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

You must forgive me for my absence here the past couple of days.  I have been celebrating my ass off since Tuesday night!  Actually started drinking Tuesday morning when a trusted friend reminded me that you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.  The real party kicked into gear around 11:30 PST, after which point things become rather hazy.  The only reason we stopped earlier this afternoon was because there is an intense training tonight, a training during which I will almost certainly vomit due to the celebratory excesses committed during the last 36 hours or so.  But it will have been worth it!   I’m telling you, dearest and certainly temperate reader…it was a total Goat Dance!

Tomorrow I shall be sober, and I shall, if all goes well, have thoughts about this week’s events.

In the meantime, here is a handy list of all the people who have said (most of them twice now) that they will leave the United States if Big Don is re-elected.  Good riddance.

1. Alec Baldwin
2. Whoopi Goldberg
3. John Legend
4. Chrissy Teigen
5. Ron Reiner
6. Barbara Streisand
7. Cher
8. Nancy Pelosi
9. Hillary Clinton
10. Megan Rapinoe
11. Tom Hanks
12. Amy Schumer
13. AOC
14. Lady Gaga
15. Taylor Swift
16. Bill Gates
17. Jane Fonda
18. Madonna
19. Mark Ruffalo
20. Kim Kardashian
21.  Bruce Springsteen
22. George Clooney
23. Hunter Biden
24. Oprah
25. Robert DeNiro
26. Samuel L. Jackson
27. Miley Cyrus
28. Travis Kelce
29. Bobbi Althoff
30. Rashida Talib
31. Stormy Daniels
32. Anthony Fauci
33. George Soros
34. Diddy
35. Eminem
36. Ellen DeGeneres
37. Sean Penn
38. Sharon Stone
39. Ashley Judd
40. Tommy Lee
41. Bryan Cranston
42. Billy Joe Armstrong

Bonus:
Cher is supposed to blow her brains out.
Rob Reiner promised to light himself on fire.
Bono is to drive himself off a cliff.

Well?  Get to it.  Off you pop.  Or, alternatively, every one of these frauds is completely full of shit.  And always has been.

N.P.: “The Empire of Winds” – Alpine Universe

“Remember, remember the 5th of November,
the gunpowder, treason, and plot.
I can see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.”
~ John Milton

“It’s only treason if you don’t win.”
~ George Washington

Happy Liberation Day.

N.P.: “Nessun Dorma” – Jeff Beck

Good day, dearest and most intelligent reader.  On this Liberation Day Eve, the Word of the Day, technically, is “petard.”  However, this word in nearly always used in the context of the phrase, “Hoisted on his own petard.”  I’ve always found both the word and the phrase sonorously repugnant: mainly just the word.  “Petard.”  That’s just a terrible sounding word.  Be that as it may, I can’t think of a more relevant word/term of the day for today.  For this phrase comes with a sprinkle of irony and a dash of poetic justice.

The phrase “Hoisted on his own petard” finds its origins in the world of Shakespeare.  It appears in “Hamlet,” where the term “petard” refers to an explosive device used in warfare.  To be hoisted by it means to be blown up by one’s own bomb – a delicious metaphor for being caught in one’s own trap.

The world is watching and waiting for the results of tomorrow’s election.  While no one knows the outcome as of this writing, one thing is beyond doubt: neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris would be on the ballot if the democrats hadn’t put them both there.  The whole ignoring Biden’s 15 million votes in the primary and swapping him out for the DEI candidate who got exactly 0 votes was done so blatantly and egregiously, and my democrat friends seem  completely sanguine about it, so there’s no real need to deal with it here.

But my democrat friends seem shocked, shocked to their foundations when I suggest that the only reason Donald Trump even on the ticket is because the Biden/Harris administration and democrat machine worked hand-in-glove to put him there.

Before I continue, I feel the need to share a quick anecdote: Early in this election cycle, a friend found himself in a democrat focus group, answering female “researchers'” questions about masculinity and “guyness.”  Apparently it was a horrid and depressing three minutes.  Their whole angle, he said figured out in retrospect, was that to get their message across to “us simple, toxically masculine males was to figure out what we talked about with each other when we went to the bathroom together.”  That, they thought, was the key to unlock the all-too-illusive male vote.  My friend said that it was clear from the start that none of these women had even met an actually straight male.  Their first question was just straight out: “What do you guys talk about when you go to the bathroom?”  “Thankfully this was a stupid Zoom thing,” he said, “so I was just able to click out of the meeting…I’m sure packing up and walking out of an in-person would have been interpreted as “aggressive” and thus, likely, toxic.  “Fuck ’em,” I thought at the time, “these idiots deserve exactly what they get.”

Flashback with me to the mid-term elections of 2022.  Republicans were still pissed about losing in 2020.  At the forefront of the Republican mind at the time was Trump’s many totally unforced errors in that election.  They blamed Trump for not only losing the executive branch, but also the Senate.  So when he started showing up at the beginning of the 2022 election cycle, making endorsements with papal ex cathedra, Republicans were skeptical.  But willing to hear him out.  Promises of a “Red Wave” were made.  But that amounted to nothing more than a pink puddle of piddle.  The consensus came quickly: Trump’s magic was gone.  He had no more juice.  Not only could he not win elections, he couldn’t even successfully influence things when he wasn’t on the ticket.  He was, for all practical purposes, at least in the minds of most republicans, Done.  And had That Been That, he would have indeed been done.  Even if he did try to run in 2024, the safe money was on DeSantis winning the nomination.  And he may or may not have won against Biden.

But That Wasn’t That because the same Democratic machine just couldn’t let it be.  In fairness, they probably didn’t know how far Trump’s star had fallen, since these were the same out-of-touch folks that were asking what men talk to each other about when they go to the bathroom that were now in charge of destroying Trump’s possible election run in 2024.  Every single thing they would do for the next 12 months would be a catastrophic tactical and strategic error.  To wit:

• Deadly-force-authorized FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.  This was what did it for most of us.  The absolute outrageousness of a sitting president so brazenly weaponizing his DOJ against his political opponent in the United States was something we simply couldn’t accept.  In a literal instant, Republicans went from having written Trump off to absolutely voting for him in 2024.  Doesn’t matter if he runs or not…we’ll write him in to office, because this is bullshit.  This was August 8, 2022.  This potential write-in campaign was rendered unnecessary when Big Don announces his 2024 run three months later, on November 15, 2022.  Trump’s numbers skyrocket.
• In June 2023, Biden’s DOJ indicts Trump on 37 federal criminal charges related to the handling of classified government documents.  When no charges are forthcoming for Biden, who was found to be in possession of far more classified documents, and had no pretense to any kind of Presidential immunity, a special counsel is appointed, which special counsel determines that Joe Biden is too demented to stand trial and thus cannot be charged. This case would be dismissed a year later. Trump’s numbers again skyrocket.
• In August 2023, Biden’s DOJ indicts Trump on four federal criminal charges related to the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which election was certified perectly and timely according to constitutional proscriptions and requirements.  The Supreme Court would later rule Trump had immunity to what was being charged.  Trump’s support continues to grow.
• In August 2023, Trump is indicted in Georgia on 13 criminal counts related to election interference.  The judge would strike three charges for lack of specificity and two others for violating the Supremacy Clause.  Trump’s support grows.
• The final nail in the coffin came on August 24, 2024, when, after being indicted on racketeering and related charges, DJT voluntarily surrenders himself to authorities at the Fulton County Jail, where a mugshot of him was taken.  Again, the result of this is the exact opposite of what was intended.  Trump’s support among Black and Latino voters skyrockets.

There were then multiple attempts by democrat-run states to take Trump off the ballot.  The Supreme Court told them to fuck off.  At this point, it all  just noise.  The two assassination attempts were enough to bring even traditional democrats like Elon Musk and JFK Jr. to publicly and rather fervently support Trump.

If there is a Trump victory, we will, in perhaps the most ironic way possible, have the democrats to thank for it.  But since this was the exact opposite outcome from what they were going for, they can fairly be said to have been hoisted on their own petard.

N.P.: “Hoist The Colours – Bass Singers Version” – The Wellermen, Bobby Bass, Ebucs, Eric Hollaway, Big Brev, Luke G, Taylor, Jesse Elkins, Davide Delmonte