Damien Galeone

Writing articles for kids has opened my eyes to a lot of different things. Mostly this is how much I didn’t know. I used to read these articles in coursebooks and think ‘wow, how did this person come up with this stuff?’ and then I would act as though I knew this information.

Thea reality is, this information is come across now and then when you get off of Reddit and read things called ‘books’ and ‘articles’. Here are some weird things I’ve learned this week in my writings.

The first known author was a priestess in ancient Mesopotamia. Not only did she write about and tributes to her favorite gods, she is the first person to write autobiographical information. One of the things she wrote about was how much politicians suck. There was a contingent of politicians and rulers who were trying to remove her from power. The first (known) writing we can attach to a name and the person is complaining about politicians. We never stood a dog damned chance, did we? Also, had they succeeded she might have been executed, banished, exiled, or gone through a humiliation ritual – things which we should bring back for politicians who, say, try to overthrow the government because they’re orange petulant man-children.  

There was a thing called the ‘Great Emu War’. It took place in Australia in 1932. The Australian military deployed soldiers armed with machine guns to combat this infestation of emus in Western Australia. And the soldiers lost. While humans have waged wars on infesting species before and since (wolves, toads, pythons, republicans) this – as far as I know – is the only ground campaign against a non-human enemy. And we lost. The message – don’t fuck with nature or things that live in Australia, and definitely don’t fuck with both at the same time.

However, there was something known as the Battle of the Frogs and Mice. This occurred in Ancient Greece and was mentioned by the poet Homer as a bizarre legend about a battle between frogs and mice. According to the story, the mice sought to avenge the death of their king by waging war against the frogs. The battle was said to have taken place in a swamp, with the frogs ultimately emerging victorious. But we all knew that.

Some communities in the U.S. throw cow poop as part of local festivities on July 4^th. While most American communities limit their creative activities on July 4^th to bald eagle meet and greets or a vast number of eating contests (hotdogs, watermelon, pie), some use it as a way to get things away from them – such as cow poop. Other communities dress up their animals in American flags and march them in parades. Just as John Adams would have wanted.

Please keep alert on this April Fool’s Day. We have been duped by left-handed hamburgers, toilet paper shortages, and attacking Martians. And I put it beyond no person on the right wing of American politics to try to instigate something insane and then claim it was an April Fool’s joke. And, well, I put it beyond nobody who supports right wing politics to eagerly believe it. Don’t drink too much. Pay attention. And remember, other channels exist.   

From Bacchanalias to Flappers: A Look at History’s Worst Drunken Shindigs

Find a drink and then find another. We need to wander down the road of history’s most legendary, and arguably stupid, oh and drunken parties. From ancient Rome to modern times, humanity has a knack for turning festivities into fiascos, and these shindigs take the cake (or should we say, the keg).

1. The Bacchanalias of Ancient Rome: Back in the days of togas and laurel wreaths, the Romans knew how to throw a party. But none could quite compare to the Bacchanalias – wild, wine-soaked festivals dedicated to the god of wine, Bacchus. Picture this: a drunken frenzy of dancing, singing, and debauchery that would make even the rowdiest frat party blush. Let’s just say things often got out of hand, with revelers running amok through the streets, clad in nothing but grape leaves and a whole lot of liquid courage.
2. The Royal Masquerade Ball of 1392: In medieval Europe, masquerade balls were a popular pastime among the aristocracy. However, at the Royal Masquerade Ball of 1392, things took a turn for the chaotic. As guests donned elaborate masks and extravagant costumes, confusion reigned supreme when the king accidentally swapped masks with the court jester. What followed was a series of hilariously awkward encounters as the king found himself mistaken for the jester, and vice versa. Let’s just say it was a night of mistaken identities, royal blunders, and more than a few misplaced jests.
3. The Whiskey Rebellion Bash of 1794: In the early days of the United States, tensions ran high over the government’s attempts to impose a whiskey tax. In protest, farmers and distillers banded together in what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. But what started as a serious political protest quickly devolved into a rowdy party when a group of rebels decided to raid a government warehouse stocked with confiscated whiskey. As barrels were tapped and spirits flowed freely, what began as a protest turned into a raucous whiskey-fueled bash, complete with rebel yells and impromptu square dances. It was a rebellion unlike any other, where the only casualties were a few sore heads and bruised egos.
4. The Gin Craze of 18th Century London: Fast forward a few centuries to merry old England, where the streets ran rampant with gin-soaked madness. The Gin Craze of the 1700s saw Londoners guzzling gallons of the juniper-infused spirit faster than you could say “hiccup.” Gin shops popped up on every corner, offering cheap booze to the masses – with disastrous consequences. From drunken brawls to hallucinatory visions, it was like a scene straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy, minus the poetic dialogue and with a lot more vomiting.
5. The Roaring Twenties Prohibition Parties: Ah, the Jazz Age – a time of flappers, speakeasies, and bathtub gin. Prohibition may have outlawed alcohol, but it certainly didn’t dampen the party spirit. In secret underground clubs, bootleggers and flappers danced the Charleston ’til dawn, fueled by illegal hooch and a healthy disregard for the law. It was a time of excess and rebellion, with gangsters and socialites rubbing elbows in a boozy blur of bathtub gin cocktails and illicit jazz music.

It is very clear to me that the things in my house have lives of their own. My backpack ends up next to my bed all the time. He wants to be close to me. My toaster has a knack for ending up in unusual places. This is why I try to be nice to her. I take baths sometimes.

My shirts button themselves all the way from bottom to top when I’m not looking. Burke swears it’s not her and since I am a lighter sleeper than her, I can’t imagine she’s doing it without my notice. The cat doesn’t have opposable thumbs and anyway, she’s always gone for the unbuttoned look. The dog, well, the dog can’t climb all the way up there, you know. And yet, every day I take out a shirt, every single button is done.

I seem to recall that a lot of my childhood was taken up by watching movies where things come to life and have adventures while their owners are otherwise engaged. Toys, toy soldiers, a brave little toaster, Christmas gifts. All of it wreaking havoc. But the inanimate objects in my home seem to be active and very boring.

My couch is just a bit of a dick. It complains about my choice of TV shows and moans about my snack choices. I’ve been trying to pick out better snacks but it’s hard. At the store today I was struck by the sadness that I am trying to impress a couch with food. My microwave randomly changes its cooking times. I scorched my popcorn last night. The couch was unimpressed. I’m pretty sure my phone made a rude comment about a message I sent yesterday. My phone. It’s plastic and a screen and I love it more than my mother. I can’t be laughed at by my phone. Also I think it’s gossiping with my tablet and conspiring to prank call my friends and family (just in case). But the real gossip happens in my silverware drawer. And drama too. I think the spoons are staging a coup over the spatulas. The forks have formed a clique with the knives. They keep shifting over drawers when I’m not looking. I think my blender is writing poetry. It’s getting avant-garde in here. The less said about the food in my fridge the better. I think the mayonnaise is drinking the ketchup.

I have found two of my glasses’ microfiber wipes in different places in the park. They have both escaped and chose a life on the ground in a park over living in my pocket and helping me see better. This is both humiliating and depressing. And it hurts a little. Anyway, if you see any of my stuff, just send it back my way and don’t let it give you no lip.   

At the monthly meeting of the Central Europeans Morons Club held later this month at a swim club to be decided, I will be named Moron of the Month. For I am a moron.

I am in no way allowed to shop after having a beer. Something happens to me, a lowering of not only inhibitions, but also a complete buying into the concept of the thing. Sometimes before going to the store, I decide that a beer is in order. And in my experience, a beer is almost always followed by like three of his friends. On one particular day, I decided to go shopping in a Kaufland and stopped for a drink on the way.

Let’s fast forward to the store. I bought coffee and something for dinner. I got fruit and successfully avoided the bread aisle, which I was rather proud of myself about since I was about four beers deep and would have thrown an old person under a bus for a ham sandwich. But no. I resisted temptation. I stuck to my list: fruit, veggies, coffee, hummus. I was a rock. But while looking for a light bulb (E-14 warm) I stumbled into the kitchen utensil aisle. And this is where I made my first mistake of looking around.

Kitchen appliances look so sleek in the store. They look unused and useful and yellow and space age. Me-Pre-Four-Beers knows that spending money on a utensil in a supermarket is like making out with Lucifer. But Me-Post-Four-Beers seemed to think it was a good idea. I picked up an onion chopper and, in a moment I turn over in my head every night before bed, I put it in my cart and sashayed myself towards the checkout. I picked up an onion on the way.

To say that this onion chopper is the most useless thing in my house does a disservice to useless things. It’s doing more damage taking up space on my counter and has instead of reducing the time it takes to cut onions, it has added to it significantly. First of all, picking it up is akin to picking up the spinal column of a mummy you find one day in the desert. Its parts break apart and there is no clear mechanism to keep them together. Then, Dog forbid you want to actually ‘cut apart’ onions with this piece of wet pasta, then you are not in luck. To cut an onion with this requires taking it apart after it keeps getting stuck and then punctuating all of these actions with several robust curses to the Dogs of the kitchen.

Here is a list of things more useful than the onion chopper pictures above

An Aramaic to Bengali dictionary on a trip to Jupiter

A toaster in combat

A logical conversation with Donald Trump

A dildo made out of poached eggs

A bag of dildoes when you just want some poached eggs

You get the drift. My advice to you is, never ever buy a kitchen utensil from Kaufland. Ever. If you do, you are a moron like me and there’s only enough poached eggs for one winner of this month’s award.

I’ve been watching a lot of frontier movies lately as I’ve been a little depressed and watching people die in the open planes with arrows sticking out of them seems to bring me some joy and comfort. Last week was Dances with Wolves. Where did you think I’d gotten the imagery of the previous sentence?

There’s a scene in this movie wherein soldier John Dunbar finds a degree of solace and freedom on the open plains and frontier. He befriends a wolf with whom he becomes a dance partner. The two are seen doing the Four Foot two-step and his moniker is born with the local indigenous peoples. Then everyone dies.

It’s when imbibing frontier movies that I embark upon a little fantasy. In this fantasy I am John Dunbar. I am laconic, stoic, and at turmoil over inner peace. I am driven towards solace. Not one of these things represents my actual reality in any way. Further, I have moved west. I have been noted by local indigenous populations. I smell like a ferret. Of course in my fantasy, I quietly toil through the day fixing horseshoes and drinking in the open air and nothing things down in my leather journal. My legs are much longer. None of it makes much sense.

I don’t really want to spend any time with wolves. I am fairly certain I’d decide to go visit some after having too much to drink and become a headline in the morning paper and a winner of a Darwin Award. I think I am much more comfortable with my current animalistic situation. I share a small flat with a woman and two four-legged animals – a 17-year-old cat and a 2.5-year-old shihtzu. These animals – wonky-eyed, needy, soft – are much more my speed.

It is not just my opinion; it is theirs. My cat and dog treat me as though I am one of them, only slightly shorter and with a genetic defect that allows me to turn the knobs on the stove and open up the door. They spend all of their time on or very near me. I sleep with a Shihtzu resting comfily in the arc of my legs and with a cat sleeping snugly on my chest. Burke was irritated by this at first, seeing it as a slight. But after 400 + straight days of sleeping unencumbered by a furry animal, she has changed her tune.

It doesn’t stop at bed. A trip to the bathroom involves me, a book, and two animals who sit beneath me and just hang out. An afternoon or evening of cooking is done in the presence of a cat Sphinxing on a shelf and a dog lying on a low box. Both wait for scraps. They are surprised when they are offered. Every single morning I work on the couch from about 5:30-7:30 flanked by two little sleeping animals.

So it is with some minor regret that I am not Dances with Wolves, but rather Shuffles with Shihtzus. But a person must be true to their nature. If you need me, I will be in the living room shuffling with a Shihtzu and with a cat on my chest.

We recently took a weekend trip to Rome (I’m unpacking my bags now). If anyone doesn’t know why Rome is called the Eternal City they should walk through a neighborhood in the afternoon. On our hike from the Trastevere train station to our room around 3 pm, the sun shone red and gold on the buildings. It transformed gas stations and shabby apartment buildings into fortresses of time. Resting up against the Tiber’s left bank, the little section of Trastevere is warm and small and inviting. There are winding cobbled lanes I know I will get lost on and small shops selling gelato and pizza by the slice and cappuccino where I know I will lose a month’s pay. It’s no matter. You don’t come to Rome and not indulge.

We take in the sites. The imagination roils at what the Circus Maximus, Senate, and Palatine Hill looked like. Though my sophomore year Latin teacher would kill me if he knew I kept calling it Palpatine Hill. Each wander down an ancient lane blows your mind when considered that Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius’s sandals scuffed these cobbles. At night, we make reservations at a local trattoria and eat fish and pasta and bread and drink wine and eat more pasta. We are certain our doctors are suffering night sweats without knowing the root cause. Everything is homey. Everything is awesome.

Our neighborhood’s demographic is surely the young and hip. Fortunately, to rent a room there we were not forced to answer questions of pop culture or fashion, for we would have surely been cast across the river with the rest of the old folks. Our hotel is encircled by pubs and bars. Outside our window at night is the incessant, too-loud chatter of the tipsy traveller punctuated by the impossible screech of bottles being dumped into a dumpster or a recycling bin.

We don’t mind. We have a comfy bed and pizza can be carried home. Besides, after walking 20 miles on Friday and 8 miles on Saturday, a comfy bed and a TV is very welcome. It’s here that we find our happy place. It seems reasonable that while on a trip in Italy or to some other mecca of human civilization and cultivation a person should infuse themselves with culture 24 hours a day and immerse themselves in history and knowledge, the fact is, sometimes you just need bad TV. And Italy knows how to deliver bad TV.

A range of American TV and movies are represented on Italian TV. There are sci-fi shows (La Brea), the 1970s PI show The Rockford Files suggest that James Garner has a following among the inhabitants of the peninsula. But most of all, Italians seem to love the American western frontier. Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman and Dances with Wolves were on every night. But it was the wholesome adventures of the Ingalls family that really got them. Every day multiple episodes of Little House on the Prairie (i.e. L-Hop) were on Italian television.

One of the great things about living in my little community is the tons of shops and services that are here to take care of the needs of families and people who have dogs or cats. We get our dog groomed at a little place up the road. We got our Christmas cookies from a kiosk in the square. Gift socks were obtained at a weird kiosk that pops up every Thursday like Brigadoon. Half of the pubs we visit are run by our neighbors. And then there’s my hair.  

Getting a haircut is pretty weird when you think about it. This forest on top of your head gets shaggy and starts growing down your back and so you arrange a time for a professional head gardener to trim it into submission while they talk to you about Ted Lasso.

For me, it’s a little weirder. It’s small talk in Czech with a woman circling me with clippers. In any event, my head forest had become overgrown and shaggy, and so I made an appointment and I crossed my fingers.

Marcelas are always spunky and so is the one who owns a barbershop a few doors down from me. There are four others, but as she was the only one to answer my message or pick up the phone when I initiated my head into the local haircut scene in December, I have thus devoted the next couple of decades of my hair maintenance to her.  

Marcela’s shop is small and cozy. It’s tucked into the side of the entrance to a building a few doors down. Once coming through the door you feel relaxed. There are a couple of curved seashell armchairs and one chair in front of a mirror so you can watch a closeup of your face getting worked on. Another chair sits up against a head-tub.

Marcela is smaller than me. She has very blue eyes and looks like she would have run a saloon in the Old West on her summer holidays. She speaks quickly and she is alert and focused. Her haircuts are a thing of obsessive beauty. When I come through the door she is spraying water onto a head cushion and wiping it clean. She looks up when I walk in.

“You have a helmet! I forgot! You should have come last month!”

Czech sometimes to me is like a hand grenade. Someone throws an explosive ball of language at me and a few seconds later I go: “Oh yeah…” I do exactly that now and offer apologies that I have waited two months as opposed to the verbally-agreed-upon one month. By the time I apologize, she has forgiven me and points me to the head tub.

“Want me to wash your hair?”

“Oh yes,” I say with a little too much eagerness. But the thing is, Marcela cuts hair the same way that I think I would. She has a small place and focuses on your head as if it’s the only thing in the world. I sit and she washes my head for what seems like 15 minutes. I am in heaven. She wakes me up and I float over to the seat. I sit. She goes to work. After a few explosive phrases and questions, I stumble through the directions and questions and then she buckles down.

My haircut takes about thirty minutes. Marcela takes her time and does it right. She’s obsessive and that’s right up my alley. We talk about height (we measure, I am taller). We talk about glasses (She needs ‘em, doesn’t want ‘em). We talk about an upcoming trip to Rome I’m taking. We talk about cooking and I think we parlay into chicken vs. turkey. Though it’s entirely possible that she’s asking if I went to the sock place over Christmas.

After my do has been done, she washes my hair again. My hair decorates her floor. I pay. We shake hands firmly. I promise that I will come back in one month rather than two. I suppose in my old age it’s nice to find a place nearby where the service is also worthwhile. Also, I get to field language grenades. On my way out, she calls a few things to me and I agree confusedly. It’s only on my way up the sidewalk that I realize she’s telling me about the sock place.    

I have been writing recently about the Victorian Era and drinking, Charles Dickens and making fun of religion via booze vessels. A temperance movement was afoot in Dickens’ time. And though religion was an aspect of that movement, there had to be something else. And what that something was, was keeping me up at night.

It took longer than one would hope for me to look back from the Victorian Era. This landed me in the Georgian Era. Cities grew, urbanized, industrialized. And when that happened, people needed entertainment and excitement. They found sports and they found booze. The sporting man’s culture was born in England.

Now, more than just sitting in dank homey pubs, young men went out about town and lived it up. Sports were a big part of this night out on the town and on weekends. But to be sure, it wasn’t sports that they could get hurt doing or that they did themselves. Hunting foxes, dog fighting, and boxing were among those things that sporting men loved to enjoy. Namely, things they could bet on. The goal wasn’t just gambling on sports, it was drinking and gambling on sports and having camaraderie.

Perhaps the most glorious example of this is the book Life in London published in 1821. Corinthian Tom – man about town and dandy hosts his rube of a cousin Jerry in the city. The two engage in various hijinks and shenanigans, running afoul of police officers, zookeepers, nuns (i.e. prostitutes). Corinthian Tom treats his cousin to a winding of a night. They chase flashes of Lightning (gin) with other nails in the coffin (spirits and shots) and then have a damper (lighter drink) to pull the nails out of the coffin.

Men drank, bet on horses, met at taverns and clubs. But this era has its fingers in many current aspects of our leisure society. Though we may think of these lads about town as the old society men at their clubs and batmen and paying people poorer than them to beat the crap out of each other, this is a big step in the evolution of the pub. A large leap up the ladder in bar games and the development of sports. Gambling had its thrusters boosted during this era.

So when you throw a dart or hear the winner of the Kentucky Derby or shoot a game of pool, just know that you are taking part in this old tradition. So have a drink or four, call up a nun, put a few nails in your coffin, then dampen it the next day.    

As part of the joys of writing tests for young adults is the information I pick up merely out of occupational hazard. Some of these things are intriguing, some are scary, and all of them make me look around the room I’m in and say something like: really!?

Here are a few such titbits of information

Most Ancient Romans lived in something like apartment buildings that got up to twelve stories high. They would collapse occasionally, killing everyone inside, and someone would buy the plot at a cheaper price (all those bodies to deal with) and then build another of the same building. This was something of a racket for rich Romans.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes. He thought that the sleuth upstaged him by being so smart and cool. He put up with him only because of the money he brought in. Of course, Doyle could have made him a nitwit, but that probably wouldn’t have made him so rich. Ah, the irony.

An average person wastes 55 days a year procrastinating. Ironically enough, I learned this while reading an article to put off writing the article on procrastination. So meta.

Bread was once a form of currency. Yeast-made bread was likely beer before it was bread and it probably involved yeast in grains getting wet and then being ingested. Bread was seen as the same as beer – mostly because the nutrition and calories were the same. If you were going to die of a spear to the head, I’m glad these guys were at least buzzed up.

There’s a thing called leap seconds, but they don’t amount to enough to get you out of class or something annoying. Also, if we didn’t do leap years in about 700 years Christmas would come in June and what fun would that be? Santa would have to revamp his outfit.

Ice cream cones were invented because a vendor at the 1904 World’s Fair ran out of cups. The guy next door was having trouble selling hot waffles in the summer (go figure) and offered up his waffles as holders. For some, this is considered the day the world started.

Giraffes are much more likely to get struck by lightening than we are. So the next time a lightening storm comes, head to the zoo.

A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. This was because most of its brainstem and aorta were left intact. More amazingly, in 2016 that chicken got elected president of the United States. Also, the oldest cat on earth lived to be more than 38 years old and I will guarantee you my cat (the B Monster) will live that long if only to keep fucking with me. Then she’s going to haunt me.

Ah life is a dream.