League of Intoxicated Gentlemen January 2007 Ballard Meeting, courtesy Manuel.

I was EXTREMELY locquacious Friday night. As Manuel took this pic, I was channelling the Deadwood character E. B. Farnham for reasons absolutely unknown to myself even at he time. By the end of my disquisition, I even had William Henderson’s unmistakable speech pattern and accent down.

Also, for whatever reason, the fezzes were incredible chick magnets, as attested to by the magic of photography. As all Brethren in attendance that night are spoken for with the exception of our youngest member, we spent a great deal of the evening genteelly directing the attention of the ladies toward him.

Additional fantastickall events unveiled themselves in the course of the evening. I enthusiastically narrated of a series of absurdly improbable events, including but not limited to the tale of the Hurlothrumbo, how a celebrated Capitol Hill mansion was built on a turn of the century pyramid scheme before playing host to some sort of pre-new-age White Russian crackpottery, and , I think, something else (oh yes, it was the tale of the Oddfellows bustout a decade ago in my beloved Capitol Hill). The spontaneous invention of a fezzification ritual which explains why our fezzes are betassled also occurred. We were witness to the narration of a member’s single-handed campaign to combat the scourge of pr0nography, a campaign that engendered no mean quantity of incredulity. Most importantly, we obtained valuable fez wisdom in the form of the crucial information shared with us by a fellow-denizen of The Smoke Shop that our fezzes were, that night, “just like the Admiral’s panties.” Said ethanol philosopher then quite refused to elaborate the source and meaning of the remark, but as the Smoke Shop is the final remaining fisherman’s bar in Oulde Ballard, there’s a real probability that the remark encapsulates some hidden or forbidden seaman’s lore.

Additionally, we resolved to investigate the doins of E Clampus Vitus at first hand.