This Week's Column: Calling Out the Speech Warriors

Plus, extras for my Substack pals!

This week’s Substack “extra?”

Me bitching.

This is becoming the worst sober month EVER. Not because I’m “yearning for booze”…I never “yearn” for booze; I really can quit when I need to for my health. But WHEN I do a sober month, I like to take advantage of the two main benefits I get from being sober: increased appetite (I lost a LOT of weight this year and I need to pack some back on), and increased energy (I have to build a permanent wall to “Cask of Amontillado” Ratibor for good).

So I stopped drinking on May 28th. Almost immediately, MASSIVE “digestional issues.” For a week, nothing I ate stayed inside me; everything ran right through (this is not my normal reaction to going sober, so I have no idea what caused it). I spent six straight days in the can.

It was ugly.

Worst part is, I had an increased appetite but couldn’t eat.

THAT finally lets up, and I figure, “okay, now I got energy, I got appetite, let’s make the most of Sober June!

And then the fucking gout returned. Worse than before. The gout wot plagued me February and March was in the toes. This time it’s in the arches. And HOLY SHIT do it hurt!

Ol’ Dave (artist’s rendering)

So now I have “sober energy,” but I can’t fucking walk. The materials arrived for the Ratibor wall, but I can’t even get up off my chair, let alone build the wall.

Advil helps, but a drink would be better.

See, it’s like everything this month is pushing me to drink again. But I remain steadfast - no booze ‘til July 4th, when - as is custom around here - I open my windows and watch the massive Century City fireworks show, which is just a few blocks away.

I will not be manipulated into altering that schedule.

The recurring gout thing is troubling. 55 years with no gout, now three times in six months. After the first round I cut out every food that might’ve caused it. And I’d been sober for two weeks by the time this new bout came on. So I doubt it’s food or drink.

Other gout-sufferers had warned me in March that chronic gout is a thing, and requires medical intervention.

Unless I’m coughing up blood or paralyzed from the waist down, I ain’t goin’ to no doctor. Not for gout. I don’t need the bills.

BTW, gout is like a ninja assassin: no advance warning. You go to bed happy and feeling great, and you wake up - GOUT!

Anyway, the Ratibor wall will have to wait, as will the neighbor’s fucking overhang. Just going to pee is a ten-minute ordeal, me using a mop as a crutch to slowly creep toward the bathroom.

At least I can still sit and type, so ol’ Dave’s columns will keep coming.

This week: my disdain for “free speech” showboaters.

Enjoy!

And BUY GOUTY DAVE A BEER!

https://www.takimag.com/article/fight-to-the-death-for-death/