Liberty’s Elysium

Tags

cbt, Elysium, fatca, FBAR, Goulet Pens, liberty, Noodler's

Patrick Henry might be most responsible for today’s America. The American colonist lawyer and Politian was one of the more radically opposed to the Stamp and Townsend Acts, insistent on a Bill of Rights protecting personal freedoms, and a leader in making a clean break from England (War!). To the modern day USA, USA, USA American, he is an icon. Goulet Pens and Noodler’s Inks devised Liberty’s Elysium ink in honor of Henry. Goulet operates from Ashland PA where Henry was from.

I just purchased a bottle to honor my own newfound freedom, freedom  from America. Americans revolted from Britain largely over these taxes (Stamp and Townsend); CBT (citizen-based taxation), FBAR, and FATCA are my oppressive tax acts.

If you’ve not read my blog before and immediately see me as a hillbilly defending his still, please research the American expat plight. Please open your eyes to the loss of freedoms and liberties nearly nine million of us living outside the borders experience. Just as Americans left the British fold in 1776, I am a new breed of America leaving the American fold in the 2010’s. I have relinquished my citizenship and filed all my taxes. I am freer as a non-citizen than I was as a citizen, and by Patrick Henry’s calculation, I couldn’t be more American.

The ink is American Flag blue, more or less, and is used in Goulet’s logo. I love blue inks and have about a dozen bottles, but I don’t have any patriotic blues. I don’t have any blues that sing freedom to me when I write. I do have blues that make me smile when I write: I love my Bad Blue Heron, Eclat de Saphir, and Majestic Blue. But I wanted that perfect blue, a blue I could write a story or memo with, that would inspire me in whatever I wrote and would be agreeable to any person reading it, especially to me. I honestly don’t know if this is the blue, but I do love it.

I am not opposed to paying taxes. I want community services and protection. I believe in paying a government to serve me. But I do not believe in paying a government that does not serve me in any way, shape, or form. I live in Canada and I get zero services for my American tax dollars. The right to move there is not a service, it’s a right. Military protection is not a community service but an international one (my Canadian tax dollars go to Canada’s military which in turn help protect Americans). I get nothing from America and I ask nothing, and like every other country in the world, I should not have to pay or file taxes with a country I don’t live or work in. The USA taxing us is clearly taxation without representation (a vote is not representation; service is representation) and by giving up my rights to return, I am free of the IRS tax burdens. My pending retirement and future business ventures are safe. My foreign family is safe. At least they might be in another ten years after this Draconian statute of limitations runs out. I have nothing to hide from the IRS, but their 76,000 pages of tax law make that a moot point. One is never sure if they are completely compliant.

So I celebrate my freedom from taxation without representation with an ink representing personal Freedom. Every stroke reminds me what it means to be American (which I still am). Every stroke reminds me of my disappointment in and anger with my native land. Every stroke sing’s Patrick Henry’s words:

Writing and Drinking

Tags

alcohol, Irish Whisky, Literary, Scotch Whisky, Single Malt, Strathisla, Whisky, Writers Tears

“Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.”

This quote is from Peter Devries’ Reuben, Reuben and not from Earnest Hemingway

I like to drink. I like the taste of beers, wines, and spirits. I like the sensations of tingling tongues and burning palates. I like the off-centered sensations. My mind works looser but not better. I feel freer to explore ideas, but almost always the result is crap. Writing and human relationship.

I think our brains are finely wired. Our Apollonian and the Dionysian modes are not independent but work in tandem. Each alone is almost useless. Alcohol sends us into this Apollonian mode, the creative world, but it blocks out the rational, focused world. Our thoughts and actions become psychedelic, not constructive.

I also have health issues that heavy drinking would only exacerbate and append. While getting lost in the netherworld of the bottle is attractive at times, getting lost from the world is not as pretty. Yet, I have decided to try to incorporate alcohol into my writing.

I am going to try to use finer drinks as a reward system: accomplish something significant, have a toddy. Some significant milestones include finishing editing chapters and scenes, revisions of stories, and of course any awards or publications (should that ever happen). Finish a chapter, celebrate with a shot of Writers Tears.

Reading is also important to me. I firmly believe any writer needs to read and study what he or she reads. A writer cannot write that killer story without understanding the lessons of both published masters and clunkers. Reading is so important to me, I would almost consider a good old drunk for each book, but I’ll settle for a lone shot of single malt.

I do not condone writing or editing drunk, and not because I think it’s evil. If you want to do it, go write ahead. But I know it doesn’t work for me. I am now calling bottles of spirits bottles of encouragement and each shot a notch in my pen marking success.

Bottoms up!