In Boozo Veritas #71: MEMO from the In Boozo Veritas Offices

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, In Boozo Veritas

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Eyes Wide Shit, In Boozo Veritas, John King, Stanley Kubrick, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #71 by Teege Braune

MEMO from the In Boozo Veritas Offices

To: John King, Host of The Drunken Odyssey

From: Teege Braune, Author of In Boozo Veritas

Subject: The Greatest Film Every Made or An Average Tuesday for John King?

Date: December 22, 2014

You’ve called me out! It’s true that I have been hallucinating more and more regularly. Why, early this very week I had the strangest dream that you and I were being serenaded by an adorably sad, seven foot tall clown with a golden voice. What a strange but delightful vision. My pharmacologist warned me not to eat those mushrooms growing around the back of my house, but damn it, they just taste so good on pizza.

That being said, I feel certain that at least some of the details of my last letter took place in reality. For example: your neighbor Mrs. Thorndike had asked me not to use her real name so that the world would not be privy to her libertine activities, and while it’s true that her parties are not exactly orgies, but more akin to friendly afternoon games of bridge, most of us in attendance wear masks and a few of us (no names) do get naked. I used Nuala Windsor as a convenient alias, but alas, I chose too obvious a ruse. Nevertheless, it is you who has exposed a kind, if eccentric, elderly woman. Let that be on your own conscience.

The fact is, that as I read the details of your attack on Eyes Wide Shut, I kept thinking, John’s right! But where you groan and shake your head in agonized disbelief, I find myself filled with delight. Rainbow motif symbolizing adultery and sexual excess? Yes, I’ll take it! Proliferation of characters passing through thresholds and dreamy, drawn-out dialogue? Please, give me more! A highly stylized and antiseptic orgy that, despite the outrageous amount of nudity, is completely lacking in anything that could be considered erotic? I can’t get enough of the stuff!

It isn’t necessarily easy for me to say exactly what I love about EWS, but no matter how many times I watch it, whenever I hear Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite, Waltz No. 2, my analytic and aesthetic mind begins whirring with the possibility of making new connections, of reentering this strange universe that is both exotic and present. I never ever grow tired of viewing this bizarre and mysterious cinematic objet d’art. Watching the film after reading your critique, I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to convince another person that this film is a masterpiece, especially someone as intellectually gifted and adept at analysis as yourself, is simply a foolish endeavor. Which is not say EWS is a guilty pleasure. Far from it. You simply appreciate the oddball genius of Stanley Kubrick or you do not.

One place in which I must disagree with you, however, is your assertion that EWS is a projection of a “repressive Puritanical libido.” Tom Cruise’s Dr. Bill Hartford’s never-realized sexual misadventure is more complicated than an attempted escape from inhibition. After all, he and his wife Alice seem to share an active sex life.

What sends Dr. Hartford down the rabbit hole is not Alice’s confession about the naval officer, but rather the realization that his wife is a sexually autonomous person and not merely an ornament reflective of his social status and object of male sexual desire. His emasculation is not so much a result of learning that his wife once wanted another man, but that women are tempted by sex at all.

Instead of handling this emotional trauma the way one might in the real world, either by seeking marital counseling or engaging in some kind of midlife crisis, Bill enters a psychological labyrinth inside a dreamscape version of New York City that begins with an oddly inverted version of his own situation. A deceased patient’s daughter, who looks remarkably like his own wife Alice, spontaneously and without warning professes her love to Bill despite her engagement to a man who looks remarkably like Bill himself, the bright opulent rooms juxtaposed with the same dull blue light seeping in from the windows.

Bill attempts to redeem his masculinity throughout a series of increasingly odder scenarios that culminate in a masked orgy, a place where women are reduced to literally faceless objects of pleasure, but just as his near temptation by the models at Ziegler’s party was interrupted before he was able to go where the rainbow ends, every encounter fails to culminate in sexual union or restore the shattered order to his world. He returns from this journey to discover another man’s face beside his wife in his bed. Of course, it is own face, his mask from the orgy, his own illusion occupying the place of his real self.

All boundaries have been subverted, the lines between dream and wakefulness, fantasy and reality, and representation and that which is being represented.

But it’s like I said: you either dig that sort of thing or you don’t. I doubt I’ve convinced you that you enjoy a movie you’ve previously called “a pretentious waste of time.” I can offer one last detail, however, that I think you might appreciate. This theme of representation even seeped into the actual production of EWS. You mentioned you recognized the location of Rainbow Rentals as a cross street between Sixth Avenue and Washington Square Park when, in fact, Kubrick’s phobia of flying meant that none of the movie is filmed on location.

Instead a reconstruction of New York City was built in a sound studio in London. Kubrick’s eye for detail was as unquestionably sharp late in life as it had ever been before.

While my defense may have fallen on deaf ears, I will say, if nothing else, I take pride in the fact that I was able to force you to endure a second viewing of EWS and that the wonderful music of Jocelyn Pook was redeemed in your eyes.

Only now as I reach my conclusion does it occur to me that maybe I have missed your point altogether, and perhaps your frustrations with EWS are much more basic: simply put that a film climaxing in a bizarre orgy will never impress you, a man for whom masked orgies have simply become a routine detail of any humdrum Tuesday evening. Enjoy your orgies, my friend. I hope to see you soon.

_______

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90, episode 102, episode 122, episode 129) 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 # 61: Squirrel Babies of Orlando: Part 2

29 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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baby squirrels, Drunken Monkey, Fallin’ Pines Critter Rescue, In Boozo Veritas, Orlando, Squirrels, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas # 61 by Teege Braune

Squirrel Babies of Orlando: Part 2

And now the exciting conclusion to Squirrel Babies of Orlando.

When I got back to my house, I was met with a critical situation. Jenn had quarantined the babies in a cat carrier, and while two of them were spunky and active, wrestling with each other and climbing up the carrier’s metal gate, the third had grown weaker, was obviously fading. His nose had not stopped bleeding. He sat in the corner of the case shivering slightly and clearly required the kind of medical assistance neither Jenn nor I was qualified to give. Fortunately, in my absence Jenn had formulated a plan. She had spoken to Shirley at Fallin’ Pines Critter Rescue who emphatically agreed to foster them despite the fact that she was already caring for over seventy orphaned squirrels at the same time. Jenn had met Shirley once before in a similar situation and felt confident in the woman’s nurturing abilities.

As we were pulling out of our driveway, Jenn told me that we had to swing by Drunken Monkey before we could begin the long journey to Fort Christmas in the sticks of rural Florida.

“What in the world is at Drunken Monkey that can’t wait until we get back from dropping off the squirrels?” I nearly shouted.

“You’ll find out when you get there,” she said.

It dawned on me that this must be the surprise to which she had eluded earlier, and as eager as I was to deliver the squirrels unto salvation, I could see that there would be no reasoning with Jenn who was unwavering in her insistence. As Drunken Monkey is only a block from our house, simply indulging her, and getting the chore over with seemed a safer plan than arguing the point. Nevertheless, I had become single-minded and frantic in my mission to rescue the babies, so I was barely considering the possibilities that this surprise might entail.

“Are you coming in?” I asked Jenn as I idled the van in a parking space.

“No, I’ll stay here with the babies,” she said.

“What in the hell am I supposed to do when I go inside? Ask them for my surprise at the counter?” I asked growing frustrated.

“Uh, sure. They know you,” was her cryptic answer.

I flung open the door to my favorite coffee shop and ran straight into the last person I expected to see.

Clasping my shoulders, my dear friend Adam looked me in the eye and said, “I hear there are some baby squirrels that need saving. I’m here to help.”

All this time, unbeknownst to me, Adam was some kind of super hero, and he had flown across the globe from Australia in a moment’s notice for the salvation of three baby squirrels. With this titan among men joining our ragtag expedition, I knew that we could not possibly fail.

“Thank God you’re here!” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Adam.

Back in the van Jenn and Adam were laughing and asking me if I was surprised to see him.

I answered that of course I was, but the truth is I thought I must be dreaming and accepted the entirety of the bizarre situation with the resignation of the lucid dreamer whose dim awareness of reality quickly subverts the delightful illusions until they are conquered by consciousness, washed out completely, and so lost forever. I waited for wakefulness to take Adam, the baby squirrels, and perhaps even Jenn from me as I opened my eyes to discover who knew what other life, but then it occurred to me that I would probably not dream Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” onto the radio, and with that acknowledgment, I returned from my brief and unsettling revelry, my delusion of a delusion, and faced the wonderful knowledge that I was rescuing baby squirrels with not only my fiancé and love of my life, but also a long lost friend who only moments ago I did not know when I would see again. As we drove and joked and reminisced about old times, it was with a shrill heart shattering shriek that the poor, injured baby squirrel reminded us of our mission and purpose lest we forget the lives for which we had taken responsibility.

Fallin’ Pines Critter Rescue lies a clearing dotted by palms and trees laden with Spanish moss. Nothing about its appearance suggest that it exists anywhere near a major metropolis. The simple house sits beside a fenced in garden carved by a winding path, adorned by ponds and flowers, home to many abandoned animals including geese, rabbits, sugar gliders, and even a wallaby. This mini Wonderland is shepherded by Shirley, sometimes affectionately referred to as Squirrely Shirley, and her canine assistant who exhibited a gentleness with the babies that is uncharacteristic of her species. Shirley gathered the tiny squirrels in her cupped palms and held them up at eye level.

“Oh they’re going to be fine,” she said beaming.

We tried to point out the injured baby, to make sure he received extra and immediate care, but as I watched the three of them crawling up and down Shirley’s sweater, nibbling on loose threads, I realized I couldn’t tell him apart from his brother. As though Shirley exhibited a mystical healing touch, the little squirrel was completely revitalized. His nose had finally stopped bleeding and no one would have guessed that only moments ago he was crying out in agony.

“He just needed somebody to love on him… Yowww!!!” She screamed when one of the babies had bitten her ear. At the sound of her yell, the squirrel scurried inside Shirley’s hair.

“That happens,” she said regaining composure. “They’ll try to nurse on anything. Sometimes they come in and their poor, little penises are pink and red because they think they’re nipples.”

We all nodded at this observation pondering its implications.

“Well, I better take these guys inside and get them something to eat.”

Declining our offer of a donation, Shirley turned and walked away. Beside her large auburn ponytail, jutting from her hairline, hung a tiny gray ponytail.

Back in the car Jenn admitted that she hand’t named the squirrels because she would have been too heartbroken if they hadn’t survived the drive to Celebration. We drove back to town as the sun began to set on Orlando, planning our next move. Although Adam was only going to be around for the weekend, and I had to work much of it, we decided to make the most of the time we had. All three of us were ravenous from our adventure, and thought it appropriate to celebrate its success with dinner and libations, so headed to Fuji Sushi, a former staple for us back when Adam still lived in Orlando. We ate green mussels and an unreasonable amount of rolls including one called Aqua Bear, which we ordered simply because it reminded us of the tardigrade, a minuscule creature that can, oddly enough, survive in the vacuum of space, an animal so bizarre its very nature is a testament to the surreality of nature, the dreamy euphoria that is life.

_______

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90, episode 102) 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 # 56: The Endless Summer

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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In Boozo Veritas, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas # 56 by Teege Braune

The Endless Summer

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” –Sonnet 18

Not even the day after Christmas was as disappointing as the last day of summer vacation. It doesn’t matter on what day the Autumnal Equinox falls, all kids know that summertime is over the day the new school year begins. Never mind that much of my summer was filled with banal days playing the same video game over and over again until I was sick of it, and putting off cutting the grass until my mom threatened to ground me if it wasn’t done before sunset. As summertime was ending those moments seemed like the exception and all I remembered were the nights sitting around a campfire in the mountains, swimming in a neighbor’s pool, going to barbecues, and staying up with my friends as late as we possibly could eating pizza and candy until we simply fell over from exhaustion. It didn’t matter if the summer was often boring because boredom represented freedom, the lazy freedom to do nothing if one so chose, and when that boredom was punctuated by something more fun, it was usually so exciting one could barely stand it.

My birthday on August eighteenth was the perfect excuse for one final hurrah with my buddies before we were sucked back into the tedious grind of the school year. Then in junior high school my public school district changed the schedule so that summer ended a week earlier and the first day of school suddenly coincided with the anniversary of the day I was born. Instead of a party my family celebrated both my birthday and the last day of summer vacation by going out to dinner, getting ice cream, and then heading off to bed early so that we could wake up at the crack of dawn for school. I would spend the night of my actual birthday completing the year’s first batch of homework assignments. Usually my friends, distracted by the newness of the school year, simply forgot that it was my birthday at all.

Long before my life resembled anything that could rightly be called adulthood, graduating high school and going to college killed the summer altogether. As the semester ended I would eagerly look forward to a long break from the relentless professors and their overwhelming immensity of assignments, from sharing a cramped living space with a guy I considered a friend, but whose major from what I could gather, was smoking pot and showering as little as possible. I, in turn, showered as little as possible to battle off his body odor with my own.

As it turned out, neither one of us were having much success dating.

Summertime seemed a nice escape from all that until it actually arrived and I once again remembered that I could no longer waste those precious months bumming around doing as little as possible. I was fortunate to have a reasonably well paying summer job waiting for me back in my hometown. Unfortunately, this job was working as a maintenance assistant and painter for the public school system. In a way my worst nightmares had come true; I was a high school graduate spending the daylight hours of every week day inside the depressing walls of my high school.

I came to Florida from Indiana in early adulthood in search of some kind of endless summer. My participation in the annual school year cycle had long since ended. I had already worked a series of jobs, some more satisfying than others, none as awful as the one I had endured in college, and had no delusions that my time down south would be some kind of life of ease devoid of labor, away from the rat race. Nevertheless, Florida seemed like a place where one could decompress, where people could feel like they were on vacation on a random Saturday. I had never lived less than ten hours from a beach, and the idea of driving to the coast on any given weekend thrilled me. The truth is, I had no idea just how cold it could get here at night in the wintertime, and furthermore, I thought, what the fuck is happening the first time it was seventy-five degrees on Halloween and eighty degrees on Christmas.

___________

In Boozo Veritas # 52: La Mer

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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Hamlet, In Boozo Veritas, Sanibel Island, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas # 52 by Teege Braune

La Mer

Caught amidst the tension of a dual nature, I have suffered. In the struggle between an unfortunate tendency towards anxiety and hesitation and an urge towards impulsivity and spontaneity, anxiety has admittedly most often won out. Like Hamlet, this has been the catalyst for my greatest tragedies. I won’t tell you that my impulsivity hasn’t been the source of trouble from time to time, usually when the vice of alcohol was stirred into the mix, but I feel that my best moments have come about when I listened to that voice crying, “Leap into the darkness and trust the hands of fate to deliver thee unto the next shore!” Nearly every week, for example, I find myself procrastinating in my duty to compose In Boozo Veritas, yet invariably I always do my best writing before dawn several hours past my deadline. This morning I am speaking to you from a hotel room in Sanibel Island. This sleepy beach community is Jenn’s and my annual summer retreat. After several nights of this Edenic return, we are calibrated for the rest of the year. I’m not encouraging you to drive out here and find out for yourself. On the contrary, stay far away from this place.

Last year I came out here escaping the stresses that came with my job in sales. Only now in retrospect can I look back at that brief jaunt and recognize that the short break from bartending was something I need in order to prioritize my life. While I had the job, I simply felt miserable. Faced with the daunting prospect of having to leave our paradise and return to the drudgery of commerce, on our final morning in Sanibel Island I awoke with a delightfully impulsive thought running repeatedly through my brain. I will propose to my girlfriend today, I thought over and over again despite having no ring nor plan to do so as I was drifting off to sleep the night before. Now is not a good time, insisted that nagging, anxiety-ridden counter-voice that I sometimes listen to despite its ugly tone and implications. Wait until you have a ring. Wait until your circumstances in your life aren’t nearly so stressful. Wait until evil is banished from the earth and the lion lies down with the lamb. Silencio! I shouted, albeit only in my own imagination. Taking the fiend by the throat I banished him into the dark recesses of my brain. Though he will no doubt return once more, I said, again only in my own head, today I shall choose romance.

Pulling off the rest of it was no small task. Taking a cue from Jenn’s obsessive love of sea shells, I decided to buy an engagement ring made out of one as a stand-in until I could buy her a nicer ring. This meant bouncing from shell store to shell store looking for the perfect ring while Jenn sat in the car wondering what in the hell was wrong with me. I have been told that cemeteries are the worst places to propose, but as Jenn has never once done what she was told, I decided to follow in her spirit and drove her to one of our favorite places in the world, the tiny cemetery adjacent to The Chapel by the Sea, the final resting place for many of Captiva Island’s initial settlers. With the ocean crashing no more than a yard away I asked the love of my life to intwine her’s with mine. Jenn was so surprised she actually thought I was joking for a brief minute (before accepting my proposal through a gushing of tears). Rather than the depressing trek back to the real world, our drive home was a joyful plunge into a refreshed reality.

Jenn loved her seashell engagement ring so much, she told me that she needed nothing fancier. Unfortunately, the inexpensive ring did not last long before breaking, and I thought that Jenn’s heart would break with it. While I may not have something as lofty as a marriage proposal to offer her this year, tomorrow for her birthday I will return to my shell store and buy her every sea shell ring that fits her beautiful finger. When each one passes on, another will be prepared to step up and take its place. We shall mourn the loss of each fallen soldier before passing the symbolic, romantic duty to the next until a year from now when we return to Sanibel once again to replenish our supplies and purchase every sea shell ring on this magical, little island.

___________

In Boozo Veritas # 51: The Ghost of an Artifact

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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Hemingway, In Boozo Veritas, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas # 51 by Teege Braune

The Ghost of an Artifact

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

–Ernest Hemingway

I have a clear and distinct image of the photograph in my memory. A boy a few years older than myself who I am told is – but do not recognize as – my father sits on the lap of an elderly gentleman. I think of the man, with his white beard and sad, kindly smile, as a grandfather, despite the fact that he in no way resembles either of my actual grandfathers. He beams down at my father who in turns looks, straight faced and serious, at the camera. “Idaho – 1961” is scribbled in ink on the back of the photograph. The one time I remember seeing this old photograph I was informed that the man was a very famous writer who killed himself shortly after my father met him. I don’t know why anyone felt the need to convey that final detail to me as a child, but it stands out as the saddest thing I had heard by that point in my life.

The writer in the photograph is Ernest Hemingway who would have been 115 years old today on July 21, 2014. My father describes their chance encounter as such:

“My family was traveling through Idaho in Spring of ’61 when I was 11, and I was admitted to Sun Valley Hospital with severe joint pain. The doctor’s thought it might be some kind of iron overload. EH was in that hospital at the time, and he liked to tell me stories because I was in such pain. He wanted me to sit on his lap for the story telling – which was weird because I was 11 – but I did it and some nurse took a picture at some point. I was ok, just some odd bug bite or something, but I heard he killed himself a few months later. I remember that scene like it was yesterday.”

My dad does not have a lot more details to offer. As his parents have both passed away and his siblings are all younger, there is no one available to further elucidate the circumstances of this meeting. My dad remembers that Hemingway told him stories about soldiers, cowboys, and Indians, the kind of stuff he perhaps assumed all eleven year old boys enjoyed, though my dad was more interested in spacemen. (Maybe he would have been more entertained had he found himself in the same hospital as Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury.) He remembers Hemingway as a kind, elderly man who seemed “very old and sort of out of it,” though Hemingway was only sixty-one at the time. I asked my dad if Hemingway’s suicide affected him emotionally in any fundamental way, but he does not remember. “It was the first time I probably even thought about suicide. It wasn’t a subject people liked to discuss in the early ‘60s. I doubt I had much of a concept of what that meant,” he said. I asked my dad, who I have always known as a prodigious reader, if his youthful encounter with Hemingway allowed him to feel a connection to his work later in life, but my dad says no. “I’ve got nothing. I’m not very familiar with him. I read The Sun Also Rises in high school, but I don’t remember being able to associate that book with the man I met many years before,” he told me. If my dad made an impression on Hemingway there is no record of it. It is entirely possible that Hemingway, whose numerous physical and mental problems had already destroyed him creatively, never wrote another word between his short time with my father and his untimely death.

I became a big fan of Hemingway’s work in high school when I read The Old Man and the Sea and shortly after The Sun Also Rises, the bookends of Hemingway’s career in reverse order. My own writing, in which I attempted to copy Hemingway’s short, abbreviated style, became even worse than it was when I was copying Jack Kerouac’s sprawling sentences.

“Your dad met Ernest Hemingway once,” my mom told me as my interest began to turn into an obsession.

“Dad met Hemingway?!” I nearly shouted.

“Oh, yeah. There was a picture of them together floating around somewhere,” she said casually.

The meaning behind the photograph that I had seen as a child and had not thought about since suddenly became painfully obvious to me. I asked my mom if she knew where it was, but she did not. I asked my dad who said that his parents probably still had it. The next time I was at their house I went through several boxes of photographs but none of them featured Ernest Hemingway. My grandparents remembered the photograph, but could offer no clues as to its whereabouts. “He seemed like such a strange old man, but he loved your dad” was their only input on the entire meeting. Finding the missing photograph became a mission, but none of the family members who I called or emailed had any information. Everyone agreed to search through their old family photos or allow me to look through them myself, but nothing ever turned up. In the last few years I have begun to wonder if the picture is an example of a sort of mass family hysteria or hallucination. Perhaps we are remembering a story about another family who showed my grandparents a picture of their own son sitting on Hemingway’s lap, and at some point we internalized it, made the story about us because that seemed more interesting.

The photograph included here is not the one in question; it is a picture of Hemingway and his own son. Maybe one day I’ll be rummaging through old family albums, turn a page, and there it will be, shining forth from behind its clear envelope, the lost and coveted photograph of my dad sitting on the lap of an old and very depressed Ernest Hemingway, one of the last photographs ever taken of one of the 20th century’s most important writers, a smidgen of history, a family legend verified, one more ghost laid to rest.

___________

In Boozo Veritas #44 : The Bone Must Go, the Wish Can Stay

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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In Boozo Veritas, Kafka, Odradek, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #44 by Teege Braune

The Bone Must Go, the Wish Can Stay

I had long been aware of Odradek and knew that he had for some reason chosen to make our apartment his residence. As far as roommates go, he was not hard to get along with. He was quiet, neat, and mostly kept to himself, but his sudden appearances could occasionally be unnerving. Weeks might pass without me catching sight of him, when returning home late from work, distracted by other problems, I would be startled to find him sitting in the middle of my living room playing with a bit of lint. At other times, Jenn and I would be sitting casually together, faces glued to our respective smart phones when she would say something like, “The cats chased Odradek today,” without really looking up at me.

“No kidding” I’d mutter.

“Yeah, he scurried through the living room with bits of thread hanging off of him, but when I looked for him in the bedroom to make sure he was okay, I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s fine,” I’d say unable to feel concern for a creature who seemed more like an object than a living thing.

I suppose I will never know where he hid during his prolonged absences. I tried to look for him once. I can’t remember if my curiosity suddenly got the best of me, if there was something I wished to tell him, or if I simply wished to be distracted by his awkward shape and demeanor for a moment. Most likely I was avoiding any number of chores that would have been time better spent. I began digging through closets, pulling out old bins, emptying them and stuffing everything back inside when Odradek was not amongst the contents. Then I started opening all the drawers allowing myself to get preoccupied sorting through photographs and reading old Christmas cards, forgetting all about Odradek in the process. There always seemed to be another layer of debris to sort through, another jam-packed corner in which Odradek may be hiding. I did this until I began to feel irritated with him for making me muddle around in the tedious contents of my life.

“Why does he persist in these foolish games?” I asked myself. “I have better things to do this afternoon than dig through all this garbage.”

I grew increasingly anxious before I realized I wasn’t really concerned with Odradek’s whereabouts at all. He obviously didn’t depend on me to make his way in the world, and I had no need of him. Frustrated with myself, I plopped down on the couch and allowed myself to get carried away with the internet and social networking.

I’ll admit that Odradek never crossed my mind as Jenn and I were finally completing the final stages of our move from the apartment in which we had lived for the last four years, the vast majority of our relationship. I could have easily scooped him up and deposited him in the dumpster as we tossed out everything we could live without and removed one garbage bag after another. As I yanked out some old blankets in the back of our bedroom closet, I was surprised to see Odradek huddled up beneath them.

“Well, how are you doing today?” I asked speaking to him as though he were a child, for one is always inclined to speak to Odradek as though he were a child.

“I’m fine I suppose,” he answered.

Something in his tone had a note of sadness to it, or so it seemed, though I suspect he always came across a bit melancholy and I had never noticed until now.

“Will you be sad when we leave?” I asked.

“Others have come before,” he said.

Until this time it had never occurred to me that Odradek had lived in our apartment before we moved in, and I felt uneasy at the revelation that it was we who were encroaching on his home. I wondered what kind of relationship he had shared with the tenets who preceded us. Maybe they had been friendlier with him, treated him as a pet or even a member of their family. Perhaps he saw Jenn and I as unkind and unwelcoming strangers. Conversely, the old tenets may have screamed whenever they saw him. Kicked him if he got in their way and abused him when they were able to lay hands on him. His remote nature might be a product of the trauma and natural distrust he had developed from years of abuse.

On our way out I asked Jenn if she thought that maintenance would attempt to rid the apartment of Odradek once and for all before they rented it out to the new tenets, whoever they may be.

“Oh, I doubt they even know he’s there,” she said as we drove away.

___________

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

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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 #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.