If you watch old movies, you know that reporters gather at their favorite watering hole after a hard day’s work. My uncle was an old-time reporter and he told me stories about watering holes while we dined on steaks and Jim Beam at the nearest watering hole to his house.

Today’s fru-fru reporters probably don’t go to watering holes except when they need to talk to sources. Otherwise, they’ve moved past Jim Bean to crates of Pappy Old Van Winkle that they have shipped to their houses. If you order a shot of this stuff at a bar, you’ll need a handful of Krugerrands.

Most writers drink booze because booze calls the muse. However, I think it’s likely that the fru-fru reporters at certain networks and newspapers (that I don’t plan to name here) drink out of endemic remorse that occurs when you sell your soul to a corporation with a political agenda that takes precedence over facts.

Those of us who write novels tend to drink more wine because once the muse shows up, it helps to remain sober and awake. Wine, then, is an essential writer’s tool even though the people running the MFA scams won’t tell you this. A cardinal rule of publishing is the better the wine, the better the book–or, at least, the better promotional effort the writer will receive from reviewers, PR flaks who used to drink Jim Beam at watering holes, and readers in general.

I feel sorry for the authors who had to write during prohibition. Many of them probably became bootleggers just to feed their families. My problem and I need your advice on this, is would it help me or hurt me if I ran a crowdfunding campaign to help me buy better wine?

Right now, I’m drinking Gallo wine which I buy in 55-gallon drums. At least I’m not buying wine in a box with a faucet on the side of it. Seriously, is it asking too much to at least try to move up to Sutter Home?

Even though I think inventing white zinfandel was a bad mistake–partly because it’s pushing real zinfandel off the shelves–their dark reds aren’t too bad. No, they’re not Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, but I’ll have to outsell James Patterson before I can buy wine in a 750 ml bottle for $85.

I’m just brainstorming the wine crowdfunding plan right now, so if any of you want to send me a few magnum bottles of Sutter Home Zinfandel (dark red!) to get in on the ground floor of my writer’s improvement program, I’ll consider making you a character in my next novel. (Anyone who sends anything other than red except the cough syrup tasting merlot, will probably get murdered on page one.)

So, do I launch a crowdfunding campaign or can y’all promise to send enough quality wine so I won’t have to?

—Malcolm

Just think, if you’d sent me some quality wine a year ago, you could be one of the KKK-fighting heroes in “Fate’s Arrows.”