Even when I still believed that Santa Claus was an actual dude with an actual mailing address inside the Arctic Circle, with an actual toy shop at the same address 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.
Even as toddlers, children understand that there are scary monsters [see The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim and that study where children were given rewritten versions of fairy tales with the scary monsters taken out, and the kids got all pissed off and attacked their teachers’ kneecaps].  Rugrats know that evil lurks, and they resent the hell out of patronizing adults who tell them otherwise.  I certainly did.  Which is why the unipolar morality of the Santa story never really sat well with me: goodness is ostensibly rewarded, but evil goes completely unpunished.  All year long, the promise of every materialistic dream a child may have coming true on Christmas morning is dangled in front of the child’s beady eyes on the condition of “good” behavior during the rest of the year.
I always assumed there was some kind of sliding scale of goodness vs. toys spectrum: if your behavior was superlative and Christ-like all year long, then you get absolutely everything on your list, and perhaps even a few bonus toys.  If you were a minimally decent person for, say, 8 months out of the year, but a bit of a prick the rest of the time, then you might only get a third of the things on your list.  But what of little Adolf and Osama?  What about the little kid who is an absolute bastard every goddamn day of the year?  What of him?  According to the Santa story, nothing.  Not a damn thing. Hell, Santa will even still come by your house: he’ll just leave a piece of coal.  So what?  Who cares? This means that some little fucker can run around terrorizing the neighborhood, lowering property values and ruining everybody’s lives all year long, and the only thing he has to worry about is maybe not getting as many toys as the Goody Two-Shoes next door?  All little Adolf has to do is stroll over to Goody’s on the 26th, when the little angel is playing with all of his benevolently hard-earned toys, whack him over the head with a board, take whatever toys he wants, and swagger back home.
No.  That’s just ludicrous.  It is unjust. And it is existentially unsound. There can be no light without darkness.  And there can be no goodness without evil.  That knowledge is innate in human children.  But in the Disneyfied, politically correct culture that is modern day America, apparently parents are afraid of damaging their little snowflakes’ eggshell psyches, We ask our teachers not to use red pen when grading papers, because red is the color of blood and there is an implied threat there.  We’re not going to keep score in little league games because the idea of someone winning necessitates that some lost, and the concept of losing at anything, even a baseball game, is far more than a human being should have to endure.  And oh God, the results are tragic.  Entire generations who cannot conjugate the verbs “to lose” or “to fail.”
I say Enough.  Ya basta!  I say that people in general, but children especially, are far heartier and more resilient than they are ever given credit for.  And it is with that in mind that I suggest that we hit reset and start celebrating Christmas properly.  Let us look back toward Europe, to where the Santa Claus story originated, to get the full story: the story of the Santa’s dark counterpart, Krampus.
If Santa Claus is a right jolly old elf, then Krampus is a bad-ass Christmas demon.  If old Saint Nick is benevolent generosity and reward, Krampus is divine retribution and vengeance.  Krampus is a very satanic-looking demon (I suppose all demons worth their horns are rather satanic-looking): a satyr (in the Roman tradition (as opposed to the Greek)), with massive horns and a bifurcated tail, who is draped in noisy chains and cow bells, and wields a collection of pointy sticks with which (get this) he beats all hell out of children who have been assholes during the previous year.  If children have committed more than the typically venial offenses associated with childhood, Krampus will not simply beat them with his sticks and chains, but will either dismember them, or simply drag them to hell, never to be seen again.  Sometimes Krampus just eats the goddamn kids right there in front of God and everybody.  And don’t think you can go running to Santa to save you from Krampus…no.  Krampus and Santa are good buddies.  Existential friends who enjoy happy hour at der biergarten together.
Krampus does not just molest and abuse vagrant children.  No.  When not dispensing yuletide justice to miscreants, Krampus enjoys goosing attractive women and licking their faces, a la Rick James on a good, crackful night.  Oh yes…Krampus is a straight up poon hound.  Unlike that grandfatherly twat Santa Claus, ever the family man, the Christmas demon crushes mad ass on the reg.  There is no Mrs. Krampus.  No need.  Krampus has game and he wants to fist your mother.  After he eats your soul.
Speaking of eating, don’t bother trying to placate Krampus with cookies and milk.  He cannot be plied with baked goods, and Krampus is notoriously lactose-intolerant.  You would be better off leaving whiskey and steak, but those will not likely work either.  To avoid the wrath of Krampus this night, there is only one path: The path of righteousness, and the avoidance of assholishness throughout the rest of the year.

N.P.: “Hail to the New King” – Roberto Gigante, Alessandro Gigante, Robert Irving

¡Mentiroso, mentiroso, pantalones en fuego!  The worst, most blatantly corrupt, anti-American president in American history.  The entire Biden family should be viciously stomped and driven into the sea.  #FJB

N.P.: “The End” – The Raveonettes

Hot damn, dearest reader: it is December!  December is always a busy month on the Gallaway Calendar, but this year especially so.  There are, of course, the Holidays:

12/5 – Krampus Nacht!

12/7 – Pearl Harbor Day

12/21 – Winter Solstice/Longest Night of the Year

12/25 – Christmas

But this year, in addition to the festivities mentioned supra, the entire month of December is a full-court press on the current book proposal.  Unfortunately, I lost the last week of November due to a fight injury that had me laid up for days.  But I’m about healed up from that, and the schedule is as reasonably clear as an adult can make it, so the proverbial sailing should be smooth.

N.P.: “Obsession” – Terminatryx

Good day, dear reader…well, decidedly that.  Great day, dear reader!  This is probably my favorite time of my favorite time of year: post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas.  It’s nice and cold, but it’s only going to get colder.  The nights are nice and long, but they’re only going to get longer.  And for that I am thankful.

I’m thankful for a great many things this year, and all of those things were exuberantly cheersed-to during last night’s annual Gallaway Thanksgiving Bacchanalia of Gratitude.  Gratitude was shared, plans were hatched, and drinks were drunk.  It was a fine time, and one that I’m looking very forward to repeating at Christmas when we have the Annual Gallaway Christmas Croquet and Eggnog Orgy.   That one makes the T-Day Bacchanalia seem sedate.

N.P.: “Rebel Yell Type O Negative Style” – Denis Pauna

Watched the Starship and its accoutrements launch into space and then “land” in the sea.  Literally awesome.  Inspirational.  America is back.

But the whole beautiful thing left me feeling like an underachiever.  Not wanting to be outdone on the boldly-going-where-no-man-has-gone-before front, I busted out my absinthe equipment and experimented with that rotten stuff for a while.

A quick update on the absinthe: experiments continue.  We shall procure our absinthe from a very reputable traditional Czech distiller whose process uses wormwood, anise, and fennel, extracting the essential oils from each resulting in a distinct taste and alcohol content that is off the charts.  Great.  Now, how the hell are we going to make it purple?  My first thought was food coloring, but artificial food dyes are about to become official uncool, that idea was quickly axed.  Since I know about as much about how colors work as I do about making booze, I asked by booze tutor what color need to be added to green to make purple, and he answered immediately, “Deep red.”
“How the hell did you know that so fast?”
“Basically, green is make up of yellow and blue,” he said like a smart-ass.  “Adding deep red will help neutralize the yellow component and blend with the blue to create purple.”  I accused him of sorcery and general assholishness.

So fine…red.  What’s a red liquid we can add to this weird Slavic concoction?  My instant answer was maraschino cherry juice.  Because that shit is delicious.  And red.  But it didn’t work.  My experiment involved two drinks.  I prepared the absinthe properly, but adding maraschino cherry juice only turned the cocktail brownish and muddy.  It tasted pretty good: sweet as hell, but it looked like sewer water.  Still, I drank the whole thing and called The Sorcerer and let him know of my failure.  He was still in smart-ass mode:
“Isn’t that stuff bright red? Yeah, that won’t work.  I said deep red.  More like blood than cherries.  Also, it’s not cherry juice at all…that’s formaldehyde.”
Well, I’ve got news for you, smart ass: formaldehyde tastes great!  And don’t cocktails called “Death in the Afternoon” demand the presence of some sort of embalming agent?  Just to keep it real?  Shit yes.  At this point, that first formaldehyde and absinthe drink was really starting to hit me, so I decided to prove everybody wrong.  So I made another drink, and this time, I just kept adding maraschino cherry juice, determined that I could simply overrun the color wheel with brutal and overwhelming force.  The whole ratio of cherry juice to absinthe was so far off kilter when I finally ran out of cherry juice, it was more of a weird syrup than any kind of recognizable libation.  In fact, the whole thing went down in one slug.  It was like drinking snot.

I called the Sorcerer and drunkenly told him of my failed second attempt.

“Dude, you gotta lose the cherry juice.  Forget about it.  It’s too fucking red!  We want deep red.  Like blood.”

“Could we just use actual blood, then?”

After a beat: “Whose blood would you use?”

“I dunno.  Not a person, obviously.  Could we just use cows’ blood?”

After another beat: “Are you really asking me if cows’ blood will work to turn absinthe purple?”

“Well, yeah…I openly admit I don’t know anything about cows’ blood, other than it’s deep red.  That’s what I’m asking…would cows’ blood be ‘deep’ enough?”

I guess the call got disconnected at that point.  He was probably getting in an elevator or something.  Anyway, he texted me a couple of minutes later: “You are to use ONLY pomegranate or cranberry juice.”  Which is a huge problem.  In fact, it’s a non-starter.

You see, I hate cranberry juice.  Pomegranate juice is even worse.  I refuse to drink either one.  And I’ll be damned if I’m going to put my name on or otherwise promote any drink with either of those nasty liquids involved.

At that point in the afternoon, I decided to finish off any open bottles of absinthe and then somnatically reconsider this weird whole deal.

N.P.: “Send In The Drugs” – Andy Prieboy

It was a cold November evening and I should have worn a coat.
I shivered, waiting for the ferry boat
to carry me to you.
Could see you dancing in the harbor lights; your hair an orange flame.
You’d turn away, swing on a crane
always quite the same.
You’d tiptoe halfway across a rooftop, drop headfirst into the river.
You’d stretch out for a helping hand and once again I’d stand there
Not close enough to touch, but I heard you call my name
As you died.
And the ferry boat?  It never did arrive.
~ Edward Ka-Spel

Spent some time getting reacquainted with my old frienemy Absinthe yesterday.  Our relationship has always been a rocky one…almost a love/hate relationship.  The last time we met, which I believe was in Seattle, did not go well.  The result was me saying stuff like, “Never again,” “Fuck this vile and insipid liquid,” et cetera.  But last night was different, mostly because I was with someone who Knows What He’s Doing when it comes to exotic drinks.  After trying a few different styles, we established that my favorite method of absinthe preparation is the Czech or Modern Bohemian method which involves pouring the absinthe into an absinthe glass, laying a special spoon over the glass and placing a sugar cube on the spoon.  Then one pours more absinthe over the sugar cube, soaking it, then lighting the sugar cube on fire.  Let it burn for a minute, then pour a little cold water over the sugar, then dump the remaining sugar into the glass, stir to dissolve, then drink.  That shit is delicious.  The process takes a minute, but is totally worth it.

That was going well enough, but then I asked about cocktails made with absinthe.  Turns out there are many,  but my instant favorite was something called “Death in the Afternoon,” which is probably the coolest name for a cocktail since the “Irish Car Bomb,” or the “Russian Quaalude.”  Death in the Afternoon is basically (if blurry memory serves, and it very well may not) absinthe (prepared in the method mentioned supra) and champagne.

By this point in the night, we were both pretty well oiled, and we were both discussing our plans of conquest in 2025, which, coincidentally, centered around the acquisition of actual Fuck-You Money and subsequent investment opportunities/business ventures, and we came up with A Big Idea: high-octane purple absinthe.  Sure, it’s disruptive as hell, and purists will undoubtedly find the idea of any non-green absinthe apocryphal, but I mentioned Walter White and his blue meth.  Purists no doubt bristled at the idea of blue meth, but after they tried it, the blue meth was the Next Big Thing.  So it shall be for the Drinkers of the Purple Absinthe!

But first things first…the acquisition of Fuck-You Money.  Which for me of course means back to the book, which book is going well even if still behind schedule.

N.P.: “Dance With The Dangerous” – Jesse Billson

Gratitude and respect to all of our veterans and their families!

Today is a day of remembrance in the Dead Poet’s Society for one of my favorites, dear reader.  Arthur Rimbaud  gained full membership into the DPS on November 10, 1891, leaving behind a legacy as vital and reckless as his short-lived career.

To catch our non-English majors up, Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet born on October 20, 1854, in Charleville, France.  He was a prodigious talent, writing some of his most famous works while still in his teens.

In just a few frenetic years, Rimbaud produced a body of work that explored the themes of identity, rebellion, and the subconscious.    Rimbaud’s most notable works include “A Season in Hell” and “Illuminations,” both of which have had a lasting impact on modern literature and inspired countless writers and artists (including yrs. truly).  Two of my favorite lines of Rimbaud’s:

“I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.” (A Season in Hell)

“I saw that all men live and do not know it.” (The Drunken Boat)

Despite his early success, Rimbaud abandoned poetry altogether by the age of 21, and decided to see the world.  He traveled extensively, venturing to places like Java, Cyprus, and Ethiopia, engaging in various occupations, including trading and exploring.

Arthur was punk rock…audacious and defiant, and over a century later, his words still roar.

Pour some out or raise a glass and drink deeply to our friend and Society Member: Rimbaud!

N.P.: “A Velvet Resurrection” – The Legendary Pink Dots

I was going to do a well-thought out post-mortem for the democrats to maybe offer them some insight into why they got so humiliatingly beaten on Tuesday, with an actual hope of maybe helping them in their future endeavors, but after a few days of their backwards and hateful reactions, I feel comfortable saying they are not ready to hear any such message.  So I shall not share it.

But I will say this: the results exactly matched my ballot.  Literally everything and everyone I voted for won by popular vote rather significantly.  In case you didn’t know, “popular” means majority.  So there are more people in “our democracy” who think my way than not.  Or, alternatively, I’m more “in tune” with what the majority of Americans are thinking right now than apparently any democrat.  And so long as democrats fanatically believe whatever CNN and MSNBC tell them, they will fail to learn any actual, practical lessons that might improve their popularity in the future.

The question the rank and file democrats should really be asking themselves is, “Why is it significantly easier for me to believe that the majority of my neighbors and coworkers, friends and family members are bigots and literal Nazis, racists and misogamists, fascists and “garbage” than it is to believe I’ve been lied to every day for the last 10 years by the ‘most trusted names in news’?”  Because you liked the reality they were selling you, so you kept going back.  It’s natural to want to do absolutely everything to avoid confronting the world-view-altering truths the answer to this question reveals.  It wasn’t just that you were obviously lied to…you gobbled up the bullshit voraciously and unquestioningly because it affirmed the narrative your now-fragile identity is dependent on.

N.P.: “YMCA” – The Village People

Greetings, dear reader…today I thought we’d briefly delve into the life and untimely departure of one of poetry’s most electric figures: Dylan Thomas.  For those non-English majors  who haven’t heard of him, it is my pleasure to introduce you to a master of language who could turn everyday phrases into pure poetry.  To quote James Devlin, “Thomas was that rare breed of poet whose words didn’t just sit on the page – they leapt off, danced around on your face, and left you pondering the mysteries of life, death, and everything in between.”  Go read “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”  Right now.  Now drink a bunch of whiskey and read the poem out loud, pounding on the table for appropriate emphasis.  You have now been sufficiently introduced to Dylan Thomas.

Regrettably, on November 9, 1953, the world lost this lyrical genius to a severe illness, complicated by his legendary lifestyle.  Dylan wasn’t just about writing; he lived as hard as he wrote.  My personal poetic role model, this guy could drink like a fish and still pen lines that would make your aorta quiver.  He was very much a rock star poet.

Dylan Thomas’ death was attributed to pneumonia, swelling of the brain, and a fatty liver, which were all exacerbated by heavy drinking.  He fell ill while on a lecture tour in New York City, where he had been staying at the Chelsea Hotel.  He told his companion that “I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys.  I think that’s the record.”  He then fell into a coma.  He was admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he died at age 39.

Why does Dylan Thomas matter?  His work, especially “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” is the kind of stuff that really sticks with you (as you just experienced).  It’s been whispered in hospital rooms, shouted in classrooms, and even tattooed on forearms.  Thomas had the incredible ability to blend the personal with the universal, making you feel like you were in on some cosmic secret.

His passing was a wake-up call – not just about the fragility of life, but about the power of words to immortalize a spirit.  Even now, decades later, Thomas’ influence can be felt in the rhythm of modern poetry and spoken word.  He was the precursor to the slam poetry scene.

So today we pour some out for Uncle Dylan.  Because of course you’re going to lose the Big Match, but the inevitability of that  loss doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight like hell anyway.

N.P.: “Soul Kitchen” – The Doors