WILD & WEARY

The sun was coming up, and our friend was sound asleep But we saw through the window that the water ran so deep That you couldn’t make out the ocean floor Then I saw you in the light I couldn’t take it any more

Give me your hand Give me everything you’ve got And the light from window will fall on us burning hot Just like a torch

The air was humid; I will not forget When we stepped outside, I hear your footsteps Now in my mind, it’s a soft sound Almost imperceptible against the giving ground

Let me kiss your eyelids with my lips Let me feel the heat coming off your fingertips Just like a torch

from The Hound Chronicles (1992)

ok here’s some facts about my guy baron von steuben

very dubious claims of nobility. i’m too drunk and lazy to look it up right now but i’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have actually been called a baron

anyway he served in the prussian army under frederick the great but he was discharged because of some big gay sex scandal

he spent a while in germany but - you guessed it - got into another big gay sex scandal

eventually he realized his best option, to avoid prosecution for all these big gay sex scandals, was to leave europe entirely and go to america where they had way bigger fish to fry at the moment

so he’s recruited by the continental army, with the assistance of a letter of recommendation from ben franklin that HUGELY exaggerates his experience, probably unintentionally (the french title “Lieutenant General Quarters Maitre” was mistranslated as “lieutenant general” even though it really meant “deputy quartermaster”)

so he rolls into america - first of all, he’s arrested at the dock because he accidentally dressed himself and all his men in red coats and everyone thought they were british soliders. awkward

so once that’s all worked out, he rolls into valley forge with his whole crew - like, several aides, a chef, his dog, the whole shebang, and he’s greeted by an army of dudes who don’t even have matching coats and haven’t showered in 10 years. these guys are literally using their bayonets as cooking skewers, that’s how piss-poor an army they are. steub is like “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” he is so disgusted with them

so the steub starts devising a bunch of drills for them to kick their ass into shape. the problem here is, he doesn’t speak a word of english, so he generally conducts drills by cursing at the soldiers in an incomprehensible mix of german, french, and english, leaving his french-speaking aides (alexander hamilton and john laurens among them) to translate for him

language barrier aside, everyone absolutely loves him. he’s such a dude. at one point in the war he holds a pantsless party, like, where you’re only allowed into the tent if you’re not wearing pants? flaming shots were served. this really happened i can source it if you want

literally america would not exist without this guy. the army was a fucking DISASTER before he showed up and taught them how to fight

anYywaY after the war he moves in with two of his aides/sugar babies, future senator william north and future state representative benjamin walker. the actual situation among these housemates is unclear but some of them were definitely banging each other. anyway, later in life he legally ADOPTS these two guys because he’s such a dedicated sugar daddy

he takes in a whole harem of hot young twinks including, at one point, john adams’ son and hercules mulligan’s son after the adamses try to break the two lovebirds up

he had no idea how to handle money and poor alexander hamilton had to manage all his finances and save him from bankruptcy lmao

Claire Vaye Watkins, “On Pandering”

Let’s keep this essay circulating and circulating.