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The Captain, the Rookie, and the Mystic

Turner L. Watson Leave a comment

 

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The Three Musketeers. The Holy Trinity. Geddy, Neil, and Alex.

It’s been a wonderfully exciting week or so. A direct message from Dewar’s on Twitter. Strange clues and exotic tomes containing single-malt whiskies. And in the dizzying array of items and splendid, gorgeous packaging and presentation, I ALMOST FORGOT TO REVIEW THE DAMNED THINGS! I mean, I tasted them…but I kept putting off really publishing my findings. Today, I rectify that oversight.

But not before I show off some of the stuff that came along with the three single-malt offerings. If you read my initial Whisky Mystery blog, you learned about the entertaining riddles and such that accompanied The Aultmore. Well, not to be outdone, the Royal Brackla packaging featured an actual wooden box with hinged lid. Inside were two hefty, etched glasses, along with a little tin of honey, some raisins, almonds, and apricots. It was an alcoholic pick-a-nick basket, eh Boo-Boo?

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Everything a growing boy needs!

And the Deveron featured some great nautical design, and…oh yeah…a friggin WATCH! Plus, the bottle of scotch itself was magnificent.

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I totally wanted the “D” in this particular case.

More on that in the actual reviews, which start right now.

 

 

The Deveron (Mystic, Wise, Spiritual Advisor and Best Friend of the Captain)

The earthiest nose of the lot. Not overwhelmingly so, but it’s there. Like wet leaves. Faint spices. A hint of the seaside in there, too, although that could be my imagination, what with the overwhelming nautical theme of the gift box and the incredibly beautiful frosted sea-glass bottle. (Seriously, somewhere right now some rum distiller is kicking themselves for not stealing all of the Deveron’s look prior to the mass-release of this fine single-malt.)

 

Warm vanilla. A dark fruit, like plums or dates. Not a lot of peat, but it’s lurking in the background for an opportunity, hanging out with the yummy malts and tobacco bite, waiting to spring out at the finish. Delightful and mysterious, this dram. It feels a bit heavier on the tongue than the other two. Sweet, but not cloyingly so. Good stuff. A great alternative to the regular old bottles you have in the cabinet. Pour some for a friend and ask them to guess what it is.

4 stars

 

 

 

Aultmore (The Brash Young Ensign)

Looks light, and smells the same. DON’T BE FOOLED! The nose is almost totally unassuming. It almost didn’t seem like scotch, until I concentrated. There was alcohol here (oh, was there ever! More on that later) and a fruitiness, like maybe pears. If chardonnay were a whisky, it would smell like this.

 

I didn’t see the first punch coming until it was too late. Let this be a warning to you: there is a substantial alcohol bite to this little guy. And frankly, I found it a bit overwhelming at first. I checked the bottle and saw that I was sampling a nice 92 Proof beverage. Well, now. But the good news is that just like the very high-alcohol Sailor Jerry rum, there were flavors to be had. The Aultmore is just a little too eager, a headstrong rookie. Be patient with it and you’ll find the good. There’s a lovely apple/citrus sort of tang to it. A bit of sherry and a tiny little taste of oak. It also feels very light on the tongue. In other words, you would almost expect this whisky to be a lightweight “starter” whisky. It isn’t. And once I poured it over some ice, it settled down and was delightful. I tried the 12-year-old variety and thought it was okay. I think that a bit more aging would help tremendously, so I can’t wait to try the older varieties and see if I’m right. One final note: if you’re a fan of peat in your single-malt, look elsewhere. That’s not bad or good, as peat, like malts or spices, can be very divisive. (I once opened a bottle of Laphroaig in front of my wife and she turned her nose up immediately, saying that it “smelled like band-aids.”) The Aultmore, by contrast, is virtually smoke-and-peat free. So maybe it is a good starter whisky after all…

3 stars, although I’ll go up to 3.5 on the rocks

 

 

Royal Brackla (The Steady Captain With a Zeal For Adventure)

Okay, let’s get this juvenile bit out of the way. It’s hard for me not to make fun of things. The name of this bottle was no exception, with my mind racing between Blackula and Scott Bakula. No matter, as the drink was the best of the three which I had the pleasure to taste. We’ll start with the nose: It smelled of scotch. And I mean that in the very best way possible. It was fragrant and wonderful and familiar. Some apricots, some flowers from a meadow, and a dash of black pepper. Yes. This was the one.

 

Oh, so buttery on my tongue. There’s that pepper again. And something else, some dates or raisins. A bit “darker” taste than the Aultmore, and even though they were both 12-year-olds, the Brackla just tasted more finished. More mature. A man’s drink. A hint of pipe tobacco on the finish balanced by mellow honey. A steady hand on the tiller. Oak and rich leather. Yes. My go-to single-malt whisky has long been Glenlivet 12. This one may supplant that bottle, as it claims some of the things I love about Glenlivet, but with a bit more complexity. Looks like Royal Brackla might be a tiny bit more expensive, but with rumors of Glenlivet running out of the 12-year-old vintage, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them end up at about the same price before long. Either way, I won’t mind spending a few extra bucks for this bottle. It’s the goods.

4.5 stars

 

In conclusion, I’d say that it’s all great news for whisky fans. These three single-malts will seem oddly familiar to Dewar’s White Label drinkers, but much more complex and interesting. Three great single-malts that will serve as a wonderful opportunity to transition from blends, but strong enough to stand on their own amongst the established pantheon of great whiskies. Of the three, The Royal Brackla is the clear winner. It’s the James T. Kirk of this lot, with the Deveron as Mr. Spock (or Guinan, actually…or Troi) and The Aultmore a cheerful Ensign Chekov. I’ve had the pleasure of rotating the three bottles and it’s been a grand week to say the least. Seek ’em out. Enjoy them. Savor them.

Sláinte!

The Whisky Mystery

Turner L. Watson 2 Comments

I arrived home on a snowy, blustery Northern Indiana evening to discover a parcel on my front porch. I love a mystery, and absolutely adore a puzzle. Knowing what was probably inside the large box, I whisked it inside, threw some crap off my dining room table, cut open the cardboard, and dug out what appeared to be a huge, fairly weighty tome. The thing was 14” by 14” and about 4.5” thick. Woof! And emblazoned upon the ‘cover’ was the seal of ‘The Aultmore Distilling Co.’ I took that to be a really good sign.

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Like a Guggenheim Bible…dedicated to BOOZE!

Upon closer inspection, of course, it was obvious that this object was not a real book. I opened the apparently magnetic flap on the cover and saw the mysterious (downright spooky) interior artwork and cover page. And behind that…the real good stuff.

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See, usually I prefer to pee myself AFTER I drink, thank you very much.

There was a neat little mini-book, really not much more than a pamphlet. The cover was sharp, and the paper thick, with that sort of rough, pulpy feel. Good stock. ‘The Mystery of the Buckie Road’ was the title, printed in gold leaf.

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That door either leads to whisky or grandpa’s old killin’ cellar.

Along with that was a fun-looking little cylinder with numbers etched into revolving tumblers. It was sturdy, made out of some sort of brass alloy. I’d read enough Dan Brown to recognize it as a cryptex.

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Or the oldest bike lock ever discovered.

I also found what at first glance seemed like a simple laser pointer. And it was, in part. There were two little buttons. The first activated a standard red laser. Okay. The second one…a single click produced a clear LED mini-flashlight beam. But when I pressed that one a second time, it switched to a dimmer blue glow. Curioser and curioser. I had a hunch why, but that would have to wait, because by now I figured I knew for sure what the real goodies were going to look like. And I wasn’t wrong.

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My cats were substantially less excited about the ghastly blue setting.

Behind the faux-wooden door flap, I discovered a bottle of 12-Year-Old single-malt scotch the color of honey and wheat: The Aultmore. NOW we were getting somewhere. And behind the booklet, a wee snifter-shaped glass (technically, a Glencairn Glass). How convenient!

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Hello, gorgeous…

Full disclosure time. Those that know me well enough are aware that I love a good Scotch Whisky. I get bottles of the stuff for Christmas, and it’s always fun to try a new label. Usually, I prefer the single-malts, but they can be a crapshoot, quite frankly. I know I’m pissing off some scotch purists, but there it is. With bottles as expensive as they tend to be, most folks don’t have the luxury of trying everything on the shelf. That being the case, we all have our favorites. And I have no problem admitting that I’ve always fancied a glass of Dewar’s White Label over some of the fancy, higher-end single-malts.

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Pictured: a ‘glass’ of Dewar’s.

“WAIT!” you cry. “DEWAR’S IS A BLEND!” It certainly is, and a wonderful one. There are other bottles in the same price range, and I’ve tried many…The Famous Grouse and Grant’s standing out alongside dark-horse favorites like Old Smuggler (seriously, not too shabby. You almost forget it can be had from a plastic bottle.) But Dewar’s is on my go-to list every time.

Sorry. Getting distracted thinking about all this booze. I’ll get back to that in the next blog entry. I’ll simply say that I was expecting a sample from the Dewar’s folks…but nothing quite as elaborate as this.

So, this mystery tome. It seemed obvious what my next steps were. The booklet held the key to the cryptex…and the cryptex itself held some additional mystery. It was really fairly exciting, a lot more adventurous than I’d anticipated for a simple whisky tasting.

I read the booklet in its entirety. Didn’t take long. It’s a tale about a mysterious old fisherman/smuggler/bootlegger leading the unnamed protagonist to discover the secrets of the distillery and whatnot. Nicely written, but not really groundbreaking.

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A story I’ll read to my grandchildren one day.

I returned to the front page, and shone my laser-pointer at the page, nearly tearing a hole in space-time. Crap. Forgot. Wrong button. Crimson light blazed through the dining room, boring cleanly through a cat (one down, one to go!) and nearly blinding me as it shone off the white paper. I clicked the other button until the faint blue light bled forth onto the page. And there I saw it.

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‘Saw what? Just looks like a regular ol’ page to me…’

Like some Scooby-Doo cartoon, or even better, some deleted scene from a Harry Potter film, faint, glowing numbers materialized. It was awesome. I figured I’d find something like that, but it was so cool to have my suspicions confirmed.

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‘So what am I looking for, some sort–OH! Oh, that’s pretty bad-ass!’

I swept carefully through the booklet, making sure not to miss any clues. I finished with the necessary digits (all numbers, no letters or symbols.) Nervously, I picked up the heavier-than-expected cryptex, spinning the tumblers into place until I felt (rather than heard) a ‘click’. Carefully I pulled the end cap, extracting a central cylinder which…was actually a USB stick!!

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Crap. Should’ve said ‘SPOILER ALERT!’

Haha! Of course! The whole thing was basically an electronic press kit. I found a video that ran a nice two-and-a-half minutes, descriptions of the varieties of whisky available, the different ages and such, and some information on the distillery and its history. It was all so wonderful.

So, quickly, I’ll tell you this. Dewar’s, knowing of my love for their blended scotch, reached out to me on Twitter. They informed me that they were about to launch a few varieties of single-malt scotch. The neat part? These featured single-malts are essentially the whiskies that get blended to make Dewar’s White Label. And now, for the first time, the greater public would be able to enjoy them one at a time. I was asked if I’d be interested in trying some. “Abso-freakin’-LUTELY” was my paraphrased response.

But the fun manner in which this was all presented, the mystery, the charm, the enigma…that’s good stuff. It’s great marketing, quite frankly, and excellent showmanship. Not sure who handles their promotions and advertising, but they’re a top-notch firm, make no mistake. And reaching out to select Twitter followers? Brilliant use of social media. Much more effective than some stupid YouTube video or “repost this for a chance to win” Facebook contest.

Ah, and as for the scotch itself?

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

Sweet Christmas!

Turner L. Watson 1 Comment

I only tell you this in the interest of transparency. It’s really none of your business, and most of you frankly just don’t care…but the tone of this blog sort of requires a bit of backstory regarding my philosophical beliefs. They’re fairly nebulous. If I absolutely had to define myself, I’d go with quantum-spiritualist. Maybe a super-agnostic. Saganite Buddhist. I believe that as we learn more about our universe via quantum physics and the exploration of space, the more we find that yes, maybe some of those philosophers that lived and taught two millennia ago were on to something. Those giants of aniquity sensed things about our universe that they couldn’t quite explain, truths that they felt in their very cells, but for which they had no mechanism for exploration, other than to just ask “what if?” That’s why all the really good old Greek and Roman figures happened to be scientists and mathematicians as well as soul-searchers and dreamers. They were trying to figure out the universe from both angles, and perhaps the world would be better off if we did more of that sort of thing nowadays. All that being said, I’m here to heap 100% of the credit for what we know as our traditional holiday season at the feet of our Christian brothers and sisters. They deserve it.

My atheist and new-age intellectual friends are surely interrupting with “but Christmas itself is a pagan holiday!” And they’re right, of course: it goes even deeper than that and much further back in time. The Winter Solstice has been recognized by cultures since humans first started scribbling on cave walls. It evolved into Celtic and Nordic observances and then into the full-blown Saturnalia festival of ancient Rome. And that’s where Christianity took the ball and ran with it.

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Jesus was clearly forward of the line of scrimmage.

Early Christian leaders were a savvy group. They knew that their religion was bound to spread like wildfire simply by telling the common people about the great news: simply accept that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Redeemer, the incarnate son of the One True God, confess to him your sins, and presto! Eternal life! It really was too good a deal to pass up. But the church knew that The People enjoyed certain practices and celebrations as part of their culture that would not easily be given up. So the Christian leadership wisely said “Fine, you can keep your silly rituals. But we’re totally rebranding them.” So instead of pagan fertility rites involving eggs, rabbits, and other symbols of baby-making sexual intercourse, the church offered instead to celebrate renewal in a very literal sense: the return of Jesus from the dead. And of course, the Saturnalia (or, amongst the “barbaric” German and Celtic peoples, “Yule”) became not only a celebration of “the return of the sun” but of the “birth of the Son.” It made perfect sense. And once the emperor Constantine began establishing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire sometime early in the 4th century, the deal was truly sealed.

That’s why we have Christmas trees instead of Yule Trees. Or Holiday Trees. That’s why we have Santa Claus (Greek bishop St. Nikolaos) and gift giving and such, right there in the dead of winter. Not that all of those things, the reindeer, the mistletoe, the holly, the candy canes and gingerbread houses, were necessarily Christian in origin, but because of the rapid and total spread of Christianity, these customs all fell under the same umbrella. They became universal. Sure, the Polish Santa might be unrecognizable as Swiety Mikolaj, but the idea remains intact.

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Oh, that’s a doll. Thank God. I thought I was going to have to write a really dark Polish Santa joke.

 

Christmas drives everything in December. Hanukah wouldn’t be such a big deal if it weren’t for Christmas. Nobody would have ever heard of Kwanzaa if it took place in June. They’re just piggybacking on the runaway rollercoaster of goodwill that Christianity started. Jesus had momentum. Plenty of room on the Midwinter Bandwagon.

But here’s where the dark clouds roll in. The sad truth is this: there have been plenty of bad Christians out there saying and doing enough stupid shit that the non-believers or folks sitting on the fence of religious belief are being driven from the church by these actions. Fighting against marriage equality, spouting hateful (and mostly untrue) things about Muslims on Facebook, thinly-veiled racism and hypocritical greed, misogyny, the abuse of children at the hands of Catholic priests…all of these things have stained the reputation of the once-infallible and all-powerful church.

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Pictured: everything bad.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. No, Christianity didn’t invent this holiday. But they took it and gave it to the world. You don’t have to be part of the church or its belief system to appreciate that. Nor do you have to be washed in the blood of the lamb in order to enjoy a cup of eggnog with friends you haven’t seen in years. It’s okay to enjoy everything the holiday season offers, no matter where you are in your spiritual life. And for fuck’s sake, it’s okay to call it “Christmas.” It totally is. I mean, chances are you don’t worship the Norse pantheon (although more and more Icelandic folks are doing just that) but it’s still okay to use the words Wednesday or Thursday. Like it or not, Odin’s Day and Thor’s Day are still right there on the calendar, and even Frigga gets some love with Friday. It’s fine. They’re just arbitrary names for things. Just words. They can’t harm you. They don’t stand for anything evil; they don’t commemorate a dark, bleak, tragic day in history. I also get that some of my well-meaning liberal brothers and sisters are hung-ho in their desire to shield the world from the insidious indoctrination policies of Christian evangelism. They have armored themselves in Political Correctness in an effort to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. They really do mean well, but…dude. It’s Christmas. The reason of the season. Absolutely. It just is.

The ultimate point to all this? Don’t be afraid to call the holiday by its actual name. Use the word “Christmas.” It’s just a word. It’s not even a bad word. And like it or not, the Christian church is responsible, in a roundabout way, for your vacation days around that time in December. Had Genghis Khan run roughshod over all of Europe back in his time, we’d likely still have a celebration of the Winter Solstice and the gradual lengthening of our days…we’d just call it something else. But that didn’t happen. Christianity happened, thanks to the Roman Empire. So it’s Christmas. Big deal. Go to church if you want. Stay home. Put up a tree, or don’t. Christian, atheist, Muslim, Jew, agnostic, Sikh…it doesn’t matter how you label yourself. You can still enjoy listening to Bing Crosby as a log crackles in the fireplace and children tear open gifts. And I really, really hope that you do.

 

Merry Christmas, everyone.

A Civilian Addresses the USMC

Turner L. Watson 2 Comments

Today is November 10, 2015. The 240th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. And I have something to get off of my chest.

 

Once, a long time ago, I disliked the United States Marine Corps. I mean, I really didn’t like Marines at all. My disdain had nothing to do with being a liberal punk-ass kid or a dislike of the military. In fact, I’d been actively recruited by various branches of the military after I made the huge mistake of absolutely crushing the ASVAB test. I considered the Navy for a while, as my pops had enlisted back in the day before receiving a medical discharge. I ended up going to college and never joined up with the armed forces of this or any other country. So, right away, my dislike had nothing to do with my peacenik, pussy-ass Democrat leanings.

 

No, it was more the Marines themselves. Specifically, the guys that I knew from my small hometown of Mount Vernon, Indiana. Guys who you either didn’t ever pay attention to in high school or the ones that got the wrong attention, being bullied by the meathead jocks and made to feel inferior. (Hey, it was high school. If you’re one of the lucky ones who never got bullied or made fun of, congrats. Savor that shit.) Some of these kids, though, went off to places like Parris Island, and they came back hard. Too hard. I mean, I get it: you used to get beaten up. Now you can kill a man with your bare hands before he has a chance to even flick his cigarette. Good for you. The problem was that some of these guys didn’t wield their new powers with class or grace. They were every bad supervillain from the comics. “Remember me? Remember stuffing me into that locker? Remember all those wedgies?! Do you? DO YOU?! NOW YOU WILL TASTE TRUE POWER! “ They were living out the fantasies of the victim.  “One day I’ll learn karate and teach you all a lesson.” (Although as I type this, it occurs to me that maybe if more kids enlisted, we’d have fewer Columbines.)

 

Those guys. Those guys sucked. Those guys became the thing they hated. Those guys, with their ridiculous high and tight haircuts. Those guys would get into deliberate fights just to prove how tough they were, how less-weak, all thanks to the miracle of the USMC. Those guys are the reason why I was prejudiced against jarheads.

 

But then something happened. My wife and I moved to New Bern, North Carolina in 2001. We got down there literally the week after 9/11 to start a new life. Holy shit, was that scary. New Bern happens to be about twenty or so minutes up the road from Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, and about forty or so minutes from both New River MCAS and Camp Lejeune. We were right in the middle of Marine Country as it was ramping up to full deployment mode. It was nuts, especially to a lifelong civilian from the Midwest. I must also admit that the atmosphere was fairly exciting. You just haven’t lived until you’ve found yourself at the Taco Bell drive-through in Havelock, NC trying to shout your chalupas order over the deafening roar of the Harrier hovering in mid-air half a mile away.

 

During that time, I started making friends with various folks, either through my work in radio or socially though roller hockey and surfing. And I was shocked…SHOCKED! to discover that many of these folks were actual active-duty Marines. And they were…well, they were awesome. Hell, even the retired (de-commissioned is a better word, as they were always going to be Marines) USMC guys at work were amazing. Funny, smart, confident, disciplined. I was welcomed into some of their circles, playing roller hockey outdoors aboard MCAS New River while Cobras and Ospreys flew overhead. Spending Thanksgivings aboard MCAS Cherry Point. Attending Carolina Hurricane games in Raleigh and minor league baseball in Kinston. Eating at Waffle House in the wee hours of the morning after a night of boozing it up. Kegstands at a party at the off-base civilian lodgings of some young Marines. (They pooled their housing allowance for a two-room apartment to save the rest for video games, stereos, and yes, beer.) I made some lifelong friends during my time in NC, and it’s safe to say that at least half of them were/are Marines.

 

I’ve learned some things. The first is that it is absolutely ludicrous to base your judgment of any group on the behavior of a select few. I’m frankly embarrassed by the prejudicial views of my youth. I was no better than the racist who points at the TV any time a black man is shown in cuffs and hisses “Goddam blacks. Fuckin’ let ‘em kill each other.” Or another recent example, where I called someone out on Facebook for asserting that all Muslims are terrorists that hate Christianity. I asked him how many actual Muslims he knew. His reply? “I don’t need to know any, because I can see what they do with my own eyes.” I shake my head at this type of idiot. I would shake my head at my own ignorant, adolescent stupidity.

 

That being said, here’s another generalization. Hockey people and Marines are the groups that I’ve encountered that have the highest percentage of all-around superiority. True greatness. Stout hearts, loyalty, courage, generosity, compassion, strength, intelligence…all of it. Sure, there are going to be turds in any subset. I know some hockey guys that have failed humanity again and again. But most of them are stand-up men and women. Same thing for Marines. There will always be that asshole wearing his cover out of uniform in the hopes that a civilian will ask “were you in the Marines?” But there will also be a staff sergeant in civilian clothes asking the stranger, a woman at her wits’ end with two screaming kids and a flat tire, where she keeps her jack as he strips off his blazer and opens the trunk.

 

I guess this was all my way of apologizing. Of saying “Sorry, Marines, that I ever doubted you.” I will never again. Thank you for your service, Devil Dogs. And Happy Birthday. Semper Fi. Oo-rah.

 

That is all. Carry on.

 

Your Own Universe

Turner L. Watson Leave a comment

 

Now and then, I have a bit of problem falling asleep. My mind just keeps racing around, creating fantastic scenarios which usually involve dragons, The Edmonton Oilers, clones, clones of the Edmonton Oilers, the musical theme to Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, or Salma Hayek and Zoe Saldana fighting over who gets to scale Mt. Watson and find the golden orgasm hidden at the summit as Katee Sackhoff watches, repeatedly blowing her whistle and yelling “WRONG!  Run it again!  We’re going to stay here all night until we get it right!  Again.  AGAIN!”

 

I have some issues, obviously.

But often my imagination drifts off into deep thought-land. And sometimes, every now and then, something really profound strikes me, and I gotta let it out.  This is one of those such occasions. Thanks for indulging me.

Deep breath.  Here we go.

The universe behaves in strange ways. When we observe behavior, we alter the universe. Photons and atoms collapse into the state we perceive out of multiple possibilities, and it happens every second of every day. Everything you observe with your senses…everything you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch…has collapsed into that state of being simply by your noticing it. It’s a rule of science that has become easier and easier to accept, even if it remains a hard concept to wrap our minds around.

And yet, this is also a kitty corpse.

And yet, this is also a kitty corpse.

Now consider this: your observations are your own. They are unique. No one experiences the world and the greater universe the way you do. No one else has your history, the sum of your experiences, your nervous system, your sensory organs or the brain that interprets them. Which means that the universe you experience is unique. Ergo, each person experiences his or her own personal universe.

 

And some of us believe we ARE the whole universe.

Some of us believe we ARE the whole universe.

There’s overlap, of course. Think of it like taking a video of your friend while your friend takes a video of you taking a video. You’re shooting each other. And a bird flies right between you as you’re recording. You both exclaim and shriek, “Did you just see that?! That was crazy!” And you watch the video, each of you holding your phones up side-by-side to review your respective videos simultaneously. You and your companion see the same bird, from different angles. But what’s more, you each notice little things. The bird starts a fraction of a second sooner on your friend’s video, because maybe she was recording sooner. The bird looks more orange on your phone, while your friend’s video is more reddish. The sounds from each phone’s speaker are different. You’ve both captured (and observed) the same event. But the physical variances of your recording equipment, along with things like the respective angle of the sun (in your face, at your friend’s back) wind direction, and a million other tiny little differences mean that the videos look very different. And yet they depict the same event.

"Mr. President, do you think we should bring some official news cameras?" "Ha! If anything happens, I'm sure a shaky hand-cam will be all anyone will ever need. Drive on!"

“Mr. President, do you think we should bring some official news cameras?”
“Ha! If anything happens, I’m sure a shaky hand-cam will be all anyone will ever need. Drive on!”

The point is that our bodies are much like those cameras. They observe the universe with sometimes minor and oftentimes major differences. You hear treble sounds better than I do, I see the color blue more vividly than your rods and cones allow. But that’s all just gathering and interpreting data. The fact remains that when I observe something, the way those quantum particles and events collapse into the state that I sense is unique to me. Because you may not have observed them at all, meaning they exist in an unresolved state. Or you observed something that I didn’t.

And some people aren't exactly sure WHAT they've seen.

And some people aren’t exactly sure WHAT they’ve seen.

Add to all this the notion of freewill and decision making. You and I could both read through the same old “Choose Your Own Adventure” book and come out with vastly different endings. All the possible outcomes are all contained within the book…but by choosing one page or the other, we alter the finished experience. It’s the same book…but we will always have very different memories and perspectives on it.

Unless it's this one, which has nothing but TOTALLY KICK-ASS endings.

Unless it’s this one, which has nothing but TOTALLY KICK-ASS endings.

That’s the multiverse, kids. That’s the world we share. Completely unique to each of us. Enough shared experience to make it “real” for everyone. And yet, a million different variations every day. Mind-bogglingly awesome. (And yet…also non-awesome, prior to observation. How ’bout that?)

Quitting Monopoly

Turner L. Watson 10 Comments

Yeah, so…three months. It’s been three months since I’ve updated this blog. Yeah. A lot has transpired since. I mean, it’s been a crazy summer, huh? Plenty of stuff happened. Most of it good. Some of it terrible. But that’s life, eh? The ‘middle’ seems boring, and safe. But that’s where we all strive to live. You can’t stay up in the stratosphere forever, just as you can’t dwell in the abyss too long.

One kid that maybe lingered down there a bit too long was a great, bright, funny kid named Palermo. I loved that kid. He ran around with some odd (in some cases ‘nerdy’) friends. I totally relate to that. He was part of a crazy, multi-ethnic, multi-racial extended family, one that my wife and kids and I are all part of by proxy. It’s a clan, a group of mismatched puzzle pieces, equally brilliant and foolish, much greater, much stronger, than the sum of its/our parts. I am of that clan. So is one of the very best friends I’ve ever had, a gal so bad-ass and beautiful…she’s like a real-world Kara Thrace, but with more martial-arts training. But neither she or myself or anyone else in our clan could ultimately help her nephew Pale (pronounced Pah-lay, Palermo’s family nickname) when he decided that the best thing for him to do was take his own life. God damn it, why did he have to go and do that?

That’s one of the worst parts, or at least top ten, about the whole situation. That every single one of the rest of us has to ask that question over and over, and be no closer to the answer, no closer to understanding what was going on in his life, in his mind. What could be so awful, what could make him feel so hopeless? And then other strange, stupid thoughts creep in during all this wondering. Thoughts like ‘maybe he figured it was only logical? Maybe he weighed all the options and came to the conclusion that the effort to repair what he believed to be an impossible situation (or series of them) just wasn’t worth it anymore?’ Shit, we’ve all hit ‘reset’ on a game we couldn’t beat, gone back and started the level from the beginning, flipped the stupid Monopoly board over, turning the entire bank into a ticker-tape parade of multi-colored pastel bills, that little fuckin’ doggie into a bullet, the dice into meteors, while you scream “I QUIT!! I HATE THIS STUPID GAME!!”

And you know what? Every time you’ve done that out of frustration, admit it: it felt sorta good. The frustration just gets so bad you say “TO HELL WITH THIS AND EVERYTHING!! BOOM!” And you storm off and pout and light a cigarette or check your Facebook or just chill, and then it’s a big exhale, letting your breath out with a long hissing sound like air from a punctured bike tire, and you’re better. You feel SO much better. The pressure and frustration are gone. So you go back into the living room or wherever, and you see them.

Your friends and family, glaring at you through slitted eyes as they pick up all the crap that you just wrecked. Putting the bills and cards and dice and tiny, plastic, red and green hotels and houses, back where they’re supposed to be: the box, because nobody feels like playing anymore anyway. And maybe one of your closest friends shakes his head and says “Dick move, man.” And then you feel like crap, but you know what? It’ll be okay. They’ll get over it. You’ll play again.

But see, Pale can’t. He can’t play with us anymore, and that sucks. We, as a clan, played kickball. He helped my kids climb trees while discussing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and he and his buddies demonstrated Titanfall on the (then) new Xbox ONE. That shit ain’t ever gonna happen again, at least not in this world. And that’s too bad.

Bottom line: nobody knows why Palermo decided to check out. I mean, some of us probably almost get it. You’re not supposed to talk like that, but let’s not bullshit each other. You’ve thought about it at some point, you have. Some low night when she won’t return your calls, some day after seeing him at the mall, happy with her, happier than you ever remember him being with you. Losing the job, failing the test, wrecking the car. Sometimes it’s something absolutely stupid. The cat crushes and walks all over the project you’d just spent hours and even days on. You drop your coffee and it explodes all over the front of your new dress right as you simultaneously stub and probably break your big toe in a rush to answer the door only to find your sour-faced landlord standing there, demanding to know when you intend to pay your rent (which is a week overdue.)

It happens. You almost break down completely. You stand at the edge of the abyss and look down and think, “Maybe this isn’t worth it.” But most of us…most of us…back up slowly, step by step. We shake it off. We sigh, and maybe we dive into a whole tub of pistachio-almond ice cream or watch Superbad or smoke a cigarette or do a shot (escapism and substance abuse isn’t the long-term answer, you know…but damn if it doesn’t get some of us over the hump now and then) and we pick up where we left off. Some of us, like Pale, just don’t get that lucky, I guess.

So, anyway, Palermo is gone. And we’re still here. I asked my dead friend Ed for advice on what to tell people about the afterlife and all that. I mean, hell…he’s an expert. But Ed just rolled his eyes and said “Really? Shit, you’re gonna need a whole ‘nother blog for all that. This one’s already too long.” I reminded him that this was serious stuff we were blogging about, and he raised his hands in an ‘I surrender!’ pose and said “Hey! Your show!“ and he’s goddam right it is.

I’ll deal with you later, Ed. Crazy ghost.

Anyway.

Palermo is gone. That sucks so hard. Especially for the ones that have to clean up the mess, put the Monopoly game back in the box. We’ll sure as hell miss that kid. We do miss him. We will. But the thing about Monopoly is that there are always some dumbasses willing to play. And it’s always frustrating, and it takes forever, but that’s not the point of the game, is it? No, it’s the one activity that your eight-year-old cousin, your grandma, and your dad can all play, and everyone has the same shitty experience. And despite yourselves, you laugh. And you remember that one time when the board got tossed all to hell and gone, scattered so far around the dining room that you’re still finding pieces of it to this day. God, remember that day? That was so crazy. Oh, the look on your face! You were so mad!

Yeah. So anyway, you rolled doubles. Go again. I own all the orange properties, and you’re gonna pay me soooooo much MONNNAY!

Roll.

Palermo, the dinosaur hatchling. Seeya 'round the universe, bub.

Palermo, the dinosaur hatchling. Seeya ’round the universe, bub.

Need help?  Standing on the ledge?  Feel like there’s nowhere to turn?  Hate the idea of a lecture from a regular help crisis line? Text “START” or “GO” to 741-741

Confidential. Easy. And responses come from people just like you. Worth a shot, huh?

The Doors of Ice and Fire

Turner L. Watson 4 Comments

Okay, hear me out.  I’m throwing this blog together without giving it much thought, because, well…I just have to make sure I’m not completely crazy.  Or, you know…more crazy than I already believe myself to be.

I was listening to some tunes recently.  In particular, a bunch of songs on my Spotify playlist of Vietnam War-era songs.  Anyway, the Doors classic “The End” comes on.  If you aren’t familiar with it, well…okay, here’s a YouTube link with the lyrics (which, as it turns out, might be helpful for what’s to come.)

I’m sitting here listening to this thing and a really strange, and seemingly far-fetched theory starts to manifest itself, and it’s so nutzo that I can’t shake it.  So indulge me as I explain my latest crackpot fan theory.  Ready?  Here it goes.

The lyrics to The End at least partially influenced the story of George R.R. Martin’s epic “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, which many of you know as the book version of “Game of Thrones” (the very popular HBO series.)

No, really.

So without any further forethought (I’m seriously doing this before I over-think it and think better of it) here are the lyrics to Jim Morrison’s epic song and how it relates to GRRM’s epic tale.  I’ve made my notes in red.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again
(The coming of Winter and the White Walkers)
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
In a…desperate land
(The Stranger represents death and the unknown in pantheon of The Seven. He leads the Dead into the underworld)
Lost in a Roman…wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
(Children of the Forest? Waiting for the Summer Rain that will come after the long winter.)
There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
(The Kingsway. Also, “The Gold Mine” could be Casterly Rock)
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake…he’s old, and his skin is cold
(Snake=Dragon. A lake called “The Womb of the World” lies near Vaes Dothrak. Vaes Dothrak translates to “City of Riders”)
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we’ll do the rest
(Westeros)
The blue bus is callin’ us
The blue bus is callin’ us
Driver, where you taken’ us
(Possibly the Blue Graces, the Blue Winter Rose of Winterfell, The Blue Bard, or even Daario Naharis, who sports a three-pronged beard dyed blue in the novels.  Also ‘Daario Naharis’ almost sounds like ‘blue bus’ if you’re ridiculously stoned, I suppose.)
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
(The assassins who serve the Many Faced God in the House of Black and White)
He went into the room where his sister lived, and…then
(Jaime and Cersei Lannister? Or is this Tyrion’s POV?)
he Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door…and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
(Tyrion again?)
Mother…I want to…fuck you
(Sweetrobin in the Vale? Or a reference to the Mother of Dragons?)
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
C’mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
(Jaime releasing Tyrion, or Dany and her dragons?  Theon and Jeyne/Sansa?)
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
(And now his watch is ended.)
Brotherhood Without Bass (See, some of you will totally get that)

Brotherhood Without Bass (See, some of you will totally get that)

Well, it’s fun, anyway, to think that way back when George was first contemplating a new fantasy world in which to set his masterpiece, maybe he smoked an enormous bowl and listened to The End.  Hell, maybe he tripped acid and watched Apocalypse Now.  We’ll never know for sure.  Or maybe he’ll explain it all in the afterward to the last book in this series. HA!!  GOTCHA!  THERE WON’T BE A FINAL BOOK!  HAHA! HAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

Oh, now I’m sad.

Waiting With Motia.

Turner L. Watson 1 Comment

“What’s with the yellow glasses?” I was curious. Motia didn’t wear specs as a general rule, but she was sporting these sporty little numbers with sleek, black frames and yellow-tinted lenses.

“Glare, stupid.” She spat. Her head didn’t turn my way in the slightest. She kept staring out the glassless window, and I knew her eyes were sweeping the horizon and everything between it and us. Looking for nothing in particular except maybe movement. A shadow flitting between cacti or from gorse to sage. It was still that pre-dawn dusk, and I couldn’t imagine what sort of glare she was talkin’ about, since the world was shades of purple, slowly in places becoming more periwinkle and rose.

“Where’s that goddam Indian?” she muttered, taking a bite from her protein bar. All we’d had to live on since Outworld, it seemed. Oat-and-nut bars with some sort of grain, like maybe quinoa, baked into crumbly rectangles. Them and stale water. How the hell does water go stale? Maybe that’s not the way to describe it, but that’s the word that pops into my head when I think about those aluminum cylinders with the thick rims and screw-off caps that never seemed to want to screw back on correctly.

And then her gun was in her hand. It always happened so fast. One minute she’d be talking and laughing, snorting out her nose with mirth, and then BAM! Her face went blank, like someone had hit a reset button and you noticed her pistol was up and ready, the action pulled back so everyone knew it was ‘go time.’ And if you didn’t know that, you were sure to have it explained to you with a sudden explosion of gunshots and smoke and the sound of tables crashing onto their sides for cover and sometimes the sounds of yells or screams that were always someone else’s. Motia didn’t yell. She just went to work. Thanks the gods, too, because she’d already saved my bacon more times than I could count.

This time she stood there, looking at nothing. Listening. And then I heard it, too. The baritone rumble and crackle of a V-twin engine and motorcycle tires on a dirt and gravel road. This was good news or bad, because whoever was riding our way didn’t give a good godsdamn who knew they were coming.

The engine stopped. We waited. The sun was on its way up now, and the big front window to the old, long-abandoned deli now opened upon a stunning landscape of gold, brown, and red with a high, clear, hard blue canopy. I listened for footsteps in the dirt and heard nothing. But Motia did. She gave me the time-tested “Shh” motion with a finger to her pursed lips and slid noiselessly to the side entrance. Her tactical position was such that the door’d hide her if it swung open. I stood there like an idiot before her angry eye told me to make myself scarce. But I was too late to move. There was nowhere to go. Then I heard it…a voice that sounded as warm as good whisky and yet thin as smoke whispered “Moe-TEE-yaaa…”

I surprised myself just then. My pistol had found its way to the sweaty palm of my right hand and was in the process of coming up, up slowly, it seemed, too slow, agonizingly slow…in reality it couldn’t have been more than half a second, but I knew it wasn’t fast enough. Not in this reality or any other. Didn’t matter anyway, as Motia’s arm knocked my hand skyward, my aim towards the grimy, grease-covered ceiling tiles and away from the tall, thin, brown-skinned man that stood just on the other side of the open storefront window.

“For FUCK’S SAKE, Pappu. You’re the only human in ten worlds that can do that!” Motia had already holstered her sidearm and was wiping perspiration from her brow. Pappu laughed his crazy old man laugh. I say ‘old man’ but let’s be honest, nobody knows how many centuries Pappu (or Papuulu or Papunu or P-Smoke or any number of names people have given him) has stalked the universes, most recently astride his vintage Indian motorbike which was, I suspect, chosen to be deliberately ironic. From what I’d observed, Pappu was always maintaining at least a dozen inside jokes (which often ended up being part of some elaborate long con he was running) but it was hard to tell. The fact that his best pal and confidante was an old Navajo called Sicheii (I say ‘called’ rather than ‘named’ because no one except maybe Pap knew his real name) added to his love of deliberate puns. Seriously, two “Indians” running around on Indians. I guess that shit’s hilarious if you’re an ancient mystic or something.

“But I let you hear me! Look, I’m even wearing sandals!” He lifted a bony leg that could’ve passed for a mangrove branch to display what looked like a brand new multi-colored rubber flip-flop, one that could’ve easily been purchased (or stolen) from any Dollar General.

“Jesus, Pappu. Trim your toenails. That shit’s nasty,” Motia chided as she helped him step over the sill into our makeshift redoubt.

“Jesus doesn’t care of man’s old toenails. You should see his! Like black scales! No, he care uh-uh no. But enough foot language. You come with me now.”

And just as soon as he had both feet on the dirty grey-green floor, he stepped nimbly back out the window and into the desert. Motia sighed.

“Whelp, I guess that’s why we drug our asses out here, huh?” And she smiled. I hadn’t seen that in a while. It was really, really nice. White and bright and confident, like she knew everything was going to be okay.

“You’re the boss,” I replied, checking that my pistol was secured in its holster. Then I followed the others, over the sill that still bore a few crumbled pebbles of old greenish-blue safety glass, into the dust and growing daylight of the Big Empty.

Trying New Things

Turner L. Watson 3 Comments

You’ll notice some changes to the ol’ site, and you’ll probably notice more going forward. For starters, a new theme and a new layout.  This theme (one of WordPress’s many free layouts) is sort of a throwback to the original blog design, but with some stylistic nods to my most recent effort.  Considering this is only the third theme change for my blog in almost four years, I suppose that’s something.

“But why change?” you moan.  “I like the old page, with literally all of your blog posts easy to see at once!” you cry like a little baby.  “Please give me an orgasm!  It’s been so long, and you’re nowhere near as good as you were when we first married!  I’m leaving you for a goalie” you screech like my wife.  Well, there are several reasons, thank you very much.

For starters, some readers plain didn’t like the old design.  Said it was confusing.  Yes, you could scroll down and down and down and down to find that Big Bang Theory blog I did in 2011 (that thing STILL gets views) but there was no archive feature, no calendar.  It was sort of browsing through a bunch of old back issues of magazines to find that story you wanted.

Also, the old format didn’t allow me to showcase two things I love very much: myself and my friends’ blogs.  I love me.  I love me so much that I often have physical relations with myself.  You can now see my Tweets (EVERY ONE OF THEM IS HILARIOUS!) and my Facebook page (EVERYTHING IS STOLEN FROM REDDIT!) on the right-hand side.  But over on the left, beneath the latest and archive blog posts, you’ll see my blogroll is once again visible.  This is a list of some fine blogs, many of which are updated a lot more often than this one.  You’ll find comedy blogs, entertainment blogs, blogs about roller derby and poetry and comics and heartbreak and pie.  I encourage you to check them all out.  I know some very talented motherfuckers, and you should get to know them as well.

I'll be completely honest, I just wanted to see how photos displayed on the new page. Oh, and there are spiders everywhere on this blog. Sleep tight.

I’ll be completely honest, I just wanted to see how photos displayed on the new page. Oh, and there are spiders everywhere on this blog. Sleep tight.

That’s it for now.  I have to research some product info for a big commercial thingy.  But take a look round and let me know what you like and don’t like about the new layout.  Maybe I’m not done yet.  Maybe we need some curtains and laminate flooring.  Maybe it’s just fine.  Ashley Motia will tell me to my face.  Yes sirree bob, she will.  Lawd yes. But you can leave a comment below.  Just as good.

Thanks for reading.