Jax Book Nook

I stated earlier in these parts that I would be posting my first attempts at exploring the world of Pandemonium, my long agonized over work in progress-Christmas in Pandemonium. I got interrupted by good luck when one of my short stories got published online with Tale Tell TV. Thank you if you listened to that. Now, I’m ready to post one-fourth of my first bit of creative writing. It’s 12,000 words of exposition, and it even has sarcastic footnotes, but I’m still fond of it. Have I enticed you? The 3,000 words is posted below.

A Brief History of the Island and Town of Pandemonium

By Acton Ravenwood

            It is a common, and overly broad, statement that America was founded by religious fanatics with guns.  This pithy quotation, of dubious lineage, oversimplifies a rather large philosophical debate over when a nation comes into existence. America has been founded and re-founded multiple times, sometimes by men of God, other times by men of fortune, then by traitors against Crown, and again by abolitionists.  However, there is some truth to the idea that we are a nation of heretics of one stripe or another, as the British colonies were often founded for the purpose of providing a haven for those with unusual beliefs.

            Our own illustrious community began 400 years ago for very similar reasons, when a sea captain met a prospective passenger in Amsterdam.  That passenger, Fr. Richard Cramner, arranged a meeting with Captain John Miller in a local tavern on April 9, 1620 to discuss passage for himself and 65 others to the southern coast of North America.  Fr. Cramner, an Anglican priest who had been excommunicated for unorthodox religious sentiments, desired a discrete voyage, for unlike certain other travelers to the New World, he did not have a royal charter.  Fr. Cramner planned to settle far south of the Jamestown colony, so as to avoid prying eyes.  Captain Miller agreed he could find a place both remote and fertile for Fr. Cramner’s congregation, for the right price.  This right price turned out to be very high, as Captain Miller boasted that he alone had the skill to avoid royal entanglements which he had earned over a life time of smuggling, narrowly escaping the clutches of English, Dutch, Spanish, and French authorities, to say nothing of the odd privateer.  Furthermore, Captain Miller continued, he had been to the New World several times, and knew the East Coast of North America so well that already he could select five or six excellent spots from memory.  Fr. Cramner did not believe a word of the sea captain’s puffery, but Captain Miller had a reputation that spoke for itself.   Captain Miller’s reputation said he was an avaricious and impious man, deeply in debt, who would not likely go to the authorities given the large price on his head across all of Christendom regardless of what he had witnessed.  As with that, the Old Heretic and the Drunkard (the affectionate sobriquets we have given our illustrious founders here in Pandemonium) “shook on it” and the voyage was set. 

            Fr. Cramner’s congregation boarded Captain Miller’s ship, the Charon, the following month after they had bought the supplies and prepared themselves for the long journey. Captain Miller’s crew were 35 in number, plus one prostitute from Aberdeen.  The Captain had taken her aboard after she had been chased out of her village, on the charge of witchcraft (the irony of this situation is notable, but not particularly relevant to our tale).  In an attempt to avoid offending the piety of the staid passengers, the Captain presented the whore as his wife.  In a biblical[1] sense, she was his wife, and everyone else’s.  Fr. Cramner’s followers could guess that they were among impious people, and they had accepted the crew’s company for the time being.  As one of those adventurous settlers wrote at the time, “They were Strangers to the faith, and to any faith.”[2]  The term “Strangers” has stuck with these people to the present day. 

            Before setting sail, Miller’s first mate saw fit to mention to his captain that everyone in the crew noticed that one of the passengers was carried aboard, bound and gagged as if the other passengers were afraid he would attempt an escape.  Miller, desperate for cash and unscrupulous in his morality, told the crew to ignore whatever oddities these people displayed.  They were considered heretics by wider society for a reason.

            Miller regretted this policy almost immediately.  The first night after setting sail for America under cover of night, Miller asked Fr. Cramner what deviation from the Church of England made it necessary to put so many miles between himself and James I. Cramner, seeing that they were already out of port and that Miller had been paid half, as per the agreement, decided there was no danger in telling him.  The Old Heretic explained to the Drunkard that he and his followers worshiped the Devil.  “Aye” Miller is said to respond “but do ye worship the Devil in Rome, or the Devil in Wittenberg, or the Devil in Geneva?” Cramner elaborated “Worship we the devil in Hell.”

            Cramner would soon prove himself true to his word.  That night, Cramner and his congregation, dressed in black robes, drug out the prisoner they had brought with them and tied him to a stake built in the middle of the ship.  In full view of Miller’s crew, the black robed cultists began a strange ceremony those old mariners had never seen before[3] invoking the lord of darkness and denouncing the Christian savior.  Cramner, standing before the hostage, gave his sermon preaching that in this New World they would create the Kingdom of Hell on Earth, a place where money and passion were prized above virtue, power held more sacred than truth, and pride found greater than love. Then, Cramner withdrew a knife from his robes and plunged it deep into the sacrificial victim’s stomach.  As the poor soul screamed in pain underneath the gag in his mouth, Cramner set to work disemboweling him while an assistant gathered the blood and organs that poured out of the sacrificial victim’s body into a silver bowl with ancient runes engraved on its exterior.  That night, the cultists commandeered the kitchen on board the Charon, cooking the blood and organs of their poor victim, until every cultist was able to partake in the meat.  Other parts of the body, namely the muscles, would be salted so as to preserve them for the remainder of the voyage.

            As all this occurred, Miller’s crew fled the top deck.  These men were not known to be candidates for canonization, but while they had seen war, piracy, rape, murder, and the other ordinary every day sins of their day, not one of them had witnessed an outright act of human sacrifice.  As the seamen huddled together in the lower decks, all eyes turned to the captain, the one who had signed them up for this.  While the crew whispered mutiny, Miller cried that he had no idea that these unassuming and seemingly pious Englishmen were servants of Old Nick.  All that he knew was that Cramner needed to get his Congregation to North America without anyone knowing about it and that he was willing to pay a rather handsome amount to achieve that end.

            At the moment Miller pled that he knew nothing about Cramner’s theology, Cramner, much as the Devil is wont to do, appeared, having descended from the top deck, announcing that his Black Mass was complete.  Cramner, still wearing his robes, calmly explained to Miller’s crew that they were in no danger.  The ceremony he and his fellow occultist had just performed would not be reenacted while they were aboard, as communion was not taken regularly in those days. Cramner committed the sacrifice so that their Dark Lord Below would bless the journey, and repeating the ceremony would be unnecessary until they landed.

            To this day, the more elderly Strangers still tell stories as to what happened on the Charon for the remainder of that trip.  The author of this brief history has a passion for oral history and has collected tales of the Devil himself appearing at the wheel of the ship, of children levitating and speaking in tongues, and shadows of wolf-like creatures prowling the lower decks.  Of course, this may be less evidence of the magical power that our forefathers had and more the product of the ignorant and superstitious imaginations of an illiterate and uncultured batch of sailors from early modernity.  No one can doubt they were competent at the task set before them, though, as within two months of departing, Captain Miller and his crew reached the eastern shore of what is today South Carolina and quickly began searching for a place to offload their diabolic passengers.[4] Cramner knew damned[5] well that Miller had never been to North America and knew of no hiding places, but legend has it that Cramner had communed with the Dark Lord in private and was told that a place had been prepared for them, both on Earth and in Hell.  Whether this part of the founding myth contains any truth on either a literal or metaphorical level or is merely hogwash, it appears providence did have a place for the Charon to land, or at least wreck.  While searching the coast of South Carolina in early August, a freak storm struck the Charon, breaking it against a before unseen island off the coast, shrouded by an impenetrable mist. The cultists had found Pandemonium, and Miller’s crew had found themselves without a way back home, as the Charon was no longer seaworthy. 

            On the island, Cramner thanked Miller for finding this place, and handed Miller the remainder of his payment in the form of gold.  Miller responded that he and his crew were now marooned in the middle of nowhere thousands of miles from any white man not dedicated to pure evil, and gold could just as well be lead for all the good it did him. Cramner threw his hands in the air and said he could not solve the problems of others while he had a settlement to build.  Jamestown was to the North and Florida to the South, so if Miller’s crew wanted to be either Anglicans or Catholics he had best start walking, but only Witches would stay on this island. Miller’s crew would be allowed to live among them for two months for the sake of gathering their things, but were then expected to leave. 

            The Witches set about building their new home from the supplies taken aboard the Charon and the resources available to them on the island, whereas the Strangers stayed aboard the wrecked decks of the Charon and made plans.  Making the long trek to Jamestown through territory controlled by Indians would be dangerous.  Most of the supplies on the ship were lost in the storm, and few of them knew how to scavenge for food on this strange continent.  Cramner announced that in order to commemorate the voyage, they would sacrifice yet another virgin in order to thank Satan for a safe passage and begin their colony on unhallowed ground.  The Old Heretic set a date for the ritual in mid-September.  The Witches rejoiced at the news, and the Strangers began to pack quicker.

            The Captain’s “wife” has heretofore not been a large part of our story.  Formerly considered just a whore, she felt that she had been given a promotion and was content to keep quiet.  During the long voyage from Amsterdam, the Witches performed several minor rituals in addition to their initial human sacrifice, one of which involved the desecration of the newly published King James Bible. The cultists sprinkled their victim’s blood on the scriptures and tossed them below deck.  The whore picked up the discarded holy book and laid it out to dry.  As a child she had once been part of a family of pious peasants before a famine led her to a life of ruin, and she could remember her mother telling her that if a woman wanted to know God she should go to her husband.  After the good book had recovered from its befoulment, the whore brought it to her “husband” and asked that he teach her the Gospel.  The Drunkard rolled his eyes and shouted a few holy sounding phrases before telling her lay down again. 

            The night before the planned satanic ritual, the fallen woman tried again, but this time something took hold of the old sea captain.  Miller actually knew how to read bits and pieces because it was occasionally useful in his line of work, though it took him much effort to get through a sentence.  Heavily under the influence of terror and ale, Miller fumbled through the pages of the desecrated tome looking for some guidance as to where he went wrong and where he should go from here.  There are any number of passages he could have stumbled upon from “the rain shall fall upon the just and the unjust alike” to “thou shalt not kill” all the way up to passages concerning talking donkeys.  But for some reason fate led him to a passage in Exodus that said “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” and with that the Drunkard set upon a course of action.  Miller put on his finest vestments[6] and dressed his “wife” up in the only form of dress she had that did not designate her publicly as a prostitute and proceeded to hold “church” in the crew quarters.  This was the first worship service in the history of the Strangers’ Church, a religious community that exists to this very day. 

             The Strangers initially thought their captain had too much to drink and that the whore was a bad influence on him.  We should have left the bitch in Aberdeen, the first mate would later write, she definitely gave Captain Miller some strange ideas. However, the first mate soon found himself in the minority as Miller’s passionate preaching reached the hearts of his men much as it had found its way into his.[7]  Having been to a church only once or twice in his life, both times in the process of looting it, Miller made up his service as he went along.  His sermon centered on the text in Exodus, and the “plain reading” method which was so popular at the time meant they all knew what to do.

            After their leader’s rousing speech, the Strangers, fueled in equal parts by alcohol and terror, appointed themselves holy warriors and raced to the building containing the Witches’ sacrificial victim, torches in hand. The witches had only posted one guard, who fled when he saw Miller’s “congregation” coming for him.  The Strangers then picked up the poor woman who was to be the sacrificial victim and carried her back to the ship.  There would be no sacrificial rite, as the intended victim would not be disemboweled as an animal for the purpose of an unholy ritual, but burned as a witch for the purpose of divine justice.  Different explanation, same result.   The Strangers tied their prize to a wooden stake and proceeded to roast her.  Screams of pain and pleas of mercy echoed throughout the night without effect.  The victim spoke strange words in a strange tongue the Strangers had never heard before.  Assuming she was calling out to her dark master, the Strangers stoked the flames higher, hoping to kill the witch before she could work her magic.

            The next day, as expected, the Old Heretic came to have a word with Miller about the events of the previous evening.  Miller was unrepentant, though somewhat hung over.  He explained to Cramner that he and his men had a spiritual revelation the night before and would no longer tolerate a Witch to live. Cramner then informed Miller that there might not be any Witches left on this island soon, nor any white man of any kind as the Strangers had not burned a Witch last night but had instead burned a Stono Indian Princess.  Cramner explained that the cult’s sacrificial victims were never cult members, both because they were few in number and because the entire point of worshipping Satan was to gain his favor in this life, the act of sacrificing oneself being counterproductive.  The sacrificial victim on the ship had been a brigand who attempted to rob Cramner in Holland. The witches had randomly kidnapped an Indian woman on the shore of the mainland, not knowing she was local royalty.  The chief of the local village arrived earlier that morning demanding the return of his daughter, with 100 Stono warriors backing him up.[8]  Cramner, for his part, would have been glad to choose another sacrificial victim at this point, but unfortunately his deed had been set in stone by the Strangers.

            Miller ran to the burnt stake from the night before, and no longer under the influence of alcohol and misguided piety, realized upon examining the charred corpse that the woman they had murdered last night was not European in complexion.  Miller then remembered the dark ceremony[9] they had performed last night in a new light. Upon further reflection, the woman spoke in a strange tongue because she had never heard English in her life.   Cramner drug Miller back to the chief to explain that his daughter was dead for reasons so stupid, that other related tribes (for the Stono are now extinct) would forever roll their eyes when the white man claimed that he came to the New World to bring “civilization.”  The chief told both white men, whom he could not distinguish and did not care to at this point, that the next day he would return, kill all of them, carry off their women, and then burn the newly built village to the ground.

---

[1] John 4:18

[2] Translated from the English of its time of course.

[3] Though admittedly, some of them had never been to any religious ceremony of any kind.

[4] No one can claim that the crew of the Charon were not good at their jobs as they actually reached their destination unlike certain others ships at the time bound for Virginia which ended up as far north as Massachusetts.   Though admittedly, they may have had extra motivation.

[5] Excuse the play on words.

[6] There was one coat he had never vomited on.

[7] The Strangers had determined they could not carry the beer they had on board with them to Jamestown and so they were determined to finish the remainder of what they had that evening.

[8] Cramner and the chief were able to communicate through an interpreter who knew Spanish from his dealings with the colonial government in Georgia.  Cramner spoke several languages, being an educated man who had traveled extensively.  

[9] Dark enough that no one was able to tell the night before that their Witch looked nothing like a white settler.

Good News! One of my short stories “The Unexamined Life” will be read this Monday on Tall Tale TV! The link is here: Home – Tall Tale TV- Short Story Audiobook Blog. I’m taking a break from querying to promote it a bit over this weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s reaction.

I’ve decided to send out another round of queries for Christmas in Pandemonium. That’s my work-in-progress. You can see my prior post about it. It’s been nearly six months since the last round, and I’ve made significant changes. I’m also open to beta readers, if anyone is interested.

In other Pandemonium related news, I think I will start posting a bit of the Pandemonium lore on my blog. You see, I began writing Pandemonium before I knew what I was doing, so the first chapter of my book was 14,000 words of pure exposition. Yeah, not how you want to start, but my worst piece of writing does do a pretty good job of explaining the idea.

Pandemonium is a town founded by Satanists in the year 1620 on the coast of South Carolina. The opening chapter was a long excerpt from a book called “A Brief History of the Island and Town of Pandemonium” written by the current Satanic High Priest, Acton Ravenwood, a ham if there ever was one. Over this “brief history” Ravenwood explains how the town was founded, the people who live there, and how it exists in the present day.

It’s bad, no good, rotten exposition, but I still love it. It’s my first dive into real writing, so I’m going to put it on my blog. Can’t get it published, so I might as well post it.

I want to thank everyone who came to my book signing on Sunday. Sorry for getting this out late, but I’ve been dealing with a sick kid and a sick wife. We recovered from COVID to go right into Strep. Now we only need to get the flu and we’ll have the cycle.

I will be available for a book signing at the Board Room in South Charleston, West Virginia, this Sunday afternoon. I’ll be there with copies of my book for $10. You can get my signature and chat with me about the book. If you prefer an electronic copy, that can be found here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

As you may recall from my last post, I have once again caught the bug which is the cause of so much of our season of discontent, though admittedly there are other causes. It was also the cause of my decision to take up writing. I’m still trying to get that book published, and I recently did a bit of editing on it, waiting to get feedback from a beta reader.

So, I thought I would go into the idea that got me to start writing. I assume no one will steal this idea that I am openly posting online. Here you go.

Pandemonium is a city on an island on the coast of South Carolina. It was founded in the year 1620, same year as Plymouth. The difference is that Pandemonium is founded by Satan-worshipping witches. They are carried there by a group of drunken pirates turned religious fanatics, called the Strangers, who mistakenly burn an Indian princess at the stake, thinking she is one of the witches. The two groups join forces to prevent the chief from killing them all and then found a town. Throw in some enslaved persons from a Portuguese ship (the Fieldhands) and a group of Jewish immigrants in the 1890s who turn into massive beasts on the full moon (the Ze’ev), and you have a complete town.

Turn to the present day, the Witches have become the most lackadaisical Satanists the world has ever seen, replacing human sacrifice with the crushing of a bug. Meanwhile, the Strangers have sold their historic church to sleazy prosperity gospel preacher, Miles Simon. However, when Simon finds out that the Strangers keep a vampire, Theo, in their crypt, Simon tries to make a deal with Theo whereby he would hypnotize people into giving them money. Theo turns Simon down, but after Simon finds out that Theo’s vampiric rival, Scratch, lies in the crypt with Theo, the crooked televangelist sets his mind on resurrecting Scratch.

Alas, Scratch is not a good business partner, being a theocratic vampire who sucks women and children dry believing he has God’s blessing. With the bloody puritan on the loose, the locals have to band together and put him down.

And that’s the idea. It’s a regular American town, founded by Satanists, now in the present day. The above-described plot would be Book One, and I would precede with a new villain for each book until around Book Five. I have six books planned, but I could do more. Right now, I’m trying to sell Book One. I’ve been going the literary agent route. I think it’s a good enough idea to work for one of the big five publishers.

That being said, I do have another book I am currently selling, available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

I’ve caught the bug. Yet again. This is my second time to get it. Both times after being vaccinated with a booster shot. Not a vaccine skeptic, just a little impressed by our modern-day plague. It doesn’t give up, now does it?

My wife tested positive first, and then I tested positive two days later. Now I’m quarantined for the week. As an attorney, it’s a good time to get document review done, I guess. It wouldn’t be so bad were it not that my wife and I now have to take care of a very hyperactive little boy while being weighed down with another round of everyone’s favorite lung-scarring coronavirus.

It takes me back to 2020 when this whole thing got started. March 2020 was a crazy month. The world shut down, I paid off the last of my student loans, my wife got pregnant with our first son, Joseph (we are now working on little Tony, due in May), and I started writing. It all happened in one month. Talk about a life-changing event.

Yes, I got started writing with the lockdowns. I think a lot of people did. Kept indoors, away from work, and the gym, and the bar. Stuck in my apartment with my wife, and it was a small apartment. I had an idea for a book I had been kicking around for a while. Still haven’t sold it, but I fell in love with the idea enough that I took up writing as a hobby. Beer Run, which you can buy here, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5, is actually something I wrote for a writer’s credit to promote that book. I may be querying later, as I haven’t given up on trying to get a major publisher on this. I may start explaining the idea on my blog in later posts.

But for now, I’m stuck at home. Again. Maybe I’ll do some writing on that book over the weekend. God hates a quitter.

So, my brother in New York finally got his copy of Beer Run. He saw my dedication of the book to my father “progenitor of much fine beer and annoying siblings.” He apparently took some half-hearted offense to that dedication and texted me a picture of his middle finger, along with an obscene caption. Ahh, brothers. I don’t think it will surprise many of those who have read the book that Isaac is directly inspired by my two brothers.

If you haven’t read my book…why haven’t you read my book? It’s on Kindle Unlimited, and if you don’t have that, the ebook is really cheap. Check the link here.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5

Alright, since you have all now read my book, you know Isaac, or A-1, the first sentient android in my universe. Unlike certain other androids in science fiction, Isaac is self-centered, egotistical, career-obsessed, and neurotic. Isaac hates being treated like a machine. Then he builds another android and proceeds to boss her around. Isaac talks down to Bill for running a brewery rather than a robotics lab, and then rats on his brother to the authorities because his “legacy” is at stake. But he’s the first person Bill sees after nearly dying and follows Bill to the end of the story, teaming up with his adoptive brother to get them out of a hostage situation. (If this makes you want to read the book, the link is above!) That’s siblings for you. You hate them, you love them, and somehow you do both at the same time.

Isaac is mostly based on an exaggerated version of my brother, Joseph, who’s currently working as an architect in Brooklyn now. Joseph is irritating, narcissistic, and one of the only people who kept my grandmother and a lot of our other elderly relatives company as they passed away. Don’t worry, he mocks me in a very similar way. (In my family, I am known as the destroyer of chairs) But, we’re glad to have each other around.

I based the character Isaac off my brother because the typical android character is just too dull, too robotic. (Well, I guess that’s the point) I wanted an android who was more like a person, not just trying to be a person, like a Pinocchio made of steel. Isaac is too flawed to be a Data, and that is what makes him real.

I bring all this up because I have two brothers. The other is named Nathan, and his birthday is tomorrow. Since I haven’t created a character based on him, I thought I would dedicate this blog post to him. Happy 34th Birthday Nathan! Many more years to you.

I am happy to present to you my predictions for the year 2023! Please note that these predictions are guaranteed to be 100% wrong (God, I hope so.)

January

Georgia cruises to its second consecutive national championship, beating TCU 56-3. Players on the TCU bench migrate over to Georgia’s sideline in order to avoid being put in the game as the Horned Frogs are beaten so badly, several of them are declared sterile after the game. In an unrelated matter, after missing the playoffs this season, Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban summons Satan and demands that his soul be refunded to him.

In international news, as the war in Ukraine approaches its first year anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin admits that the war hasn’t gone as planned, but asserts that he expects imminent victory as he has appointed “General Winter.” Putin and his Cabinet enjoy a Dr. Evil-like laugh session until one of Putin’s aides tells him that General Winter was assassinated by Ukrainian sharpshooters when getting too close to the front line.

February

In a massive upset, the Cincinnati Bengals defeat the Philadelphia Eagles to win Super Bowl LVII. Starting QB Joe Burrows proclaims he’s going to Disney World before the fabric of the universe tears apart and swallows the entire stadium whole.

In entertainment news, James Gunn announces that in his new DCEU, Superman will be played by Jim Parsons of the Big Bang Theory, the Flash is really just a nudist who can run a four-minute mile, the main villain is the Penny Pincher, and each movie will be at least 95% CGI. After an ensuing riot, Warner Brothers announces that Gunn will also be put in charge of the next fifteen Harry Potter movies and the planned Tom Bombadil trilogy to begin in August 2024.

March

March begins with one last winter flurry, knocking power out for the entire state of Texas. As the state struggles to bring its independent power grid online, Elon Musk suggests that they drill a hole to the Earth’s mantle and unleash a flood of magma to melt the ice. When the state government turns Musk down on the basis that this would destroy all plant and animal life in the state, Musk tries to buy all the land in Texas. However, Musk is denied credit as after running Twitter for six months, he now lives in a cardboard box on the streets of Houston and babbles endlessly about “terrorism coordinates.”

Pope Francis dies suddenly in his sleep. After a one-week enclave, the cardinals elect Tobias Forge, founder and lead singer of the heavy metal band Ghost, as the new pontiff. Dedicating his reign to Lucifer, Forge pledges to be the worst pope in world history or at least the worst pope since Alexander V.

April

In a run that would make Cinderella blush, the Arkansas Razorbacks make it to the NCAA Championship Game…where they lose by one point when Davonte Davis bricks a three-point shot so badly, it flies into the other basket at the opposite end of the court. Statisticians claim this is one of the least likely events since the Big Bang, yet Arkansas Razorback fans merely shrug their shoulders and say “them’s the breaks.”

The race for the Republican Presidential Nomination for 2024 heats up as Ye West throws his hat in the ring, as he abandons MAGA to forge his own cult of personality. Media commentators are stunned as the platinum-album performer cobbles together a weird coalition of rap fans, neo-nazis, and the clinically insane. As he watches his own supporters abandon him in favor of Yeezus, Donald Trump endorses QAnon and accuses Ye of being a tool of the international Satanic child-molesting conspiracy. In response, Ye appears on Alex Jones’ show with a twelve-year-old prostitute and says “I Like Satan.” His favorability among Republican primary voters goes up by two points.

May

West Virginia Attorney and aspiring author Jack Willems and his wife Rachel welcome their second child into the world. At the same time, Jack’s first novel, Beer Run, available on Amazon, becomes a New York Times Best Seller, propelling Jack to instant stardom! (Okay, maybe I do wish this happens)

Elsewhere in the world, protests in Iran enter their ninth month. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announces a new concession that women will no longer be beaten to death for failing to properly cover their hair but will instead be given a quick clean death by gunshot. The protestors respond by walking down Pasteur Street in bikinis.

June

President Biden’s aides walk into the Oval Office to find the President hunched over his desk, having apparently died from natural causes in the middle of the night. The staff of the White House quickly call Chief Justice Roberts to administer the Oath of Office to President Biden’s corpse. The White House Press Secretary immediately calls a press briefing to assure the American Public that President Biden, while no longer breathing, is still in charge and will run for president in 2024 as the best morticians in America are working to preserve his body. She cannot confirm reports of Vice-President Kamala Harris banging her head against the wall of the Eisenhower Executive Building.

In China, with COVID infections reaching new highs and the Chinese economy buckling under the pressure of increasing debt and an aging population, President Xi Xiping makes a nationwide address on June 5 to remind everyone that nothing happened on this day in 1989. “I just wanted to remind you all that the CCP knows what it’s doing and certainly doesn’t view you all as expendable,” President Xiping said. “Some people might look at our actions and assume we’re purposely trying to piss you all off. However, these people just don’t understand. We’re playing 4-D Underwater Chess here. Your rulers are very competent and deeply concerned for your welfare. Make China Great Again!”

July

Audiences flock to movie theaters to see this year’s Summer Blockbuster: X-Men Infinity: Rise of the Reboot. Breaking Avatar’s record for the highest-grossing movie of all time, audiences describe it as “Okay” and “mildly entertaining.” Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, yet again, though Hollywood magic must be used to digitally remove his walker from each scene. Meanwhile, an unreleased Hayao Miyazaki film is discovered in the vaults of Studio Ghibli, which when screened in America, makes animation enthusiasts weep tears of joy. It fails to survive the opening week.

Having finally found a way to completely stretch out the NBA season to July, the league championship is finally awarded to the Memphis Grizzlies. Head Coach Taylor Jenkins credited the team’s victory to solid defense, his coaching staff, and a well-placed bribe to Commissioner Adam Silver.

August

Temperatures rise to 110 degrees in southern states as the U.S. faces one of its hottest summers on record. As construction workers and returning football players die from heat exhaustion, several localities consider letting people go outside in the buff to relieve the effect of the sweltering weather. Not any of the places like Texas or LA mind you. We’re talking Minneapolis and Milwaukee where it never got above 90 degrees. They just don’t know how to deal with the heat.

Sam Bankman-Fried pleads guilty to fraud, along with everyone else at FTX who worked with or for him, everyone at Alameda who lent FTX money, everyone who ever invented a cryptocurrency or NFT, anyone who ever trading cryptocurrency or NFTs, and anyone involved in the creation of the internet, and anyone who owned a digital anything anywhere.

September

As students head back to school, a new report from the Department of Education finds that Americans are increasingly falling behind other nations in all major subject areas such as math, science, and whether you can talk and write good. Standardized test scores show the USA has fallen behind Uganda, though that might be due to putting the results in alphabetical order. President Biden vows, once someone lifts his arm up and moves his mouth, to redouble the national effort to improve our public schools.

Meanwhile, the competition for the Republican nomination entered a new phase with the beginning of debates. With no fewer than 53 candidates splitting the vote, Ye and Donald Trump take the lead with five percent and four percent respectively. Fox News commentators are split on Ye, as on one hand, he is certifiably insane, and on the other hand, he is currently ahead and they know how their bread is buttered.

October

The New York Yankees win the World Series, as their bizarre strategy of spending billions on getting the best players in the game breaks through. They then rename the team to the New York Wildcats, the blandest name imaginable, in order to placate a group of Red Sox fans who find the word Yankee (originally a term for New Englander) to be extremely offensive.

An ancient group of Pagans come together on Halloween at Stonehenge to celebrate Samhain with the sacrifice of children and succeed in the resurrection of the Old Ones, plunging the Earth into a thousand years of darkness. No one can really tell the difference, however, so life goes on as usual.

November

Feeling left behind with all these protests, Kim Jong-Un arranges for a protest against himself and then has the protestors shot just for the Hell of it. He then blames both the protests and his executions on South Korean capitalists, Japanese Imperialism, and the U.S. The party praises Dear Leader for his far-sighted vision.

Pastor David Portenoy of the Jesus Kiss Me Church predicts the End of the World will occur on November 29, 2023. The day comes and goes without anything happening. When asked about his prediction, Portenoy explains that the world has ended, spiritually, but it will end physically next May. He then takes his ministry’s entire trust fund and migrates to Bermuda, where he will spend the rest of his life.

December

With a plurality of three percent following the addition of another 44 different candidates, Ye West takes the Iowa caucuses. This is in spite of massive headwinds from Republican voters who polls say find Ye racist and also, black. Donald Trump pledges to fight on to New Hampshire, where he is currently polling in first place at two percent of the vote.

On the Democratic side, the desiccated corpse of Joe Biden defeated his former Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris’s dark horse candidacy, with the famous slogan, “At least I’m alive” failed to gain ground against Biden’s campaign. “He hasn’t explained how he can continue to be commander-in-chief in his condition,” Harris complains. “He can’t talk at all. He’s been dead for six months. “

Those are my predictions for 2023.

I’ve made my opinions about Christmas as compared to other holidays clear in other posts to this blog. I’ve also talked about adding other gift-giving holidays to take the pressure off Christmas. Nothing I have done approaches the idea of giving Christmas its original meaning as developed in medieval Christendom. That would be like Horace telling the Romans to abandon their city and find a distant land to settle in to cure their corruption issues.

Today, I’ll cross that line and talk about a real old-fashioned Christmas: drunkenness, feasting, and role reversals. During the Middle Ages, Christmas was a two-week-long binge of beer and bacon. The twelve days of Christmas lasted twelve damn days. Everyone had to get the time off. Serfs, apprentices, students, lower officials in the church. Not only were lords required to give their serfs time off, but they were also expected to throw a party for the peasants on their own dime, complete with booze, roast boar, and even entertainment. Cross-dressing, practical jokes on the nobility, and getting completely plastered were all par for the course.

This all culminated in the Feast of Fools on January 1 celebrated by the clergy, known in Paris as Topsy Turvy Day for the complete inversion of any hierarchies within the church. Choir boys were appointed as bishops. Priests would eat black pudding on the altar and wear obscene masks during mass. Subdeacons would give their superiors orders. All of this derived from ancient pagan festivals where slaves would treat their masters as equals. Occasionally, you can still find signs of these role inversions, such as in the British Army where the officers serve dinner to the enlisted men.

See, that’s the real Christmas spirit. The King of Kings was born in a manger, not in a palace. The king who lived in a palace killed every male infant under two in Judea trying to get rid of him because Herod was afraid of any challenge to his power. Jesus escaped to Egypt, and if old Herod knew that people would use his birthday as an excuse to tell their superiors where to shove it and then say “feed me,” Herod may have killed all the girls just to be safe. The term “public servant” isn’t meant to be a sad joke and your employer has a moral responsibility to be a leader of men and not merely a consumer of services, whether he accepts that or not.

So, sorry, Charlie Brown, I don’t think we’re recapturing the Christmas Spirit anytime soon. I’ll believe we’ve recovered the true meaning of the Yule Tide season when Elon Musk shines my damned shoes.