It’s a drinking game. It has to be a drinking game.
Biden utters, "God save the Queen".
Time to take a drink.
A speech about gun control (i.e. gun confiscation) ending with an incoherent gaff.
Time to take a drink.
Every time Biden says something out of the blue, every time Biden says something off script, every time Biden says something so utterly stupid, it is time to take a drink.
Perhaps that has been the strategy from the beginning.
I mean, how could 81 million people be so wrong.
Points to Ponder in a Politically Correct World
01). Why would Obama warn us about global warming and rising sea levels and then live in a mansion of the coast?
02). As bad as Merrick Garland is as Attorney General, imagine how bad he would have been as a SCOTUS member.
03). Anheuser-Busch learned going woke was bad for its stock price. How long before Target and Walmart learn this obvious lesson?
04). If Democrats stopped shooting people, gun violence rates would drop nearly to zero.
05). Do you remember when climate change was global warming (or global cooling back in the 70's), undocumented workers were illegal aliens (because they broke the law illegally crossing the border), adolescent gender affirmation was mutilation, and gun safety reform was gun control was gun confiscation?
06). How many times must Biden fall off his bicycle, down a flight of stairs, or (even) up a flight of stairs before the media reports that there is something physically wrong with Biden?
07). How many days must Hunter smoke crack, pay for prostitutes, demand payments for White House access, and pay 10% to the "Big Guy" White House occupant before the media reports there is something legally wrong with this crime family? If only there was a laptop with conclusive evidence.
08). Is a woman who is "Pro-Choice" when she chooses life, still "Pro-Choice"?
09). Both the IRS and the FBI (possibly more) are weaponized government agencies working against the American people. This is not a issue of Democrat v Republican. This is enforcement of tyranny, plain and simple.
John McGurk, Entrepreneur
The dancer kicked her leg high and swished her pink dress, cut low how McGurk liked it. He watched her and not the screaming woman who kicked her legs even higher, albeit with the benefit of a man carrying her aloft toward the door and the waiting Bowery cop.
“Where do they get it?” the barman asked him beneath the piano music. He poured three more fingers of whiskey for a swaying, unshaven man.
McGurk stroked his moustache and eyed the dancers, choosing. “Get what?”
“The carbolic acid.”
McGurk’s flat gaze remained on the edges of the dress, which had slipped a little, it seemed to him. “Don’t your missus clean house, Willie?”
“Not if she can help it.” A customer put three bits on the bar, so Willie extended the tube to him. The man took a deep breath, then began gulping as the crowd began hooting around him. “It could be a problem, Mr. McGurk,” Willie said.
The dancer on the left had stopped smiling, McGurk noted. He didn’t pay her to frown. She’d get a little pick-her-up before her time upstairs. “How’s that?”
“These women. That’s the third one tried to kill herself, now. In two weeks. The cops might ask questions about upstairs.”
“They all know upstairs. There ain’t a one of ’em but he dips his wick at McGurk’s after a patrol.”
The drinker coughed beer onto the floor. The surrounding patrons jeered, and McGurk smelled the camphor he cut the beer with. A drunkard reached for a dancer’s leg, then yelped as she brought down her heel on his hand.
“The customers, then,” Willy said. “Bit hard to have your fun while some woman’s burning her throat out next to you. And everybody’s heard about it.”
McGurk turned to his barkeep. “That’s right,” he said. “Everybody’s heard about it.”
John McGurk was a diligent man. He worked through the wee hours. Before the Bowery rose from its stupor sometime the next afternoon, he had affixed his new sign to the crumbling brick. New York City had 7,000 saloons, but everyone would hear about McGurk’s Suicide Hall.
Smoking’ Hot Babes
I used to be a most excellent quitter, but not anymore. I had a love-hate relationship with cigarettes for twenty-some years. I used to light up every morning and then quit every night, swearing to myself I would never touch another one. There were a few spells in there where I quit with every butt I ground out. I’ll bet I quit smoking an easy thousand times. The last time finally stuck.
We moved to Virginia Beach the summer after fifth grade, my mother, my sister and I. Mom had a boyfriend there, a Navy Pilot… you know how that goes. We were in an apartment complex with a pool. That very first day at the pool I met the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. I remember like it was yesterday; my shot nerves, leaving the town I’d lived my whole life in, starting a new school, wondering if I would have trouble making friends here. Our first conversation went like this:
”Hey.”
“Hey.”
”I’m Kim.”
”Chuck.”
”You new here?”
”Yea.”
”I’m going to have a cigarette. You smoke?”
”Yea.” (I had only tried smoking once, but I would have said yes to literally anything she asked me to do. I would have played Barbie with her, if that’s what she wanted me to do.)
”C’mon, then. Let’s go.”
That was the day I became a smoker. Kim and I were great friends all the way through high school. She was a bad influence on me the whole way, being the first to try everything, and then pulling me into it with her. We only ever kissed once, and the kiss was a let down for both of us, probably because it tasted like two ashtrays getting dumped into a bucket ;) Last time I saw Kim I had just quit college. She was fresh out of rehab. She still looked like a million bucks, although her eyes were a touch sadder. I truly hope she made it. God, did I adore her. There are a couple of stories inspired by her in my back catalog here on Prose, although the names were likely changed to protect the guilty. There are more stories too, ones that I will never tell.
So you see? It was a girl made me start, and it was a girl made me stop.
That last time, the time I finally really did quit, it was easy (but it was still damned hard). You see, Pooky-Bear had to quit. Cancer. Having that little bugger sneak up that close to you will do it every time. My winning quitting strategy went like this:
I laid a half a pack of Marlboro’s and a lighter on the kitchen table during a week of stay at home vacation from work. My project was going to be re-screening a very large screened-in back porch. I began work every morning at 7:00 am. Every time I had a hankering for a cigarette I grabbed a beer instead. By lunch time I was too drunk to climb the ladder, which was ok. There was always tomorrow. At the end of the week I had a beautifully screened porch, a raging hangover, and that half a pack of Marlboro’s was still lying on the kitchen table. In fact, they laid there for about two more weeks until I felt strong enough that I didn’t need their support. I have never felt the need for a cigarette again. Pooky-Bear flew through the surgeries and chemo just fine. She is now twenty-three years cancer free, and the same number of years smoke free. She didn’t need the beers, but then, she had her own incentive. Strong woman right there, kiddoes.
Strong enough to make a stronger man out of me… and one that would never quit her.
I have died
I have held the suicide hotline in my hand, ready to press the number. I have curled up on train platforms, the cement ground touching my face, and I have picked my day of death twice.
It all comes down to a conversation where I lost someone I love. In my writing, I try to make the words flow. Sometimes they don't come, and I'm stuck in bed at 2am, hearing the pay phone dial tone like an erotic whisper. The one where she hung up on me, while I was in the hospital. When words fail, there's nothing but pain.
She's not dead. Not even close. She goes to Harvard, she's married and has three 'fur babies.' I'm some deadbeat who writes for s___ and giggles. Maybe someone will hear me in the internet void. She saves lives, or is studying to. She is better than me.
She is better than me. She is better than me. She is better than me.
I made a mistake. I didn't apologize. Not even over the hospital's pay phone. I didn't even cry until after she had hung up. I don't know if I'm repressed. Maybe I am. I went back to sleep and didn't wake up for three days. I texted her when I got out and she didn't respond for hours.
I'll never recover from the mistake I made. I didn't know, before she disowned me as her sister, that you can die while you're still alive. That is something I will never recover from. It's a sprained ankle that I didn't go to Urgent Care for, and now I'll limp forever. She doesn't love me in the same way, in the same amount. If I had a penny for every time I think about what a piece of s___ I am because of it, I would be able to afford the cost of fifteen million plane tickets to visit her, but they would be as useless as the pennies themselves.
I don't know how to recover from it. That's my answer. In filling out a response to this prompt, I thought I had something to say. Maybe I don't. And maybe that's the problem. I have no words. One of us will go to the other one's funeral, because one of us will die first. And there will be words uttered there. Words like, I'm sorry for your loss. But she's already chosen to lose me. And that's where I'm stuck on this prompt. Because how do you find words, or emotions, or thoughts, when you've already sealed the coffin on the relationship?
There's no real answer to death and I'm not sure there's an answer to what happens after someone decides you're a toxic piece of trash.
I went to the hospital for her. To save our relationship.
Click, goes the dial tone. I hear it in my sleep. I'll hear it after I'm dead.
It's funny how that sound can come up in casual conversation, conversations where she doesn't ask me about how I'm doing. Harvard's so great, she says, eyes glistening. I can't see them glisten, but through texting, there's a certain emoting that comes through with certain emojis. If she were an emoji, she'd be the little smiley one with a pink face. I see her as bubbly, punctuating my life with pain. Punctuating my life with little moments of regret and stupid responses to meaningful prompts.
The Global Reset v Dylan Thomas
Are you all in?
Could you explain what this means with a straight face?
Do you think you stand to gain by supporting it?
Earth has nearly 8 billion people. Most live on less than $2 per day. Most are impoverished, living in squalor, barely getting by.
The value of all assets on Earth (as per the Boston Consulting Group) is $431 Trillion.
Do the math. This amounts to $53875 per person.
Sounds nice?
But think.
If you live in the US, this is less than all homes and most cars. This is less than a college education. This is less than the clothes you wear and the contents of a home.
Even if every human on Earth participates, all Americans lose.
But think.
What makes you believe all humans on Earth will offer all they have worked for? The Global Reset is exclusively for Americans. This may be news to you, but most of the world feeds off the self-depricating suffering Americans are exposed to on a daily basis.
Meaning.
Most of the world's population will not share in the expense of the Global Reset, but expect to share in its bounty.
The value of all assets in the United States is $269.6 Trillion. Divide that by 8 billion.
The value of each share is now $33700 per person.
Now think.
What do you get to keep of what you have worked for?
If you have worked for 20 years, that is 40000 hours. That is less than $1 per hour. Even at this rate, most of the world will call most of America rich.
What makes you think if you are so gullible to believe the Global Reset will be a one time event? Why not a yearly reset? Let the world vote on the raid of the American coffers. Voting is the hallmark of democracy. What could be fairer than that?
Or,
Pull your head out of the sand and see the barbarians at the gate. Listen to the double-speak luring you into a virtue signalling. See the wolves working harder to loot your freedoms/liberties/wealth/lifestyle than working for their own. The world has you in their cross hairs and many in both the government and the populace want you to not resist. Your inaction makes them feel better about their inaction. If they can make you feel guilt, they will feel better about their guilt. But make no mistake, appeasing these people will only create more hunger for your way of life.
Neville Chamberlain gave us the most recent blueprint for dealing with totalitarianism. Do not provide the corallary for stupidity as a justification for theft.
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Time to see the world for what it truly is.