of a mechanical keyboard operating at terrifying efficiency.

Experts warn that if the sobriety continues unchecked, Gallaway could complete an entire book in 2026 – a scenario one NATO official described as “frankly apocalyptic.”  The world seems to be facing this prospect with a mixture of anticipation and sheer terror.

The world waits, borders sealed and skies patrolled, for the next move from Jayson Gallaway.  Whether this sobriety marks the dawn of a new era or the beginning of cultural upheaval, one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same.
Further updates as the crisis develops.  Citizens are advised to keep a bottle of bourbon within reach at all times.

N.P.: “Blue Monday – Synth Riders Version” – Zardonic, REEBZ

November 29, 2025

 

There are dates, dear reader, that the hoople-heads circle on their calendars because they have to – tax day, their cousin’s third wedding, that annual check-up where their doctor tries to convince them that kale is a food group.  On my calendar, days like November 29th are circled because back in 1898, Belfast coughed up a baby named Clive Staples Lewis, and reality’s been a little weirder ever since.

You probably know C.S. Lewis as the dude who invented Aslan and traumatized generations of kids with the idea that a wardrobe wasn’t just for mothballs and shameful outfits.  But it was never just about wardrobe doors and talking creatures.  Lewis took on the big questions – faith, loyalty, sacrifice – even cosmic terror.  He banged out science-fiction trilogies about demonic planets and the fate of humanity, then casually dropped Mere Christianity, which proceeds to smash through 20th-century theology like a methamphetaminic rhinoceros on a Sunday stroll.  To call him “the kindly uncle of children’s lit” is like calling Attila the Hun a “fun guest at brunch.”  He was an intellectual brawler who stashed fables like napalm in the minds of children everywhere, stories that get dragged out every time there’s a debate about books corrupting the youth or saving their souls.

So raise a ridiculously oversized mug of tea to C.S. Lewis – the apocalypse-dreamer and literary disruptor.  Celebrate a life that refused to shut the wardrobe door, even after seeing all the dark and dangerous thing crawling around inside.

N.P.: “Kayra” – Ummet Ozcan

November 28, 2025

I hope my dear reader had a great Thanksgiving.  I certainly did.  I LOVE Thanksgiving for myriad reasons, all of which are compelling and legitimate.  But every November, like clockwork, the turkey hits the table and guilt-industrial complex revs its engines.  The woke brigade, armed with hashtags and think-pieces, insists that Thanksgiving isn’t gratitude or family or stuffing-induced coma – it’s genocidal cosplay, colonial oppression reheated, white supremacy with cranberry sauce.  Cue the headlines: The Washington Post calling the holiday “hemispheric violence,” Time branding it a “harmful lie,” and The Nation demanding we “decolonize” the mashed potatoes.  Balls.

Sure, history is messy.  Nobody sane denies that.  But the annual ritual of progressive scolding has metastasized into a kind of performance art – an endless dirge where every bit of turkey is supposed to taste like original sin.  The World Socialist Website even manages to turn gravy into a Marxist metaphor: billionaires swimming in cash while workers drown in AI pink slips.  Meanwhile, activists petition newspapers to stop publishing Pilgrim accounts, as if the Mayflower Compact were Mein Kampf.

Well, fuck that.

Thanksgiving is not a seminar is grievance studies.  It’s a day when America, in all its cracked, contradictory glory, sits down and remembers survival.  The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag did share a meal.  They did sign a treaty.  They did cobble together the Mayflower Compact, which – whether you like it or not – was the first written constitution in the New World.  That experiment in self-government eventually inspired the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  That not propaganda…that’s history with teeth.

Thanksgiving is about grit, ingenuity, faith, and the stubborn refusal to fold.  It’s about family, cooperation, hard work, and gratitude – the values that built this country.  The woke bitching isn’t really about history; it’s about hating anything that celebrates America’s virtues.

Thanksgiving is a great day.  A day to eat too much, argue with relatives, and remember that despite the chaos, we’re still here.  The woke chorus can keep their dirges, their petitions, their performative shame.  The rest of us will keep the turkey, the pie, the football, and the gratitude.

Because sometimes the most rebellious act in a culture of perpetual outrage is simply to say grace, pour another drink, and pass the goddamn turkey without an apology.

N.P.: “One Vision – Extended Version” – Queen