Dionysus: Death [part2]
Chapter III: The Glass That Broke Dionysus
“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.” –Aristophanes. c. 450-385 BCE.
But I really shouldn’t.
From the beginning of human civilization, people have been getting totally wasted. Even the first recorded writers were boozing it up.#20 It all started with the domestication of cereal grains, which led to the accidental creation of beer, which led to both beer and bread becoming some of the world’s first currencies,#21 and eventually, this turned into a whole thing with beer and rum and wine and whisky and brandy becoming the currency to trade slaves with whilst also being rations to keep those very same slaves hydrated,#22 and it kept the slave traders themselves hydrated too, no doubt, making the slave traders slaves in their own way (to alcohol). It’s no surprise that alcohol became so popular, as humans need water to survive at far greater urgency than they need food; as such, early human civilizations always popped up around rivers and lakes,#23 but these waters were often unsafe to drink; so, booze was safer to imbibe than local water supplies; think about Oog’s sewage system, and then think about how he didn’t actually have a sewage system at all and instead just did his business in the nearby pond, and now think about drinking water out of that nearby Oog’s-business pond; considering this, if someone came up to you and said, “hey – check out this new drink, it’s not shit water and it tastes OK.” You are going to drink it, and on the plus side, it makes you feel a little silly and helps you forget about the wolf pack that keeps eating your chickens. And this is how alcohol came to control humanity.
According to Greek legend, Dionysus fled to Greece to escape beer-loving Mesopotamia, bringing with him delicious wine.#24 Wine, unlike beer, had a far more pleasant taste and its purple hues exude an air of royalty. When wine popped up after the accidental fermentation of fruit juice, it became the drink above all other drinks. Wine was an instant hit. People loved wine; still do. I love wine. In fact, back then, people started to perceive beer as a lowly peasant drink while wine was elevated to The Sophisticate’s Beverage; and this perception still exists to this day, considering the default beverage at any modern formal adult-oriented event (that is not a backyard cookout) is typically wine. Back in ancient times, beer and watered-down swill wine were rationed out to workers,#25 while the primo wines were hoarded by the upper class for both everyday drinking and massive parties; for example, the Greek symposiums, which were private men-only drinking parties where the mighty menfolk discussed such things as philosophy, the arts, and which combatant was going to get their head lopped off in the upcoming arena battle.#26 It is not an exaggeration to say that wine was the lifeblood of Greece and Rome; and if these ancient peoples survived off wine, then surely so could I.
I told myself: Alcohol is basically humanity’s best friend – who am I to deny that bond? The entire adult-industrial complex runs on beer and wine. After dark, corporate culture becomes drinking culture. I am not above it. I’ll just have one glass with Jordan and Anders, then I’ll duck out.
That night’s symposium was a glass table fit for four that overlooked the neon downtown in such a way that we looked as if we were engulfed in mystic fire. Anders was there tapping away at a glowy screen#27 between sips of brunette foam. As I took my seat, Jordan took a long look at me then said, “You wear an earring,” followed by one of those little “huh” sounds as if verbalizing a question mark; this was my second in-person interaction with the man, outside of him handing me a drink moments earlier.
(And, yes, I wear an earring; I have had a small white-gold hoop earring in my left ear for over sixteen years; in high school, I wanted so badly to look like Johnny Marr#28 from The Smiths that I emulated his messy Beatles-esque haircut plus single-earring aesthetic to a tee [all the coolest 90s British bands were doing this]; of course, my mom wouldn’t let me get the piercing done professionally [Southern belle energy, low-key catholic], so I resorted to having a friend force a sewing needle through my iced lobe. I don’t remember it hurting too much. The point is, yes, I wear an earring: I like both how it looks and what it symbolizes: that being my youth plus the influences that molded me into who I am today, for better or for worse. Sometimes I take the earring out to avoid awkward conversations like the one with Jordan in the previous paragraph; but also because some clients don’t want a man who wears an earring to manage their business; but they won’t outright tell you that, instead they’ll just look at you as if mentally signing cross#29 and snub you at every opportunity; this is more common of clients located in the deep American South, which is unfortunately where I live. This is what the corporate world does to you; it chips at your youth, chisels away your individuality so that it fits handsomely into a cheap suit. No one tells you to take out the earring; instead, you are subtly cajoled by an intangible-corporate-cultural milieu into adopting the standards of the majority; this is the “Company Culture” you hear so much about in job interviews and those mind-numbing all-hands meetings; it’s an unspoken tyranny of the majority.)
Jordan didn’t push the earring thing, probably because I could see his own pierced ear just missing the actual earring, so I figured he must have been a victim of the Company Culture too. I lifted that glass of red that Jordan so generously ordered for me and considered taking a sip. The symposium would be far more bearable if I just took a sip, I thought. In fact, wouldn’t it be offensive if I didn’t take a sip at all, considering Jordan bought the glass for me? But I knew what would happen if I drank that glass of wine: I. Would. Not. Stop. So I placed the glass down on the table and refocused my attention on Jordan and Anders, who were now early into a conversation about something having to do with balls – sports or whatever. I watched like a turtle out of its shell before Jordan turned to me and said something like, “Which team are you rooting for?” And I made the standard I-obviously-don’t-give-a-shit-about-any-of-this response of, “Well, I root for whichever team is winning at the time.” And this caused some laughter which may or may not have been genuine. Without drink, my mind’s eye was rolling faster than the rock after it had crushed Sisyphus and left him nothing more than a bloody impression on the mountain.
Within ten minutes, I was wishing for Mario Golf,#30 then sleep. I started to formulate an escape plan, but before I could do anything, Anders and Jordan launched into the inane-small-talk lightning round: how’s Beckham doing from a support perspective; do you have any plans for the upcoming July 4th weekend; do you think they will renew their contract; do you play any sports; why not; do you think there’s an opportunity to sell them our new AI software; how are the kids doing; is the one-year-old talking yet; I bet your ten-year-old daughter is becoming a real handful; what do you like to do in your spare time; have you seen Ted Lasso#31; isn’t it amazing; it’s really the best TV show ever; that Joe Biden is sure showing his age; the weather has been really weird lately; you don’t hear much about the war in Ukraine anymore; I let my sixteen-year-old drink sometimes but only at the house and only when I’m home to supervise; how about that Covid-19; what time are you getting up in the morning; why haven’t you touched your wine.
And of course, Anders repeated back every answer as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, as is his nature. And doubly of course, I was bored out of my skull; barely responsive; “get me out of here” written all over my face; might as well have been wearing one of those THIS-IS-WHY-I-DRINK t-shirts.
*it’s true.
(I will be switching to present tense for the next few paragraphs.)
This is hard to explain, but I’m going to try my best. I do not fit in. I have never fit in. I barely even fit in with groups that hold similar interests to me, and this publication is proof of that: I tackle computer games like social and personal problems, and as a result, my writing largely doesn’t appeal to the group I find myself writing to, that being quote-unquote gamers. I don’t care about sports (other than tennis, which I still don’t care that much about), and I don’t have the attention span to learn enough about the balls or the teams or who won the game last night to carry on a conversation, because I have limited free time and I would rather spend that time doing something that I care about. I am unwaveringly in my zone and refuse to budge. I can’t even go to dinner with clients without being laughed at because my diet is such that I eat like a nine-year-old who always orders plain pasta. I am functional, but I have a number of minor quirks like the pasta-eating thing that make people tack on one of the following adjectives when referring to me: weird, eccentric, quirky, creepy, abnormal, peculiar, and sometimes (by older people, and out of earshot) queer. I realize this all sounds very high school, and the truth is I haven’t changed much since then. When I’m not with my kids, I spend my free time reading literature, taking notes, writing essays, listening to music while taking notes, occasionally playing computer games, and sometimes I’m just pacing around thinking about these things. You would think I could talk to my peers about my interests, but no; salespeople see these interests as running counter to The Grind. If a salesperson reads, they read something like QBQ! The Question Behind the Question by John G. Miller#32; they don’t read I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki. If a salesperson listens to music, they listen to Tim McGraw, Guns ‘N’ Roses, and Queen (“We Will Rock You,” “We Are the Champions,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and maybe “Another One Bites the Dust”); they don’t listen to Fiona Apple, The Fall, and Pale Saints. If a salesperson plays computer games, it’s with their children between dinner and bedtime and only for thirty minutes because, to them, computer games are an unhealthy treat more akin to ice cream than broccoli. If a salesperson writes, it’s a business email with a bunch of jargon like “I’ll circle back with a touch base at the top of the hour once we have the bandwidth to support addressing these low-hanging fruits,” not a ten-thousand-word essay using the villain from Morrowind as an analogy for smartphones.33 I have nothing in common with my peers; and before you say it, I am not trying to hold myself on a pedestal above them – OK, well, maybe a little bit, but mostly not; my peers’ collective worldview produces positive outcomes for them, I recognize that; and my unorthodox worldview, coupled with my offbeat proclivities, has made socializing and even minor success more arduous than they need to be; and I do realize there are certainly those with much harder lives than myself; for example, anyone not born in a first-world country; in fact, you could only be like me if you were born in a first-world country to begin with, as anywhere else would beat the weird out of you early on. So yes, I am fully aware that I am privileged. I am fully aware that I am a bit of a navel-gazer, also. I can’t help it. I try to work within the framework handed down to me by a mixture of biology, split-custody parenting, Headmaster Ritual-like#34 schooling, and one-summer-at-military-camp, run through a personality type consisting of unyielding contrarianism with a touch of bashfulness which creates a cognitive dissonance that settles itself somewhere between “I’m just going to fake it until I make it” and “Please kill me now.”
Adding another sprinkle of cognitive dissonance into the mixture, I can’t blame Jordan and Anders for being all about The Grind; and in some ways maybe they’re better off than I am for unflaggingly respecting it; they chase money to provide a better life for their families in the same way I do, but they don’t hate themselves for it; they see The Grind as Just How It Is, Man. I, too, see The Grind as Just How It Is, Man, but also that it doesn’t have to be this way and surely there is more to life than this. The problem is, I think too much; and it’s not a good thing. People will often try to put a positive spin on overthinking by saying something like, “Thinking too much is a superpower!” But thinking too much is not a superpower when you’re thinking yourself off a balcony. Thinking too much is not a superpower when you think yourself into repressing your identity and, as a result, no one truly understands you, not even your own family, because you can’t open up to anyone outside of writing long run-on paragraphs about your cosmic angst on the internet.
I just can’t get over myself. I’ve tried. The fact that I considered deleting this entire section because it might make me seem like an egomaniacal sociopath yet decided to leave it uncut is further proof that I just can’t get over myself. I have never belonged, and it’s my own damn fault. I have especially never belonged in the corporate world. I’m the antithesis of corporate. I hate corporate, yet I am corporate. I am a cog in the machine of my own ruin. I perpetuate my own despair. Steven Brag thinks I should quit my job, maybe he’s right.
(I am now switching back to past tense.)
So, when I raised that purple alchemy to my lips and the pungent redolence of every good time I’ve ever had whilst wasted wafted through my nostrils, how could I resist? I could make the cosmic angst go away. All I needed was one glass of ancient grapes, and I would return to my rightful place in the Software Pantheon: Dionysus.
That velvety serum spilled down my throat, coating my stomach in a thin layer of viscous violet. I took another sip; and another; and another; and another. Soon I was on my second glass. Jordan was buying. I remember his laughter. I remember bonding over tennis, coworker gossip, and the fantasy of the perfect father-son relationship; and we talked about all this for some time. Jordan said many times, “Hey – you know, despite that earring, you’re not so bad!” I remember there was a shared plate of french fries that was accidentally drenched in wine, so we ordered another plate. More laughs. At some point, I got up from the symposium and demanded a cigarette from a nearby group of young men, a cigarette that they, apparently, did not have, but I insisted that they did; “Just look at you guys, one of you has to have a cigarette – don’t tell me you all vape!” And their responses were less than kind. More laughter. Nothing mattered. Dionysus was on the rooftop.
When I returned to the symposium, literally amongst the clouds, toasting my glass of cabernet to the neon below, cigaretteless and unfettered and nearly falling over, there was a shot of tequila waiting there for me. The Software Pantheon then took a round of shots; and another; and another; and another. And the next thing I remember was that cognitive trickery when you stare at someone’s face while upside down and your brain tries to make sense of the upside-down face but only ends up morphing it into something out of a bad shrooms trip. I remember being scared. I remember saying something like, “I gotta go back to my room now – anyone know my room number?” I remember panicking. And then nothing.
That’s it – that’s all I remember.
Chapter IV: Blackout
“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.” –“On the Orator”. Book by Marcus Tullius Cicero, I. 5, 55 BCE.
I want to use this chapter to take a break from the story and reflect on what’s happened so far. I also want to cover some scientifical and philosophical details about the number one human pastime: drinking alcohol.
There are two types of alcohol-induced blackouts. The first is called a “fragmentary blackout,” commonly referred to as a “brownout” and sometimes as a “grayout.” A person is considered to have experienced a brownout when they can recall some events from a night of drunken partying, but not all the events; a person may be prompted to remember the missing bits by verbal and situational cues. The second type of alcohol-induced blackout is referred to as an “en block blackout”; this is a true blackout in which the person experiencing the blackout cannot remember what happened during the period of intoxication and no amount of prompting can remind them. A true blackout results in permanent memory loss. Those under the effects of either type of blackout are not necessarily incapacitated; they may appear to be functional and able to complete complex tasks, they simply won’t remember doing those complex tasks. The science is still out on the exact mechanics at play here, although the general consensus is that when a person raises their alcohol level too high within a small window of time, it effectively shuts down their hippocampus, which is the region of the brain that turns short-term memories into long-term memories. However, the amount of alcohol needed for this to happen varies from person to person and can be hastened by others factors such as medication, weight, exhaustion, overheating, and lack of sleep.#35
Forget about the physical implications of this for a second; let’s consider the philosophical stuff instead. Philosophically, alcohol-induced blackouts are tree-falls-in-the-woods levels of weird. Schrodinger’s alcoholic: If you blacked out but there were no witnesses, did you actually exist at all during that period? You could have killed someone and hidden the body really well, but you will never know unless a police officer shows up at your door: “We found the body; it has your DNA all over it.” Pretend, for a moment, that you died and no one remembered you – did you exist at all? And if you did, what would have been the point if no one remembered? Memory is one of the few things we rely on for a sense of permanence; this is partly why conditions like Alzheimer’s and anterograde amnesia are so tragic.#36 We value a sense of continuity, and this continuity breaks when memories go missing. When we choose to drink alcohol, we willingly submit ourselves to this paradoxical missing-memory flux, the only question is: why? My slight cheekiness belies a deadly seriousness, because this is spooky stuff. If this paradoxical state of maybe-happened-maybe-not doesn’t stop someone from drinking alcohol, I have no idea what will.
But enough about the philosophical stuff, maybe you don’t care about all that and think it’s a bit eggheaded, and that’s fine. Instead, let’s talk about how alcohol impacts the sense of self and how that impacted sense of self is especially dangerous when coupled with the possibility of a blackout.
It’s said that alcohol brings out a person’s true self, but I have never subscribed to this line of thinking in a strict sense (and I’m aware that this could very well be motivated reasoning due to my possible alcoholism, but bear with me). When someone says that alcohol brings out a person’s true self, they mean something like, “you got drunk then flirted with that guy because you want to fuck that guy,” and then they draw the conclusion of “and because you want to fuck that guy, you don’t love me”; therefore, alcohol has brought out this hypothetical partner’s true self: the whore of Babylon who only wants to sleep around and is not capable of loving anyone except themselves. However, I posit that this “wanting to sleep around” just exists inside all of us by default, and when we are in our right mind, we can reason it away with logic and all-around good sense; consider this line of thinking, “I do find Person B attractive, but I am in a committed relationship with Person A whom I like very much; therefore, I will not sleep with Person B because it will damage the relationship with Person A.” I would then posit that anyone who finds this line of thinking faulty is a liar who is not ready to have honest conversations about what’s going on inside themselves.
What I’m trying to say is: there exists within us this ancestral being, let’s call him#37 Oog, that wants to fuck and fight, but our higher cognitive ability can reason Oog back into his cave. We, as humans, have a higher cognitive ability than non-human animals,#38 and this higher cognitive ability erects barriers around the Ancestral Oog. These barriers are based on both hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary biology and everyday learned experience; these barriers then form the basis of our individual personalities; not only our outward persona, but our inward ego too. So, if alcohol brings out the “true self,” then what it’s really doing, according to my possibly total bullshit theory, is tearing down the barriers that keep the Ancestral Oog in his cave. If the lesson then is, “all true self is Ancestral Oog,” then I would follow-up with this question: Is our true self defined by the primal urges we fantasize about in our minds, or by the personae we construct and strictly adhere to throughout our entire lives?
If we can agree that alcohol brings out the Ancestral Oog, then we can agree that alcohol is dangerous; and if we couple this with the fact that alcohol can turn off your memories whilst also bringing out Ancestral Ogg, then we can concede that alcohol is very dangerous; and if we concede that alcohol can do all of this whilst also being physically and psychologically addictive,#39 manipulating a person to think about consuming alcohol and giving them the violent shakes whenever they are alcoholless, then we can concede that alcohol is very very dangerous indeed.
But, Dionysus doesn’t care about any of this. “I am not manipulated by liquids.” Dionysus tells himself.
Chapter V: The Morning After
“I have never blacked out. That’s what I told myself.” –Me (the author). Two chapters ago.
I woke to a blaring WOO-HOO! Mind swirling, lamp flickering, skin crawling, sheets drenched, head throbbing, and my hands were damp and sticky. I spun myself into an intricate web of white linens as I flailed my hands, searching for the source of Blur’s “Song 2,”#40 which happened to be my phone’s ringtone; Graham Coxon’s rhythmic strumming and that fuzzy bass tone, mixed with the flashing lamp, were driving my headache to levels of living hell that I had not known existed; every note was a wince; every time Damon Albarn opened his very British mouth, I, too, opened my mouth: to scream expletives. I soon realized that the noise was coming from the dresser on the opposite side of the room,#41 so I rolled myself out of bed onto my knees and crawled to the source. I must have looked like a Roman who had one too many glasses of wine at the symposium and accidentally crawled into a time portal leading to a rock concert in a seedy British pub because I was completely nude besides some linens loosely wrapped around my lower half like a makeshift toga. The lamp continued to flicker. My head continued to pound.
After crawling my way to the dresser, I slung my hand over the top, fruitlessly patting around for my phone until I forced myself to my feet to pick up the thing. I answered with a gruuhgg that sounded like hello in my mind, and I was greeted with a “Rough night last night?” It was Jordan: “I called you like ten times. You’re lucky we didn’t leave without you. Get your ass down here.” I could hear faint laughter behind the static. I said something that sounded like “Yeah, be right there” before dropping the call almost as fast as my stomach dropped.
My entire gastrointestinal tract tied itself into a constrictor knot in real time; every pull of my intestines, every twist of my stomach: felt. I deadeyed the wall as my insides rearranged themselves and I was overcome by the horror that everything was my fault. History was repeating itself: I had gotten wasted, overslept, and was going to be late for the Beckham Golf Charity Event, again.
Pushing through the horror, I resolved myself to take the blame for The Software Pantheon’s collective golf tardiness. I had never been one to lie about my behavior, and there was no opportunity to do so considering Jordan and Anders were both witnesses to my Dionysian ritual madness.
*death and his brother blackout.
Knowing that I had little time to get ready, I swiftly approached my suitcase and removed a pair of khaki shorts, some socks, and a white aloha shirt dotted with an almost-psychedelic flower pattern. Before throwing the shirt on, I relocated to the bathroom and took a look at myself in the mirror; I looked fine besides messy hair, purple lips, and sleep-crusted eyes, which I hastily fixed before brushing my teeth and gargling mouthwash. Then I noticed that the standing shower was wet and there was a goopy darkness with chunks clogging the drain, but I could not remember taking a shower the night before; and the goop: was that vomit? I threw my shirt on then headed back into the main room. I inspected the flickering lamp, the switch was in a not-fully-pressed position, and fixing that fixed the flickering, but I noticed the hard-paper lampshade was ripped and dented: was the lampshade always like this? I turned to the bed and saw streaks of purple across the sheets and mattress; I reached out to touch the streaks, to see if they could be rubbed off, but they were stained and would not even smear: was this wine? As I explored the room further, I noticed several out-of-place oddities that could not be explained: my laptop was flipped over on the small hotel desk, the mouse was missing, cards from my wallet were scattered all over the floor, the hotel mini-fridge was ajar and empty, a dry towel was draped over the flat-screen television, the television itself was tuned to a dead channel, faint purple handprints were all over the walls, and a half-eaten granola bar was on the floor near the trash can.
Surely, I was the cause of all these things, but how come I couldn’t remember any of it? Did I black out? But I have never blacked out before. How did I even get to my room last night? I remembered not knowing my room number, so who helped me into my room? Did that person enter the room with me? Did that person damage the lampshade? Did I get into a fight with that person? But I didn’t have any visible injuries. Was it a woman from the bar? Did I cheat on my wife? Did I call my wife? Maybe my wife gave me my room number? That must have been it; I must have called my wife; she must have given me the room number and then helped me get to my room.
I wanted to prove the wife theory, so I checked my phone’s call log and saw that several calls were made to my wife around 1 AM, but she didn’t answer any of them. I then opened Signal (our preferred messaging app) and found two video messages that I had sent to her: The first featured an incredibly trashed version of myself panicking about my forgotten room number: “How am I going to get back to my room? I don’t know where I am. Should I go to the front desk? Babe, are you there?” And the second was sent twenty minutes after the first; in the second recording, I could tell I was in my hotel room by the pattern on the wallpaper in the background, and I was rambling on and on about wanting to talk to someone while complaining about how sick I felt, all barely comprehensible. There was only a single message after the final video, it was from my wife: “You need to get some sleep. I hope you feel better in the morning. I love you.”
I still don’t know how I got back to my room that night, or how I’m not divorced yet.
My wife must have been worried sick; not to mention all the other times that I had done this to her. I thought of how she must have worried about me all those nights, out late on business trips, getting near blackout drunk (but never having blacked out before!) and all the possible trouble I could have been getting into – legal, romantic, or otherwise – only this time, I couldn’t remember if I had gotten into any legal-romantic-or-otherwise trouble at all. What if her fears came true? How would I even know?
I attempted to puzzle out the remainder of my drunken night with the accidental clues left behind by my stupid self, but the trail grew cold and I was forced to come to grips with the fact that I had blacked out. But I didn’t want to believe it. I had never blacked out before. I had told myself that I was immune. I had told myself that I was Dionysus.
But gods don’t black out, do they?
Footnotes:
#20. This isn’t a stretch, considering that the first writings were recorded in Uruk (modern-day Iraq) and date back to the 4th millennium BCE and that by the beginning of the 4th millennium BCE, wine and beer were produced in many locations in Mesopotamia.
ThoughtCo. (n.d.). History of alcohol: A timeline. Retrieved July 18, 2024, from https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-alcohol-a-timeline-170889
#21. I’m quoting the full paragraph here for the historical context, not because the passage is particularly well written or “awesome” (as the author of the article might put it) but because I want to rag on it a little bit: “As this approximately 5,000-year-old clay tablet shows, workers in ancient Mesopotamia were actually paid for their toil in daily beer rations – a form of remuneration which seems pretty awesome when you first think about it… and then just keeps on staying awesome the longer you think about it.”
I’m not sure how “awesome” getting paid in beer would be now that I think about it, considering beer slows you down and makes your work suffer; plus, as a natural diuretic, you’d be peeing all the time and might quickly become dehydrated; plus plus, I’m not sure I’d like to be out in sweltering heat with a buzz pissing all the time; the thought of that alone makes me uncomfortable. So, “beer rations” and “beer currency” were probably not awesome at all.
ScienceAlert. “This 5,000-Year-Old Clay Tablet Shows Ancient Mesopotamians Were Paid for Work in Beer.” ScienceAlert, 18 June 2020, www.sciencealert.com/this-5-000-year-old-clay-tablet-shows-ancient-mesopotamians-were-paid-for-work-in-beer.
#22. Strange, isn’t it? A whole market of slave-made rum in which that slave-made rum is then used to trade for more slaves to make more slave-made rum. Nonsensical, almost. (I’m sure some of that rum was used for other trades/purchases, which makes a little more sense.)
Got Rum?. “The Dark Side of Rum.” “Got Rum?”, https://www.gotrum.com/the-rum-university/rum-in-history/the-dark-side-of-rum/.
#23. All animals need water. Makes sense to build your mud hut near a lake or a river. All the biggest mud-hut fans were doing it, eventually forming mud-hut communities, which eventually formed mud-hut towns, mud-hut cities, mud-hut kingdoms. This all happened in an area now called “The Cradle of Civilization,” or modern-day Iraq roundabout.
Lumen Learning. “River Valley Civilizations.” “World Civilization”. SUNY, courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldcivilization/chapter/river-valley-civilizations/.
#24. The class-based associations surrounding beer and wine have existed since ancient times, and this short mythological story illustrates this long association. When Greece, and eventually Rome, emerged, Mesopotamia had a reputation for being a land full of barbarians, and since the preferred drink of Mesopotamia was beer, beer was associated with barbarians. As such, Dionysus fled Mesopotamia to escape the beer-loving barbarians and settled in Greece (and eventually Rome), bringing with him delicious, civilized wine. This association persisted through time, with wine typically being the focal beverage of formal dinners, banquets, weddings, galas, balls, etc., while beer is typically served at sporting events, barbecues, tailgate parties, and Lollapalooza. (Preemptive possible-total-bullshit warning.) Beer may have morphed into its standard can variety due to that mode of liquid transport being conducive to portability, adapting to the wild nature of the events at which it is served; whereas wine has (typically) stayed in a stemmed glass for careful sipping while sitting amidst something very fancy (or something).
“Chemistry in the Ancient World: A Brief History.” “Chemical & Engineering News”, vol. 10, no. 12, 2004, pp. 12-16. American Chemical Society, https://pubsapp.acs.org/subscribe/archive/tcaw/10/i12/html/12chemchron.html.
#25. Similar to [21], wine was frequently used as rations in the ancient world, especially in ancient Rome. There were many types of rationed wine, with most lower class people receiving watered-down swill wine; one such diluted variant was called “posca,” which was a blend of water and nearly-vinegar wine; less acidic than vinegar, it still retained some of the wine’s aroma and texture. Additionally, there is written record of Marcus Porcius Cato (or Cato the Censor or Cato the Elder, Roman senator, 234–149 BC) suggesting that slaves should receive a weekly ration of 5 liters of posca, so there is a substantial historical record of wine being used as a ration for both citizens and slaves.
Standage, Tom. “A History of the World in 6 Glasses”. Walker & Company, 2005.
Phillips, R. “A Short History of Wine”. HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 35-45. ISBN 0-06-621282-0.
#26. A symposium (sometimes “sympsion” or “symposia”) was indeed a men-only drinking party in Greece, typically taking place after a big meal. I had this idea to draw a comparison between symposiums and corporate drinking culture, the latter of which is heavily male-dominated, just as the former was. Corporate drinking culture is interesting in that women aren’t outright discouraged from participating, but women who choose to join “the boys” at the bar after working hours are typically looked down upon as loose women, the logic being, “What woman in her right mind would want to be surrounded by a bunch of drunk dudes?” This standard, of course, does not go both ways, as men who surround themselves with a lot of women are often lauded and held on a pedestal by other men. I’m sure there is something in here about “the patriarchy” and men’s unbalanced influence over history and culture (and how this is still happening to this day in sometimes equally overt ways), but that is the subject of another essay (an essay that I am not qualified to write). One could draw a comparison between golf and a symposium as well, as golf is a heavily male-dominated sport with a focus on “getting away from the wife and kids to drink on the green with the boys.” Add in the fact that old-school (and very politically incorrect) golfers consider tee boxes closer to the hole “ladies tee boxes,” and you have the whole gamut of misogyny at play (this “ladies tee box” is covered in the last chapter of this essay).
For more information on symposiums:
“Symposium.” “World History Encyclopedia”, World History Foundation, https://www.worldhistory.org/Symposium/
#27. The year is 2024 and everyone is literally looking at phones, myself included. You, reader, probably looked at your phone within the last 5 minutes; you might even be reading this on your phone. I could write a whole ten-chapter essay on phones (see [33]) and how they’re ruining our attention spans and how even though phones have given us an accessible wealth of knowledge right in our pockets we are more stupid than ever before and how The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year and how phones nowadays seem designed in such a way that babies as young as 8 months old can figure out how to swipe left and right and access YouTube and how parents are just giving children unfettered access to phones which is exposing kids to radical echo chambers thereby ensuring an early descent into partisan hackery and how work-life balance has been entirely eroded by the fact that clients/managers can just call you on your phone while you’re at the beach on a weekend. I could keep going, but I am going to leave it alone for now.
#28. This is it; you can’t get Cooler than this.
#29. The sign of the cross (sometimes called “blessing oneself” or “crossing oneself”) is a common “ritual blessing” hand gesture resembling a cross that old-school Christians do when they see something or someone that does not conform with their narrow worldview. Black clothing? Sign of the cross. Man with earrings? Sign of the cross. Baby out of wedlock? Sign of the cross. Women showing ankle? Sign of the cross. Someone uses the word “crap.” Sign of the cross. Two women holding hands? Sign of the cross. Using proper terms for anatomy instead of stuff like “dinky” and “wee wee.” Sign of the cross. (Note that they won’t sign the cross when someone pretends to eat the corpse or drink the blood of some long-dead guy.)
#30. You almost forgot, didn’t you?
#31. I have not seen Ted Lasso; my contrarian bones will not allow me to watch it due to the superabundance of praise it gets from corporate goons and other people whose personalities are just polo shirts and self-help seminars. I’ve been on corporate calls where scenes or images from Ted Lasso are incorporated into the presentations; there’s always some sort of super deep life/business/leadership lesson that Ted Lasso can impart unto you according to these guys, but it’s always some real basic stuff like “Ted makes a lot of mistakes but doesn’t dwell on the past” and “Ted is always moving forward” and “Courage isn’t fearlessness – it’s doing the things even when you’re afraid!” Ted Lasso is the type of show that sports dads let their young kids watch and spin it as a mature growing-up moment, as if 29 to 30-minute episodes of a television show can impart some grand wisdom on their children so that they (the parents) don’t have to; “Now son, this show is a little mature but I think you’re ready for it and I want you to pay close attention when Ted loses the game here.” I just can’t with Ted Lasso. Maybe it’s good, but I’ll never know. Why am I like this?
#32. This is a super specific example, isn’t it? The reason it’s included is because this book was required reading at the company I worked for when writing this. The book is very much like Ted Lasso in that it’s all basic life lessons about personal responsibility, stuff like “stop blaming everyone around you – take action instead” and “ask better questions like ‘what can I do to make this better’ instead of ‘who dropped the ball here?’” etc. etc. I actually read this entire book in one sitting (not impressive, it’s like 70 pages); it wasn’t offensive but I didn’t get much from it. I did leave one note on the author’s claim that “stress is a choice”; my note was (is): “This is true maybe 20% of the time – chemicals exist in the brain.”
#33. See: Gods Among Men and Mer or: SOTHA SIL IS DEAD
#34. “The Headmaster Ritual” is the opening track of The Smiths 1985 album Meat Is Murder. The lyrics are about the belligerent abusive ghouls that run Manchester schools. English pop star Kirsty Macoll has described the song as “probably one of the best songs about being at school that I’ve ever heard.” Trying to describe the song’s greatness would not do it justice, just listen to it here.
#35. All the information in this paragraph is captured within the following source:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Interrupted memories: Alcohol-induced blackouts. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/interrupted-memories-alcohol-induced-blackouts
#36. Alzheimer’s disease is a neurological disorder causing brain cells to degenerate, leading to a gradual decline in mental faculties, including the retention of memories and the ability to process information. Those impacted typically cannot function without supervision, and they will eventually forget the name of the person supervising them, which is tragic for both parties. Anterograde amnesia (or “Transient Global Amnesia”) is a special kind of memory loss where you can’t make new memories after the condition starts. You remember everything from before the amnesia kicked in, but anything new slips away almost immediately. This can happen because of brain injuries, illnesses, or even certain drugs, and it’s sometimes seen in late-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Mayo Clinic Proceedings. “Relationship between Coffee Drinking and Risk of Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-analysis.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, vol. 89, no. 10, 2014, pp. 1370-1381, https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(14)01077-5/fulltext
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Alzheimer’s Disease.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 6 July 2023, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20350447
#37. The use of “he/him” pronouns for Oog is deliberate (and kind of cheeky); I will let you draw your own conclusions on that.
#38. The fact that I’m writing this piece shows that I have a higher cognitive ability than a pig (for example). The reason this footnote exists, however, is for me to go on a tangent about animal suffering; or, at least, direct you to a tangent about animal suffering that I wrote almost a year before writing this piece. Some (humans) use this humans-are-more-intelligent-than-other-animals thing as a way to handwave the suffering of animals they see as “lesser” than them, mostly in an effort to justify the hotdog they’re stuffing down their throats; however, it does not follow that because we are smarter than other animals we should be able to harm other animals; it does follow, however, that we ought to use our higher intellect to minimize the suffering of animals, both human and non-human, because we are the most well-equipped to do so.
#39. People often overlook the physically addictive qualities of alcohol; long-term heavy drinking can make the body crave alcohol, as the body becomes accustomed to it, and if the drinker suddenly stops, they may experience shaking, nausea, profuse sweats and, in extreme cases, shock and/or death. Personally, I have never experienced these physical symptoms, probably because I have never imbibed enough for my body to become fully dependent on alcohol, but I have experienced the psychological recursive alcohol loops that produce endless justifications for drinking and the negative mood shifts that come with missing the habitual nightly drinks.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.-b). The cycle of alcohol addiction. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addiction
#40. “Song 2” starts with a four-bar drum loop that bursts into a hurricane of fuzz after Damon Albarn (singer/frontman of Blur) screams “WOO-HOO!”; reminiscent of American alternative rock of the 90s; the song is instantly memorable, alarming, and iconic; arguably Blur’s biggest hit, at least in the States. Many people in the U.S. only know Blur by this song and not their other huge U.K. hits such as “Girls & Boys,” “Beetlebum,” “Parklife,” “Popscene” (one of my personal favorites), and “Coffee & TV” (another favorite). “Song 2” sounds almost like an entirely different band when compared with Blur’s other work, the latter of which can only be described as some the most British music I have ever heard complete with pinky-finger-raising tea cups, bowler caps, cricket, Monty Python, running out of bog roll at the local pub, and fish and chips. One of the reasons for “Song 2” sounding so different is that, according to Graham Coxon (lead guitarist), the song was intended to be a prank on their record label who demanded a palatable U.S. single, so Blur wrote “a hit” in the form of a grunge parody that ended up being a true hit within the community they were parodying. Listen to the song here.
#41. I’m sure others do this too, but just as some added context: I place my phone away from the bed so that it’s out of arm’s length when I need to wake up early the next morning; this forces me to get out of bed to turn the alarm off, and the extra step of getting out of bed seems to help keep me out of bed. I only do this when the occasion is important, like the Beckham Golf Charity Event (obviously).
(Originally published on 7/19/2024)