Yeah, buddy. It's been fucked up, man, and the damnedest thing is knowing what I'm doing now is going to be massively fucked up - as in, it's entirely possible I could be homeless in five years
Whelp, there you go. It froze up on me. That's a weird feeling, just tapping straight in. I bet my blood pressure is through the roof. Stop.
I'm having to fight off the urge to do my normal shtick on Twitter today, especially when I'm stoned. Just not today. My rants about the metanarrative or clever insights into the philosophical implications of Tom & Jerry cartoons can wait. Ain't nobody need that.
Ain't nobody need me throwing in on the impact of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade because I have nothing useful to add. There are enough middle-aged, middle-classed men who'll never have the chance to have children whether they wanted to or not. I hope that makes sense.
I don't think this is connected to anything. Jibber-jabber is, therefore, allowed. Talking to the walls, basically, and you'd have to put some effort into finding it. I got nothing nobody else has and I really ain't into catching stray drama.
We've known about this for a month, though. It was leaked, everyone threw a fit, and there you go. Not to degenerate reaction to the Court actually doing it, it's just interesting the reaction is still so visceral. The wound is still just as raw, maybe more. Reckon anyone expected that?
Man, I need to stay stoned. The last couple of weeks has been a drag. I say this lightly, of course, because that is definitely a White Boy problem. Still, there were a couple of days that were off, bad off. I need to be studying on how I can take advantage of the Omega Point of 2022. Mississippi - and all I can speak for is Mississippi, 'cause we're goddamn weird - will not be the same after the Card hits the ground.
I have spent the last 15 minutes trying to imagine what Tom & Jerry cartoons would be - the whole of its Being, if you will - were real, That is, adjusting for physics and basing telling it to get stuffed. See, the thought is slipping away and there's that comedown-afterr
Okay, I need to fish or cut bait, and I shall cut bait.
With all apologies to Eddie Hinton, who probably doesn't care.
I haven't written in a while. I made the decision about a month ago that writing about politics four times a week was fine but trying (and usually failing) to come up with that might not always be politics was a drag, man. Sometimes it came, most time it didn't, and it was starting to not be fun anymore. If I'm not getting paid, I better be having fun. I see no reason to stick around for neither.
And, for the most part, it's worked. I've been in a weird headspace for the last couple of months. Best way I can describe it is my own self-loathing is so severe that I'm not sure I should be taken seriously about anything. In any event, there's always some goofy shit going on somewhere in the halls of power and mankind will never not be a good story waiting.
That being said, I don't give a shit and I'm starting to get tired of it. I need a break, something to shake loose the blues. A new perspective, that sort of thing. This is why I need to get stoned at least once a day and trip at least twice a year. New perspectives, I'm in favor. You might be imagining all this.
How are parallel universes categorized? I mean in Multi-World Theory if you take that to mean that multiple universes that split from each other are actually a fundamental of existence. They don't think that, for the most part, but a lot of pop science books have been written about it. I personally, lack the Latin to make this decision.
Not like in comic books, which seems to be relatively scattershot. DC and Marvel both have multiverses, neither company has had a consistent policy. I want to say Marvel would name realities based on when the comic was released. I'm not going to look it up, but it's like the Ultimate universe is Earth-2001. Mainstream Marvel is Earth-616 and was supposed to show how relatively unimportant it is. It is, but you know what I mean.
DC seems to like having a noted Main Earth. Earth-One, New Earth, etc. It's had a couple of universal reboots - i.e., a chance to rewrite the entire line, a la fan fiction - in the last 10 years, so I don't know how they're doing it now. Again, I'm not looking it up.
They're universes are decided by editorial fiat and regular cosmic occurrences, or if you like, crises. Marvel, on the other hand, says universal split occurs at certain points that make for good storytelling and/or covering up something that's just embarrassing. They had a DC-style reboot a couple years ago, but I think the only thing that actually change was to bring certain popular characters into the Mainstream line. Again, fan faction.
Anyway. Who knows how they do it now? It's interesting that Human Marvel - like the people who spend time with the MCU or the Spider-Verse - is introducing their whole multiple universe thing at all, much less this relatively quickly. The Squadron Supreme was nearly 10 years into the line and Marvel's always had that connected universe.
DC really didn't do it all that much until the '60s, basically following Marvel's lead. Batman in the Jusrice League could be doing something entirely different in his own books, his World's Finest team-up with Superman book, and just wherever he wound up that month. Same with everyone, really. It's why Superman and Batman teamed up with Jonah Hex and the Haunted Tank so often and Wonder Woman teamed with Beowulf.
The problem with their mashing into one coherent world came when the Barry Allen Flash meet the Jay Garrick Flash, even though only a couple of years separated them. Like '47 to '52, admittedly a lifetime in comics. It was a pain because just about every character was owned by the same people but not the same company, if that makes sense. Flash Comics and All-Star Comics and National Comics and Action Comics and Detective Comics were all their own little worlds. Wildcat, Ted Grant, was inspired to become a mystery man after reading a Green Lanter, Allan Scott, comics.
Marvel was even less organized than that. Some titles only lasted one issue and the next issue would have a completely different name. Indeed, their Marvel Comics was renamed Marvel Mystery Comics after one issue and introducing most of the characters Marvel uses as their "Golden Age," like the Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch. It later became Mystery Comics and finally Marvel Tales, which became a horror anthology. It later was a reprint mag, mostly for Spider-Man.
But I ramble. So DC squeezed all these books together and spent the second half of the century acquiring the rights to every other long-underwear character that Marvel didn't own. Like Plastic Man and the Spirit came from Quality Comics and the characters Allen Moore based his Watchmen characters own (Blue Beetle, the Question, etc.) came from Charlton Comics. After suing Whiz Comics for bullshit reasons and won, so they got Captain Marvel, who I refuse to call Shazam.
They all came from different universes or went to different universes. The Quality characters, for example, went to a universe where the Second World War was still going on. The others were squeezed in with the Crisis On Infinite Earths which also got rid of their multiverse for a couple of decades. In theory, anyway. They keep making such a dog's biscuit out of it, they have to keep turning the universe off and turning it on again. Undoubtly, the success or lack thereof from the DCCU will have some impact if it hasn't already.
But none of those count in this thought experiment. Would categorization determine number? Like, maybe the South won the Civil War and ceased to be quite as awful or won the Civil War and became that world's Nazis. Both from Harry Turtledove, too. Suppose those worlds exist somewhere in the cosmic static. If you could travel through them, how would you chart them?
I think I had something this morning, but I don't know. I took a head-kicker of a nap this afternoon, so I came out from the other end not having a clue. So I don't know.
This, then, is a placeholder. I've got the Therapist tomorrow, but I really don't care anything about talking to anyone. Might as well get it over with, I reckon, and then I won't have to talk to anyone for another month.
So there's that there, then.
I confess I don't get NFT's. Then again, apart from making it easier to buy drugs from certain sources, I really don't get the appeal of digital currency. Both seem like modern manifestations of the Tulip Mania, basing something intrinsically worthless on its perceived value. Granted, things like diamonds and the stock market, in general, have always struck me as a scam, so maybe I'm not the best person to pontificate on such a thing.
However you want to waste your money to make yourself happy, go for it. I bought yet another harmonica yesterday, a Hohner Marine Band 364/24 in the Key of C. I already had one with soloist tuning but this one has Richter tuning. Apparently, Sonny Boy Williamson II played one. I got the solo tuning by mistake, and I'm not quite sure how this tuning works out, particularly on the draw notes. I don't think it's the same as a Lucky 13 in C.
Anyhow, one of the recent quirks in the NFT world is pictures of a cartoon lion modified with different colors, clothes, etc. It's a hit on Twitter and, no, I'm not going to link to it. I don't want to encourage this behavior. The selling to-and-fro is getting as much play from the Kids These Days as day trading. A couple hundred bucks for a picture of a cartoon lion. It's not even a particularly good or unique cartoon. It looks like King Leonardo to me.
As for the cryptocurrency thing, every time someone waxes rhapsodically it sounds more and more like a cult. Several years ago a co-worker tried to talk me into it and I asked him, "Can I pay my rent with it? Will my pot dealer take it? Can I buy groceries with it? No? Then I've got no use for it." Back then, that's about all I spent money on, but I still don't have much use for it. I've always lacked a certain amount of ambition that I figure must be there for that sort of thing to have any appeal.
You see those guys - often the same guy - who are gung ho about busting ass to make money, to the point where not wanting to make a lot of money is considered a character flaw. I don't know why they feel it's necessary to be so contemptuous of others, because I honestly don't care. Again, I ain't the one. One of the main reasons I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid is that it struck me as an easy way to make rent. It might be, but getting there is a booger. Never did figure out how to do it.
Speaking of writing, I decided to not worry myself about Gibberish anymore. If I have something on my mind, like this, I'll write something. If not, I won't. And I'm not going to stress about meeting the 500-word count. I get what I need out of the News, even though that will never bring me fame and fortune. This was supposed to spur something else and all it's doing is making me miserable. That don't help nobody.
I didn't write anything Tuesday for no real good reason. I don't feel bad about it, though, as I had nothing to write about. I did write about the Headhunters (Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and Baby Face LeRoy) and how they helped influence the development of electric Chicago blues. Plus, there's a nifty performance of Jimmy Rogers from back in the '90s. Dig it.
And that's probably all the writing I'm going to do today. I did a nifty explanation of what this whole "debt ceiling" business was about, or tried to best I could. Check it out.
I'm going to go ahead and get something down. I plumb forgot Thursday, didn't think about it until 4 a.m. Friday morning, and was too lazy to do anything about it. I had tried to remember, honest.
I didn't even try to fill in Friday. Had a doctor's appointment and ran some errands in Tupelo, so by the time I got home, all I wanted to do was nap. I did know, I just didn't care. I got a really sharp piece on the News about the Mississippi Legislature coming up with a medical cannabis bill that's actually better, best I can tell, than what Initiative 65 would've given us. The rest of the week is pretty decent, too, despite having plenty of Actual Paying Work to do.
I've been putting some serious thought into making a major change. Specifically, cutting this bullshit out. I might get one or two good pieces out of this shit a month, and the rest is just me trying to fill space. It's no fun and discouraging. I started this just to get back into fighting shape and hopefully make some interesting boil out of it. That hasn't happened.
So, what I might do is go ahead and keep an MWF-plus-weekend schedule for The News. The music stuff will stay on Tumblr just because it's easier to plug in music or videos and is easier to retweet. Blogger is pretty rickety and I don't believe it'll ever get much better. It seems like it's an afterthought that isn't irritating enough for Google to dump like they did Google Plus.
Anyway. I'll kick it around but I'm pretty much settled on it. Like I said, not only is it rarely any fun, most of the time it just makes me feel worse. I don't see the point in all that.
Just got back from Otis' late afternoon walk. He never wants to go far - down to the curve, up to the Old Place, or just around the property - but he wants to keep going out. He's been having a worse time getting around, full-on balance issues. And they're worst after dark. Getting old is a drag but watching your dog getting old is much, much worse.
Watching a Cinematic Excrement episode on "Mommie Dearest." I've never seen it, but the Smeghead (that's what he calls himself) is talking about how perception can differ, particularly when it comes to abuse in a family. Momma can completely ignore the abuse she suffered from Daddy and Poppaw and then in the next breath tell one of the most horrible stories you ever heard about some of the shit my father pulled. I'm not condemning nor complaining, it is just an interesting stroke to ponder, I think. The mind plays tricks on you, sure, but not near to the amount you play tricks on it.
I don't cotton much to child abuse. I think corporal punishment is child abuse. I think yelling at your kid is child abuse. I think preventing them from something they enjoy for an extended period of time to punish them is child abuse. I don't have kids and that's one of the reasons why. I do not understand how even what I consider proper parents do it, not going to lie. Not strangling my dog because he spends an hour-and-forty-five minute going inside and out at 3 a.m. So, yeah, forgive me if I judge and take it with a grain of salt.
I have some Actual Paying Work to do tonight, so this is going to be short. It's an interesting topic, on dram shop laws, and I'll let you look that up for yourself. Considering how infertile my brain is as often as not, I'm thinking about stopping this.
That is, stop writing Gibberish every Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday. Half the time I forget about it because most of the time I have no interesting ideas. I'd still write something from time to time when I had something to write about, but I have to wonder if trying to squeeze toothpaste from an empty tube is doing me any good.
I'm going to think on it. I wonder if I've run this experiment into the ground. The News is still doing what it needs to do for me, but there's just no way I can turn that into anything but a hobby. How all those Substack folks can do what they do and live with themselves, I don't know.
Anyway, it might just be my blues talking. Once Fall comes around or the pandemic breaks, maybe I'll be in a better, more productive mood. Time to get to work. I'm drifting and if I'm going to drift, I'm going to get paid for it.
I suppose I should put something down. I plumb forgot Thursday and didn't think about it until around 3 a.m., and by the time I got good and woken up, I just wasn't feeling it. Nobody cares, though, we all know that. I regularly get a "like" at the WordPress site from one guy, but I'm pretty sure that's a bot. There's no way he could read all that as quickly as it says.
Speaking of which, we should get that out of the way. Monday was about Joe Biden's attempts to raise taxes on the wealthy; meaning, probably not you so calm down. We looked into the recall attempt against California governor Gavin Newsom Wednesday and why it was a waste of time. Friday was a run-down of the "Justice for J6" rally that was supposed to go down in Washington, D.C., today yet turned out to be a humorous bust.
I haven't heard of anything similar happening anywhere in the rest of the country but the D.C. to-do drew something like 400 people, more or less. The running gag is the protestors were outnumbered by the press and police, and that probably wasn't far from the truth. I imagine there are a couple of reasons for this. For one, this didn't have the money behind it the Great American Temper Tantrum had. Lots of folks spent lots of money to get people to Washington on that day and that was nowhere to be seen today.
Plus, I imagine the increased police presence had something to do with it. There was no fooling around by the fuzz today. They were thick on the ground and loaded for bear. In any event, this whole thing had deflated in on itself by the time this week came around, with so-called organizers trying to keep protestors from raising too much hell or from showing up at all.
Running commentary on Twitter from the wingnuts was that the thing was a joke because it was mostly press and/or fuzz instead of Real Americans, which really isn't a ringing endorsement for that bunch. But that whole scene has been screwy from day one. Some are trying to say that this represents a dwindling of Trump's influence on the GOP. I don't know if that's so. By the time the election came around, he'd pissed away most of his support among the non-faithful.
I really think the vast bulk of never-Trump GOP had no problem with his actual policies so much as the vulgar way he went about them. For the most part, they were ranch standard Republican policies. Fewer taxes on the rich, less oversight for corporations, more restrictions on women's bodily autonomy, more emphasis given to religious extremism, none of that is all that weird. What were his babies - like the disaster economic dealings with China and him getting rooked by North Korea - weren't really enough to make them lose hope but they certainly didn't help after he salted the Earth.
He still has the true blue and I doubt anything will shake them too much. That's sort of the definition of a fanatic, a lack of clear thinking when it comes to their precious. How is this going to play out for 2022 or 2024? I don't know and anyone who says they do is full of shit as a Christmas goose.
So there's that there then. If something comes up, I'll come back but don't count on it. It's just one of those days.
