Learning Thunderbolt Apache Leader: A Hapless Commander’s Journal, Pt. 1

From a production and budget standpoint, I completely get why a scrappy, independent publisher of wargames would get a couple of pilot illustrations done and then duplicate that across several characters. You switch out the name and stats and keep going because it’s not like the margins are huge in this business.

But in the early going, I find these dudes hilarious; it’s like I’m in charge of an army of hale and doughy vat-cloned yahoos who all were past winners on some military reality show called Top Jerk. (How much post-discharge therapy would you need if you woke up in quarters at 3 a.m. and three identical dudes like this were massing at your cot for some kind of coprophilic prank? These portraits are bursting with grim comedic potential.)

Genius, Divot and Pro are preparing a variety of Midwestern surprises for you

That aside: my plucky All-American homonculi and I, according to the draw of the cards, are off to Pakistan, where we face a Rapid Deployment scenario in the variable setup. Special Options points—your “money” for equipping the squadron and its fliers, among other vital functions—are at a premium. Whatever it is we’re going to do, we’ve got four mission days to do it and twelve enemy divisions to do it to.

What else do I know so far? I love the granular “Now put this here, dummy” steps in the meticulous rulebook. I’ve blown 16 of my 25 initial Special Options points on a squadron consisting of an F-16, an AH-1, an A-10A (if I can’t go BRRRRRRT on my first go, I don’t see the point of any of this) and a scout unit.

I’ve got a roster of six flyers: Mohawk, Dart, Freak, Grandpa, Thor and Gumby. All rated Average in the cockpit, even if they’re exceptionally terrifying while chewing in unison at mess behind wraparound shades. I love filling out the player log, it feels like I’m doing a TTRPG bolted onto very solid rails. I promoted none of my guys in anticipation of point expenditure on armaments. You pick out and “pay” for all your air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance, following the aircraft data cards for which craft takes what kind of bomb or missile. I’m not worried about strategy at this point: These MFers are probably going to die. I will get sent to another post and apply their sacrifice to my continued improvement. I’ve never felt more patriotic than while typing the previous sentence.

According to the Special Condition card I pulled, I’ve got satellite recon data on my side, which will increase my Loiter ability by 1. I’m not sure what this means yet. I’m just going to assume it’s like stoned and vicious HS sophomores hanging out at 7-11s in the mid-’80s—the more they Loiter, the more damage they can do. Right?

There are also 12 enemy battalions—a mix of Assault, Support and Command—waiting for me in the Pakistani hills, which I have to metrically knock the shit out of, and quickly. I’m not counting on it. For now, I’m going to make some fairly arbitrary and stingy decisions about munitions mix in hopes of eventually using my SO points to cushion the bravura series of rookie commander fuckups that is about to occur.

I’ll hit you up once the boys have scattered a few payloads about.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Probing Clutchy McGritterson’s Tender Parts: A Discussion and a Playlist

Twitter’s Clutchy McGritterson is my favorite kind of Midwestern Gen Xer: brilliant and irascible, hypergraphic and quite approachable beneath all the barbs. A disarming mix of clear-eyed fatalism and modesty that arises from either fundamental Ohioan decency or towering self-hatred. I think there is an army of McGrittersons — sensitive, bright, insightful, middle-aged Xers, lashed to desks at office parks doing jobs they’re extremely good at, but who are resolutely unsentimental about how those desks connect to the skein of deep economic and cultural rot that is 21st Century America.

Anyway, I reached out to Clutch for an interview when I realized he had a guitar, liked effects pedals, had deep crates in his head and pointed opinions for every inclusion in them.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: So, I listened to some indie rock in the ‘90s, but I’m still mining the era and coming up with tracks that make me feel less like a mandarin and more like a tourist.

I actually saw Built to Spill on Colfax Ave. in Denver in the ‘90s, but I don’t remember it. I was gobbling pain pills and booze. My little sister and her fiancee were there, but they complained about the sound and left.

But a few weeks ago, the algorithm led me to Built to Spill’s “Goin’ Against Your Mind,” and it’s one of the most tremendous things I’ve ever heard. How was I deaf to this?

CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: I mentioned the other day I've always operated under the assumption that anyone who likes this band also likes Superchunk. They feel very much the same to me. I like the idea of them having a Piedmont/Snake River Valley feud like the East Coast/West Coast hip-hop rivalry. I wonder what a Superchunk diss track would sound like. I hope it sounds like "Slack Motherfucker" and has a line as good as "relax, sit down, I'll kick that stool right out from under you" in it.

I was never a huge Built to Spill fan back in the day. Part of that is just timing, but I am a little surprised I've never revisited them. I know I heard There's Nothing Wrong With Love whenever it came out (1994? 1995?) because I had friends that liked it, but it must have missed me entirely.  I went back and listened to that record again a couple days ago and I can get why.  1994/1995, I was listening to a bunch of industrial stuff. A lot of Joy Division, too.  Now, this song actually isn't too far afield from that in some kind of post-punky way, but at the time I think it mattered to me a lot more how the thing actually sounded, whether or not it had the right "vibe" or whatever.  For a long time (really, until I started listening to a lot of Ministry and Coil, in particular), I thought the ideal band was a three-piece.  I didn't really respect bands that had two guitar players, let alone something crazy like a keyboard or, God forbid, a horn section. That kind of rigidity was still present in my thinking about music even after I branched out a little bit, started to understand that not all bands had to sound like Husker Du, Minutemen and Wipers.  And I liked Bowie and Devo well enough, but they weren't the same thing.  A band could be fun, and I might even like them, the music might be beautiful or fascinating, but they weren't serious.

And I was very fuckin' serious during that little slice of the mid-90s. Also, pretty unforgiving. If I heard a song I didn't like, I would just write a band off entirely. That kept me from listening to a few bands over the years. Just the bad luck of hearing a song that didn't do anything for me. And a lot of those particular songs still don't. Like, I always thought "Get It On" was a dumb song when I was a kid, so I spent the first 30 years of my life thinking I hated T Rex.  I still think it's a dumb song, but any band that can make a record like Electric Warrior is fine with me, even if I don't like a couple of the tracks. You can't tell me "Monolith" isn't badass.

Anyway, now, Built To Spill feels like a less methy Modest Mouse. Had I heard early Modest Mouse first, there's a decent chance I would have liked Built To Spill more at the time. Like I said, it takes me a while to really grasp things sometimes, and the connections aren't always obvious to me.  I never understood what Joy Division was up to until I started listening to my neighbor's old Stooges records and really got into Eno-era Bowie. In any case, Modest Mouse really hit for me in 1996 or so in a way Built To Spill didn't. I reckon this probably had to do with the “Interstate 8” EP being incredible, me getting a little older, having my heart torn out a couple times, spending some time couch surfing around the Rust Belt and living in my car off and on for a bit, etc. The world will do interesting things to you, if you'll just let it.

Even though I'm not so familiar with Built To Spill, I've actually heard a lot of Doug Martsch because he got together with Calvin Johnson and made those Halo Benders records. Those I've listened to a lot. If you haven't heard them, check out "Virginia Reel Around The Fountain". Assuming you can handle Calvin Johnson's voice and, uh, interesting lyrics, I think you'll like it. Weird-ass band, all over the place. But they cranked out some real gems. Martsch is a hell of a guitar player, actually. Listening to "Goin' Against Your Mind" again as I'm writing this, and it's getting harder to understand why I never revisited these guys.

I will say this song is too long. I don't mind long songs, but this one does not need to be this long. I think the last minute and a half (the last verse and chorus) are superfluous, musically. Lyrically, maybe not. I'm just saying I would have given this one a hard stop at about 7:35 or so. I think it would've been a better ending. Maybe I should send the band my notes, help them out. I'd lay off the high-pitched bit over the instrumental in the beginning, too. The second lead bit, not the first one, maybe a minute in? Sounds like the keys and vocals in that My Morning Jacket song I can't remember the name of, but that I recall, for some reason, was in an episode of American Dad. Meh.

I've probably typed too much. Bad habit. Do you know what hypergraphia is? If there's an equivalent condition involving mechanical keyboards, I may have it. Why do you think I tweet so much?

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: I have now been on a weird cycle where I only listen to tracks from Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak and a smattering of late-Classical masters: Liszt, Chopin, Shostokavich.

What are you listening to tonight? Why?

CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: Thin Lizzy is great. I have been looking for a replacement for Twitter ever since The Boys Are Back In Town bot went down.

I heard a lot of Liszt as a kid. My mom likes Liszt. Out of those three, I prefer Shostakovich. An author I like wrote a (fictional) book where Shostakovich was a main character. William T. Vollmann, Europe Central. I'm not sure if I can recommend it or not, it's not an easy read. Although it might be less surreal than most of his other work. Among other things, it's about some moral choices people might make when living through crisis, and the amorality that sets crises in motion. Set in Germany and the USSR in the mid-20th century. An interesting read, and if nothing else you should read Vollmann because the FBI once thought he might be the Unabomber.

Lately the thing I've been mildly obsessed with, and was listening to earlier this evening, has been this Wipers record.

Earlier today I was thinking about Nirvana's cover of D-7 because I listened to the original version earlier this week.  I'm thinking Nirvana probably should have just covered this whole record.  

There's some alternate universe where The Cars ended up more punk than new wave, and they would've sounded a bit like Wipers. 

It's somehow hard to believe that Greg Sage was already nearly 30 when he made this record. Maybe that's why it seems to be a bit better assembled than some of its late 70s/early 80s punk-ish contemporaries.  A little more thought out, a little less predictable.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY:

• ‘Boys are Back in Town,” that little bass fill dude does on the first few bars…*chef’s kiss*

• So…I have only been listening to Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2”; the melodic progression is beguiling, it hurts my heart, there are no virtuoso parts, but it’s so gorgeous

• Please listen to “Skyliner” by the Charlie Barnet Orchestra

Its funny you brought up The Cars, because I always think about how they prefigured the durability of The Strokes: the smartest blend of new wave/punk and instinctual pop-rock songwriting. Ocasek standing there, bored, in his mirrored sunglasses; Ben Orr capturing the camera because he was gorgeous; and the best guitarist in the universe, Elliot Easton, never getting any camera time.

I note you post pics of your axes and effects pedals once in a while. What are you playing these days? Why? Have you made a cool new sound you’re proud of? How did you do it?

CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: I eventually got to the point where I could play that little [Thin Lizzy, “The Boys are Back in Town”] bass fill. Used to annoy my jangle-pop college-rock bandmates by playing it at inappropriate times (our lead guitarist appreciated it, at least. He'd start playing Aerosmith songs when he got tired of the whiny R.E.M.-lite that our other guitarist always insisted on playing).

Hearing that waltz reminds me that most people can't guess what instrument I played in concert band in school... It was, of course, the oboe. Feels like I've heard that waltz in a bunch of things. Some commercial lately, for one.

I don't know as much about big band music as I should. This stuff is good. And speaking of things it feels like I've heard before, this sounds really familiar but I have no idea why. My mom used to listen to a lot of this stuff when I was a little kid, maybe that's why I know it.

Re: Elliot Easton. It's tough being the third-most-popular guy in the band.

I always thought Ocasek did some genius producing for a couple other bands. Do The Collapse was jarring for long-time GBV fans, but they never could have made that version of “Teenage FBI” without Ocasek. 

Re: guitars and equipment.

I have never made any sound I am proud of that wasn't entirely accidental. I've actually written a couple things lately that weren't half bad by my standards, but the only one I tried to record a few weeks back met the same fate as the rest of my recorded output: deleted. Not nearly as satisfying as when I used to burn the reel-to-reel tapes when I got sick of them. I don't know, it's not like I'm recording things for anyone else to hear, anyway.  I commented recently that, 25 years ago, the things I tried to record sounded like shitty, everyone-on-too-much-drugs-to-sound-good Velvet Underground outtakes. Now, I've progressed to making shitty Television knock-offs. Progress?

Lately, I've been playing a lot of baritone guitar. I don't know, could just be that the slightly longer neck is easier for my giant sausage fingers to handle. The pedal I'm most fond of right now is the Hologram Effects Microcosm.

So, anyway, I end up just sitting around for hours and playing stuff that sounds like background music from No Man's Sky. Big, echoey, bleepy.

I've been trying to get it to play along nice with my other favorite new toy from KinotoneAudio.

Honestly, the interface on that Ribbons pedal is the most confusing fucking thing I've ever dealt with. Anything cool I do with it feels accidental. I need to spend more time with it.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: OK, this feels like the piece de resistance (or coup de grace) from this conversation because a) I don’t have enough Guided by Voices coming up in my shuffle these days b) I didn’t realize Ocasek produced a whole slab for them.

So I’m pretty monomaniacal with my listening, inured to suggestions with rare exception, but I played this whole MFer tonight and it was Just What I Needed.

Good pull. Thank you, Clutch.

-FINIS-

Martin Amis Review Snippets for Endurable Goods

In discussion of Martin Amis’ recent passing, I discovered that my bro Endurable Goods had never heard of him, much less read him.

So I flipped on the mic real quick and read selections of three reviews from The War Against Cliche, a collection of his book reviews spanning decades.

I do this not to chide or mock, but to delight.

The June Beg-a-Thon is Here: What’s in it for You?

EDIT: The June fundraiser is over and the prizes in the chest spoken for.

If I’ve ever made you laugh, recommended a classic hip hop track or a game you ended up loving, I sure could use your help right now. I’m trying to raise a few bucks to remain financially viable and creatively productive through the summer.

I have amassed a small pile of “thank you” gifts to be awarded mostly at random.

The New BGS Miners Raglan, Produced by Inkling Print Company

Made with love, hand illustrated and printed by my freaking heroes at Inkling.

Hate Monopoly? And monopolists? Wish the Ludlow Strike had turned out different? Me, too.

I commissioned a couple of extras ranging from S-2XL. My single most generous donor from the June Beg-a-Thon gets one. (The good news: I think maybe 12 people listen to Breakup Gaming Society, so you might get into one with a fairly modest contribution.)

this is the back of the shirt

One of 2 Copies of Party Meeple’s 60 Second Cocktail

My homie, Noisy Andrew of Perth, builds sailboats and makes breezy party games and is an all-around stellar human. (He also gives tours of his massive classic boardgame collection, take a look.)

I have two extra copies of his fast-moving bluffing and bidding game, 60 Second Cocktail. These will be awarded more or less at random. Then you can play them.

I’m Right You’re Wrong w/Shots Fired Drinking Game Expansion

My globetrotting pal Darylle of Right Wrong Games enters the prize pile with this cheeky, all-skill-levels-welcome tactical argument game — including Shots Fired, the drinking expansion for people who know that booze makes any argument automatically better.

Doesn’t really make sense to break these up, so some donor is taking home the set!

One of Two Copies of The Re-Up #1

American expat Chad Bilyeu teams up with Juliette de Wit to tell the tale of how Chad got himself through Georgetown by selling weed. I’ve got two copies of this one. Good yarn, cool art, cool writing. Chip in and maybe you get a copy.

I’m Also Giving Away Three of My Spare Defiant Frogs

Another Inkling creation. My spirit animal. Three nice donors will be selected to get one.

With Defiant Frog at your side, you will have that extra bit of piss and vinegar that says, “No. We’re not doing any of that today.”

Is That It? Should I Donate Now?

I also have a few bonus Breakup Gaming Society stickers featuring the comeuppance of a certain loveable millionaire, and I’ll send those out as I can. Based on response to my little fundraising drive, I may add more prizes from other small creators.

You should donate now. Or if not, consider sharing this page with friends who have either more money or better taste than yourself.

Until then, may you fight long and well.
TheLordChiefRocka#1ChiefRocka

On Being a Hater

"Why are you such a hater, Nate?"

Because I'm really freakin' good at it, that's why. I have definitely invested the requisite 10,000 hours in hating on stuff, and it's more rewarding every year.

The reason most haters are frowned upon is because they're bores. No panache whatsoever. I'm not talking about bleating out every random animal complaint that bubbles to the foreground — I'm talking about bonsai-level contempt for all that is hollow and drab and unctuous, sub specie aeternitatis.

The universe's supply of lameness is inexhaustible. This is my garden. Tirades are my flowers. If you want to picture my soul, imagine a Chihuly chandelier of expertly curated grievances, each gleaming tendril fashioned from something that was once obviously putrid, but now sings with light.

They say carrying resentment around is unhealthy. The Buddhists mark it as a tendency of the pedestrian mind. But synthesized properly, it is enriching and clarifying. Properly nourished and reflected on from several perspectives, you can make tomorrow's aria from today's common grudge.

This is magic. Not everybody can pull it off. It takes craft and even a smidgen of moral purpose.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to call my cousin in Arizona on his direct line at work. Last year during a family get-together, we were getting legless in a hotel lobby and he tried to interrupt my playlist with a request to play a Hopsin track. I was deeply offended by this and I've finally figured out why.

This is going to be a platinum-tier polemic. It's going to be like watching an Appaloosa at full gallop in a dewy field. He is going to understand why he is a clod at a cosmic level. He will be reshaped by the flame and emerge better than before, shorn of crippling illusions.

This is my gift.

This is what I do.

The Unquenchable Loneliness of the Closet DJ

Inspired by WNYC’s Public Song Project, I raided public domain stacks and found Django Reinhardt’s “J’Attendrai.” I do not pretend to be on par with Le Guitar Avec le Voix Humaine; I love the man’s music and I liked the juxtaposition of this song with how I remember that some of those drunken summer nights felt and sounded.

Ecouter, s’il vous plait.

JerkyHammer W40K: Col. Frankos Rizzos vs. Tyranids

Query Ping 00:030:355

This is 388453.09-77 I Scarfus Automated Comms Node | Designate Lambda

“Real proud of ya. I got a lot on my mind, so listen up, screwy."

Please identify.

“This is Frankos Rizzo. Now listen up..”

Invalid. Please identify.

“COLONEL FRANKOS RIZZO. 122nd Borlean. Now here’s the deal, jackass, you gotta get me...”

Subsector registry does not show 122nd Borlean active from current transmission locale. Please transmit regimental code for verification.

“Not active? We’re active like fuckin’ idiots down here, I got Tyranids, Tyranids flyin’ around, Tyranids pukin’ up shit, those silly-ass ones that hide in the ground and jump right up into your nuts…POW.”

Please transmit regimental code.

“Aaaaach. You’re a special, special kid, you know what? How about I come down there and smack you silly?”

Code not recognized. Retransmit.

“Three days I been here with those ones that Inquisitor What’s-His-Ass said we had to capture down here…Homophones? Sizzlegaunts? We got three of ‘em here in the containment thing, they’re goin’ crazy, three platoons I lose getting these fuckers in. Gone. Salami. Outta there.”

Code not recognized. Escalation protocol. Rerouting.

“Don’t reroute me! Ahh…Leman Russ’ giant balls…”

This is Augustin Diebold, commanding officer of Imperial Frigate Resolute Defenestration. Identify yourself.

“How do you say there, clamtrap. Listen, you gotta send someone to get these screwy-asses, they’re tearing this special little bulb, whatever the fuck you guys call it, they’re tearin’ this fuckin’ thing to pieces. We been tryin’ to keep ‘em in line, shakin’ it real hard. I got two guys jammin’ bayonets in through the air vents…”

Identify yourself at once.

Now here’s the problem, hamshank. You capture a couple of these fuckin’ things, the rest of their little buddies, they get pissed off real fast. [SHOUTING AND BOLTER FIRE] There’s a lot of these screwy bastards, firin’ shitbags all over the place, snappin’ and bitin’, the whole works. The 122nd doesn’t go in for that. Now you comin’ to get these fuckin’ things or no?”

YOU WERE COMMANDED TO…

And I already said Rizzo. R-I-Z-Z-O. 122nd Borlean, Captain Stumpy, whatever the fuck your name is…

AUGUSTIN DIEBOLD, COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE…

That’s great. The frigate, yeah?

Imperial Frigate Resolute Def…

You guys suck a lotta dick up there? Get each other off, have some laughs?

This transmission will be terminated and reported immediately to Lord Militant…

[CRASHING NOISES AND LASGUN FIRE] Three times I tell you, you gotta angle it up! ANGLE IT UP SO IT GETS THEM RIGHT IN THAT FLAPPY SHIT ON THE THORAX. [CROSSTALK] The THORAX. Sweet throne...”

This is Lord Inquisitor Kelvin Hobbes aboard the…

“Yeah. The butt barge. Good Time Charlie told me all about it. [LASGUN FIRE AND ROARING] Aaatta boy. See? Right in that flaps. They love that shit.”

This vessel’s chief astropath has been tasked with a top-tier transmission to verify your identity and the nature of your mission.

“Yeah. That’s great. You do that.”

Providing we are able to verify your mission and locale in time to extract your men and specimens, we’ll also have a pointed discussion about compounding a crisis with insubordination, ragged protocol and your proclivity to flirt with heresy. Do you understand me, Colonel?

“Yeah, you get down here, bring Good Time Charlie, we’ll have any kind of party you want. We’ll get a little scene goin’. [MUFFLED KRAK GRENADE EXPLOSION] with these gumball machines you gave me to put these fuckin’ maniacs in. You do that. I’ll be right here just getting absolutely destroyed as a human being.”

Our lives are instruments of the Emperor. No more.

[STATIC AND YELLING] “That’s great, flapjack. Listen, I got a feelin’ we’re comin’ up on a real wacky part here…” [LASGUN FIRE AND STATIC]

I am ending this transmission for exigency’s sake. The Emperor Protects.

“Ok, we’ll see you later there, fruity.”

Original Fiction: Listening Notes, Hip Hop Night, Summer 2006

The author thanks Nat Rae Kimber, Hollie Rogin and Sam Deleo, whose candor made this better.

If you’d rather listen than read, there’s an audio player at the bottom.

Listening Notes, Hip Hop Night, Summer 2006

Nov. 2004

Hip Hop Night was abandoned at the Harlequin because their GM hit the roof when their bathrooms got tagged up by BFD Crew. 

The entire building, especially BFD, were skied out of their faces because Lar-Lar showed up that same night after his shift at the steakhouse, inner blazer pocket stuffed with what was, for just $40 a baggie, exceptional cocaine.

Feb. 2005

Diggz and Snacktyme picked up the banner and charged, hosting a string of DJ sets and “rap battles” at St. Stilbern on S. Broadway, which was like a boat that got washed ashore by a storm decades ago and taken over by an alcoholic artist colony.

Those gigs drew a hungry roster for the first few weeks and produced occasional moments that will remain unforgettable to dozens, but the organizers did not have the sand to prevent Broknocks and his coterie from hogging the mic; nobody else wanted to come anymore and it was more or less Broknocks’ clubhouse until he gave the owner’s cousin a black eye and that was the end of that.

Aug. 2006

By late summer, the grinders of the city’s hip hop scene had coalesced around DJ MERKury cuttz, who once pocketed a begrudging $150 from the city’s biggest promoter for opening up for L’il John and, along with the rest of his DJ stable, kept things moving at a Broadway club that gave them a spare Thursday to do what they could with the room.

Aug. 7, 2006, 7:21 p.m.

An early evening downpour had turned red plastic ashtrays on the patio, unemptied the previous week, into candelabras.

Aug. 7, 2006, 7:38 p.m.

Super Betrayal Chris and his crew were to headline. He was 1.8 miles away dressed entirely in things he had found over the previous 72 hours and being fawned over by everybody in a quick-service restaurant.

Aug. 7, 2006, 8:05 p.m.

The last thing Jason did before he left the apartment — after one of the summer's many bristly discussions with Tandy about how much of his severance was left, which was, on this evening, $0.00 as opposed to the reported $1,137.56 — was call the automated customer service line on the back of his VISA card, verifying that he was still a generous $211.10 away from his $16K credit ceiling.

He got downtown and parked his sunsetting Del Sol, popped into the side entrance and said hello to Angelina at the bar, where he secreted a shoebox full of giveaway CDs for later. He was already overhungry, scanning the dozen or so patrons for nascent energy.

He had flung a press release for MOe Flex and Durkee at an old colleague at a Paper of Record, which produced nearly 1.5 column inches on the morning's inside cover. This made him particularly antsy.

MOe penguin-walked in with Durkee. MERKury cuttz ran at them, waving the torn inside cover of the Paper of Record. There was loud crowing between the four. MOe took the clipping from cuttz and walked it around the bar to show people. Jason opened a tab for the three of them, as he had done for the last six months. Jason: Knob Creek press; Durkee, Amstel Light; MOe Flex, well bourbon.

Three repetitions of this sequence conjured their riff-donkey, Slappy T. They would invoke Slappy T as the source of all problems, and when complaints had run out of air, he got extra mileage by being cast in scenarios where his solution was slapping people.

Durkee’s generous mitts would hit the bartop and he would bellow, especially when Jason would shudder and bend, holding his face as if just being struck, and quaver, “W-w-why’d ya do it, Slappy T?”

Aug. 7, 2006, 9:02 p.m.

Lar-Lar was in the bathroom in mirrored sunglasses laying out fat rails on top of the wall johns and jawing and laying out even fatter rails for each new person that showed up. Lar-Lar remembered the routine Jason started two years ago at the mall with Durkee, the Welcome Back, Kotter theme, but always changing the reason why They Tease Him a Lot. That day, it had been MOe: Yeah, they tease him a lot/’Cause he sells his CDs at the mall/Welcome baaack

Tonight: Yeah, they tease him a lot/’Cause his kids call him bumbleclot/Welcome baaack

They tease him a lot because seagulls took his lunch. They tease him a lot ‘cause he had a stroke and he can’t talk. They tease him a lot because he got raped at boarding school. So forth.

Aug. 7, 2006, 9:48 p.m.

Ghoasts had the stage darkened per request and were doing their best with the red triple headlamps they wore on stage. Their flow was every bit as good as the last four times Jason had seen them, but there were still more people on the patio than the floor.

Somebody was selling Hip Hop Soap in the lounge area.

Aug. 7, 2006, 10:40 p.m.

Jason went up close to the stage, ready for the world to finally see what he had heard coming out of the splintering speakers on the Del Sol doors at the curb at 2:12 a.m. outside the Solo Bird so many months ago, when MOe passed over a hand-lettered CD of the album he and Durkee were about to put out.

It wouldn’t just be him who saw the golden thread from their voices to the Best that Ever Were.

No, no, no. 

They were just shuffling around again with the mics, not doing the entrance, “DJ” sitting there bored waiting to press Play on the fucking CD player.

Somehow there were even fewer people inside now.

The ones that were there barely turned their heads when Durkee poured the first few bars of “Industry Goons,” except for the same three MCs Jason knew from the same three house parties, and they all had CDs with hand-drawn covers they handed out at the mall.

He tried to exhort them at the end of “Goons,” but somehow his hoot sounded too reedy all by itself and he pivoted the hands cupped around his mouth into a turning motion to look on purpose.

Aug. 7, 2006, 10:41 p.m.

Out on the sidewalk were three times the people as inside, several deep around Betrayal and his friends.

“I wrote this song in 1938,” Jason heard Super Betrayal Chris say from inside the circle. 

First I inflicted on you seven entertainments and it got better from there.

“Why would the universe make such a piece-of-shit thing?” KemTrail spat into his Nokia after Betrayal’s verse fizzled out. He was at the nucleus, leaning on Betrayal’s Audi. “Fuck you, the world!”

“Uh oh, somebody got betrayed.” It was the guy with the LED belt buckle.

“How is that betrayed," said the one with the shaved line in his hair that was from a rulebook only he knew.

“No, we established that as a betrayal…” said Belt Buckle.

“Yeah, you said the universe was betrayal at, like, the molecular level.” KemTrail said as he twisted his phone in two and neatly one-timed both pieces into the curbside drain.

Jason circled, incandescent with hatred, trying to match the mouths with the voices through the screen of bodies.

Oh shit, right, like I dropped this cufflink the other day and there’s of course no way it could simply drop and land somewhere that is realistic," said the Haircut Pioneer. "It betrayed itself all the way over on top of a vent, like, halfway across the room.”

“Mult…ma…matter always seeks its n-natural state of betrayal.” Whoever said that then managed an efficient one-spurt vomit off the curb.

“I know, it’s like can I just take the lid off the food without it just spurting out of the jar before I even do shit, everything’s like a Multi-Betrayal Warhead blowing up in my fucking life, like, every single day,” Belt Buckle groaned.

“Bro, one of those guh…guhsploded on me yesterday?” It was One-Spurt.

“Oh, shit," Belt Buckle, now half-interested because he wasn't the one talking.

Did One-Spurt's cigarette butt lope into black end-over-end behind the passing car or into the half-down window? Jason felt like he was the only one thinking about this.

“Multi…fuckinnn' multi-betrayal warhead. Just taking the lid off the fucking Chapstick, lid’s like, fucking suicidal or something. Ber…bounces off the center console of the car and goes right into…I don’t even know…”

“Haaaaaa.” Haircut Pioneer liked that one“I just threw the stick away. That cap disappeared and I was just like, ‘F-fulk it, you betrayed, I’m not looking for you. Not rewarding that kind of shit.’”

“They design that part on purpose, like, where cars have crumple zones and betrayal zones,” Jason said.

Nobody Jason knew from the nucleus acknowledged his contribution, so he played off the sting by moving an extra three steps away to light the cigarette. He felt at the time that having it behind his ear and not having to fish it out of his pocket, then out of the pack, allowed him a speck of nonchalance.

Super Betrayal Chris did not speak once during the entire betrayal matter.

Aug. 8, 2006, 12:41 a.m.

Lar-Lar was still in the bathroom somehow. His baggies were inexhaustible.

Ayyyyy they tease him a lot ‘cause he look-a at da-cock

Ayyyyy

Jason’s jaw was working tight spirals, nobody would party again with Lar-Lar ever if they could hear the enamel vanishing limpid as THX instead of the stupid shit they were talking.

Aug. 8, 2006, 12:45 a.m.

All the napkins in the bar caddy were black. There were glossy promo cards about, but they were too packed with full-bleed images and text to allow for the room Jason needed for his big block-letter handwriting. 

Angelina bartended there every Thursday and had caramel cheeks and curly hair usually bound up in a springy bunch. In confident-looking strokes on a grid whose dimensions he felt firmly in charge of, he dashed his name and phone number onto the flyer with the most white space (prefix and remainder separated by dots) and told her that he thought she was a peach, was incomparable, made him quake and such. She was discouraged from fraternizing with regulars, and she told him as much.

The lights were thrown on. The three purveyors of Hip Hop Soap picked up the business cards and samples  that had been scattered around the cushioned bench that served as their promotional encampment for the night.

Jason wondered if the Pilsner Urquell bomber was left in the fridge (and the three fingers of Galliano in the cabinet fair game, too) and could he quietly drink the edge off the blow in the dark without waking up Tandy and maybe catch 3.5 hours of brittle sleep on the couch.

If not, the kitchen lights would come on and there would be a grilling instead and he'd have to zero in on something, like the filth on the blue shelf over the stovetop, to get them both along to bed. 

Jason experienced a microcrash, slicing through all the tissue, just the same needle of terror and static jabbing right through the chemical force field and into his center. 

Aug. 8, 2006, 1:11 a.m.

Super Betrayal Chris’ A4 was still in its coveted spot right outside, he and his posse were most likely invited up to Manager’s office after hours.

The wet streets were dying down and Jason looked for someone to text, find a room where somebody could hear what he heard, fall into the secret passageway to the land of giants just holding one person's hand. How couldn’t it be?

The hated box: He had been too lazy to tape that corner again, it had torn further down this week so that the CDs flopped this way and that, why hadn’t he taped the box or gotten one of those big padded shoulder-slung packs like real people had.

Aug. 8, 2006, 1:12 a.m.

Jason found a new relationship with his feet and poured around the corner of the building like his knees and ankles were on ball bearings. The cardboard box corner gave way one last unforgivable time. 

Aug. 8, 2006, 1:38 a.m.

Overhead, United Flight 1104 pulsed its taillights as it picked up altitude en route to San Francisco. There were 87 seats still available at takeoff.

Aug. 8, 2006, 10:38 a.m.

36 MOe and Durkee CDs were found on the other side of the brick-and-ivy fence that separated the club from the parking lot of the BBQ store, where Jamie Strauss, who opened that morning, got them all into a pile with the push broom, along with a cardboard fry boat with two fries and a pool of ketchup and a single sock in it

Sept. 7, 2006, 5:01 a.m.

Broknocks — a 250-word capsule kind of rapper — got a 1,587-word feature in the Alt Weekly of Note.

Nov. 30, 2006, 5:32 a.m.

MERKury cuttz moved to L.A after finishing his “MILE HI HOEDOWN” mixtape so he could be ignored in a place with more predictable temperatures.

A Reading of “Boone” by Wendell Berry

I did this in one take and didn’t edit out breathing or page turns. It may reach you just the same.

New Cocktail Minted in Honor of Dead Belt Indie TTRPG: Redline Cowboy

You’re going to die, so make it citrusy and full of desert odors.

Tonight Breakup Gaming Society proudly launches a new cocktail in honor of the hopeless character classes from A Couple of Drakes’ Dead Belt Solo (or maybe more) game:

The Redline Cowboy
The lights are all going out, Belter. Just make sure they’re a flicker at the periphery of your massive buzz. Yee. Haw.
• 1 oz. orange/clove mixer
• 2 oz. mezcal
Combine in shaker and pour over ice in rocks glass. Then watch your prospects vanish in the bulkhead window. It’s OK.

Talking Musical Outliers with Novelist Jonathan Evison: A Discussion and a Playlist

Novelist and all-around golden human being Jonathan Evison indulged me in a months-long back-and-forth about songs we love that aren't necessarily in genres we listen to a lot.

Also discussed: the velocity of subculture co-option, the joys of being a kid in Seattle and S.F. during the heyday of American Hardcore, and shit that makes us cry.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Here's something I've been thinking about a lot lately: one-offs on my lifetime playlist. Genre breakers.

Example: Def Leppard's "Photograph," which is one of my top 100 songs of all time in any genre. But I can't sit through any of their other songs and I'm definitely not sticking around if you think we're listening to the Scorpions or some shit after that.

JONATHAN EVISON: I never liked any of that roller-rink metal, but now I find it nostalgic. I have a soft spot for the anthemic bangers that speak to teenage angst. The stupider the lyrics, the better. Quiet Riot's Metal Health, for instance:

"I'm like a laser, six-string razor, I've got a mouth like an alligator...bang your head! Metal health will drive you mad!"

I mean, how can you not love that? And it goes to eleven!

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: I dated this girl in Denver a long time ago who knew all the indie bands and 24-year-old me was gobsmacked when she put on Ratt’s “Round and Round” in the car one day. 

I was like, “Why?”

“Because it’s beautiful,” she said. I quietly marked that as a demerit, but turns out she was right.

And speaking of silly lyrics, probably the my favorite YouTube comment of all time, posted in the comment thread of selfsame song: “he never tells us why”

And I thought, “Kid’s got a point. Tell us why, Stephen Pearcy.” But he’s not going to because whatever, it’s time for the next verse now. I like picturing some dude from the band (or some flogged-half-to-death writer from the label stables) tapping his notepad furiously with the pen at 2:32 a.m. He’s got “I’ll tell you why” and he’s straining for a payoff, there’s 50 different crossed-out lines beneath it, but at the end he’s just “fuck it” and turns in the lyrics.

Or maybe he did come up with it, but they realized the chorus was one line too long and they just cut the song like it was. Who cares why when you’ve got an advance, a studio deadline to hit, and the A&R dude just came through with a chunk of flywing the size of a healthy walnut.

JONATHAN EVISON: I'm actually sorta pissed off that you made me spend the better part of my morning contemplating the lyrics to "Round and Round," which are as indecipherable (to me, anyway) as anything you'll find on a papyrus scroll. 

And let me just say that revisiting the video (apologies to Milton Berle) didn't clarify matters much. My lone observation here is that our spurned lover sure does talk a tough game for a guy who just raided Olivia Newton John's wardrobe. 

Hair metal fashion has always confused me in this way. If we're talking about the New York Dolls or Bowie, I can contextualize the androgynous stylings associated with glam. I get it. But once we throw machismo into the mix, I'm profoundly confused by the messaging. There is nothing remotely menacing to me about a scrawny dude in red Capezios and silver yoga pants traipsing around in a fog of Aquanet. 

How do I resolve this fashion statement with the lyrics of, say, Warrant's "Cherry Pie?" I guess in order to answer that question, we'd need to delve into the symbolic interactionist framework of masculine individualism, and I'm not sure I'm ready to do that after only two cups of coffee.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: The quick-cut style of ‘80s videos sure helped the lead man a lot. All the presence of a log.

Yes, the insane cultural alchemy of hair metal was to steal the glam look and somehow talk about chicks and partying enough so that your high school's lacrosse team captain and the heshers would go for it. I was into hardcore at the time. I wouldn’t listen to anything else. Seemed to me that the puissance of Minor Threat and Charged G.B.H. came much more honestly. 

I remember watching the videos for bands like Ratt and I never understood how such flimsy theatrics and preening were a trigger to let loose, go “Fuck yeah!” Adored nonetheless by certain macho peers who would hip check me and call me a faggot during passing period. It’s a hell of a stew, J.

But here was the cool thing about getting a tad older: I got to re-encounter some of the music on my own terms — when I was no longer burdened with the social identity overlay — and my own time. It’s nice to be surprised by things you thought you knew.

Summers home from college, The Moms got me a job at The Denver Post printing plant. I was a duckling and they put me behind the wheel of a twin-speed split-axle truck from midnight-6 and 10 p.m.-4 a.m. with one night of training, which consisted of me lapping the plant once in first gear (during which I threw it into reverse, giving my trainer the fantods). We delivered to the deliverers who assembled predawn at 20-odd district stations across the city. There was only the radio, so I listened. The R&B station was fucking up one night on I-70 East, so I switched over to 103.5 The Fox, and “Give Me All Your Loving” by ZZ Top came on.

It was one-something in the morning. I listened again to Beard’s efficient timekeeping and the guitars (especially the way they layered the rhythm guitar on Gibbons’ opening lead). And producer David Ham adds this synth to give it more heft and movement and space; just the right daub of lacquer on a ‘70s blues rock band that was in danger of fading away, and I was like, “This is a great fucking song.”

I’d forgotten I was just supposed to hate it because I used to hate the people that listened to it.

I still listen to it.

JONATHAN EVISON: Yeah, I started with the hardcore in the early '80s, too. Had a fanzine, and a band (March of Crimes) who actually played with G.B.H. back in 1982 or '83. I partied my fourteen-year-old ass off with Jock, Ross, Colin, and Wilf in a hotel room after the show. Actually stayed in touch with those guys for like ten years afterward, they were fun. 

The Seattle scene was uniquely un-stratified back then, a lot of metalheads and goth kids and mods and punks all hung out together at the all-ages clubs: the Metropolis, Graven Image, Gray Door, Monroes, the Eagles Nest, and a bunch of other places that came and went fast. My old man lived in the Bay Area, so I'd go down to San Francisco in the summers and hang out at Mabuhay Gardens, On Broadway, etc, and it was a much different scene. 

You had your mods hanging out front with their scooters, your skinheads along one wall, your leather punks along another wall, your straight-edgers in their little clique. The kids didn't seem to mix as much as we did up north, where we had no self-consciousness about our place in the context of the larger culture. 

Of course that all changed six or seven years later when the A&R guys showed up and started signing everybody. A lot of my friends became rock stars. By the early '90s, the Seattle scene was a tourist attraction. Not that it wasn't vital as hell, it just lost something when it lost that backwater innocence, when we were just a bunch of bored, energetic, and yes, angry kids sounding our barbaric yawp in musty little basement venues with no real sense of possibility as to what any of it meant to anyone besides ourselves. Sigh.

I feel bad for the teenagers today. The idea of organically developing any kind of vital subculture seems like it isn't even a possibility anymore. The corporate algorithm would eat it up five seconds after its genesis. Culture accelerates. As recently as 20 years ago, The Man was still a couple years behind the underground. Go back 50 years, and they were a good five years behind the underground. Think about it, Coca-Cola taught the world to sing six years after the Monterey Pop festival, which the real hippies will tell you was the apex of ‘60s counter-culture. The Summer of Love and Woodstock were afterthoughts. At that point the hippies were profiting off themselves. Fuck, I don't really know where I'm going with this, but globalism blows. I miss regional culture.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Dude. You opened for Charged G.B.H.? I’m more jealous of that than even your literary plaudits.

OK, I’ll bite. Please reply with your favorite song by them. I know mine, but I want to see what you pick.

JONATHAN EVISON: That's a tough one, prolly something off of Leather, Bristles, Studs, and Acne. To tell the truth, I was more into the OC sound: Adolescents, Descendents, Bad Religion, Agent Orange, Angry Samoans, etc . . .

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Ahhhh, well I’ll step into that gap: It’s “Race Against Time.” Heard it on one of those Punk & Disorderly comps and it changed my life.

JONATHAN EVISON: Yeah, I need to pick up those Punk & Disorderly comps. I've managed to replace most of the seminal comps: Let Them Eat Jelly Beans; Not So Quiet on the Western Front; the Rodney on the ROQs; Rat Music for Rat People; This is Boston, Not L.A. You know i have a stupid big record collection, right? Thousands across all genres. Finally have a place to keep them all!

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Glorious. Any outliers in there?

I inherited my Pops’ vinyl. He had his outliers, too, which stood in high relief as he was a withering music snob — which I also inherited. I tend my own playlist like some kind of radicalized anchorite and harbor violent feelings about most other people’s choices in music.

In the midst of all that world music and fusion and jazz and Little Feat in the boxes he gave me, I found a Bel Biv Devoe 12”. I even brought it up later (he gave me most of his collection years before he passed).

“You like Bel Biv Devoe?” I asked him.

“I like the way they harmonize.”

That was all he said about it.

JONATHAN EVISON: Hmm. It's difficult to think of an outlier in a collection that covers so much musical ground. I've got thirty-odd peach crates that each hold about 120 records, and pretty much every conceivable genre is covered, at least summarily. 

If I'm understanding the context of outlier here, I'd have to pick something in my collection that I love in spite of everything going against it, like, say, Nino Tempo and April Stevens' “Deep Purple,” which is about as vanilla as anything in the Lawrence Welk catalog, and yet, I find it irresistible with its perky vocal interplay and laxative-smooth commercial sheen. Think “The Fleetwoods meet Donnie and Marie in a world made of cotton candy.” 

Ridiculously, the recording earned the 1965 Grammy for "Best Rock and Roll Record," though it is about as rock and roll as a marshmallow cream sandwich. Still, it gets my toe tapping every time, and makes me want to share an ice cream sundae with my girl.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: This is an effervescent little confection. I’m down with it. Forgot that ‘60s-‘70s technique of having the singer do a sad or flirty speech on the bridge. Bellissima.

My biggest outlier crept into my ears two years ago and has now burrowed into my bones.

So you remember the era about a decade ago when bacon was in everything and niche marketing agency founders were wearing tweed driving caps and starting new firms called Cupcakes & Strategy and shit. I hated all that shit, particularly the indie Americana, which usually drove me right out of the room.

But this one popped up on my music app a few years ago. Kept it because while it sounded a little too third-generation Neil Young, I liked his voice, the simple chords, and the weeping guitar they use to play the lead melody. Then it kept coming up last summer, when the stars aligned and I hit the “lose your job, girl, and mind” rural trifecta, it would come up on nights when I was drowning myself in brown liquor on the patio and watching the moon and clouds change all night, and the hook was set.

Both the original by Songs: Ohia and the elegiac tribute cover by Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee are burned into me. If I’m in my cups, it is not unknown for me to break down in sobs by the time the “Mama, here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws” line hits. The whole-body sadness and incandescence with which Katie Crutchfield belts and lilts her verses makes this an all-night repeater.

But to the earlier point. This is not somebody’s cue to start playing this genre all night. Not an indie folk fan. I’m a This Song fan.

JONATHAN EVISON: Yeah, I love that song, that whole Songs: Ohia record kills me, all the more so knowing the way things ended for Jason Molina. Man, there are SO MANY songs that make me cry every time I hear them (and I don't even need to be gooned), sometimes because I have such strong associations with them — like, say, anything off of Carol King's Tapestry because it was one of my sister's favorite records when she died at 16, along with Don McLean's American Pie, but often just because songs are so achingly beautiful they trigger that emotional response in me. 

I could be in the fucking supermarket, and they could be playing Sammi Smith's version of "City of New Orleans", and I will mist over without fail because my mom used to sing me that song when I was a toddler. Or, you know, that "Three is a Magic Number" Schoolhouse Rock song, because when my son (now 13 and officially a mean-ager), used to sit in my lap when he was a baby and I'd play him that Schoolhouse Rock video on the laptop over and over, and man, he loved when that big football player crashed through the wall, and oh, the fullness I felt at finally being a dad. 

Or take Leonard Cohen: I mean, vocally the guy has the emotional range of a sump pump. If you're just listening to the music, he literally sounds like a guy burning his arms with hot candle wax in a cold water flat somewhere. But the words! My god, the guy can write about despair in a way that rings so damn true that I'll just start weeping every time I stop to listen. This, to me, is maybe the great gift of music: its ability to register emotionally in unexpected ways. 

I think it is actually fair to say that music informs my writing more than books. This also might explain why my works are so wide-ranging tonally and structurally, because my musical tastes are all over the map. I love soul, punk rock, classic country, alt-country, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, zydeco, dub, ska, rockabilly, doo-wop, you name it, and that genre will be well-represented in my stacks. And even on a sentence level, music is my barometer. I don't wanna work every damn sentence until it's black and blue trying to achieve that "luminous" effect, I just want the words to swing, you know?

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Returning to something you said earlier about the joys of being in a scene in the pre-digital era and the accelerated cycles by which things are co-opted — I was thinking about the upside to this: the profusion and breadth that accompanies this speed. You can still only fit so much in a human brain or pump so much shit into a culture blog timeline, and there are so many scenes and so much content and niche weirdness that multiplies just as fast as “sell $20K worth of shirts I made with a meme that blew up this morning.” Like zooming into the Mandelbrot Set, there’s always some hilarious piece of coastline nobody’s ruined yet.

And, of course, the power of forgetfulness. I play in the puddles of the digital firehose still, digging back, back and under. Sometimes I share an old guitar swing song with a Zoomer friend on Twitter and it blows their fucking mind.

My latest project has been mining the thrash revival stuff from about 2008-2013 — this flared in and out of existence so fast — while I was in my tryouts to be a husband and stepdad — I barely caught a glimpse of it until three years ago. And that’s how I learned about Obscene Extreme, the music fest put on by this Czech dude who started it as a lark for his birthday and is now going decades strong. You can go to a former battlefield in the Czech Republic and buy absinthe lemonade and smell absolutely as bad as you want and the promoter makes every band agree to let the fans run around on stage whenever they want.

He won’t book venues in the U.S. because they’re too lame and expensive and he won’t agree to the clauses that let their rent-a-gorillas do whatever they want to a fan who dares cross the stupid barricades they put up.

My friend: This shit is not over.

P.S. There’s another clip somewhere of these girls’ set where the costumes get even weirder and some guy gets up there with a large custom box he made, wearing a lab coat and writhing as if the thing in the box were electrocuting him or giving him ecstatic seizures. That’s the only clip I’ve found of this event where security has a presence. Couple staff intercepted him like, “Dude, we can’t do the mad scientist box thing today, sorry,” and dude politely dismounted.

JONATHAN EVISON: Hahaha! How can I not love it? It sounds like G.B.H. with a deranged muppet singing. I dig what you're proposing about the upside of speed and iteration in cultural acceleration, and I think it is a hopeful take. 

Please don't make me consider any more fractals, though — math was never my strong suit (I admire its elegance, but it gives me a headache). As a guy who spends most of his time in the woods, I find myself feeling a little besieged by all of this; not so much by the permutations themselves, but the rapidity of them. I'm a guy who likes context, and it seems to get harder and harder to find one's bearings in a TikTok world. 

Don't get me started on technology and Late Capitalism. My mania is through the roof, so my whole goal in life is to slow down, which is why I've been self-medicating with beer and weed since I was fourteen years old, and why I've managed never to go off the deep end with addiction, because it has never been about the high for me, more about finding an equilibrium. Like context, I yearn for clarity, and its hard to find when your brain feels like it was shot out of a fucking cannon. And it's not that I don't like unpredictability. I'm not that old yet. If you were to ask me what that equilibrium might sound like right now, if I could ever achieve it, it would probably sound something like this:

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: One day I will locate your mountain redoubt with some brown liquor and I don’t give a fuck if we listen to anything but Slim & Slam all night because I love everything I’ve ever heard by them, together or separately. What inviolable joy.

But yeah: Sometimes I’ll knock a beer and a shot down at The Trinidad Lounge when it opens at 4 p.m., but I get out after that because a) I have not yet interacted with the local gendarmes and have no desire to b) I ache for The Temple.

The Temple is when I throw on the six strategically placed LED accent lights in my hideous kitchen, set them on a whimsical and soothing color, and uncork whatever I have around. Finally I can detach and Listen to One Thing and Only Think About One Thing. The wind tunnel of unwanted input and useless, bifurcating thought falls quiet. I can sit in the middle of this one thing, this song, and for just a few hours it is both the absolute center and far boundaries of my consciousness.

I’m good and buzzed by now, a patient sifter. Nothing except the glittering salvage. It feels both reverent and virtuous to wonder if Billy Idol's Rebel Yell LP had any good non-hits on it because the Gen X version of 'Dancing With Myself' was fine in its original incarnation and nobody needs to hear the stupid, boring title track ever again. So I listen to the whole damn thing. And there’re two of them! What plunder! “Blue Highway” and “(Do Not) Stand in the Shadows,” and I marvel at the production muscle they armed him with, and Sweet Mother of God, did his axe man have command of that instrument. It did whatever he wanted. And they have him overdub himself on the later choruses, adding glissading, dying-bird tremolos and controlled, clipped rockabilly fills — sometimes I laugh out loud at how ungodly slick it is. It’s borderline shameless.

It’s maybe the 10th replay?

I don’t know. 

Who cares? 

My patio is now the observation deck of a starship and I can see the gods’ blueprints and their deliverables, all at once, all overlaid and not a screw loose and I can’t tell the difference between the craft in which I am borne and myself.

The rest of the week is just bullshit by comparison.

JONATHAN EVISON: I would go one step further than "borderline shameless" and just call it shameless. I like the song, and I don't always object to blatant overproduction, but for me, it's an "if the shoe fits, wear it" argument — ergo, if we're talking about Huey Lewis and the News, go ahead, overproduce your heart out. 

But with regard to anything with (ostensibly) punk rock or counter-culture roots, it's often a bridge too far for me. In short, I would much prefer a Jack Endino remaster of "(Do Not) Stand in the Shadows" to the glaringly slick, albeit proficient, excess exhibited here. But then, I thought G.B.H. was overproduced. 

On the flipside, some of my favorite "budget rock" bands, like, say, The Mummies, would in my estimation benefit from better production. My problem with the moniker "budget rock" is that I know from experience that it is very possible to produce sonically appealing (and highly apropos) recordings on zero budget, whereas some of the Mummies records are purposefully produced to sound like somebody dropped a ghetto blaster in an aquarium, which is its own sort of artifice. If I had my druthers, every Mummies recording would sound like this:

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: I have been using YouTube Music for a couple of years because — while file quality and volume can vary aggravatingly — I’m more likely to find the weird remixes and mashups on which I fixate, unlike Spotify et al. And I couldn’t find the Jack Endino track you mentioned, not even on YT Music, so this seems as good a point as any to say, “You stumped me, sensei.”

Before we go, the floor is yours: What should readers of this interview do next to support your fine work?

JONATHAN EVISON: Haha, no! Such a recording does not exist. That's my point! I'd much prefer "(Do Not) Stand in the Shadows" were it produced by Jack Endino rather than someone from the Mutt Lange school. I like my punk rock with a little hair on it, you know? Not muddy, mind you, just sonically unbridled without any slick veneer. I want my layering natural, and I don't want any range compression or a bunch of multi-tracking. 

Gimme the live sound, performance-wise. Same with my soul music. Some of those late '60s soul sides are as punk rock as anything the Stooges or MC5 were laying down. Like this, for instance:

Dig the room sound, the slightly off-key horns, those trashcan lid drums, that wobbly, weaving bass, and of course, Lee Moses's singular, off-the-rails vocal barbarism. Put it all together in real time and it just sounds like a bash I wanna be at.

Ok, my books. Thanks for asking. I don't talk about them until people make me. There's a bunch of them, eight now, I think. Go buy them, so I can keep spending all this money on tequila and records. 

If you want literary ambition, maybe start with Small World, or if you want humor and pathos, maybe try Lawn Boy (the second most banned book in America the past couple years), or The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (and no, I didn't have anything to do with the film version with Paul Rudd, but it was a cute film). If you like cave people sex and survivalist stories, maybe try Legends of the North Cascades. Old ladies on cruises? Try This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! Bodybuilding Twins? All About Lulu. Novels about place? Try West of Here.

Just buy them, because as you know, wax ain't getting any cheaper and I can't drink bottom shelf liquor!

-finis-

AppleHammerBee’s 40K Fiction

Disclaimer: Like Games Workshop would have anything to do with this. Nobody is going to make money off this half-assed travesty. Come on, let's use our brains here.

Assistant Shift Sister Leader Sergeant Ashleighcus paused for a moment, isolating and quickly analyzing the all-feeds vox chatter in their helmet.

Pandemonium in the pits of the Microwave Banks. 65% already reporting in high as hell.

The squad doing a sweep of the Dumpitorium was on the verge of breaking, reporting chudsplatter that somehow reached the three-foot mark of a wall. 

"This…this shouldn't be possible!" came the Sanitation Militarum commander's voice, crackling in and out. "Who could have done this?"

"Shut it down," they barked, cold and gravelly. "Let the rest shit their pants boothside like the others."

Not losing their focus on squad comms, they sidestepped a wave of shitlings who had escaped their booth containment.

It was then that Squad Host Fetal Benjamin, with whom they doggedly had maintained line of sight through the horror of early lunch, turned grimly to face them from his station. He didn’t have to say anything. Not 20 yards away, the first waves of doughy evangelicals disembarked from their shiny transports, milling about in benign-looking patterns that belied their utter lethality.

Another Sunday. Another slaughter.

They could feel their Greater Flair Gland — implanted within them via a Sanctioned PowerPoint delivered centuries ago, but still as fresh as a grill burn — responding instantaneously, blasting precious Auxiliary Fucks into their bloodstream.

This is the kind of trial that would have splintered an Applebee's.

But Store #773 was no normal Applebee's.

This was an Applebee's Astartes.

Hearing Pianos from Different Rooms: A Discussion and a Playlist

When a piano makes a chord, how far can it echo through your tissues?

To find out, I enlisted @TheJK — Breakup Gaming Society's Chief Spiritual Officer and author of the excellent Me Being Serious newsletter, which tracks both I Ching and cultural currents — for an interview.

We began with this quote I found in Hampton Hawes’ autobiography, Raise Up Off Me, and just went from there.

The piano was the only sure friend I had because it was the only thing that was consistent, always made sense and responded directly to what I did. Pianos don’t ever change. Sittin’ there every day. You wanna play me, here I am. The D is still here, the A flat’s still here, they’re always going to be there and it don’t matter whether it’s Sunday, Ash Wednesday or the Fourth of July. Play it right and it comes out right; mess with it and it’ll make you back up. A piano don’t lie. Check the prancing players with the sparkles in their eyes and the pretty fingernails flashing up and down the keyboard — listen closely and that’s all there is, just flash and icing, no more depth or meaning than a wood chip dancing down a waterfall. A keyboard is more consistent than life, it gives you back what you put into it, no more, no less. In the forties Bud Powell had grease in his veins and burned the motherfucker up; Thelonious Monk plays it strange and beautiful because he feels strange and beautiful. The piano was the first secure and honest thing in my life, I could approach it on my own and fail or be good. Straight to the point and quick.

THE JK: That's interesting about "It gives you back what you put into it." To me, the piano is a movie instrument. It's like a film camera.

You can say any instrument can paint a picture, but a piano with the right fingers can create sudden suspense, peace, or chaos (many will say any instrument can do this, and that's fine).

Other instruments, to me, often feel like they announce themselves coming and going more than a piano does. A piano feels slippery, and sneaky.

If piano was a planet, to me, it'd be Mercury. It can trick, it can communicate, it can be incredibly fast, it can be malleable.

Electric guitar or drums I'd probably say belonged to Mars. The microphone to the Sun, a sampler, like an MPC, to Saturn, since it can deconstruct and manipulate the dead.

But, piano, I'd say belonged to Mercury.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: OK, that was a lot to chew on and I want to get into some of this with you. I also love the piano, and know you to be both a serious head and a cerebral person. 

But I’ve noticed that while we share that reverence for music, a lot of the stuff — even within genres we both love, like hip hop and jazz — we gravitate to is wildly different. Like when I get drunk and text you all those random tracks and am stunned to learn that I was not, in fact, listening with your ears. 

I like the boogie and swing and stride. You like the fusion and funk and experimental stuff.

So what piano song these days is painting the trickiest pictures for you these days? 

Or help me understand a piano song you think of as classically mercurial and cinematic.

THE JK: Yeah, we do have different tastes with that.

There's nothing new at the moment that comes to mind, but I thought about some older stuff:

That DJ Premier beat sounds like a tiger creeping through an NYC alley.

Or for piano used a bit differently, you have "Runaway" by Kanye West.

There was an original version that doesn't have the buildup, but the album version has a plink that keeps hitting like a drop of water in the sink until the rest of the song comes rushing in.

As far as cinematic, the first thing that comes to mind is an actual movie (my favorite movie of all time): Eyes Wide Shut and this song: 

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: When you started talking about piano snippets in Golden Era joints, the first thing that bubbled up in my head was “Hip Hop Rules” by Boogie Down Productions off their Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop LP. It’s funny, not to oversimplify, but I feel like I’m drawn to the percussive qualities of the left hand while you’re thinking about how the right hand leads and makes moods.

Speaking of which, I haven’t watched Eyes Wide Shut since its theater release, but I do remember that piano figure that keeps repeating — it definitely seemed to carry the themes of menace and alienation in the movie. Halting, haunting, spare.

I had a buddy who was a true polymath who could write and play for piano and guitar. One summer he taught me how to pound out simple left-hand octaves with my left hand and mirror them with three-finger chords and he was always like, “Remember, the piano is a percussion instrument.”

One night we got wrecked in my folks’ home in Park Hill when they were gone somewhere and he videotaped us pulling off some stupid duet where I played the one thing I could do with the technique he taught me and he just effortlessly followed along. I didn’t have any knowledge, but I did have rhythm, and we just knocked the living hell out of that basic-ass melody until past midnight and that was probably one of the best nights of my life.

THE JK: Honestly, Return of The Boom Bap is probably the KRS album I return to the most, so I wasn't familiar with that song, but it's good. 

That is interesting, especially if the left and right hands serve different purposes while playing, because I wasn't aware of that. I dropped out of my piano class (along with many other classes) in college.

That's also interesting about the percussive instrument stuff. 

It sounds like a good time. I don't have any first-person stories like that, but my grandfather used to tell me his dad would play the piano drunk, sing songs in Austrian (or Czech, or Slovak, I don't know which one my family was using) and put his arm around him on some "My son!" shit.

That's one thing about piano, I guess, as shown by your story: It can be a collaborative instrument.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: We were piss poor on the farm in Missouri, but The Moms did have a piano. She tried to teach me. I was lazy and I quit. The plodding folk melodies in the beginner’s books blinded me with boredom. Trying to read the sheet music. Quarter notes, half beats, all the notation…it made me insane. I just wanted to boogie.

But before I ever got sat down for a lesson, I have this memory of approaching the keyboard with “Yankee Doodle” in my head. So I thought I was just going to sit down and play that shit. I started pecking at the keys thinking it was just going to come out. I was horrified at what I heard. How could this be? Why couldn’t I just bang out the song? So I think that’s one of the things that spoke to me in the Hawes passage, that envy of someone who can just sit down in front of that tool and work it, make what’s happening in their head happen with the keys and pedals.

I cannot tell you the size of the impression that hearing boogie woogie made on me when they’d play it during evening programs on the radio on whatever NPR affiliate my parents liked. I was transfixed. I revistied the giants of the ‘30s — Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, Meade Luxe Lewis — and I not only was still in love with it, but it started a growing sense in my mind that maybe I belonged to that time and not here. It leapt out the speakers with such immediacy that I swear I could understand being in the room the day it was made.

And back to that left hand: eight beats to the bar like a jackhammer, never tiresome in its repeating (well, because the right hand flourishes bring the melody out and the soloing was…basically rock and roll, except it’s 1938 or something). Like Freddie Slack said in “Down the Road a Piece,” “If you want boogie woogie, then you’ll get your fill/It’ll put the eight beats through you like an old steam drill.” That’s what happened. I am still marked by it and still return to it weekly and I love it so much it hurts me.

When people treat old jazz like ambient brunch music or lazy cultural shorthand or irrelevant, it makes me feel very lonely, it feels like I’m the only person alive in the room.

THE JK: Yeah, sheet music is a little too much for me. It feels like math. And this is coming from someone that dedicated their life to the I Ching.

I feel you, but I think we all have one talent or skill that would cause someone else to say "Wow," if they saw us putting it into action. Not to discount any masterful piano players or anything, I just think we all got a little something.

That's interesting you can pinpoint when exactly it was that the instrument put you in a headlock. I'm not sure I can do that.

I think a lot of people don't realize just how many styles of jazz are out there when they look at it that way. Of course, it's all dependent on personal tastes. There's a lot of masters in the past, but if the style isn't my kind of jazz, it won't really resonate.

Rap album liner notes were my gateway drug, and it led me to people like Ahmad Jamal.

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Yes, tracing samples back through time is crazy fun. That’s why I think I may get one more tattoo before I die: the Beatnuts logo, which they lifted off the Hank Mobley “Turnaround” LP. It’s all right there: the spirit of jazz and hip hop in one beautiful, organic, swirling arrow. (Funny side note: When “U Can’t Touch This” broke, did you ever meet anybody who heard that song before they heard “Superfreak” and they were like, “Heyyyy, he stole that from Hammer!” XD XD XD). I guess we could get on a different thread about the vanishing of historical awareness, but yeah.

So Ahmad Jamal. He algorthimed into my rotation last year. Now we’re back at the piano. 

My jam by him is “Poinciana” from a live ’58 recording. It’s miced exquisitely. The percussion is so crisp and warm at once. I kept it in my Likes because it is fairly long and it defied my expectations of what a ’58 cut would be: minute after minute, I’m waiting for the piano or a lead sax to erupt in solo, but it…just keeps gliding and gliding with subtle fillips here and there to keep you tickled. Patient and buoyant. Full of light. I love that song.

THE JK: I didn't realize they got their logo from that. Haa, I was only three years old when "U Can't Touch This" came out, and while I knew of the song when it dropped, I wasn't privy to those kinds of conversations. I did, however, get my uncles ribbing me about all of the stuff Puffy sampled in the late '90s, like "Kashmir."

I don't know that one off the top of my head, but I may have heard it. I don't know if there's someone I'd rather hear on the piano than him. 

It made me remember, though, that in my producing days I think I sampled him on this track I did for a friend: 

BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: Wait a goddamn minute. 

Did you just cap this with an original beat? Was not ready for that. God bless you. That’s a good loop.

One final question: you said drum and sampler energy issued from fundamentally different planets. So which planet belongs to the TR808 kick drum? Does it reside in the MPC/sampler bucket, the drum bucket, or does it have a star of its own? Your ruling will be accepted as final for purposes of this conversation.

THE JK: Thank you, man.

Haa, I mean, I'd say the sampler is a Saturnian device, but the 808 sound itself, I'd still say is a Mars thing. There's a reason crunk music threw that shit into everything. It's an inciting sound. 

It's a Martian ghost summoned by a Roland Ouija board, possessing us with the same conflict that caused the apocalyptic event that turned that planet into a red desert that billionaire neo-feudalists lust over.

-finis-

I’m the President Now, Check Out These Cool New Laws

Elections take too long and you never get to vote for anything cool, so I’m just declaring myself President of the United States now.

I am a deeply flawed man, but evidence suggests there are absolutely zero standards for inhabiting the Oval Office, plus a bunch of sitting Senators declared that elections where their guy doesn’t win don’t count anyway, so fuck it.

We are going to start doing a simple three-pillar policy now. I call them “Super Laws.” You can cite them in arguments. Just keep shaking your head and be like, “Not according to our New President’s Super Laws.”

1. ”Revolution” by Lazarus A.D. is now the National Anthem
Don’t worry about it if you don’t like thrash or if some members of the band turn out to be chodes, we can change it to a different song later if we want. For now we just need a song that’s not boring and racist.

2. Medicare for All
Of course we can pay for it. The UK has it and that island has a hollowed out economy and is chock full of belligerent subnormals. We can figure it out.

3. Texas is expelled from the Union.
Why wait for heavily armed diaper babies to make a move? Boot ‘em now. I will relocate all military bases to surrounding states and post the 7th Fleet up in the Gulf of Mexico in case they’re feeling themselves and want to try some cute shit.

Please enjoy these new Super Laws.

Chaotic Cocktails: Warped Drink Ideas Your Friends Will Hate

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only rehab.

Breakup Gaming Society proudly unveils the complete cycle of cocktails/shots dedicated to the four Ruinous Powers of Warhammer: 40,000.

Neither Games Workshop nor any of these fine distillers recommend doing any of this.

Fetid Haze (Featured on Ep. 5, “The Fruits of Decay”)
• 1 oz. Pikes Peak Hill Shine
• Generous dash of El Yucateco Green Chile Habanero Sauce
• Easy Cheese Cheddar 'n Bacon Cheese Snack.
To Prepare:
Shake Shine and Habanero then strain into shot glass rimmed with the cheese stuff.

The Butcher’s Nail (Featured on Ep. 27, “Debauchery at the Black Monarch Hotel”)
• 1 oz. Deviation Mountain Herb Gin
• Splash of Clamato
To Prepare:
Pour all ingredients into empty 12-gauge shell. Cover top with hand, pop on counter, down the hatch.

The Prince’s Palindrome (Featured on Ep. 19, “The Slaaneshi Super Shot That Gave Xian PTSD”)
• Boost Canned Oxygen
• Slaaneshi Combat Drug
• Yukon Jack Perma Frost Schnapps
To Prepare:
Arrange on table one shot glass of schnapps, then small pile of combat drug, then oxygen, then more combat drug, then another shot of schnapps. Chosen cultist must work their way through entire palindrome in less than 30 seconds or face the disfavor of Slaanesh.

Inoculation Against Predictability (Featured on Ep. 57, “I’m Tired Tell Me What to Drink and Play”)
• 1.5 oz. Basil Hayden Bourbon
• .25 oz. Galliano
• .25 oz. Goldschlager
• Angostura Cocoa Bitters
To Prepare:
Pour liquors into shaker with ice, add a few dashes of the cocoa bitters, strain into glass. For heightened effect, chase with one capsule of ground Psilocybin. Repeat four or five times, then call your parents and record it.

Check Out This Original Poem I Wrote

Flaptoast
You can keep your tendies and sauces

Tonight it's fresh off the wing
writhing and crunchy
and tearing holes in the bread with its final struggle

You thank the bird eye to eye
before the incisors snip the hollow neck
but only if you bear down like you mean it

This night is like no other

No you cannot connect to my speaker
we're not listening to your shit

Stop talking about Costa Rica
you were boring when you went to Costa Rica
and you were boring when you got back

The stars have moved again over the patio
and you're still sitting there
with your warbler on Sara Lee ready to go 
like you don't even know how to party

Bitch
I just made you flaptoast

Halley’s Comet: Hexagram 42, Line 3

“There should be a big book listing all the families that benefited by Halley’s Comet and all the rest of us that it doesn’t give two shits about.”
@TheJK, Breakup Gaming Society’s Spiritual Advisor

Persona-Based Podcast Marketing: Thoughts for 2022

In just two minutes and 27 seconds, I lay out the core strategy for keeping your listener base as small as possible.

Norman Invasions Reveal the Weakness of a Tattered Mind: Thoughts on Learning a New Solo Card Game

I’m playing as the Saxons in the Battle of Hastings.

The Normans are cranking out more and better units than I have. My central formation is about to collapse. I’m fine with this. Satisfied and proud, even, because getting this far required me to:

• Win a battle with my resentful and frenetic squirrel brain

• Accept that for this phase of my life, I chose to be a solo gamer in every sense of the word

Things already off to a poor start in my central formation, where the Normans (blue markers) are piling on damage faster than my forces.

A few years ago I deleted both my Twitter and Facebook accounts when I found myself unable to finish a long piece in Harper’s. I couldn’t focus long enough to follow a thought through one paragraph. It was like years of scrolling had left me neurologically damaged, deaf to the form I claimed to love and practice.

I have been feeling that attenuation again — finishing a day of scrolling irritable and distracted, like my body wanted food and instead I just ate AAA batteries all day.

So I carved out a recent morning to stay off the laptop and glue my ass to the chair and play several solo rounds of Tristan Hall’s 1066, Tears to Many Mothers.

I leapt from the chair often to pace and mumble or futz with dishes in the sink. My brain started to tell me I was hungry. I wasn’t. My keening pleasure centers just wanted something with a faster payoff.

Backing Into Self-Reliance
My pride and instinct for refusal has driven me further down Colorado’s I-25 corridor for decades. When I came to rest at this location just 11 miles north of the New Mexico border, all I had were my clothes and board games — and the fantasy of a golden bachelorhood where I would conjure acolytes and debauchers out of the desert soil.

The dusty games would spring back into motion under the paws of the newly amazed. I would hit this ZIP code like a comet, architecting unforgettable nights anchored by racks of my cherry wood-smoked ribs, straight moonshine and ruthlessly vetted beats.

This has been harder to do than I thought.

Once in a while The Chaplain (and another gent who I’m provisionally calling Nasty Naz, The Cajun-Flavored Ork) shows up on the doorstep and we have a proper ripper, usually while playing Space Hulk: Death Angel.

But The Chaplain works seasonal gigs around the region and is a sporadic communicator. There are a few dozen people in town who recognize me and will chat me up, but not anybody who seems interested in learning Spartacus or Splendor or Bohnanza, even when I dangle free liquor and a summer feast alongside. (In one of the least-employed counties in Colorado, there seems to be an awful lot of wildly busy people. Or maybe they’re going crazy and need ¾ of the day to contend with themselves, as I do.)

This is my second winter here; I need new strategies to reanimate this empty table and the figure in the mirror. Nobody’s coming over. The fantasy does not nourish. I must bear down and work this soil anew until a different shoot pokes through.

When you’re running this game solo, that dial in the background has six different difficulty levels labeled and tells you how many resources the enemy has to deploy cards on each game round. In the foreground is a bunch of mom tears.

The State of the Battle

1066, Tears to Many Mothers* is a card game for two people or one irascible divorcé. There’s a big deck of cards representing Norman stuff and another deck for the Saxons.

I saw echoes of my favorite game of all time in it: four categories of card in your hand; you must manage placement of these cards and the timing/cost of their effects to not only beat the other player, but do it in a gamespace that is a story unfolding on a map. (I will bet almost anything that Tristan Hall played Warhammer 40,000: Conquest at some point in his life.)

The cards depict fighting units, key nobles and vicissitudes of the season, all of which contend for dominance in three wedges — wedges being columns of cards that can be imagined as not only major formations and their leaders, but where the influence of off-battlefield actors and events manifests.

This is accentuated by a sideboard of objective cards for each player that represent major pre-battle events: As you develop your three wedges, you simultaneously have to “destroy” objective cards until you get to the Battle of Hastings, at which point the wedges transition from positioning and harassment actions to a pitched battle.

My job today is to place enough damage markers to knock out two of the three Norman wedges or kill their CEO, Duke William FitzRobert of Normandy, who has brought hundreds of ships across the Channel and is not fucking around.

As it stands, my second wedge is due to collapse any second. Duke William cleared his objective pile two full turns before I did. The Norman deployment machine, as regulated by the dedicated rules that automate its decisions, is already spitting out ranged units and cavalry.

On my side of the field, poor Harold Godwinson, Saxon King of England, barely has any fighters. He’s wounded and he’s already been screwed over by his brother, Tostig.

I’m playing on easy mode, and will finish out the remainder of this slaughter as a learning exercise. Minor gripe: It’s especially slow going as the solo rule booklet is essentially a concordance to the two-player booklet; you can’t dive in just using the solo rules, and I’ve spent many an hour with both booklets open, scanning back and forth for all the base-game directives and solo exceptions.

All that said, I like my new winter companion so far. The flow of the game has gelled. I need another play or two to iron out some minor steps I’m probably doing wrong. I need to get more familiar with the card effects and then I’ll start to form something of a strategy. Only then will I stop reading the sheet music and start hearing the song.

But it’s only December. Plenty of cold evenings ahead to work through it and eat the occasional bowl of soup. What’s the rush? I’m too tired to flee any further south. I might as well stay here and figure it out.

Analysis: The Saxons would have done much better at the Battle of Hastings if they’d gotten their Ork elites out earlier

*Special thanks to Jason Moore a.k.a. @A_deck_of_51 a.k.a. repairmanjack, whose prodigious body of solo game reviews was pivotal to rethinking how I enjoy my hobby and settling on 1066, Tears to Many Mothers.

Half-Assed Review of a Forgettable Whiskey

It was hot out. I was irritable and tired of pretending to care about this whiskey.

Or pretending that I knew anything about anything.

Several half-attempts here at reviewing Blue Note Juke Joint Whiskey.