Truesday: A Low-Down Hang-Down From On High
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
It was in my sixth hundredth year that I made a humble man’s plans to perform the recently accepted annual rite of loose boozery and off-cuffed shenanigans designed to commemorate the birth of broad-scale marketing for the two-piece bikini. This rite was to revolve around a vessel, and the Central Texas sea, a place where mere mortals may bathe themselves in the warmed winds of the hill country whilst wetting their bodies with carp-soiled water.
But with this most recent deluge, our fetid tanks of treated refuse overfloweth, and the lake has become too soiled by our own bodily humors to be safe for holiday bathing-suit revelry. In short, the lake needs a good douche-ing, and perhaps some hard-scrubbing loofah action.
Before the ocean fell from the sky, I was to construct an ark in the dimensions of man, to safely hold the dimensions of several female and male humans. And that water ship was to be stocked, two-by-two, with all of the known and chosen paths of liquid escapism, the “crew” as it were:
Captain Morgan and Co-Captain Jack.
Boatswain Beam.
Rigger Mr. Jager.
Alchemist/phrenologist Don Julio.
And perhaps the lesser appreciated Russian deck-hand, Monopolova.
But then the rains descended upon our lands with relentless fury, causing the re-scheduling of many manmade intentions to dabble in the wondrous ways of wickedness.
Yes, the arrival of airwater has made it unsafe to be ON the groundwater. Ain’t that some shit.
Were you aware that Noah of the big-ass Bible flood is not only the father of the three races (what? Only three? Are you fucking kidding me?), but is also reputed to be the first grower of grapes specifically for the purpose of making wine? I was not aware of this, and as awesome as that sounds as a start, it all ends up being a rather fucked up story, which I recommend as swell bed-time reading for the kids.
I’m going to suspend my typical position that The Good Book is best considered as a swell collection of moral-based allegories, metaphors, poetry, lofty prose, and a variety of other stellar examples for representative literary techniques, and take one story as literally as it is has been re-re-re-re-re-re-translated and hastily printed upon paper in some Chinese book factory somewhere.
Basically, after all the flooding and animal husbandry business, Noah starts the first winery, and (not surprisingly) ends up getting wuh-HAY-sted on his own creation. The result of his one-man bender finds him sprawled out all leg-spread naked with his junk hanging out in public for the freshly-flooded world to behold (we’ve all been there, right? Am I right?!! Am… I… No? Well okay then). One of his three sons, Ham, spies his pops first, checks his package all creepy like, and goes to tell his other two bro-hams about it. The OTHER bro-hams choose to drop a sheet on their dad’s trunk without actually seeing anything embarrassing (by magic, I presume). When Noah gets up all head-pain hung-over and violently craving hash-browns or whatever, he realizes that Ham peeped at Big Jim and The Twins without a ticket, so he curses Ham’s youngest son, Canaan (not Ham? So fucked up), to be the slave of slaves forever more.
Which makes perfect sense if you don’t bother to think about it.
Since then, “Canaan” has come to represent whatever people were currently being immorally owned by whichever ruling race happened to be trying to re-write the bible at the time. It’s been both lucrative and morally convenient for the intellectually lazy.
Ta-dah. Fin, so far.
So… I’m no Bible moralist or anything, but that really is an entirely fucked up story, and not necessarily because of the public nudity part.
Everyone is aware that horrible life-changing mistakes get made whilst in the midst of over-suckling the grape teat. It’s a well-documented source of outrage and shame: fires get started, rumors get milled, and perhaps some toes get sold/purchased in remote Asian villages. Those stories become legend and lore. But not everyone is so aware of how many awful decisions are made while swimming in the sea of stupid that is the hang-over. There are some days where I can’t do basic arithmetic due to a brain-shriveling hang-over.
I forget my own name.
I use a hammer to pound screws into wood.
I microwave cookie sheets.
And those are the days where I’ve learned to quarantine myself until enough time has passed for me to be able to make sound decisions. Noah needed some serious hang-over coaching right there, and it’s too bad there was no one around to explain that whilst in the treacherous grips of a crippling wine hang-over, one is typically without a dependable emotional anchor, and the resulting mood mania is probably not the best mental state in which to decide whether or not your grandchildren should be doomed to slavery forever more. That’s a textbook example of a decision that really should wait a full day, maybe two, to ensure that the hangover has indeed passed. But no, not for Noah. Ham gazed upon the limpy, sleeping ham of Noah, and BOOM: immediate subjugation of part of his own lineage. Does that sound like the decision-making faculties of a completely sober man? For the record, I’m stating: NO.
What a dick.
And now the rain has come to ruin our lake-time fun. And I for one am not seeing coincidence here, and am convinced that somehow Noah’s out there, crying pathetically about his mincing little headache and throbbing kidneys, or perhaps he’s just nostalgic for a torrential downpour that kills good times or some shit, and that he’s behind it all.
Total dick.
