In Boozo Veritas #41: How To Get My Mom To Gossip And Other Family Secrets

12 Monday May 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

In Boozo Veritas #41 by Teege Braune

How To Get My Mom To Gossip And Other Family Secrets

for Merla Belle

Mothers and sons have, at times, a tenuous relationship. I’m told that for mothers and daughters this is even truer. How many writers have said I can’t publish a word until my mother passes away? I think there are two reasons for this:

Your mother is capable of punishing you long into adulthood. She may not spank your butt, force you to sit in the corner, or send you to bed without any supper, but then again, none of those things would mean much post adolescence. As long as a mother still has the ability to narrow her eyes and offer a disapproving comment she is capable of punishing her children.
No family is without its demons, and no good story leaves out the parts that are embarrassing, difficult, or tragic.

Therein lies every writer’s two-headed dilemma: they don’t want to shame themselves in front of their moms and they don’t want to shame their moms in front of the rest of the world. In regards to the first conundrum, only one time did I ask my mom not to read something I wrote that was entering the public sphere. I refer specifically to In Boozo Veritas #3 Through the Looking Glass Darkly.

“If you don’t want me to read it, I sure won’t,” she said sweetly, for she is always sweet.

“You don’t think your curiosity will get the better of you?” I asked.

“No way. I have no interest in reading something that you don’t think I would like,” she answered.

If she later changed her mind, it never came up again, but I doubt she was so tempted. Since then I’ve written other essays that elude to my propensity for strong drink and occasional dabbling in other controlled substances. Once or twice I’ve thought, I should tell mom not to read this, but have refrained from doing so. How many times can I censor my own mother’s reading material before she simply begins to worry why I’m writing so many illicit essays? Do I really want to hide that much of myself from my mom anyway? I can’t help thinking of James Joyce’s bit of familial wisdom: “Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not,” and knowing that this certainly applies to my own mom. After all, while certainly not a lush, she has never been a teetotaler either. On my twenty-first birthday she bought me my first legal drink at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Louisville, and what’s more, the couple times I’ve seen her a little tipsy she was quite adorable. The first time occurred once when I was home on break from college. I had been sitting up watching TV in the living room when she stumbled in a few hours late.

“Where have you been?” I shouted. “I was worried about you.”

“What?! What time is it?” she asked giggling.

I noticed that her cheeks were flushed.

“Are you drunk?!” I asked.

“Well, you know me. I only have one glass of wine with dinner, but tonight Ty just insisted that I have two, and I figured, what the heck; I don’t have school tomorrow.”

Okay, so she’s a light weight, but this can be useful when dealing with someone who is loath to ever say a bad thing about anyone. One time while visiting Jenn and I in Orlando, my mom was hesitant to go into the details of an acquaintance’s relationship problems. She hinted at trouble, but refused to gossip, even to me, her own son who swore secrecy and cattily pleaded for the dirt. After much debate, I promised to drop the matter and offered to take her to dinner where I procured for us a nice bottle of pinot noir. Afterwards, I begged her to come with Jenn and me to Eola Wine Co.

“It’s getting late, and I should be getting home,” she insisted, but I told her how cute the bar was and promised that she would love it, so she relented. Exploiting her low tolerance for alcohol, I bought her another glass of wine at which point, the sordid affair was exposed.

So she gossips when she’s tipsy. Who doesn’t? That’s probably not the worst thing you could say about her, but if you did so in front of me, there’d be trouble, which brings us to the second part of the writer’s dilemma. My family, like any other, has had its low points, but here on this beautiful Mothers Day while my mom is a thousand miles away from me in Indiana, and I’m down here in Florida missing her terribly, I’ll shirk the drama and tragedy and settle for a little light embarrassment. My mom is one of the most wonderful people I know. If I am a halfway decent person, I’m sure I have her to blame for it. I love you, Mom.

___________

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

In Boozo Veritas #40: ‘Til Death Unite Them And They Part No More

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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Bartending, In Boozo Veritas, Redlight Redlight, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #40 by Teege Braune

‘Til Death Unite Them And They Part No More

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a very young child. Dreaming up vivid worlds and monsters has always been a favorite past-time of mine, but I learned early on that a vivid imagination is only the first, tiny aspect of a writer’s struggle. The unending, labyrinthine process of writing and revising, ingesting, regurgitating, transposing, and finally metabolizing the work of the masters of the craft, accepting constant rejection, delicately handling the elusive fragility of inspiration, realizing that college bares little resemblance to real life and that no amount of success back then makes earning a living as a fiction writer anymore likely, continuing to write anyway, enduring the Herculean labor of something that is often thankless and usually unread by anyone, knowing that if you never wrote another word, few would be likely to notice, but doing it anyway because something you can’t name compels you to do so, this endurance test and Sisyphean task never becomes easy. It is something that I’ve worked at most of my life and will most likely never be at peace with.

I’ve never made a fraction of my income as a writer. Once my formal education had ended, figuring out how to pay the bills was a largely unsatisfying endeavor that found me bouncing around unhappily in the service industry. Bartending was not something I had ever thought much about doing. The idea of working while everyone else was hanging out seemed frankly depressing. Nevertheless, I found myself begging my friend Brent for a job at Redlight Redlight when I abruptly discovered that Ballard and Corum, the quaint bakery that I had been managing, was soon to close. He flatly turned me down explaining that as we were such good friends, he thought it would be weird to be my boss. I told him not to look at it that way, that we were simply doing each other a favor. I promised that I would walk away without resentment if, for some reason, he felt I wasn’t cutting it, but he wasn’t convinced. Then a few days later, as though our last conversation had ended quite differently, he called me to talk to me about a film night he wanted me to host at the bar. I took this as the closest thing to a formal job offer I was likely to get and accepted. Relieved to even have a job, any trepidation I had about beginning a new career, especially one I had never even wanted, melted away the moment I stepped behind the bar. Right away I felt preternaturally at ease in that position. Brent’s training was relatively straightforward. He handed me a rag and bottle opener.

“Here are your tools,” he said. “Here’s the register. It’s just like the one you used downstairs at the bakery. Here’s how you poor a beer from the tap. Make sure you open it all the way so you don’t get too much head. I think you got it.”

Talking to people has never been difficult for me, and for some reason, I find it even easier with the bar between us. The bartender is a special job in the service industry. It is the unique role in which the customer is at your mercy and not the other way around. With this reversal in mind, I, who have always been an extrovert, like people more than ever. While bartending I feel like I am in my own personal space while simultaneously on a stage, the lights tilted just so in order to reveal my best angle. With my momentum and perhaps just the tiniest bit of alcohol fueling me, you’ll often catch me dancing around and singing to myself as I take orders and pour drinks. On those nights when everything seems to fall into place, I know I have the best job in the world, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. I think no one else could possibly be having this much fun at work. There are few other situations in which I like myself as much as I do while I’m bartending. In these moments the best version of myself effortlessly rises to the top and takes over.

In love with that euphoria, I once mistakenly believed that bartending was all I needed. Fed up with the exhausting struggle that comes with being a writer, I thought I had discovered something to replace it. I threw myself into my new job, tended bar six nights a week, and to my own detriment, all but quit writing completely. Never mind that bartending has plenty of its own frustrations, in the long run it was not sustainable as my sole aspiration. I dreamed in words. I began to narrate my own life as I was living it. I became deeply unhappy as I let some fundament aspect of my very nature atrophy. Finally at the not so gentle urging of my girlfriend Jenn I sat down to write the story that would become “What Keeps Mankind Alive.” Composing the first few pages, most of which have since been discarded, was like prying up the reeking sarcophagus of some long sealed tomb. In the month it took me to complete this very dark short story I had to accept that I was not only the friendly bartender that everybody loved. There was someone less likable lurking around inside me as well, and I had to acknowledge this frightening aspect of my personality because it was not going away.

Perhaps my sanity lies delicately poised between the inward exploration of psyche that is writing and the outward projection of idealized self that I achieve through bartending. If so, it is a delicate balance that requires constant tension. If I’m a good writer, it’s because I’ve worked hard my entire life to be one. If I’m a good bartender, it’s because I was fulfilling an odd personal destiny the moment I stepped behind a bar. Some fundamental aspect of my identity lies precisely where these two activities, so diametrically opposed on many levels, converge. As a writer I will never achieve my final form. Inherently protean, I will never stop changing and growing. My goal, unachievable by its very nature, will forever be just out of reach, both a blessing and a curse, symptomatic of my willful desire to never be satisfied. As a bartender I strive to be immutable. I will never be better than I am right now.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #39: Three of My Favorite Poets in Orlando

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas, Poetry

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Amy Watkins, Danielle Kessinger, Fifteen Views of Orlando, In Boozo Veritas, Milk & Water, Satellite Beach, Susan Lilley, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #39 by Teege Braune

Three of My Favorite Poets in Orlando

In case you haven’t noticed, I have been celebrating Poetry Month by dedicating each blog I’ve written in April to the art of verse. Furthermore, as this is In Boozo Veritas, I’ve attempted to find subjects that have a particular connection to drinking. Fortunately, poetry is rife with imbibers and alcoholics. Dylan Thomas is one of the most notorious among them, and tackling this challenging author was a feat that I found rewarding in its stretch of my analytical capabilities, though I’ll freely admit that I barely scratched the surface his dense and difficult work. I wrote a paper about The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in college shortly after discovering it, and having read this poem many times since then, I’ve long since intended to go back over the material and reexamine it with a more mature perspective. Small Batch: an anthology of bourbon poetry simply fell in my lap; of course, I felt compelled to share a book full of my two favorite things: poetry and bourbon. While trying to come up with a subject for my final blog of poetry month, I realized that I’ve missed an obvious topic. After all, living in Orlando, I share my community with many incredible writers, three of my favorite poets among them.

I first met Susan Lilley during the publication of Fifteen Views of Orlando: Vol. II as the collection was appearing serially on Burrow Press Review’s website.

Susan had taken the red-bearded bartender character from my own story “April 20, 2008,” named him Jordan, and given him a wonderfully rich history and family dynamic in her own story “Equinox.” I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a character I had based on myself interpreted by someone who didn’t know me, especially a writer of Susan’s caliber. Not long after, I attended a poetry reading Susan was giving in conjunction with the release of her incredible collection Satellite Beach published by Finishing Line Press and realized just how amazing and talented this woman really is. Rarely does one hear poetry read so naturally. Susan reads like she is speaking directly to you so that’s it’s nearly impossible not to hang on every word. What’s more, you begin to feel grateful that this poet is sharing such personal and profound moments with you in her audience. I was even more honored to share a stage with Susan at the speakeasy Hanson’s Shoe Repair when we read our joint stories from Fifteen Views of Orlando back to back. Satellite Beach is a collection worth reading over and over again, but I can say from experience that it is a rare and unmatched treat hearing Susan read these poems herself. No stranger to The Drunken Odyssey, you can listen to Susan’s interview with John King right here. She was even kind enough to take over In Boozo Veritas one week while I was on vacation. Her guest blog Writers in Festival Mode is a hilarious and nearly anthropological examination of the drinking habits of the literati when they get together for festivals and conferences, and if you enjoy her essays as much as I do, you can read more of them on the website The Gloria Sirens.

By now you are no doubt on your way to Bookmark It in East End Market, Orlando’s only independent bookstore focusing on local writers, to purchase Satellite Beach.

While you are there, do yourself a favor and pick up Amy Watkins’ brand new chapbook Milk & Water, published by Yellow Flag Press.

With this collection Amy has proved herself to be both an exciting, emerging voice and a poet who’s put in the time to fine tune her craft. The poems found in Milk & Water are flawless whether they function as brief poignant images or heart-wrenching narratives. Poems such as “Playa Linda” destroy the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This vision of a daughter collecting seashells on a beach captures a pristine snapshot in fewer words than a hundred, proving that in this poet’s competent hands words are, in fact, priceless. Amy doesn’t need to tell us why this moment in time has stayed with her, why it deserves to be captured in a poem; the beauty of its existence is justification enough. On the other hand, poems with a more obvious emotional gravity such as “The Viewing” and “The Day My Sister Died,” both dealing with the tragic loss of a sister at an early age, work because they employ the same clarity of memory that make “Playa Linda” stand out. Amy is asking the reader to do more than simply grieve with her. Where a lesser author might merely inspire our sympathy, Amy demands empathy on a visceral, painful level. These poems do not shy away from pointing out the painful truth that the actions of people we know love us, actions meant for our own protection, just as often leave deep wounds and horrible scars. There is a sense of poetic responsibility in Amy’s work, and yet there is redemption as well, an emotional release that transcends explanation, a redemption that comes from the simple fact of the poem’s existence. As in Susan’s work, the reader feels grateful to be welcomed into a space this personal, and like Susan, she is an incredible reader of her own work. Each poem is imbued with a profundity that makes them all the more devastating for her straight-forward emotional honesty.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention my good friend Danielle Kessinger. I have considered Danielle my friend for several years, but only recently discovered just what an incredible poet she is. I was lucky enough to share the stage with her a few weeks ago at Literocalypse and was blown away by the sheer sound of her poems. As both a writer and a reader Danielle captures a musicality that is uncommon and all the more delightful for its rarity. Simply hearing her poems is an absolute pleasure. While Danielle doesn’t yet have a published collection that you can rush out and buy, she is a poet you would be wise to watch out for. I, for one, look forward to seeing her give another reading very soon. She and I spent a few hours yesterday drinking cocktails and keeping each other focused as we submitted our work to various lit mags. Hopefully an editor will see the same spark in her work that I do.

The literary community of Orlando, more so than any other city in which I’ve lived, is as warm and welcoming as it is full of talent. From Functionally Literate, to There Will Be Words, and Literocalypse, there is an arena for any number of diverse voices, established and emerging alike. I am lucky to consider each of these three poets, Susan, Amy, and Danielle, my friend. I would say the same of many other fantastic writers living here. Orlando is a big city with the neighborly charm of a small town. In other communities it is easy to get lost in the crowd, but here one only needs to follow a simple plan to meet the writers living among us: go to readings and start buying drinks. You’re sure to meet more writers than you’ll know what to do with.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #38: Dylan Thomas, and Words That Leave Us Dumb

21 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas, Poetry

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After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones), And Death Shall Have No Dominion, Caitlin Macnamara, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas, Teege Braune, The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower, The White Horse Tavern

In Boozo Veritas #38 by Teege Braune

Dylan Thomas:

Words That Leave Us Dumb

On November ninth, 1953, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, already decrepit and ill at the age only thirty-nine years old, took a drink and had another. “I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s a record!” he announced and then fell forward dead at the table of his favorite New York City pub The White Horse Tavern; a fitting, legendary end for a man who cultivated his own legend as a drunken passionate rogue, philanderer, and doomed poet, a man prone to creating his own tall tales such as his claim that he and long suffering wife Caitlin Macnamara were in bed together ten minutes after meeting each other. Macnamara’s own assessment of her relationship with Thomas was less romanticized. “But ours was a drink story, not a love story, just like millions of others. Our one and only true love was drink. The bar was our altar,” she wrote in her 1997 autobiography My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story. “Is the bloody man dead yet?” she asked as she arrived at St. Vincent’s Hospital were Thomas was lying in a coma from which he would not awaken. Perhaps a more fitting legend of the poet’s death is that, though alcohol had compromised his health in more ways than one, his autopsy revealed that his liver showed no signs of cirrhosis, the opposite of what everyone believed. In fact, Thomas’ final coup d’état came from pneumonia exacerbated by a preexisting lung condition. While alcohol may have endorsed his demise, it was not the actual assassin.

Despite his love affair with alcohol, its presence in Thomas’ work is limited and intermittent. Death, on the other hand, is the obsession to which he returns time and time again. His poetry chronicles an ambivalent relationship with the inevitable. In much of his most famous work, including “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower,” “After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones),” and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” amongst others, Thomas rails against his own demise and that of his loved ones all the while acknowledging the futility of such a lament. In “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” he says that

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.”

We see death portrayed, not only as a necessity and final conclusion of our birth, but furthermore, a moral action; it is the correct thing to do. And yet we know that in that “good night” our failings are made manifest; our deeds crumble as we are forgotten by those who survive us. In the end, our words, for all their weight and sanctity, were no more than words; they “forked no lightning.” If this was the fear of a poet of Thomas’ unfathomable caliber, then what hope do the rest of us have? Having memorized “Do No Go Gentle into That Good Night” years ago, I often recite it at bars as a litmus test of my own intoxication. If I can get through the final “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” without losing my place or forgetting a verse, I’ll order another drink. If I can’t finish the poem, I know it’s time to find a ride home. In other moments, I ignore my own advice and, overwhelmed by my own desire to “burn and rave at close of day,” I take a cue from the doomed bard and push through past the final horizon of decorum and good sense.

Poet Robert Lowell said of Dylan Thomas, “He is a dazzling obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding.” This was indeed my own experience when I first heard my English literature professor Jim Watt read “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” with a steady, emotional resonance that rivaled Richard Burton and gave me chills as he crawled towards that final image of the crooked worm. A mild, sunny day in early spring had inspired Jim to drag us all outside and there among blossoming flowers and budding trees he found an idyllic location in which to share this poem with a bunch of nineteen year olds, the same age Thomas was when he wrote it. I had been discovering and devouring literature faster than I could process it, but these words left an indelible mark on my imagination. When I came home for spring break I read it to my mom who responded that she didn’t understand a word of it. I admitted that I didn’t either, but loved it anyway. Over a decade later, having read it an uncountable number of times, I now think it is deceptively simple in its meaning, which is, in utterly complex language, an admission of the poet’s own lack of understanding. He sees the connection between his own youth and the fragile burgeoning flower, the never-ending cycle of death and regeneration, the force that drives and destroys everything without judgment or preference, that unites all, living and dying, into one existence, and he says in the face of this overwhelming epiphany that is no revelation, enlightening without revealing, “I am dumb to tell…”

If Caitlin was Thomas’ third love and alcohol his second, his true romance was with words. Thomas had said of discovering nursery rhymes as a child, “before I could read them for myself I had come to love the words of them. The words alone. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance…” This is a poet who was never writing for the purpose of being understood in the first place. “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” may simply tell us what Thomas doesn’t know, but it does so in the most breathtakingly beautiful way imaginable. The rhythm, the enigmatic images, every word in every line is immaculate. If a life has meaning, it is most likely a meaning one has wrought out of it, perhaps unnaturally. Most likely this meaning is less significant than the simple fact of the life itself. What’s for certain is that at the moment of our inevitable deaths, the meanings to which we once clung will be lost forever. In Dylan Thomas’ incredible poems we find many meanings, most of which are constantly in flux, endlessly debated; more importantly, we find words. Words collected, adored, beaten, cursed, blessed, and finally arranged in such a way that they do indeed fork lightning, defeat death, and transcend personal legend.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #37: Words and Whiskey

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Drinking, In Boozo Veritas, Poetry

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In Boozo Veritas, Leigh Anne Hornfeldt, Small Batch: An Anthology of Bourbon Poetry, Teege Braune, Teneice Durrant Delgado

In Boozo Veritas #37 by Teege Braune

Words and Whiskey

Two of Cups Press’ collection of bourbon-inspired poetry called Small Batch begins with a brief description and history of bourbon followed by this short piece by David S. Atkinson entitled “A Bourbon Poetry Submission,”

I heard this press wanted poems about

bourbon.

This confused me, because I thought

bourbon

was already a poem.

Bourbon, like poetry, is something that should be savored, enjoyed slowly. A connoisseur will return to her favorite examples over and over again throughout her life. When done well, poetry and bourbon are both highly nuanced with a complexity that requires a meditative examination. Some are of the mindset that bourbon and poetry should both be reserved for special occasions. Others, like John King and myself, see this as blasphemy and consume either as often as is humanly possible. Sour mash and white dog can be seen as the various drafts a distiller has to go through to achieve a signature product, just as a poet must rewrite a piece several times before it’s publishable. If you want to take a more mystical approach, both bourbon and poetry go through a kind of transubstantiation, a handful of unspectacular ingredients that, through craft and perhaps at times sheer luck or divine intervention, become something much greater than the sum of their parts. Poetry is a smattering of symbols with no inherent meaning, arranged in such a manner as to bring forth, inexplicably, image, music, language at its most significant. Bourbon contains the same mystery. It isn’t just the alcohol derived from distillation, a process any chemistry major understands and can duplicate; it is the ineffable quality that comes from aging 51% corn based alcohol in new, charred oak barrels. Alcohol aged in anything else is not bourbon and inferior for that reason. It is why all the best bourbons still come from a small geographical area in northern Kentucky.

But I digress. A distiller must follow strict guidelines to even legally market a whiskey as bourbon. Poetry, on the other hand, is more elusive a term, and the pieces collected in Small Batch exemplify this in their range and diversity. While many of the poems in this collection follow the American free-verse tradition and the confessional tone so popular with the post-MFA crowd, others experiment with voice and style such as Briana Gervat’s “Bourbon Style Green Eggs and Ham,” an amusing, adult-oriented parody of Dr. Seuss’ classic. Not unexpectedly, some of the work goes down like a shot of Old Crow,

harsh, unrefined, a bit painful, the only appeal being that any poetry, like bourbon, is better than no poetry at all, but you’ll be glad you endured these moments when you come to gems like Jeremy Dae Paden’s two poems “Smooth Pour” and “The Story of Uncle Frank,” truly top shelf work reminiscent of that deliciously obscure bottle one pulls out to wow friends at social gatherings. If you are expecting a collection of Bukowski knockoffs, look elsewhere. The Bard of Debauchery shows his influence here and there, winking slyly in Erin Elizabeth Smith’s “Drinking Poem” and Jude C. McPherson’s “Neat.” On the other hand, much of this work stands completely outside of Bukowski’s legacy. This anthology demonstrates that the nexus between bourbon and poetry is much larger than the romanticized notion of an alcoholic writer, though that character has a time and a place as well. As the unifying factor of every poem of this collection, bourbon takes on a myriad of roles: as an aspect of cultural identity in Ellen Hagan’s “Kentucky – You Be,” welcomed antagonist in Peter Fong’s “A Thirsty Man Considers his Future,” poetic muse in Parneshia Jones’ “Ode to Bourbon: A Writer’s Distillery,” and simply one lovely detail amongst many in Annette Spaulding-Convy’s incredible “The Spaulding-Criss-Potter-Craig-Sherer-Smith-Walker Women Ponder the Corrals They’ve Built Inside.”

Small Batch’s introduction invites us to “Pour a shot, open a page, and drink it in.” While the poems are divided into lose sections cleverly titled “drawing confessions,” “crack the wax,” “bourbon-strong fist,” “whatever’s open has to go,” and “this want travels,” nothing compels the reader to read these poems in any particular order. Reading any poetry anthology cover to cover is kind of like sampling from every bottle of a prodigious bourbon collection in a single evening. Discovering something new, returning to an old favorite, these are the twin joys of bourbon and poetry. Scan the shelf, pull off any bottle that strikes you for no good reason; peruse the table of contents, grab a title at random. I, for one, am finishing off the bottle of Elmer T. Lee that my brother gave me for Christmas two years ago while revisiting this delightful collection on a Sunday afternoon, as good a time as any for drinking and poetry. We all have our priorities, and I’m grateful for artists, distillers and poets alike, who take the time to create those things that make life worth living.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #36: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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In Boozo Veritas, Teege Braune, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

In Boozo Veritas #36 by Teege Braune

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

It is a shame that no one can talk about Edward FitzGerald’s best selling nineteenth century poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám without weighing in on the famous controversy surrounding the former’s admittedly un-literal translation of the Persian poets original quatrains. The never ending debate about FitzGerald’s poetic license and the accusations that he puts blasphemies in the mouth of a highly moral and devoutly religious intellectual by way of espousing alcoholism as means of overcoming life’s existential dilemma are perfect examples of scholarship missing the poetry by focusing on the minutia surrounding it, and indeed, FitzGerald by way of Khayyám, comments on the uselessness of such activities in the very poem inspiring them:

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussed

Of the Two Worlds so wisely – they are thrust

Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

Are scattered, and their Mouths are stopped with Dust.

What’s more, attempts at “proper” translations, such as Robert Graves’ clunky, self-righteous blunder, have routinely failed to match the poetic beauty of FitzGerald’s own. On the other hand, Sufi scholar Abdullah Dougan has championed FitzGerald’s translation as the instrument Allah chose to introduce Sufism to the west. While I have deep respect for Sufism and find Dougan’s assertion that the poem is “divine inspiration… a miracle,” appealing on some levels, I do not care for interpretations of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám as a religious text and would, in fact, argue that it is the opposite.

Others who revere FitzGerald’s translation, or “transmogrification” as he referred to it, for its poetic achievement often misinterpret it as pessimistic and fatalistic, summing it up as an elaborate expression of the sentiment, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we’ll die.” Never mind that truncating a 404 lined poem into a cliche misses the point and joy of poetry in the first place, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is much more than the barroom philosophy of some simple-minded hedonist. While the poem certainly does come to the conclusion that perpetual indulgence in wine is the best way to live, it only does so after rigorous attempts to understand the nature of life and death, God, and our own purpose in this world have proved futile. Omar, as the narrator of FitzGerald’s interpretation, if not the historical and original poet, spends as much time discussing his own folly as a student of philosophy and theology, referring to the afterlife as “the Veil through which I might not see” and comparing humanity to clay pots in that both are made of earth, exist as empty vessels, and one day are returned to the dust and forgotten, as he does in drunken revelry.

When I discovered this poem as a young man of nineteen, I was going through a similar existential crisis as FitzGerald’s Khayyám. I had recently left Christianity due to a personal lack of faith, which I saw as a rejection by a Calvinist God, and discovered my own love of all things fermented including, if not especially, the grape. The certainty of my own death was terrifying to me.

For the first time in my life I could not cling to some approximation of Heaven to cushion the blow of its mystery. Alcohol, I found, eased the discomfort of this anxiety. Studying The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám allowed me to see drinking not as an easy escape hatch, but rather the ecstatic celebration of life that it can be. Omar is not hiding from hard truths and difficult questions. When he says,

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before

I swore – but was I sober when I swore?

And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand

My threadbare Penitence apieces tore.

we can see that he is past fear. He has left those concerns behind to revel in the hear and now. What better way to do this than by drinking wine?

In class I grew frustrated with my colleagues who interpreted The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám as a symbol of communion, who equated the wine with the blood of Christ. This interpretation ignores Omar’s regular and devastating criticisms of religion and a legalistic deity who would “Sue for a Debt he never did contract, / And cannot answer…” And yet, communion may be closer to Khayyám’s or FitzGerald’s meaning than base hedonism. I have always found it disturbing that scholars of English literature, a group trained to look for metaphors and symbolism, are so quick to take Omar’s wine at face value. Perhaps every reader of The Rubáiyát will not be an oenophile. I do not think that this needs detract from the value or beauty of the poem; wine is the perfect stand-in for joy. Around the same time FitzGerald was transmogrifying Khayyám’s Rubáiyát, the French poet Charles Baudelaire was commanding his readers to get drunk “with wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please!” Neither poets are equating drunkenness with sloppy inebriation; on the contrary, it is associated with an all-encompassing, passionate exuberance.

His contributions to algebra, geometry, and astronomy are widely celebrated, but little is known about the personal life of the historical Omar Khayyám. He was a skilled poet in his native Persian and wrote over a thousand quatrains, some that look like this. When FitzGerald’s translation of a few of these quatrains introduced Khayyám to the western world, undoubtedly a romanticized interest in Orientalism in Victorian England led to its immense popularity. The exoticness of Omar Khayyám’s name was all these early western readers needed to know about him. Over a century later, scholars continue to argue whether or not he was a deeply religious orthodox Muslim, a mystically inclined Sufi, or FitzGerald’s fellow agnostic, a man who, like myself, craved earthly joy is lieu of cosmic security. Wine is often used as a symbol for divine communion in Sufi poetry as it is in Christian liturgy and pagan Dionysian-cult rituals, and yet for Omar, at least FitzGerald’s Omar, wine is not transcendent. It is of earthly origin for the pleasure of humanity, ourselves earthly beings made of the same clay as the cups from which we drink, in which the grape grows. Understanding this struck me as pessimistic at one time in my life, but now I see it as mysticism and materialism in perfect synchronicity. Religion, a promise of heaven, these may bring joy to lives of other people, but for me:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, of Loaf of Bread – and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

___________

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

In Boozo Veritas #35: Mothers Bring Your Sons, Fathers Bring Your Daughters

31 Monday Mar 2014

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In Boozo Veritas #35 by Teege Braune

Mothers Bring Your Sons, Fathers Bring Your Daughters

A few weeks ago I was honored to be invited by my friend Cathleen to participate in her reading series, Literocalypse. Cathleen Bota and Kristen Arnett began Literocalypse in the fall of last year and host it in The Space, a multi-purpose community art center that I wrote about for In Boozo Veritas #24: There’s a Space for Us. In the several months since Literocalypse began Cathleen and Kristen have brought in a variety of incredible local writers, some who have a long list of publishing credits and other who are debuting their work publicly for the first time. As you would expect, these authors have shared a diverse collection of literature encompassing every style and genre including poetry, fiction, essays, and even multimedia presentations. I was so flattered that Cathleen wanted to include me in the already impressive list of readers that I accepted her invitation before I stopped to consider what I might want to read: I could share my essay about dropping LSD with my best friend in college. I wrote the first draft over a decade ago and have been revising it every couple years since then, but whatever I do with it, it continues to feel juvenile and immature.

My story about a man obsessed with owning a pet Cheshire cat is much too long, as is my tale of an interdimensional, freedom-fighting vampire porn star. I thought about sifting through the In Boozo Veritas archive and pulling out a couple of my favorites blogs, but that felt a bit too easy. Finding my options limited I began to grow nervous. It looks like I’m going to have to strap on my typing gloves (You don’t own typing gloves?) and finish a piece on which I’ve been working, but where do I exert my efforts? Should I finally complete the revision of a story about a child who finally goes to the carnival he’s longed to attend only to find it much different than he expected or wrap up the scrap of memoir about the time my best friend made is girlfriend come on to me because he thought it would be a hilarious prank? Maybe I’ll come up with a completely new idea about oversized, screeching sperm cells and hope it comes together before this the end of the week. Hell, I’ve written some of my best work in less time than that.

You’ll have to come to The Space on Thursday night at 9:00 PM to find out what I choose to do the time allotted to me, but if my own reading isn’t catalyst enough to get you out of the house, you might want to show up to see my friend the incredibly talented novelist and poet Danielle Kessinger who will be sharing some of her poetry with us lucky bastards in Orlando for the first time, and if you’re still not convinced, Cathleen and Kristen might be bringing a flan to the reading. I can’t promise that, but there is a picture of a flan on the Facebook invite, and they have brought some pretty fantastic desserts to past readings, so who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.

One thing to keep in mind is this: The Space isn’t a bar, so Literocalypse is BYOB, but don’t let that get you down. After all, it is much cheaper to buy alcohol wholesale than it is out on the town. While it may not be mandatory, it is definitely customary to offer a beverage to the the event’s readers, so feel free to offer me a drink. Don’t think it has to be craft beer just because I work at Redlight Redlight. While craft beer is certainly welcome, I’ll drink just about any kind of booze you place in my hand. I’ve read multiple studies demonstrating that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. Doubtlessly our ancestors developed fermentation and distillation with the specific purpose of helping others talk in front of a room full of people. Even I can’t say what sort of madness will ensue once I have that liquid courage in my hand, but I promise to entertain, to bring some humor and delight to the evening, or on the other hand, weird the hell out of everybody. This is one night guaranteed to be fun. Or disturbing. Either way, see you there.

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In Boozo Veritas #34: Before the Tortoise Dons his Raincoat

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas, Music

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In Boozo Veritas, Nat Evans, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #34 by Teege Braune

Before the Tortoise Dons his Raincoat:

Preliminary Thoughts on an as of Yet Unwritten Piece of Music

In the middle of my freshman year of college I met a shy young man named Nat Evans with whom I began a friendship after I wrote this haiku by Shiki on the white board of his dorm room door:

Midnight sound-

Leap up:

A fallen moon flower.

We had much in common, including an interest in Buddhism and aspirations of becoming writers, he of music, myself of short stories. We had been friends for about a year when one of Nat’s own pieces was performed on campus. At nineteen I was surprised that clay flower pots were among the instruments to be played. The novelty of this intrigued me at the time, but once the piece began I realized that the flower pots were not utilized in an attempt to be simply weird and different, that they had a signature sound within them, something that could never be recreated by a “traditional” percussion instrument. Experiencing that piece of music at that time in my life was exhilarating, and it was the first time I realized just how much talent my good friend had within in him.

Over the years that we’ve been friends, Nat’s cultivated this talent, written scores of music, and watched his career blossom. His work is performed internationally on a regular basis by choruses, ensembles, and solo musicians and was included in the compilation CD that accompanied the 2011 music issue of The Believer. While Nat will often write for traditional instruments, his work is also filled with elements of everyday life, especially the natural world such as tree branches and conch shells. His piece LOG, premiered in Orlando earlier this year by percussionist Matt Roberts, is played on an actual log and required Matt to procure this log himself and make a field recording of the place where the log was discovered. These were complimented by a custom made music box of Nat’s own design. An ideological student of John Cage, Nat’s work acknowledges that music is everywhere and can be made with anything. Taking this principle several steps further than simply reinterpreting a flower pot, Nat’s music is rooted in the collaborative experiences and settings of its creation and performance and requires a contemplative, highly interactive involvement from its participants, musician and audience alike.

Lest you think the composer an unfair taskmaster, taking it easy while the poor performer searches through the woods for a log, Nat’s next project, entitled The Tortoise & His Raincoat: Music for a Very Long Walk, is his most ambitious yet and requires him to make a 2600 mile, five month walk up the Pacific Crest trail, essentially the entire west coast of the United States from the U.S. / Mexican border straight up through the Cascade Mountains of northern Washington. Over the course of this strenuous hike Nat will be composing music the old fashioned way with pen and paper, but he will also be making field recordings of his surroundings, which will be sent to six composers, such as Chris Kallmyer whose highly conceptual work has included recordings of the ocean and the simultaneous eating of oysters. These composers will utilize the sounds of the wilderness as an instrument in their own pieces, which Nat will incorporate into the greater project. Understandably Nat is reluctant to attempt to predict just where the overarching project will go. Just as the sounds will arise from the days and nights outside in the desert, forest, or mountains, Nat’s own compositions will no doubt spring forth from the hours of endurance and quiet contemplation. While his journey might smack of a Beat era, Dharma Bums adventure, and indeed the poetry of Gary Snyder is an influence on Nat and his own Buddhist practice, Nat will be doing no hitch-hiking along the way. Nat’s project doesn’t share the feelings of restlessness and perpetual unease associated with Kerouac and his ilk. Rather his hike is more akin to a spiritual pilgrimage, walking a great distance simply because he feels called to do so. The pilgrim needs not understand that calling before he sets out. He needs only to acknowledge it, accept it, and be open to the language of both the world and his mind speaking to him along the way.

Nat is no stranger to walking. When living in China, he often roamed the city of Nanjing on foot in a futile search for a much-desired cup of black coffee. When we briefly lived together in Seattle we would often go out drinking in bars after the last bus had ended its route and be forced to drunkenly trudge home together with uncomfortably full bladders. Nat took me on the longest walk of my own life, a four day hike over the crest of Uncompahgre Peak of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, but none of this will compare to the trek on which he will set out only a month from now. How does one prepare for such an endeavor? Staying healthy, getting one’s affairs in order. Of course, a certain amount of money will be required for food and basic necessities. If you would like to donate to Nat’s walk, participate in a truly awe-inspiring project, and help keep him alive for five months, you can do so through the Hatchfund website by clicking here. Those who donate will receive a copy of the finished project which will be released by experimental music label Quakebasket Records. Additionally, depending on how much you are able to give, you may receive a custom-made music box or a portrait of yourself as a tree drawn by Nat on the trail.

I’ll be checking in on Nat periodically, both excited and concerned for him as I am, not to mention perhaps a little bit jealous. I have no doubt that his stories will make the subject of future In Boozo Veritas blogs, though he probably won’t be consuming a great deal of alcohol on the trail. Stepping out into the unknown is itself a macrocosm for creation, the artist’s willingness to listen to the mystery, and then to speak to it in turn, for the mystery does not simply require our silence; it asks for a dialogue, the transcription of which is the final product. I have always enjoyed my enlightening conversations with Nat and the perfectly natural silences that punctuate these. As he begins this long conversation with himself, the wilderness, and his fellow West Coast composers, I can’t wait to hear the words that are exchanged and witness the silences that give these words their weight, the sounds that will become The Tortoise & His Raincoat: Music for a Very Long Walk.

Check out Nat’s website to learn more about him and his incredible music.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #33: St. Patrick’s Day

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Drinking, In Boozo Veritas, Irish Literature

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In Boozo Veritas

In Boozo Veritas #33 by Teege Braune

St. Patrick’s Day

If you are the kind of person who celebrates holidays by listening to podcasts, you’ve no doubt already enjoyed The Drunken Odyssey’s drinking roundtable discussion recorded especially for St. Patrick’s Day.

Somewhere among the odd off topic asides and the sounds of clinking glasses I share an obscure poem written by Irish poet, scholar, and mystic W.B. Yeats entitled simply “The Irish Car Bomb.” Don’t ask me where I dug up this relic of misguided poetic innovation. I’m sure Yeats himself would have preferred it lost to posterity. It is admittedly not the poet’s best work: for one thing its rhythm and meter lack the near perfect precision for which Yeats’ is rightfully credited. Furthermore, the poem’s references are a hodgepodge of Irish culture and mythology with nothing of any discernible importance uniting them together in this particular poem. Careful readers of Yeats’ work will find it odd that he mentions Orlando, which at the time of his death in 1939 was still only a fledgling metropolis. Stranger still is that the poem is about a drink often deemed culturally insensitive to the Irish and their history of violent conflict between imperialist England and the IRA, but most perplexing is the fact that Irish car bombs were invented in the United States forty years after Yeats died. His prophetic foreknowledge of their future popularity can only be attributed to his involvement with the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn and communion with Secret Chiefs.

Despite its spurious origins and cultural carelessness, the Irish car bomb is a favorite among binge drinkers on St. Patrick’s Day. We can at least acknowledge that its ingredients are Irish, though ninety percent of the Guinness consumed in the United States any day of the year is actually brewed in the company’s facility in Canada and not in its historic Dublin brewery. One could argue that the car bomb is actually a perfect symbol for St. Patrick’s Day in the United States: “Irish” ingredients created in the new world thrown together and chugged at one’s own peril with zero consideration for how they actually relate to the people one is supposedly celebrating. This is the way we appropriate any culture in this country, right? Taking bits and pieces from various stories and epochs, combining them without much thought or justification, blurring the lines between honoring another ethnicity and simply bastardizing it.

And yet I’ve enjoyed my fair share of car bombs, consumed them with a clear conscience, and probably will again.

This is the nature of a melting pot: one generation shares with its neighbors and progenies the pieces of the old country that it has brought with it across the ocean. These same neighbors and progenies remember the details but forget the old country, a place, after all, they have never seen, or if they have, visited only as a guest and a stranger. Like a cross generational game of telephone, they pass the half-remembered traditions up their family trees until they are as watered down as their own bloodlines. This isn’t a lament. This is simply the nature of America; the alternative, namely nationalism, is much darker indeed.

Neither is this an argument for unbridled cultural appropriation, the inevitability of which does not justify the creation of insulting portrayals of other ethnicities, nor the trivialization of their struggles. Unfortunately, racism is still a huge problem in this country and much of the world. Despite my occasional consumption of the beverage, the Irish car bomb is undoubtedly on the insensitive side of the cultural appropriation fence. There’s a great Irish proverb that goes, “It is often a person’s mouth that broke his nose.” The ignorant tourist who orders an Irish car bomb in any random pub in Dublin deserves the fat lip that he may receive instead. Why, then, drink it in the United States? Guinness, Bailey’s, and Jameson are surprisingly delicious when all gulped down all together, but is this justification enough? What if we simply changed the name? Were I taxed with renaming the car bomb, I might call it something like Fergus’ Folly or Finnegan’s Quake, but we all know that neither of these are likely to stick.

One finds references to St. Patrick’s Day lacking in Yeats’ work. In fact, the ideologies of the poet and the patron saint of Ireland, separated from each other by a gulf of centuries, stand in stark opposition to each other. While the latter made the rediscovery of Irish mythology and folklore his life’s work, the former spent his first years in Ireland, a land that was not his home, in slavery, and then after gaining his freedom only to voluntarily sacrifice it for a monastic life, created his legacy by converting pagans to Christianity, thus Romanizing Ireland and initiating the end of the age of myth. The primary miracle associated with St. Patrick is the legend that he drove all the snakes from Ireland. While it’s true that there are no snakes on the island, paleontological evidence suggests that they were never there to begin with. The snakes St. Patrick drove from the island symbolize the pagan gods whom Christianity associates with demons. Rediscovering these gods, breathing new life into them and reestablishing their significance was Yeats’ own mission, and thus its easy to imagine why St. Patrick was a not figure for whom he had much reverence.

Despite their differences, there are aspects of St. Patrick’s Day for both Yeats and the old monk to enjoy. The shamrock, for example, while appropriated by Christianity to represent the trinity, was also a sacred symbol of springtime and regeneration to the pagan Celts who came before. On the other hand, the adoration of leprechauns, about whom Yeats collected a host of folktales, would no doubt please the poet, while their ubiquitousness might have the saint rolling in his grave, and if that didn’t do it, the fact that his holiday serves as an out in out bacchanal for many would most likely not please him in the slightest. Of course, it is unlikely that your average American reveler is thinking much about how the plastic shamrock hanging on a beaded necklace around their neck is a bridge between Christianity and paganism while they are getting smashed chugging car bombs in some “Irish” pub most likely owned by Americans.

Last year while I was in Target with my own bonny lass, Jenny no less, on an errand unrelated to the holiday, a middle-aged woman ran up to me and began talking enthusiastically about how excited she was to meet a real leprechaun on St. Patrick’s Day. Perhaps I was wearing green. Perhaps not, though I can safely say I sported a big, red beard. Nevertheless, I allowed her daughter, whose mortification was obvious, to take a picture of her mother and myself together while Jenn stood off to the side unable to control her laughter. What can I say? I am a person who aims to please. No sense, it seemed, in mentioning the fact that I am really only about twenty-five percent Irish, my lineage being mostly German. When people see my red beard, especially on St. Patrick’s Day, they often want me to be Irish, and I am usually quick to indulge them. If I meet a party-goer with more than one drink in them, I just claim to be 100% Irish. “Came to America when I was a wee lad,” I’ll tell any random drunk person. It reinforces some idea to them, not a religious principle or anything so sacred. Rather I become another component to the flimsy veneer of Irishness with which they have adorned themselves. Rubbing elbows with a real Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day becomes one more glorious detail in a night of blurry memories. If I, of all people, approve of them, then they must be doing St. Patrick’s Day right.

Personally, I love St. Patrick’s Day. I enjoy an excuse to dust off my collections of Yeats and Seamus Heaney, to play the music of Shane MacGowan and Ronnie Drew, and yes, get drunk on beer and whiskey. Perhaps my red beard is indicative of Irishness as my spiritual ancestry even if it only makes up a quarter of my blood. I’ll ignore the fact that the recessive ginger gene is a minority among the population of the emerald isle as it is everywhere else in the world. Perhaps my red beard is only an excuse to claim a cultural identity that is more romantic than my German lineage. In truth, I am really as American as everyone else pretending to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Sitting in the Drunken Monkey, writing about Irish car bombs while listening to French pop music and drinking Ethiopian coffee, I feel grateful to live in a time and a place where I can enjoy various bits and pieces of cultures all over the world, but I also know that their is privilege there too, that enjoying a song, a beer, or kind of coffee will never allow me to understand what its like to be anything other than an American. St. Patrick’s Day will never mean the same in America as it does in Ireland. Nor, for that matter, will it mean the same today as it did for the down-trodden Irish immigrants of a hundred years ago. We will never distill the experience of an entire people into a single day or idea. That being said, rather than deride those who wish to adorn themselves in green hats and beads and consume green beer, I would simply encourage you to have fun in whichever way you please, but while you do so remember that respect is always an important virtue in the United States, Ireland, and across the world.

___________

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

In Boozo Veritas #32: No Rest For the Weird

10 Monday Mar 2014

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In Boozo Veritas #32 by Teege Braune

No Rest For the Weird

Here it is a sunny, beautiful Monday afternoon in Orlando. What in the hell am I still doing working on In Boozo Veritas!? This should have been finished twenty-four hours ago! Like Dr. Duke alone in Vegas, panic is creeping “up my spine like the first rising vibes of an acid frenzy.” My own horrible realities are dawning on me: hungover, no cash having spent the weekend drinking instead of bartending, no entry for my blog; I don’t know who won the race, but I can safely say it wasn’t me. Is this the week I throw in the towel, put my head in my hands, and face the world with empty pockets turned out. “I’m sorry folks. We appreciate your continued support through highs and lows, but as it turns out, we spent so much time researching, we didn’t have time to write the report. We just couldn’t cut it this week,” I’ll meekly apologize before falling upon my own sword. Is this the week there was no In Boozo Veritas?!

No, with a spontaneous surge of new-found energy, my entire being rails against defeat. My caffeine fueled mind awakens to new ideas and possibilities. Did we not spend the entire weekend drinking? Buck up, young man. Tell the people about your adventures. They need to know about the drinking! Sit down, type the words they long to hear. With the music of The Misfits blaring around me, I begin, clacking away at the keys until the subtle movements of my fingers become automatic as if mechanized, my entire being bent to a single purpose, my one and only master: In Boozo Veritas.

Saturday night Jenn and I made our way to the Cheyenne Saloon for the Orlando Weekly sponsored Great Orlando Mixer.

Tickets cost thirty dollars; everything from that point on (and by everything I mean each multitudinous drop of booze) was free, cab fare and tip money being the only added expenses. The uber swanky, pseudo-historical Cheyenne Saloon had been done up as lavishly as if the party was hosted by Jay Gatsby himself, and more than once did I maybe hear someone say in my ear, “Pretty good show, eh, old sport?” feeling a jocular hand clasp my shoulder, only to look behind me and discover no one was there at all. Jenn and I were dressed to the nines in authentic-as-possible 1920s-style attire,

while elsewhere party-goers made mockery of the decade by wearing zoot suits and feathered head pieces, as histrionic and anachronistic as Luhrmann’s own interpretation of the flapper era.

Did I mention the booze was free? Or at least prepaid, which was close enough for Jenn and me. Apart from the mixology contest on the first floor, each guest was given five drink tickets, which entitled them to very stiff classic cocktails being made on the second floor. Furthermore, if you were able to spot her hidden in a back corner Kaitlin of Daughters & Co. was mixing some of the best old-fashioneds and mint juleps I’ve ever had. As I grew up in Louisville, that’s saying a lot. Grabbing drinks at every bar we passed, Jenn and I made our way through the crowds who were clamoring to become as intoxicated as possible before the booze ran dry. That nasty, little glitch in our nation’s history, not-so-fondly known as prohibition, was completely forgotten. Meanwhile, the festivities were presided over by the gorgeous Miss Carol Lee, dancers entertained with their delightfully executed rendition of the Charleston, and Will of the titular pub played Hemingway for the evening. Apparently, he was going for Walt Disney, but he’ll always be Hemingway to me. Rene of Hanson’s was deservedly crowned Orlando’s greatest mixologist and shortly after things dissolved into utter chaos. Any remaining booze was clutched at and downed with wild abandon. The dance floor was packed with revelers trading party hats and sucking the helium from balloons, and then just as we were all about to forget what decade we were in, which one we were recreating, past and future colliding dangerously, the clock struck midnight and without so much as a night cap, security ushered us unceremoniously out the front doors and onto the street.

I awoke at five in the morning, my throat dry, head reeling from all the alcohol and sugar, my stomach a sour, twisted mess, belching noxious fumes that tasted of basil, mint, and cucumber. Chugging gallons of water, I resisted the urge to lose my (liquid) dinner. I resolved to spend the rest of my Sunday hiding under the covers before I remembered I had committed to another drinking round table of John King’s The Drunken Odyssey that very afternoon where I knew I would be obligated to drink whiskey, beer, and Bailey’s Irish Cream. “Dear God,” I thought. “How can I possibly chug an Irish car bomb on a day like this?” This proved easy enough by the time I got there a few hours later. Together we recorded what I think will be a highly entertaining episode of the podcast. With St. Patrick’s Day providing a sort of lose structure, we discussed a myriad of subjects including tattoos, feminism, and of course Disney cartoons. Furthermore, I shared an obscure poem by W.B. Yeats in honor of the drink known as the Irish car bomb, but you’ll have to tune in next Monday to hear it.

While I was recording the podcast, Jenn had been fighting her own hangover in order to lend a hand at Bookmark It, the new independent, locally-themed bookstore located at East End Market. Afterwards, we had dinner with Bookmark It’s owner Kim and her boyfriend Pat at Gargi’s. As we watched the sunset on Lake Ivanhoe over pasta and sangrias it became increasingly obvious that no writing would get done that evening, and by the time I got home even the season finale of True Detective wasn’t enough to keep me awake. I arose early the next morning and collapsed on the couch. Before I could attempt to find my laptop or even think about composing my blog, a cat had jumped on my lap. Too cozy to disturb my furry friend, I drifted back to sleep and did not awake again until after noon. In no way rested for this upcoming week of work, I nevertheless fought fatigue and exhaustion to bring you yet another edition of the cultural phenomenon known as In Boozo Veritas.

___________

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.