Category Archives: Lucubrations

April 14, 2025

 

On April 14, 1828, Noah Webster, that lexicographical colossus, that indefatigable codifier of a nascent nation’s tongue, unleashed upon the world his two-volume American Dictionary of the English Language—a staggering 70,000 words, priced at $20 a set, a veritable bargain for the sheer audacity of its ambition.  Webster, with his fierce American nationalism, standardized the spelling—think “color” sans the superfluous u, “organize” with a zesty z—and rooted his definitions in the raw, evolving speech of the early U.S. When sales tanked, he slashed the price to $15, and lo, the Webster legacy was born, a nation’s voice defined, a middle finger to colonial cultural shackles. This was lexicography as rebellion, as patriotism, a man not just defining words but defining an identity, a people, a dream!  Damn right.

But oh, how the mighty have fallen! Fast-forward to the last seven years, and poor Noah, that titan of linguistic purity, would be clawing his way out of his grave, screaming in abject horror at the woke, progressive, cultural-Marxist takeover of his beloved Merriam-Webster! The dictionary—his sacred legacy—has been hijacked by a cabal of language-bending ideological idiots, twisting definitions to align with the simpering, sanctimonious zeitgeist of social justice warriors and their dim-witted ilk!  I can hear the woke now, howling and bitching, gnawing on my doorknob, trying to get in and whine.  But look at the evidence, you sheep, the proof is in the pudding: “male” and “female” redefined to include “gender identity,” as in “having a gender identity that is the opposite of female” for male—since when did biology bow to feelings? “Boy” and “girl” now tethered to “gender identity” rather than, you know, reality—a boy as “a child whose gender identity is male,” a girl vice versa. This isn’t lexicography; this is madness, a semantic coup d’état!

And it gets worse! The term “homosexual” as a noun—gone, erased by Dictionary.com for its “clinical connotations,” replaced with the oh-so-chic “gay,” as if history itself can be scrubbed clean by the woke police! “Colorblind” now comes with a sanctimonious note that while it might mean freedom from racial prejudice, it could also—gasp!—suggest a failure to “acknowledge systemic racial inequities.” “Anti-vaxxer” expanded to include not just vaccine skeptics but those who dare oppose mandates—a nod to the COVID-19 culture wars, a slap in the face to individual liberty! And don’t get me started on “climate change” morphing into “climate crisis,” a term dripping with activist urgency, or “unique” being watered down to allow modifiers like “very”—a grammatical sacrilege that would make Webster weep!

This isn’t evolution, you fools, it’s capitulation! This isn’t a goddamn French dictionary…no reason for surrender here.  Merriam-Webster claims they’re documenting “contemporary language use,” but what they’re really doing is kowtowing to the cultural left, bending the knee to every passing fad—be it gender fluidity, racial grievance, or environmental hysteria! Noah Webster didn’t just define words; he defined a nation’s voice, its spine, its grit. Now his legacy is a plaything for the perpetually aggrieved, a tool for ideological conformity. He’d be spinning in his grave, I tell you, spinning at 10,000 RPM, a lexicographical centrifuge of rage, watching his dictionary—his life’s work—turned into a manifesto for the woke apocalypse! We’re through the looking glass, dear reader, and the dictionary’s been leading the charge—stop the madness!

N.P.: “Enter My Mind” – Drain

Gavin Newsom: The Golden State’s Golden Boy Turned Gilded Hypocrite – Recall This Fraud Now!

Alright, California, let’s torch the slick-haired, smarmy-grinned facade of Gavin Newsom, our so-called governor who’s spend the last four years turning our state into a dystopian dumpster fire. It’s time we drag his sorry ass out of Sacramento before he slithers to a 2028 presidential run. It’s high time to end Newsom’s reign of failure, hypocrisy, and flip-flopping cowardice.

The COVID Clown Show: Newsom’s Biggest Failure
Let’s start with the crown jewel of Newsom’s incompetence: his handling of COVID-19. While Californians were locked down, businesses crushed, and kids robbed of their education, Newsom was sipping wine maskless at the French Laundry with his elitist cronies. Rules for thee, but not for me, huh, Gav? He obliterated small businesses with draconian mandates while letting Hollywood keep filming—because, apparently, movie sets dodge viruses, but your local diner doesn’t. His vaccine obsession and school closures dragged on longer than a bad Netflix series, leaving kids academically stunted and parents desperate. When Delta hit, he flipped faster than a pancake, lifting restrictions not because of science but because his recall polls were tanking. Leadership? More like a weathervane in a shitstorm.

Cities in Ruin, But Polished for a Dictator
Look at Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles—once vibrant, now crumbling under Newsom’s watch. Homeless encampments sprawl like urban cancer, crime spikes unchecked, and businesses flee faster than rats from a sinking ship. San Francisco’s Tenderloin is a fentanyl-fueled zombie apocalypse, while L.A.’s streets double as open-air asylums. Sacramento? A ghost town where hope goes to die. But when Xi Jinping, China’s commie-in-chief, rolled into San Fran in 2023, Newsom miraculously cleaned the streets overnight. Homelessness vanished, needles disappeared, and the city sparkled like a propaganda reel. One week later, it was back to squalor. Priorities, right? Newsom’s fine letting Californians drown in filth, but he’ll roll out the red carpet for a dictator. Pathetic.

Bankrupting Medi-Cal for Political Points
Here’s a real gut-punch: Newsom’s bleeding Medi-Cal dry to fund healthcare for millions of illegal immigrants. California’s budget deficit is a gaping $73 billion wound, yet he’s pouring billions into free medical care for people who aren’t even supposed to be here. Meanwhile, citizens—veterans, the working poor—struggle to afford doctor visits. It’s not compassion; it’s a cynical vote-buying scheme dressed up as altruism. Newsom’s bankrupting our state to pad his progressive resume, and we’re the ones stuck with the bill.

The High-Speed Rail to Nowhere
And let’s talk about Newsom’s pet disaster: the high-speed rail project. Promised as a futuristic link between L.A. and San Fran, it’s now a $100 billion boondoggle with nothing to show but overpriced dirt piles in Fresno. Costs have ballooned, deadlines evaporated, and Newsom keeps funneling cash into this black hole while our roads crumble and public transit rots. He sold it as a green dream, but it’s a monument to his arrogance—proof he’d rather chase vanity projects than fix what’s broken. Californians deserve better than this money pit.

Stealing Kids for “Misgendering”
Then there’s his Orwellian attack on parents. Newsom’s pushed policies letting the state yank kids from families for “misgendering”—as if calling your son “he” instead of “they” makes you unfit to raise him. This is straight-up authoritarian lunacy. He’s weaponizing child protective services to enforce woke dogma, trampling parental rights while claiming it’s about “protecting” kids. Newsom’s not protecting anyone—he’s building a surveillance state where families fear his thought police.

2025: The Year of the Spineless Flip-Flop
Now, eyeing the White House, Newsom’s shedding his progressive skin like a snake. In 2025, he’s done a 180 on everything he once preached, and it’s as shameless as it sounds.

Trans Men in Women’s Sports: After years of championing “inclusion,” Newsom’s suddenly “uncomfortable” with biological males dominating women’s athletics. Funny how that clarity hit when national polls showed most Americans agree it’s unfair. Where was this spine when he signed bills forcing schools to let men compete as women?

Ditching “Latinx” and Woke Nonsense: The guy who sprinkled “Latinx” in every speech like it was glitter now claims he never liked it. On his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” he’s mocking the identity politics he built his career on. It’s not growth; it’s a calculated pivot to woo moderates. Newsom’s not evolving—he’s pandering, and it’s insulting.
These aren’t principled changes; they’re the moves of a political chameleon who’ll say anything to climb the next rung. He’s betting we’re too stupid to notice his hypocrisy. Prove him wrong.

The Recall: Our Last Chance to End This Nightmare

Here’s the good news: the fight to recall Newsom is alive and kicking in 2025. After the 2021 effort fell short—thanks to Newsom’s fear-mongering and deep-pocketed allies—activists, led by groups like Rescue California, are back with a vengeance. They’ve got until September to gather 1.3 million signatures, and the momentum’s building. X is ablaze with rage—Californians calling him corrupt, a liar, the worst governor ever. The vibe’s clear: we want him gone.
This isn’t just about Newsom’s policies; it’s about purging the evil he represents—arrogance, elitism, and betrayal of everything California stands for. He’s not governing; he’s auditioning for president, and we’re just props in his ego trip. Enough is enough.

Join the Recall, Save California
California, it’s time to rise up. Sign the recall petition. Volunteer with groups like Rebuild California. Spread the word on X, at the grocery store, in your group chats. Newsom’s counting on our apathy—let’s hit him with a tidal wave of outrage instead. We can’t let this slick-talking fraud destroy our state for another day, let alone parade his failures on a national stage in 2028. Recall Gavin Newsom. Fire him. And let’s take our Golden State back from his greasy, hypocritical claws.  https://rescuecalifornia.org/

N.P.: “Hedonista” – Dead Chic

Lock The Goddamn Clock!

DEFCON 1 ALERT: The U.S. Must Obliterate Daylight Saving Time and Canonize Standard Time Before We’re All PERMANENTLY BONED!

Dear Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Musk, and my fellow Americans,

Listen up—time’s hemorrhaging out of our collective sanity like a slashed artery, and we’re all complicit! Every spring, we grovel before the sadistic altar of Daylight Saving Time (DST), wrenching our clocks forward into a maelstrom of disruption that’d make Kafka blush. Some brain-dead bureaucrats and sun-worshipping yahoos are now howling to make DST permanent—a move so cataclysmically idiotic it’d hurl us into a dystopian abyss of jet-lagged despair. We’ve got ONE shot to stop this lunacy: the U.S. government must nuke DST into oblivion and anoint Standard Time as our eternal law. Here’re five reasons—etched in the blood of reason—why Standard Time is our only salvation, why permanent DST is a one-way ticket to Bedlam, and a screaming neon warning from our last disastrous flirtation with this madness in the ‘70s.

  1. Standard Time Is Our Circadian Lifeline—DST Is a Biological Guillotine
    Our meat-sacks are hardwired to groove with the sun’s primal pulse, and Standard Time’s the only rhythm that doesn’t spit in Mother Nature’s face. Permanent DST? It’d shove sunrises so far past 8 a.m. in winter you’d need a miner’s helmet to find your coffee. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine screams it loud: misaligned clocks jack up heart attacks, obesity, and suicidal ideation like some twisted pharmaceutical trial gone rogue. Standard Time cradles our pineal glands with morning light, syncing us to the cosmic beat. Permanent DST would fling us into a Stygian dawnless hell, scrambling our neurons into a quivering mess. You want to live like a vampire? I tried it for a few years back in the 90s, and the results, while interesting, weren’t anything approximating “good.”
  2. Morning Safety or a Slaughterhouse Dawn? Choose Now!
    Permanent DST fetishizes twilight picnics while tossing schoolkids and commuters into a pitch-black meat grinder. Winter mornings under DST mean buses rolling in darkness thicker than a Bukowski bender—National Highway Traffic Safety data shrieks that pedestrian deaths skyrocket when visibility’s nil. Standard Time floods dawn with light, shielding our kids from fenders and our roads from carnage. Trading that for an extra hour of evening glow is like swapping a fire extinguisher for a sparkler. DST’s a death warrant for the vulnerable, and I’m not signing it—are you?
  3. Productivity or a Zombified Workforce? The Economy’s Screaming!
    DST’s biannual clock-twist already kneecaps us, but permanent DST would be an economic cluster-bomb. Workers dragging their carcasses through coal-mine mornings lose focus faster than a politician dodging taxes. A 2016 study pegged DST’s chaos as a multi-billion-dollar anchor on GDP—now imagine that year-round! Standard Time’s steady hand aligns work with sunlight, juicing output like a triple espresso. Permanent DST’s late sunrises would gut morning industries—think farmers milking cows by flashlight, builders hammering in the dark. You want to tank the Dow Jones for a sunset beer? Hell no!
  4. Energy Savings? DST’s a Lie That’d Choke Mephistopheles!
    They peddled DST as an energy-saving messiah, but that’s a con job bigger than USAID. A 2008 Department of Energy report laughed it off—DST barely dents the grid, and permanent DST could spike usage as we blast heaters and floodlights to survive arctic mornings. Standard Time leans into natural light, slashing our electric bills like a samurai on speed. Locking in DST would burn resources faster than a Vegas casino, and for what? So we can barbecue at 9 p.m.? That’s not progress—that’s pyromania!
  5. Global Sync or a Pariah’s Clock? The World’s Watching!
    The planet’s sane nations—Japan, India—stick to Standard Time’s kin, keeping their clocks tight with solar noon like a Swiss watch. Permanent DST would make us temporal outcasts, our winter clocks so skewed we’d be calling London at 3 a.m. for a noon meeting. Trade, travel, diplomacy—all snarled in a jet-lag jungle. Standard Time keeps us locked into the global pulse, a metronome for civilization. DST’s a middle finger to Greenwich, and I’m not waving it!

The ‘70s Fiasco: A Screaming Ghost We Can’t Ignore
I’m old enough to remember 1974, when Nixon’s crew, drunk on oil-crisis panic, rammed through permanent DST like a runaway freight train. The result? A national nervous breakdown! Sunrises vanished till 9 a.m., kids trudged to school in a horror-flick fog, and traffic deaths spiked 10%—federal stats don’t lie. Parents rioted, approval ratings cratered to 30%, and Congress bailed by ‘75, tails between their legs. It wasn’t just bad policy; it was a societal knee-capping that left scars. We danced with that devil once, and the band played a dirge and then quit mid-song. Let’s not RSVP to the sequel!

This Is It—The Final Countdown!
Permanent DST isn’t a policy debate—it’s a five-alarm fire in our already-damaged collective psyche! It’s a health-wrecking, kid-endangering, economy-tanking, resource-burning, world-alienating catastrophe. Standard Time’s our lifeline, a beacon of sanity in this chrono-carnage. Congress needs to quit dithering and torch DST like a bad acid trip. Every second we delay, we’re flirting with disaster—our bodies, our kids, our nation deserve better than this temporal tyranny. I’m screaming into the void here, and you should be too!

Grab your phone, your keyboard, your carrier pigeon—bombard your reps NOW! Demand they annihilate Daylight Saving Time and crown Standard Time king before we’re all drowning in darkness. The clock’s ticking, and it’s wired to explode.  #LockTheClock!  #FDSL

N.P.: “Howlin’ at the Moon” – Blues Saraceno

April 10, 2025

Hot damn, dear reader!  One hundred years ago today, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published, unleashing a literary bombshell that would come to define the Jazz Age and cement its place as one of the greatest American novels. Fitzgerald, a 28-year-old writer who’d already tasted fame with This Side of Paradise, poured his heart and disillusionment into this tale of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire chasing the hollow American Dream through glitz, obsession, and heartbreak. Set on Long Island, the book skewers the excesses of the Roaring Twenties—think lavish parties, bootleg liquor, and the empty promises of wealth—while exposing the rot beneath the glamour. With its razor-sharp prose and haunting themes of class, love, and betrayal, Gatsby not only capture an era; it predicted its collapse, hitting shelves just four years before the 1929 stock market crash.

What makes this literary moment so badass is how Fitzgerald took a sledgehammer to the myth of upward mobility, showing the American Dream as a rigged game where dreamers like Gatsby get crushed. The book flopped commercially at first—selling fewer than 20,000 copies in its initial run—but its unflinching honesty and lyrical grit later earned it a spot in the literary canon. Fitzgerald’s own life mirrored Gatsby’s, full of excess and tragedy, which only adds to the book’s raw power. On April 10, 1925, a novel was born that still burns with relevance, forcing us to face the cost of chasing illusions in a world that doesn’t care.

In book news more closer to home, I have been barely keeping up with Mgmt’s audacious schedule, but just barely.  There is minimal wiggle room in the schedule, so I can’t really allow for any “off days,” like when I only got 2 hours sleep the night before, or I have to spend most of the day dealing with some huge non-writing emergent issue.  I do like daily routines, but I’m having to write early in the morning and/or into the night, so my old daily routine is just getting shot to hell.  One side effect to not having weekends is that I now, suddenly, have no idea what day of the week it is.

Anyway, I’m babbling…I need to get back to work.

N.P.: “Dangerous” – Royal Deluxe

April 9, 2025

I’ve been up since 04:00, trying to get a jump on today’s writing.  So far, so good.  I’ve grown to like these pre-dawn hours: all decent people are asleep, so lots of quiet and no interruptions.  Even those weenies on the east coast are still sleepily stumbling around their lofts looking for caffeine and trying to find a clean shirt to wear today.  Ha!  I’ve already put down 500 words.  Indeed.

In other badass literary news, on this day in 1859, a young Samuel Langhorne Clemens—better known as Mark Twain—earned his steamboat pilot’s license, a gritty milestone that would shape one of America’s literary giants.  This might seem like a trivial event to the uninitiated, but it was anything but.  At 23, Clemens had been apprenticing on the Mississippi River since 1857, learning the treacherous currents and hidden snags of the waterway while working on comic travel letters for the Keokuk Daily Post.  This wasn’t simply another day job for an aspiring writer – it was a baptism by fire into a rough-and-tumble world of river men, gamblers, and hustlers—a world that would later fuel the raw, unfiltered voice of classics like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi. Twain’s time as a pilot gave him an ear for the dialects and tall tales of the American South, grounding his work in a realism that cut through the era’s sentimental fluff.  He navigated a river that could kill you in a heartbeat, lived among hard-drinking, hard-living folks, and later used that lens to skewer hypocrisy, racism, and human folly with a pen as sharp as my newest switchblade. His steamboat days ended with the Civil War, but the swagger and insight he gained on April 9, 1859, informed the bulk of his work.

Damn…it’s now 06:30, that wretched sun is rising, and I just hit the first of what will probably many walls today.  A day like this, starting as early as it did, may warrant a Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee with an extra shot of espresso, or cocaine…whatever they have on hand.

N.P.: “Dayman” – RMB

Jayson Gallaway

April 5, 2025

07:23 – It’s Saturday morning and The Angst is upon me.  Been this way for a couple of days now.  Fortunately, it hasn’t festered into the debilitating Nebulous Dread yet.  And oh how I hate the Nebulous Dread.

13:56 – Ha!  Fuck the Angst.  It is no match for me once I’ve had a full night’s sleep, a Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee, and two or three delicious donuts.  Kiss my ass, Angst.

N.P.: “Ziggy Stardust” – Bauhaus

April 2, 2025

It’s been a challenging 24 hours, beloved reader.  Sparring last night, I got punched in the mouth.  I totally had it coming – I dropped my guard whilst attempting a question mark kick and got smacked.  It wasn’t a big deal, but it left me with a pretty sizable fat lip today.  I don’t know if anybody noticed, and don’t particularly care, but I knew it was there and it pissed me off.  Then last night I could not fall asleep, for no good reason at all.  I maybe got two hours of sleep, then had to get up to deal with an overly full day of what seemed mostly like bullshit.  Maybe I was just cranky from too little sleep, but my fuse was definitely short today.  When I finally got back to the Safe House, I was completely exhausted, but still had a 2000-word deliverable due to Mgmt, which, badass that I am, I somehow managed to complete.  I’m pretty completely spent, and I should by rights just fucking collapse at this point, but there are still a couple things I have to do.  One is to sign for a big weird delivery that is “supposed to arrive before midnight.”  The other is some international Dead Poets business, so let’s get to it while I’m still somewhat coherent.

First up is a big happy birthday to Hans Christian Andersen who was born on this day in 1805 in Odense, Denmark.  Those of you who were brought up before the last two or three snowflake generations will undoubtedly remember Uncle Hans for his fairy tales.  Those of you who are unfortunate snowflakes, don’t let the fairy-tale label fool you – this dude was not spinning fluffy bedtime stories.  Take The Little Mermaid: she doesn’t get the prince, loses her voice, and ends up as sea foam after contemplating murder.  Or The Snow Queen with its icy, ruthless edge.  Andersen’s stories are dark, poetic gut punches, born from a life of poverty and rejection.  He clawed his way up, and his pen bled defiance.  My man!

Another happy birthday to Emile Zola, born in Paris on this day in 1840.  This French titan used his pen to wage war on hypocrisy and injustice.  His Germinal (1885) dives into the brutal lives of coal miners, exposing exploitation with realism so vivid it still packs a punch today.  Kinda like the one that gave me the fat lip last night.  His “J’Accuse…!” letter in 1898, defending Alfred Dreyfus, got him convicted of libel and forced him to flee France.  He risked it all for truth, which more than warrants a permanent place on the D.P.S. Honor Roll.

Finally, we turn to Japan, where on April 2, 1971, Yukio Mishima’s The Sea of Fertility tetralogy wrapped up posthumously with The Decay of the Angel.  Mishima was an absolute force obsessed with beauty, honor, and Japan’s lost soul.  After finishing this epic, he tried to overthrow the government in a failed coup and committed seppuku in 1970.  The final book hit the shelves months later, a haunting capstone to a life lived on the edge.  More than just literature, it’s a samurai’s last stand.   Goddamn right.

N.P.: “Purple Haze 2025” – Frank Palangi, Henry Chauhan

March 31, 2025

Day 2 of this impossible question and I’ve already had it with Mgmt.  These limey gits expect daily phone calls discussing the daily deliverables.  And they keep calling me “bruv.”  That aside, we had a very productive phone call this morning, and their plan is solid and will work.  So I’ll try to bitch less, but I, as always, reserve the right to lampoon them viciously.  So will get right to D.P.S. business.

Happy Birthday to Flannery O’Conner, who was born on this day in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia.  I’ve always like her literary style: she didn’t mess around.  Her stories, like A Good Man is Hard to Find, are packed with misfits, violence, and a rather twisted take on redemption.  She had lupus but didn’t give a shit: she still managed to write some of the most unflinching tales in American literature, winning the National Book Award posthumously for her Complete Stories.  She, like yrs. truly, knew her pen was a weapon that she wielded with a fierce, unapologetic grace.

Okay…back to work.

N.P.: “Tower of Strength – East India Trans Cairo Mix / Extended” – The Mission

March 30, 2025

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

March 28, 2025

Well, dear reader, try as I may, I’m afraid I have once again fallen woefully behind in my drinking.  And there may be no coming back from this now…this Might Be It.  You know that these alcoholic lapses have been happening with increasing frequency for the last few years, but I’ve always rallied and made up for lost buzzed time by diving testicles-first into semi-heroic catch-up binges and inebriated goat-dances.  But lately, I’ve noticed my natural enthusiasm for such shenanigans is rapidly waning.  There are, by my reckoning, three main reasons for this:

  1. Not Nearly Enough Time for Altered States of Consciousness – Becoming and remaining drunk/stoned/high as a giraffe’s ass on God knows what weird imported chemical/ whatever takes time.  Far more time than I can responsibly justify for such frivolities these days.  Way back in the energetic yet carefree days of my 20s, when I snapped awake in the morning, Rockette-kicked my way out of bed, and immediately set upon my daily “Asses to Kick” list, it seemed almost effortless to get through everything I had to in any given day with ample time left over for psychological release through altered states.  Pero no mas.  Now my days start well before dawn and consist almost entirely of a litany of problems to solve and decisions to make.  There are simply no blocks of time I can reasonably block out for intentional non-functionality.
  2. Fight Training – This has been going on for a while now, but as I get within striking distance of a black belt, the training is increasing in both frequency and intensity.  One of the many effects of this has been a more acute awareness/insight/sensitivity into how the things I eat and drink affect energy, stamina, etc.  If I spend Saturday afternoon throwing back whiskey drinks, I can actually feel a difference when training Monday night.  Which brings us to number 3:
  3. I’m Getting Too Old For This Shit – There is simply no getting around the fact that whatever “upside” there once may have been to getting three sheets as I sat beneath the palms in the warm afternoon and drank the whiskey with Fitzgerald and Huxley has greatly diminished, and the “recovery” has become longer and less tolerable.  There used to be a noticeable and appreciated “edge” to the writing that came with a high-octane Jack and Coke.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing this so long, maybe it’s because I’m just old and am getting crotchety in my dotage, but the aforementioned edge has long since become a permanent fixture.

So all that’s very well and good…Uncle Jayson finally decided to drink less.  Great.  However, dear reader, almost exactly as I was coming to the conclusions enumerated supra, what I believe to be a far more dangerous drink suddenly appeared on my radar: Dunkin’s Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee.  Just look at this goddamn thing:

Caligula would drink that by the bucket.  And so would I.  I’d drink the shit out of that, and I have, every day for the last goddamn week.  Not a drop of alcohol in them, but I have quickly become convinced they are perhaps the most dangerous beverage I could possibly consume.  I may  suspect the presence of cocaine…jury’s still out.  I find it quite literally addictive.  And okay so maybe they don’t actually put cocaine in these drinks, but I am alarmingly yet pleasantly jacked up after drinking one of these things.  But at this point, I think this jacked-uppedness stems less from the caffeine present and more from the fact that this thing is essentially a thermonuclear sugar-bomb.  I think there is potential for added caffeine, but, curiously, the staff at Dunkin’ seem unwilling to accommodate such requests.  They try to redirect me to a regular mocha latte with as many extra espresso shots as I want.  Which I tried…however, it was just a mocha, pretty much like you’d get anywhere else.  And because my tastebuds have become expectant of the chocolaty perfection of the Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee, I almost spit this bitter beverage across the entirety of the Dunkin’ dining area.  But I didn’t.  Let it not be said that I can’t hold my mud: I chugged the wretched and rather pedestrian beverage like a goddamn man.  And for the next couple of hours, my metabolism was perceptibly accelerated, as per my usual arrangement with caffeine.  But my heart was not filled with joy, not the way it is when I’m downing the TMFC.  Not even close.  I am, dear reader, afraid that I have experienced a sudden-onset addiction, similar to what the smokers of crack and the chasers of the dragon claim to experience: one hit and you’re instantly addicted.

But my tale of woe and insidious addiction gets even worse from there, dear reader…for the source of my supply is Dunkin’ DONUTS.  It just seems like a waste to trek out into the matrix to a Dunkin’ Donuts and not return with any donuts.  That’s just weird.  And Lord knows I don’t want anybody to think I’m weird.  So each of my TMFC purchases is coupled with a half-dozen/full-dozen order of delicious donuts.  And donuts are truly made to be enjoyed when they are fresh, i.e., within the first 12 hours of their creation.  I’ve had, like, 40 donuts this week.  Pretty sure the only reason I haven’t absolutely ballooned in weight is because of my quadrupled metabolism rate induced by the various vintages of caffeine I’ve ingested simultaneously with the donuts.

We’ll see what happens next week.

A brief bit of dark Dead Poets business: on this 28th day of March, the DPS requests you respectfully pour some out for Virginia Woolf, who died on this day in 1941 by suicide.  She didn’t just wake up and decide to check out – she had waged a quiet, fierce rebellion against the demons that had clawed at her mind for years.  She filled her coat pockets with stones, heavy and cold, each one a silent testament to the weight she’d carried her whole life.  Then she walked straight into the River Ouse and let the icy waters swallow her whole.  She left a note to her husband Leonard, scribbled with a trembling hand, saying she couldn’t bear the madness any longer and that she was certain she’d never recover this time.  Her novels – Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves – rewrote what fiction could do.  Her final act was tragic, but there’s a haunting power in how she chose her exit, a middle finger to the forces that tried to break her.

N.P.: “I Don’t Know What Drowning Proves” – Participant