Slidell Saga, pt 2.

If you haven't yet, make sure to read part 1. We continue where we left off, in a hushed room full of mourners who didn't need a shock.

The widow arrived. She breezed in with two uniformed security guards flanking her like Paris Hilton’s entourage. I don’t think the room actually dropped 10 degrees in temperature, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell without actually watching a thermometer. The poor boy's mom screamed at her, an unintelligible string of words born on a voice of anguish and blame. I had never heard a voice that tormented, and hope never to do so again. The widow was made to wait elsewhere during the Mass, which was a good move on the part of the funeral home. Alas, it would be their last non-dick move of the day, as they were gearing up for a performance of Dick Move in 3 Acts.

The service was long, as any Mass will seem to a non-Catholic. The priest was a good speaker though, and reached out to those in grief with a heartfelt message. I sang along when prompted, my eyes scanning the room and resting on Kit as often as they could. She couldn’t exactly smile at me, but her face softened as her eyes held mine.

I remember a sea of faces, some in tears, some still wearing rage. Eventually, the service ended, and it was time to file out and await the interment, which would be on the grounds. The priest stood by the door, and had some words with each mourner leaving. I ended up behind Half-pint, who grabbed his dick through his shorts with his left hand while shaking the priest’s with his right. “Yo, fatha, that was a good fuckin’ service!” he said, weaving slightly side to side in an early version of swagga. Perhaps I’m way too far out of the hood, but I’ve never understood the protocol of holding one’s junk while greeting another human being, unless you happen to be at either a urinal or an orgy.

For his part, the priest was nonplussed. He made the sign of the cross and said simply “Thank you, my son.” I was impressed, and thought maybe I’d just seen a hint of true grace. I tried to hang on to it as an example for the day.

As we waited for the burial, I held hands with Kit, just being quiet and supporting her. It had begun to rain, and the funeral director informed us that we would go to the mausoleum for the rest of the service, and that they would actually lower the coffin into the ground later that day. This was the ending of Dick Move Act 1, as the widow was allowed back into the group, security in tow—despite their assurances to the bereaved mother (who had just paid them about $10k for their services) that this wouldn’t take place. It was also the set up of the entire Dick Move story, though we couldn’t know it at the time.

We arrived in the mausoleum and, sadly, one of the rent-a-douche security guards ended up directly across from the deceased’s mom. I watched as she stared at the casket, moving her eyes always away from the blue uniform that stood out like a hippo in a tutu.

Still holding Kit’s hand, I slowly crabbed sideways until I was directly in front of the guard, and then backed up a few steps, until I felt my back bump into her. Unless the guard wanted to cause a scene, she had to back up with me. Fortunately, she chose not to cause a further scene, and I backed her right into a potted plant, out of sight of the mother. Kit squeezed my hand in reward for my thoughtful prickitude.

The interment service ended, though without actually putting the casket in the ground. He wanted to be buried next to another friend that had died young, and as we exited, I could see the backhoe at the grave site, sitting idle. I remembered thinking that I’d seen funerals in the rain on the way into the mausoleum, and it struck me as odd that there was no hole for the young man’s mortal coil to be shuffled into.

Obviously, it would have been a crazy enough day had it ended there, but we’re only up to about noon, and there was still a Wake to go to, at the house I’d driven to the night before. I sat with Kit, still not talking about it, just supporting her as best I could under the oh-so-unbelievable circumstances.

The “kids”, including Moe and friends, and the poor dead kid’s little sister and her friends, were watching The Lion King and singing along at the top of their lungs. Enter Kit’s mom, putting her nose again where it didn’t belong. She told the kids if they were gonna yell at the screen like that, they should put in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And hey, kids, didn’t you know that Danger Boy and Kit were on the cast together, and you can all yell callbacks together? I groaned. This wasn’t going to go well, and I knew it. But no, Kit’s mom would not be detoured from her logic highway to hell, try as we might. I looked around for flying cows.

Kit and I did our best to be entertaining, knowing that everyone was just starting to yell out their pain, even though they were doing it in a silly way, laughing through the tears. Predictably, the room emptied of young men when Frank climbed into bed with Brad, along with the equally predictable cries of “What is this faggot shit you got us watching, Aunt Millie?” Some of them ventured back in, only to flee the room again during the floor show scenes. The movie ended, and things quieted down for a while. Kit took my hand, and asked if we could go for a walk. It was both a good opportunity to finally talk, and a chance to get out of the room before being tasked with cleaning up the rice and toilet paper that had been flung around the room.

We wandered the neighborhood, as she showed me the tip of the iceberg of what she’d been through with the therapist, which conveniently separates to “The Rapist” with just one tap of the space bar. Outwardly, I was calm, like the priest I’d met earlier in the day. Inside, I was a sea of rage. Then she told me something that had happened the night before, and I understood why Moe hated me so much in one glance…he’d tried to get in her pants while she was sleeping.

So, when I showed up, he thought I was cockblocking him. With his cousin. She had avoided his clumsy advances by pretending to sleep, and he’d given up and gone back to sleep himself. I was amazed. Slidell was not showing me anything good yet, and in fact would utterly fail to do so. Irregular condoms, indeed.

We came back from our walk, still holding hands. As we crossed the street, Moe, Jarhead, Half-pint, and two other good ol’ boys I didn’t know surrounded us, and told Kit to keep walking. Knowing a shitty day when I see one, I pushed her toward the house and stood, in the middle of the street, surrounded by five good ol’ boys just fixin’ to play Yankee Pinata. They'd found a target for their grief and anger.

Trebec, I’ll take Things Only I Know for a thousand.

The answer: Danger Boy’s Allergic Reaction to Pain.

What is: I fucking break out in bruises, Alex.

Correct! You keep control of the board…

They fiddle-fucked around with it for a while, asking me questions about the Air Force and trying to push me into saying the Marines sucked, then switching to football, trying to get me to say the Saints sucked: anything to get me to trigger the ass-whoopin’. I knew I was heading to the hospital, so I figured I’d just have to make sure I had some company in the ER. I turned so that Half-pint was at my right arm, planning to use him as a club if the balloon went up.

Moe finally tipped his hand, saying “What are your intentions with Kit?” I could see her face in the kitchen window, as she filled Millie and the rest in on my imminent doom.

“That would be up to her”, I replied, as hard-edged as I could.

“She ain’t gonna be with a yank”, he said.

At that moment, my brain seemed oddly disconnected from me. One part of my mind started a running commentary, asking who wrote this kid’s dialogue, auditioning witty rejoinders, and planning ninja moves. The other part tried to hush up the commentator, because the A-Train to Whoopassville was comin’ on down the track. Even though I nearly laughed, I loosened up, ready for what was surely about to be a very painful next few minutes for somebody, knowing that the most likely somebody was going to be me.

Fortunately, that was the moment that Kit’s aunt came through the door. She is built like an outside linebacker, and had a look on her face as intense as Mike Singletary in the ’85 Super Bowl as she came storming out to the street like a god-damned hurricane, Kit following along like a kite caught in the gale.

“What the fuck are you boys doing? You want a piece of this boy, you’re gonna have to go through me to do it, and I bet I can whip all y’all’s asses!” I was relieved to find I wasn’t going to have my allergic reaction to pain that day, as those boys backed down like they were French.

Needless to say, we didn’t stay much longer. Within an hour, Kit, her parents, and I were digging into some fine dining: the incomparable one-star cuisine at Denny’s, discussing the day. It turned out that Kit’s dad had also twigged to the weirdness of the backhoe, and we decided to go check on the gravesite. We knew that the boy’s mom would be visiting it in the morning, and wanted to let her know if she should delay, if anything were wrong. Hmmm. Maybe one of us had called Miss Cleo after all.

At this point, I have to remind you that we are still on DAY 1 of my trip. First day, gang. We loaded up in the car and headed back to the funeral home, driving through the wide open gates into the graveyard. We pulled up to the site to find that we were playing starring roles in the Dick Move Finale.

There was undisturbed green grass where the deceased was supposed to have been buried. As the girls wailed in grief and bewilderment, a man stepped out of the back of the funeral home, yelling at us that we had to leave right fucking now or he’d call the sheriff, because they were fucking closed (despite the wide open gates), we were fucking trespassing, and he was gonna get his shotgun if we didn’t leave. We piled in the car, and drove right up to the porch, from which he continued to shout threats.

We stepped out, and faced off with him. He kept telling us he’d get his shotgun, and we kept asking why they hadn’t buried the boy. I’d had enough. I felt a chip grow on my shoulder that you could land a Tomcat on. I decided that if he came off the porch, he’d learn a lesson in humility. Fortunately for my clean record, a younger girl came out and fed us a line of bullshit that we swallowed, though Kit’s dad and I shared a look…he shook his head slightly, and I let him make the call. We were leaving, even though we’d just been lied to pretty mightily. They claimed they’d started to bury him but the ground was too soft…which was amazing, considering the nice green grass and the unmoved backhoe.

So ended the first day, as we went back to Kit’s house, called her aunt and let her know she should wait to go to the gravesite, and settled into the couches, pretty well drained from the experience. Kit fell asleep in my arms, and I shared a look with Millie. Without speaking, she seemed to say “Fix her, or I’ll kick your ass.” I nodded, having already resolved myself to do my best.

Kit and I spent every moment together in those two weeks. The boy’s mom got a hefty discount on the funeral costs, which was of course not even a small consolation. Nothing could be. My relationship with my girlfriend did, in fact, end. As much as she felt bad for Kit, my staying there for two weeks was the straw that broke that camel’s back. There were no happy endings in this tale, just raw and bleeding ends, to make way for beginnings.

A twist of Fate would take me back to Kit a few months later, as I had a training duty just a few miles from her. I would find her in much better condition than I had left her, standing strong after the pain. I ended up with her for the duration of a 90 day TDY. That, also, was too short a time...but we had more than a few adventures, some dangerous, in those three months. I haven't talked much with Kit for quite a while, but I do know that Millie doesn't put her nose in her life, and she's got a wonderful family of her own now. Happily, she managed to disconnect the electromagnet.

I normally don’t discuss the "moral" of a story, however, this one was less than comfortable to write, and for that matter to live through. For me, it’s a day of craziness, but I was just an intrusion upon a tragedy. I can talk about the crazy parts, because I was just supporting cast. It’s a time in my life where I was able to help someone. For others, it was pure hell on earth. For all but one of us in the story, we have the advantage of almost two decades of hindsight to look at these events. I hope you laughed where appropriate, but I also hope you remember this:

We hit rock bottom some times. We think we can go no lower. There are two paths taken in this tale of one day, one of hope, one of despair. One path found a good life, one path ended abruptly. Again, I say…if you ever find yourself in this kind of pain…know that it can always get better. Get help. If you ever come across someone in this kind of pain, help them. Be the lifeline that helps them get through it. We can offer each other no greater gift than compassion.

The Slidell Saga, part 1

In every life, there are moments, days, sometimes weeks that, even while you’re living through them, make you think “They’ll never believe it.” I encountered just such a situation that pulled me 800 miles away from home, and subjected me to such craziness that I swear, I heard Rod Serling narrating portions of it.

I’m going to ask you to strap in, this one will be split into two parts. You’re never going to believe it…but I lived it, and years later still shake my head.

A little bit of background is necessary. I was still a young airman, and I was at the time dating a bisexual girl. I’m not just bragging (accepts internet high fives), it’s germane to the story. She and I had a friend, Kit, who’d moved to the gulf coast of Mississippi. She was actually more than a friend to both of us, and we’d had some very fun adventures indeed.

Kit was one of those girls, though, who had a Television Life. I’m not saying she was a starlet…not at all. No, Kit just had things happen to her that you’d only see on TV. Her mom was batshit insane (a hoarder with MPD), she’d survived being kidnapped, she’d had her arm broken by an ex boyfriend. She was an electromagnet for calamity. I ended up pulled into a couple of weeks that felt like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride by an ill-timed phone call. I answered the ringing, mid fight with the girlfriend, to hear Kit’s mom (let’s call her Millie) on the other end of the line.

“I need you to come down here, Kit’s been raped.” This part of the story is, of course, no laughing matter. My face went pale, despite my blood pressure spiking, as white hot rage pumped through my veins. My girlfriend saw my face, and asked what happened. I told her. She burst into tears. The phone call continued, and it was a horrid tale indeed. (I’m obviously going to change a few details here, but I’ll keep the full impact of the story, I hope.)

Kit had been in therapy for a bit, trying to overcome the aforementioned drama of her life. The therapist took his sweet ass time crawling around her neuroses, and then crossed the line. Making a long story short, he sucked her into a “relationship” filled with abuse, lies, and deviances. She wasn't the first he'd done it to. I’m proud to say that he no longer bears a license to practice, though I’m quite sad that he was only ever under a house arrest and not put into prison to become Bubba’s bitch. One night, she made the leap of courage to get away from him, and told her mother everything. Ten minutes later I got the call.

I talked it over with the girlfriend, and sadly we’d been having relationship troubles at the time. She told me that if I went to Mississippi, we were done. Over. Incensed at this line in the sand, I said goodbye, and so began one of the worst breakups I’d ever gone through…but that story is not this one.

I put in for 2 weeks of leave the very next day, and headed into the deep south. I had no idea what was waiting for me. None.

I’d been given directions to a fast food joint close to Kit’s house in Gulfport. I was to call when I arrived, and be met for the final few blocks to the house. This would have been a good plan, but the Slidell Saga was about to begin.

It was a long drive, 15 straight hours behind the wheel. After such a very long trip, I wearily unfolded myself from the driver’s seat, stretching legs that protested my every order. I hit a payphone and made a call to Kit’s house, and got the machine. They’d recorded a message that said something along the lines of “Dangerboy, if you get this, call (phone number in a different area code). Something’s happened.”

My heart jumped into my throat. What could be wrong? Had someone been abducted by aliens? Molested by angry ferrets with a lisp? Had a marmot thrown into their bathtub by Nihilists? I hung up, pulled out my calling card, and started pounding digits. The salt air so near the coast filled my nostrils, but I paid it no attention at the time. Kit’s mom answered, and we talked briefly.

“Kit’s cousin committed suicide last night, we’re all at their house; you have to come out here.” I couldn’t believe it. Evidently the electromagnet was on, and running full blast.* And so I drove another hour to Slidell, Lousiana. On the drive in, I spied with my little eye a billboard for an outlet mall. One of the outlet stores advertised was for condoms. No shit, a condom outlet store. I had no idea how much Slidell needed irregular condoms, but I was about to make the discovery. I assume that irregular condoms don’t actually prevent irregular people.

I pulled up and parked on the street, weary from travel. Kit saw the car, and her eyes flew wide…we hadn’t told her I was coming. She ran toward me, full speed, and jumped into my arms. We almost fell over…my legs were exceptionally pissed about this unexpected load after an additional hour in the car, and threatened to upgrade their protest to a riot. I leaned back against the car, and just held her, her tears soaking into the shoulder of my shirt. I looked over her head to receive a Death Glare from some young punk with a Moe Howard haircut, not knowing that by the simple act of arriving, I’d become the target of a full on dose of teen angst hatred. This one had embraced the Dark Side, and the Glare was strong in this one.

After a few minutes, Kit disengaged from the hug, and introduced me to the glaring man. We’ll call him Moe…a cousin to both her and the deceased. I would later discover the reason for his instant hatred, and would be shocked in ways that being an electrician had never prepared me for.

I was introduced around, and most were OK with my presence, though I was careful tiptoeing through the minefield of grief surrounding me. Moe wanted to show off for the Yankee, and gave me a tour of his car like a 2nd grader exhibiting a toad in show-and-tell. He had tricked out a ’91 Camaro with shiny rims and a Super Nintendo, which he bragged about playing Super Mario Bros. on while he drove. I was certainly not among intellectual giants, but in deference to the circumstance, I lied and said it was “cool”. He beamed with pride, and as immature as I still was, I had one of my first “Ah, youth” moments.

Kit had promised to stay with the cousins for the night, so I ended up back in the car for yet another hour, heading to her house to sleep over, to return with her parents for the funeral the next day. Had I called Dionne Warwick or Miss Cleo, I would have come up with some excuse to play possum. But no, I entered the day bright-eyed and unsuspecting.


<--- "Psychic readin'? Dangerboy? Oh, everyt'ing not irie at all. You're fucked, boy!"



As I rode along with Kit’s parents to the funeral home, I was filled in on what had happened. The poor cousin, at a mere 20ish years of age, had come home one evening, his wife deciding to break up with him with the most class she could come up with: by greeting him with a surprise as he came home from work. He climbed the steps to his own front porch to find his wife blowing her new boyfriend…she lifted her head to say their marriage was over, and then latched her lips right back on to the new man’s love gun. His retaliation was to eat the business end of a handgun. You can’t make this shit up, people. Personally, I think he had the wrong target for his Glock, but that’s just me.

Now, you might think this would make the funeral a bit prickly, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The widow was supposed to have a private visitation and not be allowed to the actual funeral, which, given that the poor schlub’s mother paid for said funeral, seems perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, it seems a bit more than she deserved. At this point, before I continue the story, I must remind you dear readers that this was BEFORE reality TV. The Hills hadn’t been thought up yet.

Anyhow, we arrived at the funeral parlor, and I found Kit and gave her another hug. She was distraught, and I thought it just the funeral, or maybe that coupled with her recent ordeal with the therapist. Well, hang on to that thought…we’ll come back to it later. I spent some time just being with Kit, chatting lightly, trying to keep her mind off of bad things. Before too long, though, Kit’s mom came up and told me she wanted me to join the few friends singing Amazing Grace for the deceased. I argued, since I felt it was an intrusion (I’d never met him), but Millie is like a force of nature. You don’t argue with a tornado, you just land wherever it sets you and hope you don’t get smacked in the head by a cow.

Reluctantly I headed up to the altar area, discovering that even though the deceased had offed himself, the priest had agreed to a Full Mass. I found that odd, but I joined Moe and a couple of his friends at the head of the room, and they handed me a songsheet, while I mumbled my way through introductions. They wanted to know what the fuck I was doing singing with them, the best friends. I said two words. “Kit’s mom.” They all nodded knowingly, one of them even saying “Well let’s not get Millie started, then. Can you sing?” I assured them I could, and we seemed to be OK.

Moe’s friends were a young Jarhead wannabe and a Half-pint, very white, Eazy-E wannabe. I tried, for my part, to blend in to the wall. Then, the unthinkable took place.


Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in part two of the Saga...

*Footnote: Yeah, I’ve been kind of cavalier about the suicide. The event itself wasn’t amusing at all, just the outrageousness of the entire situation. It was tragic, but it was also stupid. The grief this poor guy left behind was a swath wide and deep, all to “get even” and to escape the pain of what his wife did to him. If anyone reading this is ever in that kind of pain, please…get help. People do care, and as long as you have a pulse, IT CAN GET BETTER.

I Wanna Run FROM You

I’d been living in the dorms on base for a while, despite the difficulty in getting my key. They changed dorm policy in my 3rd year, and you could actually have a room to yourself, if you were of sufficient rank. This was a pretty monumental change, though you still had to share your bathroom with another airman, whose room connected yours via said pissatorium and minishower. Still, it reduced the number of possible Athlete’s Foot or accidental-Clap-from-the-toilet-seat vectors by half, so with a full can of Lysol it made things much easier to live with.

Dorm life was fairly interesting, and anyone who has ever served in the military or gone to college can attest to the joys of living with the same square footage we allot convicted felons. That room, like so many, would have countless tales to tell if its walls could talk.

After the rearrangements of personnel, I discovered that my across-the-bathroom-mate was fairly quiet. He had dark skin, a white stripe in his hair, and an islander accent. Not that I heard it often, as we just didn’t talk much. This was fine by me, so it just wasn’t an issue. Or so I thought.

In those days, I would milk every drop of sleep out of the morning that I possibly could, scraping the proverbial plate like Mama Cass at a Jenny Craig convention. My snooze button had a groove worn in it from overuse. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that my neighbor was an early riser, up at 5 am every morning.

This would have been fine, except for one horrible, dreadful realization. He couldn’t sing.

That may not sound like such a problem, except for one massive downside. He made the attempt. Every morning, without fail. At 5 am. As I was awakened every morning to the heavily accented, deep baritone voice of the chronically tone deaf delivered fortissimo, I began to understand a deeper and more personal definition of the concept of Hell. Dante didn’t have to deal with this shit, just a bunch of fire.

That wasn’t actually the worst part of it, though. The worst bit was his song selection. The man had a “best of Whitney Houston” CD, which he would play and sing along with religiously of a morning, choosing not to make a “joyous noise unto the lord”, but rather to imitate Vogon Poetry: The Musical. For all of my days, I will be able to hear his voice in my head, singing “I’m Every Woman” or “I Want To Run To Yooooooou” in my very own Post Shower Stress Disorder. It was a very strange song choice for Crack-of-Dawn, Cockcrowing Karaoke Caterwaul, one I’d expect from an anchor clanker before an airman, but hey…it takes all kinds.

I toyed with the idea of bringing his activity to the attention of his commanding officer. Not for any punitive reason, but as a possible psychological weapon to induce fucking terror in the hearts of our enemies. It was, to say the least, one of the best days of my military career when he transferred to another base, taking Whitney with him. I wondered if some other poor bastard was exposed to his auditory terrorism, but ultimately, I was just glad to be free from the vocal calamity.

Still, this was a better room mate situation than many. It beat the hell out of the roomie that moved in for a week to investigate me. But that’s another story.

Geek update...Nuke it from Orbit!

I'm absolutely gobsmacked by the news...Duke Nukem Forever, a game announced in 1997, may finally be scheduled for release. To say this is surprising is a pretty huge understatement. I can hear 4 horses whinnying in anticipation, ready to bring their riders forth, as I'm pretty certain this is the Final Sign.

Also, I'd like to point out that even though I typed that horsemen bit as soon as I heard the news, I'm about the 15,963rd to put that very joke on the web, followed by 7,689 Hell Freezing Over quips.

The earlier Nuke'ems were iconic for being very tongue in cheek action shooters, quoting They Live ("I've come to kick ass and chew bubble gum...and I'm all out of bubble gum"), Army of Darkness ("Hail to the King, baby") and other fine pieces of cinema...um...legend. This remains one of the only first person shooter series to feature flushing toilets and tipping strippers, which appeals of course to my inner adolescent/geek/Y chromosome.

I'm interested to see what they've done with the game, and whether it can still hit target audience. There's an immense amount of pressure to Not Suck. Either way, I'm going to have to own it. I'm going to have to play it after a dinner of filet mignon and swigging champagne out of the bottle. It's high time to rip off an alien's head and shit down its neck.

Of course, it's also possible that this is one massive Rick Roll, which would likely be just as epic. We shall see!

EDIT: Evidently not a Rick Roll...here's the video of the demo booth.

EDIT the 2nd: THIS kind of sums it all up.

Farking Iceholes

Here at the Company, we are in the business of making phone calls. It’s something we do. Most of the time, this goes well for us, but every now and then…something magical can happen. There are people in the world who are so full of Joie de Vivre that they react to a simple phone call with venomous vitriol. This is one such tale.

We recently did a marketing dialout, something we’re somewhat good at. Suave left his name on the message, and we got some immediate responses. Our phone lines were hoppin’ like a frog convention, so some callers had to put up with voicemail. Normally, this would be a bad thing…but today it’s opened the door for comedy gold.

One such caller left a 1:43 second monologue laced with more expletives than a hot tub party in heaven with George Carlin, Red Foxx, and Richard Pryor. It was redolent of Roman Moronie, a finely woven tapestry of profanity (though without the clever replacement words). Bail out now if you’re allergic to F-bombs.

“Hello, you cocksucker, Suave. You mother fuckhead. You fucking dickhead cocksucker. Fuck you in the ass, you slimy sleazy sonofabitch! You fuckwad.” This is just the opener. It rolled on for 1:43. Nestled deep within it was the point of the call.

“Don’t you ever call me again you Suavefucker asshole.” It continued on, a voicemail that I wished I could frame. Like a glacier, it ground everything beneath a moving wall of profanities.

Needless to say, it resulted in gales of laughter. We replayed it over and over, like giggling schoolboys just hearing Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television for the first time. (That’s 2 Carlin references, boys and girls.) It was beyond "FTW." It was DRATW.

Ironically, he left no phone number. We don’t know who he was…and I really hope we call him again. It’s always good to have laughter in the workplace.

Scotch Scotch Scotchy Scotch (vol 1)

Every now and then, I intend to share something I enjoy, in the hopes that you might like it as well. I’m going to start this series with something I absolutely dig: Scotch. I will likely have many Scotch entries here, sharing my thoughts on the bottles I’ve enjoyed thus far in my life. There are a metric shit ton of different scotches, more if you include the bastards of the scotch world, the dreaded blends.

Today, I’m going to share one of my favorites. Isle of Jura. Theirs is a great distillery, and among the bottles I’ve tasted and collected, there’s a lot of great taste and affordability here. “Cheaper” doesn’t necessarily mean “Crap”.

There are 4 Scotches under the Isle of Jura label, their Origin, Superstition, Prophecy, and “Diurach’s Own”. I’ve had all but the last, and they each have a different personality.
I find all of them flavorful, great for during or after dinner.

If you’re new to Scotch, start off with the Origin…it’s got a lovely honey finish that will treat your tongue sweetly. The honey notes share the stage with a bit of oak and even coffee, if your taste buds are anything like mine. It’s also quite inexpensive, which raises its value more than just a touch.

The Superstition they refer to as “lightly peated”, which of course means it’s going to kick your taste buds like a mule with an attitude problem if you’re not ready for it. But for the initiated, the peat rolls across the tongue like hot Scottish love, which I can tell you from experience is a very, very good thing. I was introduced to this Scotch by chance and coincidence, which is fitting given the name. A Scotsman from Oban told me of it, and the very next week I found a bottle sitting on a shelf 2 states away while out on business. This is a bottle that finds you, and it is worth the finding.

The Prophecy is referred to as “heavily peated”. It’s not as peated as Laphraoig, which is like taking medicine, but it does have a strong nose. It penetrates your proboscis with a peaty punt. The taste is similarly harsh at first, giving way to cinnamon and nutmeg behind the initial assault. This one was first encountered by me in Vegas, given me by a lovely lass by the name of Moira. This was a girl who knew the value of a good wee dram, and I was happy to make acquaintance with her and the whiskey both. I was only intimate with one of them, however, so I have no idea whether or not she was heavily peated.

I’ve not tasted the Diurach’s Own, but I can tell you this: I’ll be looking for it. They have several limited editions as well, though my wallet tends to shriek in terror from any limited edition booze.

Jura. Remember it, and Slainte!