Toots & The Maytals are the best, & that solo record he did, Toots In Memphis is sublime.
Getting older sucks. Sitting on a hard metal chair all day yesterday, pounding out my usual gibberish, & wrestling down some sort of update conflict with my computer last night wiped me out. No kidding, I was barely able to function today & didn't really start stirring until a commune with the front yard in the evening. I developed a pinched nerve somehow, so my left arm is weak, though better than it was. My blood pressure is up, 136/96 which is high for me.
I don't know how the hell I managed to do 16-hour days in a kitchen without putting a bullet in my brain before I moved home. And this was in my forties when the bloom was definitely off the rose with that career path. God, I can't imagine what would've happened had I found myself stuck there.
When I moved to New Orleans, I fully intended to become a chef... eventually, with the certificate & all. From what I understand, since I've worked under two chefs for at least two years each, I could get the certification but I wouldn't want to ask. Both told me that unless you want to actually run a kitchen, there's really no use in it, financially. You're better off ingratiating yourself with different chefs as a pro cook, someone they know they can call on when they need help.
Well, once I got burnt out on making that happen & was just cooking until I could figure out what to do next, I was still pulling 16-hour days in my forties trying get back ahead of the game. Not long after I went to Europe & wound up spending about four grand all told, I got run off a good paying job & was never able to find one that fit. I shudder to think about going back to that, even in a place less competitive than New Orleans.
I do want to stop living off savings, love & luck, & this is definitely flowing better than it did last night, but when it comes to finding something to bring some money in, this ain't quite it. I don't even think I could pull it off even if it were still commercially viable to make money as a "blogger". No kidding, it was at one time doable, even if you were an otherwise boring, mediocre white dude.
I imagine that's all done on YouTube today, with some already moving towards the Next Big Thing in media because everyone's pissed off at either the "Essjaydoubleyous" or the mewling screwheads who make up the alt-right tapestry. I've got a face for radio & a voice for newspapers, so I'm stuck here.
But, like I said, I don't think I could even pull that off. I'm pretty boring & even so, don't have the passion to go full-on political. That's a lot of work, I know. Still, it's a positive I'm keeping it up & I have acknowledgement from an author who's work I've enjoyed that is indeed a Good Thing. So I'll take that & hope something interesting works its way out of it. Never know.
Anyhow, enough of that. I'm not sure anyone cares & even if they do my experiences have taught me there comes a time to zip it up. I'm sometimes amazed at that portion of 19th/20th century literature that's little more than thinly disguised paeans to the people who won't have sex with us. Don't pretend it's not, come on.
I guess we should go ahead & look at the news. Trump's later shit fit concerns his thinking that FOX News is no longer sufficiently worshipful & (some) FOX personalities insinuating he needs to sit down & remember who got him where he is. Now as we've noted before, Trump's main malfunction is that he was born into & spent 70 years in a situation where the paychecks of everyone around him depended on how much & how well he thought they'd kissed his ass recently. His riches werwe\ inherited from someone who was a complete son of a bitch, apparently, & what fiscal success he's had has been little more than a high-rent shitty landlord.
Even his public person of Rich Guy Who's Rich is a carefully crafted put-on & more the result of nearly 40 years PR than anything concrete. So, he's still getting used to people disagreeing with or, indeed, being less than sycophantic to him without being about to pass it off as merely them being jealous of his toys. But I will admit, there is a whole lot of free-range yo-yos in this country tha think he's The One & they're loud as shit about it.
FOX News (& Conservative Media in general) has spent the past 25 years getting those yo-yos in some semblance of order so they'd be barking for just such a One, & George W. Bush was simple not vulgar enough to meet the nut. I wonder how this will wash out, just where will those yo-yos will throw their lot in with. I doubt this is more than a fart in a thunderstorm, but it won't be the last said of it. Given the patchwork, slapped-together-hanging-on-by-a-thread nature of the modern media conglomerate, FOX may have poked their pit dog once too often.
And the Trump Administration's being awful jackasses anyway, but his true believers won't give a shit. His screwing with the 14th Amendment, particularly as it affects overseas troops, will shave off a few numbers, but I've already seen the faithful claiming it's just as "easy" to send a pregnant soldier/soldier's wife back from out of the country. It won't be many, is what I'm saying. He's pissing off farmers, too, but again, the bulk of his base will stick with him going into 2020 for whatever reason. In any event, it's all "fake news" so there's no talking to them, anyway.
Roy Moore is running for a Representative post in Alabama again, which in & of itself is pretty goddamn ballsy. This time, however, he's arguing that instead of concentrating on improving the Heart of Dixie, he's raging against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), saying Trump was "right" to tell her to "go back home". That's a racist dick move & to pretend otherwise (or that Rep. Omar's supposed offenses makes it okay) is the height of foolery. However, the state is giving Mississippi a run for its money as "the meanest, stupidest state in the South", & Roy Moore definitely represents that strain of Alabama resident.
On a positive stroke, the Amsterdam Deli is moving to a better location from their rather out-of-pocket spot on South McCullough to a pace Downtown on Main Street. It's a solid place, & the only one I've found that has a decent shwarma in Tupelo, so go check it out if you go there to see Elvis' birthplace or something. Since I left home, the Downtown area's put a lot of effort into being Hep & the town itself has been lauded as something of a "foodie destination" by some big time magazines.
I declare, just like with the Oxford-Blue Mountain music scene of a decade or so back, I just cannot reconcile myself to Hipster Tupelo. But, to be honest, the "Hipster South" has always rung awkward, if not outright false to me. But that's a discussion for another time. Dorian is getting stronger & closer, & Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has dropped out of the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America.
I do want to say I think everyone who gets up their own asshole about Al Franken & decided to blame it all on Sen. Gillibrand can kiss my country ass. Franken made his own bed & knew how the Republicans would be hypocrites about it, even with a lech like Trump befouling the chair in the Oval Office, & has nobody to blame but himself. For crying out loud, he used to party with John Belushi in the '70s, you'd think he wouldn't give 'em more ammo. They are not operating in good faith & he wrote two books centered around just that before he even entered politics. Come on now.
Anyhow, that's the lot, I guess. I've decided to pot updates on Twitter, not really promotion but more like acknowledgement.
