Where Do We Go From Here?
Gentle Reader,
If you were secretly hoping for the apocalypse last winter solstice, you, like I, were a bit disappointed. Here at Festung Europa we did get a holiday visit from The Grim Reaper instead of Santa, so I guess that counts for something. It was a personal apocalypse. Or maybe an exit to the other side. Or maybe just a transition to worm food. In any case, it gets you thinking about your own mortality, especially when your mood goes south like mine annually from Samhain until Brigid.
So anyway, I'm back blogging here at the blog where indeed the answer to all questions is yes...and no! Will I keep blogging away here? Yes! Will I blog regularly? No! Indeed, now that one of our key contributors, alco-political correspondent, Aaron Nielsen, has started his own beer blog, it's forcing me to come up with material to keep this thing viable. Over the past years, we've treated you to some genealogy, music reviews, history and some weirdness from the Realm of Stingray. We need to get back to those basics, especially since the past couple of years have seen us mainly highlight beverages and poltics. Oh, yeah, we need more titties, too.
As I mentioned previously, this blog was pre-Facebook, so it was my only Internet venue for communicating with our gentle readership. Now, if you don't know this already, the advent of Facebook and lately, Twitter, have caused my words normally strewn in a blog post to be flung in 140 character packets or brief missives to my so-called friends. That all may soon change. After reviewing my Facebook friends list, I noticed that probably 75% of the people on it are just detritus I'm hoarding in my sentimentality basement, right next to my fraternity paddle and an FFA jacket. It's time to ditch them, throw them out with little fanfare in a sort of spring cleaning come early. Indeed, with Facebook, it's like I went to a fucking rummage sale and picked up a bunch of friends I had gladly gotten rid of 25 years ago at another garage sale, just because they were a bargain. In fact, they were free! You could also compare it to the free shit you get at conventions and what not. Who the fuck needs a laser pointer key chain anyway? It's time to get back to quality, not quantity.
2012 also saw some major changes within our editorialship here at Festung Europa. Our Iowa correspondent and Man About Town, Loren Christensen, gave up the bottle for good. And we haven't seen a rant from him since. Did he destroy his creativity in the process? Later he told me that Keith Richards had also given up drinking, so it all made sense to me. Some of Keith's best stuff was done on smack. Like I told him, though, I am probably one of the few people around that knows what a true smartass, cynical fuck Loren can be when sober. Not even his wife and family have experienced that. So I guess they are all in for a treat.
Also giving up the hard stuff this year was another friend, Lucy Wood. What the fuck is happening to my circle of friends? Who the fuck will drink with me when I am old, living in a spartan, one room apartment in downtown Nürnberg? Maybe I can convince them all to at least light up a big old Sherman Hemsley (may he rest in peace), to take the edge off the aging process.
So let's get back to it. Or at least look like we are trying. Salute!
CRM
If you were secretly hoping for the apocalypse last winter solstice, you, like I, were a bit disappointed. Here at Festung Europa we did get a holiday visit from The Grim Reaper instead of Santa, so I guess that counts for something. It was a personal apocalypse. Or maybe an exit to the other side. Or maybe just a transition to worm food. In any case, it gets you thinking about your own mortality, especially when your mood goes south like mine annually from Samhain until Brigid.
So anyway, I'm back blogging here at the blog where indeed the answer to all questions is yes...and no! Will I keep blogging away here? Yes! Will I blog regularly? No! Indeed, now that one of our key contributors, alco-political correspondent, Aaron Nielsen, has started his own beer blog, it's forcing me to come up with material to keep this thing viable. Over the past years, we've treated you to some genealogy, music reviews, history and some weirdness from the Realm of Stingray. We need to get back to those basics, especially since the past couple of years have seen us mainly highlight beverages and poltics. Oh, yeah, we need more titties, too.
As I mentioned previously, this blog was pre-Facebook, so it was my only Internet venue for communicating with our gentle readership. Now, if you don't know this already, the advent of Facebook and lately, Twitter, have caused my words normally strewn in a blog post to be flung in 140 character packets or brief missives to my so-called friends. That all may soon change. After reviewing my Facebook friends list, I noticed that probably 75% of the people on it are just detritus I'm hoarding in my sentimentality basement, right next to my fraternity paddle and an FFA jacket. It's time to ditch them, throw them out with little fanfare in a sort of spring cleaning come early. Indeed, with Facebook, it's like I went to a fucking rummage sale and picked up a bunch of friends I had gladly gotten rid of 25 years ago at another garage sale, just because they were a bargain. In fact, they were free! You could also compare it to the free shit you get at conventions and what not. Who the fuck needs a laser pointer key chain anyway? It's time to get back to quality, not quantity.
2012 also saw some major changes within our editorialship here at Festung Europa. Our Iowa correspondent and Man About Town, Loren Christensen, gave up the bottle for good. And we haven't seen a rant from him since. Did he destroy his creativity in the process? Later he told me that Keith Richards had also given up drinking, so it all made sense to me. Some of Keith's best stuff was done on smack. Like I told him, though, I am probably one of the few people around that knows what a true smartass, cynical fuck Loren can be when sober. Not even his wife and family have experienced that. So I guess they are all in for a treat.
Also giving up the hard stuff this year was another friend, Lucy Wood. What the fuck is happening to my circle of friends? Who the fuck will drink with me when I am old, living in a spartan, one room apartment in downtown Nürnberg? Maybe I can convince them all to at least light up a big old Sherman Hemsley (may he rest in peace), to take the edge off the aging process.
So let's get back to it. Or at least look like we are trying. Salute!
CRM
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