Booze Arts Academy

Booze is not a dirty word. Booze is the familiar term for a substance that has been instrumental in virtually all of civilized humankind's endeavors. Booze was part of early religious ritual, and it is still a large part of the ritual in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. Some Protestant churches use grape juice...but quite frankly, that's not what the New Testament's Jesus of Nazareth made out of water at that wedding at Cana. He made wine.

Wine, beer, liquor. All of it is magical. And like magic, it can be used for good or ill. This site attempts to shed light on it for the good--the public good, the private good, the good of humanity in all its forms.

This site celebrates the intelligent, artistic use of booze. It celebrates booze in and of itself--in art, in literature, in ritual, in the conduct of human affairs.

It celebrates those who made valuable contributions to human life and who also drank and were proud of it. The list includes the aforementioned Jesus of Nazareth, and the current church supposedly founded by him. It does not include, naturally, founders of non-Western religions. Those tee totaling fanatics seem to have eschewed drinking the fruit of the grape or the distillations of the grain with tellingly negative effects on their attitudes and deportment. In short, if terrorists once in a while entertained themselves with a "tasty beverage," to quote my favorite Key West bartender, perhaps they would have had a change of heart and stopped their needless and destructive negativity. Or, as my best friend opined, they'd be better people. (They'd be better people if they once tasted that friend's rum cake!)

And to all the MADD people out there--these same people who have brainwashed my 12-year-old niece into asking her father if he was safe to drive her home after ONE BEER...get over it. Get juiced. Or get out.

Bottoms up

PS The Old Testament had booze, too. Few religious tomes don't, save those sacred to Islam. FYI, a Worldwide Church of God website points out that, while the evils of drunkenness were pointed out in the Old Testament, the benefits of proper use of wine were also clearly indicated. For more, see http://www.wcg.org/lit/booklets/alcohol/biblwine.htm)