I'm going to the city. Gonna breathe that city air.

  I mentioned the other day that I finished that Hank Williams biography and it thoroughly bummed me out. For whatever reason, it's put me in a melancholy mood as we move through this last weekend of January 2021. Being depressed these days is a drag, partly because I know it's just my own brain wiring messing with me but mostly because I can't get stoned. Anyhow, here's this week's News.

 It was a pretty good week, more or less. Plenty to write about and something to explain, which is always fun. Monday was another slice of Today in the Biden Administration, but Wednesday and Friday were the fun ones. I tried to explain the whole GameStop-short stock business even though, as I note, I've never been able to wrap my head around how it actually works. Sort of like matrices in algebra or baking, it just plumb evades me.

 As far as that goes, it is entertaining as hell to see regular stock gambler types lose their shit because the hoi polloi is forgetting its place. Frankly, they should be thankful that we don't live in a just universe which would mean they'd be strung up by their own intestines, kept alive by medical science, and pelted repeatedly with pecans. That being said, people whose opinion on these matters I trust are saying the joke's starting to a bit long in the tooth and it's possible it might start causing some real danger.

 Of course, that just casts into sharp relief how flat dumb our economic infrastructure is. But that's beyond me and I won't pretend that it isn't. It'll be interesting to see where all this goes from here but I'm not going to act like I'm qualified to give a proper prediction nor give thoughts on what should be done.

 The other bit of crazy that's taken up this week's news is newly elected Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene showing the entire world that, yes, she is loony as a coot and probably shouldn't be allowed around sharp scissors, much less high-powered weaponry or the laws of the nation. She's a 9/11 truther, and I'm amazed there is still a healthy group of those dickholes. She's also a believer that the Parkland and Sandy Hook were "false flags," and that just shows a rotten, black soul. The one that got me, though, was the suggestion that the wildfires regularly bedeviling the West are caused by space lasers operated by International Jewry so as to clear land for high-speed train projects.

 That's just dangerous goofy. That Boebet woman's a thick-skulled crook who'll probably get busted for using campaign money to keep her restaurant afloat. That weird Nazi fanboy from North Carolina is going to lie himself right off the planet. But Greene's a danger to her fellow Representatives. I don't trust gun enthusiasts I don't know well enough to know that they know what they're doing. This woman is a prime example of gun nuts you don't trust. I'm not kidding. If she gets through her 15 minutes without shooting one of her colleagues, I'll be shocked.

  Anyhow, I'm tired and all I got to talk about still is that I've been playing The Shadowrun Trilogy with some of the player-mad scenarios modded in. One of these days I'm going to write about what it's like coming back into gaming before the days of open and encouraged modding, but today's not the day.

No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world alive.

  The problem with being a politics geek, that is paying attention to the whole scene as a form of enjoyment, is that sometimes I can't get away from it. I'd rather not write about that scene but I'm probably going to. It's just too heavy on my soul and I can't wait until tomorrow's news.

  I finished that Hank Williams biography and I'd rather write about that. That was depressing as hell. That poor bastard came into this world with all the cards stacked against him but with an amazing talent, one I don't know if anyone's been able to reproduce, yet he managed to make his life even more miserable and maybe even not worth living. Everyone he knew, even his momma, was trying to make a buck off him regardless of what it did to him. To be fair, though, he made life miserable for everyone in his circle and pretty much fucked over every last one, one way or another.

 And the really sad thing is it was probably all necessary for his music to be as powerful as it is. You feel the misery in a song like "Your Cheatin' Heart" or the resigned despair-cum-black humor in "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive." Nothing he did felt fake or put on, except maybe those goofy Fred Rose-written songs like "Sittin' The Woods On Fire." Even the stuff he didn't write. It still blows my mind "Lovesick Blues" had the impact it did. It wasn't a new song. Hell, even his arrangement was borrowed from another singer. But that tune was like an atomic bomb in country music and blew everyone's mind. And no one since has even come close. Not Elvis, not Garth, not George Jones or Merle Haggard. 

 Even guys like Lefty Frizzell and Ray Price show their clay feet, musically speaking. Dying young is sometimes the best thing an artist can do for their legacy and no one did it better than Hank Williams. Maybe James Dean, I don't know. John Coltrane? I don't know, I've never been keen on him or the modal-type music he brought to jazz. I'm not educated in jazz enough to say. Robert Johnson? Maybe, but that just brings in the question of just how much myth and legend pays into the musical impact. It's a necessary part, sure, but it doesn't need to overpower it.

 So, instead of that - which is pretty much what I wanted to say anyway - a quick look at the goofy shit going on in these United States. Seems the pro stock market gamblers got all pissy and banded together to stop the Reddit bunch from their shenanigans. And, like what the rascals were doing, the conclusion between the various investment firms is perfectly legal. It's just shitty.

 So, yep, a sure sign that the entire basis for our economic health is solid as a rock and not at all a bunch of vacuous bullshit designed mainly to let the filthy rich get richer. It's pretty wild, actually. Like so much else the past few years - and since COVID sat on our head -it's showing how much in our society is held together by spit and inertia. So much of it collapses the first hard breeze comes along and things are set up that the shit falls on the poor so the rich don't feel a lick of worry.

 And if you try to change that, people who're just up against the wall as you are will slit your throat with glee. Go figure. So what are my favorite Hank Williams songs? "Honky Tonk Blues," "My Sweet Love Ain't Around," "Honky Tonkin'," "Long Gone Daddy," Jambalaya," and "I Don't Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)."

 And, of course, "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." Ain't that the damn truth.

We had to be drunk when we said we'd stop drinkin'.

 I'm near the end of that Hank Williams biography by Colin Escott. He's married to Billie Jean Jones, so about two months are left in his life. Pretty sure he's cut every song he's ever going to record and "Jambalaya" is his bullet right now. Legend goes "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" was Number One when he died, but that's not so.

 Swear before God, this may be the most depressing thing I've read in I don't know how long. I know a lot about Hank Williams. Indeed, I wrote a thesis on his impact on Southern culture and pop music way back when. Nevertheless, this book has plumbed some depths even I didn't know existed. That poor bastard was a mess by the time he left, and much of it had little to do with his alcoholism. His back problems, spina bifida occulta, can lead to incontinence, so Ol' Hank went out pissing and shitting himself. I knew that, but I thought it was due to being a drunk. Goddamn.

 Don't get it twisted, he was a full-on drunk and had been since around 14 or so. My father and grandfather both were alcoholics, so what I'm reading is awfully familiar. He'd do just fine for weeks at a time but inevitably fell off the wagon. And when he drank, he drank himself into a coma, not just occasionally, but every time. He wasn't a fun drunk, either, and would get mean as a rattlesnake when he got plastered. Fortunately, he couldn't handle his liquor so it didn't take long.

 His story is a pretty damn sad one. As a working musician, he only had maybe a half-dozen years and only just over four of those were recorded. He was a pain in the dick to work for and with, but if promoters or A&R men or whoever could take advantage of him, they did. Miss Audrey was a harridan and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but goddamn, she put up with a lot of shit. More shit than she deserved, that's for damn sure.

 I didn't know he flirted with movies, either, but he did. He was signed to a contract with MGM but ducked the film, which was... well, I don't know. One of his undeniable strengths was his ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand - when he was sober, anyway - so maybe it would've worked. Probably not, though.

 It's often wondered how things would've been had Ol' Hank not been such a nightmarish drunk, but I don't know if you can separate that from him and he'd still be Hank Williams. His appeal was partly based on the pure misery and heartsick in his voice. Buddha's First Noble Truth in human form. Hank Jr. was, as my doctor said of me, disgustingly healthy and is a big bear of a man. Apparently, he was a 10-pound baby, so he was big from the start. Hank III is a healthy lad, too, though his vocal semblance to his grandfather is superficial and mostly a put-on. He sounds more like Wayne Cochran, in any event.

 Anyhow. I don't know where to go from here except I'll be glad when I finish that damn book. I love me some Hank Williams and find his story fascinating, but it is depressing as hell. Video game-wise, I've been fooling with the Shadowrun computer games along with the Ultima series. For those who don't know, it's from a tabletop RPG where the sitting is a cyberpunk world after - and partly caused by - magic reentering the world, along with elves and dwarves and trolls and all that. A fun RPG in a rich world with turn-based combat and an isometric top-down view. Check it out.

 That's a good place to twist it off, I think. As always, if I come up with something interesting, I'll come back. And, as always, it probably won't happen.

And I'm in the middle of it all.

 I've been struck by laziness today. That's it, that's the whole statement. Anyhow, this week's News. Frankly, it's been another easy week on that front. Monday and Wednesday were ruminations on Joe Biden's inauguration and what, if anything, the Trumpist dead-enders were going to do. Luckily, I suppose, they wound up doing much of nothing, not in Washington and not across the country.

 Friday we got on with things and looked into why this whole filibuster business is such a big deal. I hope I got it all right because, honestly, it all seems more complicated than it needs to be. That's Washington, D.C., I suppose. I'll say it again, I see this the same way I see the Electoral College. I don't have strong feelings one way or another but I'm not hearing a good argument for keeping it.

 For whatever it's worth, I figure the EC will last longer than the filibuster. The former would be a booger to get rid of, despite what people seem to think. Again, the last four to six years have proven to me how little most folks understand how elections and politics work, much less the actual to and fro of government. I'm guessing it's because they really haven't paid attention at all is why they seem to think things happen instantly with the wave of whoever's hand. It's getting tiresome and I ain't going to lie about it.

 So much for all of that. While it may not be as knee-slappingly hilarious while at the same time pants-wetting terrifying as the Trump Era, it's obvious there's a market for explaining to the Great Washed how shit actually works. Since I'm good at that, golden.

 I've been reading a pretty interesting biography of Hank Williams by Colin Escott with William MacEwan and George Merritt. I'm not familiar with the other two, but I've long been an admirer of Escott's music journalism. Anyhow, Hank Williams was a rotten bastard in addition to being the first Avatar of Country Music. It's sort of understandable, given his youth and the situation he came up with. He had spina bifida occulta which means he had serious back pain his whole life. I know what that's like, and my back's got nothing that seriously wrong with it.

 Apparently, he became a full-blown alcoholic at a very early age, and I know what that's like, too. Living with one, anyway, and that explains how much shit the people around had to put up with when he got on a bender. It's also an interesting insight into the world of country music, circa the 1940s and '50s. Eddy Arnold was bigger than Hank by the end of the '50s, for example, and the music was already moving towards that pop-friendly crooner style people seem to think only happens sporadically.

 It's also interesting how one song - in this case, "Lovesick Blues" - can turn a fanbase on to the extent that he's considered, well, the first Avatar of Country Music. Still and all, I love Hank's music and he's one of the few performers I can think of where everything he put on wax is killer bee. It's that intangible element, his way of singing with pure emotion so that you know he's been reading your mail, that made him so great and makes his songs still among the best pop music ever created.

 I don't know what else. Been messing with the Ultima series a lot, particularly the Lazarus remake and U6 Project. Ultima V was hard enough, but it's damn near impossible on the Dungeon Siege engine. I will say IX isn't as wretched as its reputation. It's not a great game, sure, but it's a perfectly acceptable late '90s third-person CRPG. It does wreak havoc with continuity but I hate to break it to you, Ultima's always played fast-and-loose with its own history. Again, assume it's a Many-World Interpretation deal and it's all good.

 In any event, according to Ultima Online, that's pretty much the situation. The smashing of Mondain's gem and all that. I say it means you can do with it and since EA owns it, fuck them, they're bastards. I've been piddling with the Ultima world. It's still a lack of ability to wrestle out a narrative. Worldbuilding is easy, telling a good story is a booger.

 Anyhow. It's 11:30 so I might as well post this and get on with the evening. Hopefully, I can shake off this muddy-brained mood I've been in. I know what the problem is. It's a lack of stimulation. How to fix that without being social or getting stoned, I don't know.

And you weren't to blame. We put Jack and Johnny Walkers' names In the policeman's notebook when he came.

 We're one full day into the Biden Administration. So, where do we go from here? I'm not talking about the American government, the yammering media, or even the washed hordes who don't understand how politics actually works. I'll get to them in a minute.

 No, I'm talking about me or, more specifically, the News. This will still be the usual stream-of-consciousness rambling on whatever is (or isn't) on my mind at the moment. The News was conceived during the Trump Administration and, thus, in an adversarial environment. I'm not going to put the shuck on you, though. I'll initially be a little nicer to a Biden Administration, mainly because if nothing else, I respect competency. Getting the job done properly goes a long way for me.

 And I will happily say the Trump Administration was uniquely awful. I went through the Bush Jr. Administration and the Reagan Administration, so I know horrid, evil politics when I see it, don't get it twisted. But the Trump Administration was something else. Horrid, evil politics done by cheap, half-bright grifters who've only been successful because they were wealthy enough not to be challenged by our culture.

 I understand the desire for "back to normalcy" that Joe Biden represented for a lot of people. I also understand the concern that "normalcy" is what got us to Trump in the first place. He wasn't an aberration so much as the logical end result of the evolution of the Republican party's molding of its base as well as the general fecklessness of the Democrats and the corporate media. Democrats do have a vested interest in keeping the ship of state not only floating but also moving forward, even if slowly. Republicans seem to think they'll have enough cops and soldiers on their side to put down the rabble should we get uppity.

 So there's that. It's pretty amusing to see how fast the Twitter intelligentsia has settled into its new roles. Conservatives - at least the ones not kneedeep in the Q muddy - are pretending Trump was an aberration and that those silly leftists were just overreacting the whole time and "so much for unity' has become their new rhetorical finisher.

 This should surprise no one. Biden made a big deal out of "unity" but he's a politician. That's part of the gig. If anyone thought the GOP - from the ones that never abandoned Trump to Never-Trumpers like the entire Lincoln Project - actually thought the party learned anything from the past four years of mean dumbness and cheap nationalism masked as "patriotism" has no one but themselves to blame. Hopefully - and this is a tall order - the Democrats will recognize that their base is what they should be concentrating on and if the work to make their lives better, the rest of us will benefit as well.

 I'm not talking about the soi-disant socialist left, mind you. They've pretty much proven they're useless in the grand scheme of things and bring nothing useful to the game. Furthermore, they seem content to keep up that stroke and sit with their thumbs up their ass for the next four years. I'm talking about people of color, particularly Black people. Folks like to say Black people saved us, but that's not quite it. They worked to save themselves, we just got to ride along.

 One last thing and I'll leave you alone. I really haven't put much time into discussing the QAnon thing because, frankly, I don't put much effort into messing with flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers. It's just not worth my time to fool with someone who's made up their mind about reality and decides to work backward from there.

 Apart from a few lulus who think either Biden was in on it or Trump's pulling some sort of Face/Off thing (no, really), a lot of those folks are having serious difficulty adjusting to the fact that absolutely nothing happened yesterday besides the rather banal ceremonies of a new administration. Neither Trump nor the military - nor JFK Jr., for that matter - came swinging in on a lanyard to save the Children of the World and start a New Golden Age. Indeed, a lot of them are coming to the realization they've been played like a mortgaged fiddle for the last four years.

 For what it's worth, I really don't have much sympathy or empathy for them. They weren't "brainwashed" and they're certainly not suffering from mental or emotional issues. They chose to believe what was obvious horseshit even in the face of reality constantly kicking them in the nuts. If nothing added up or a prophecy fell through, well, that means it's "all a part of the plan" and not "hey, maybe this is bullshit."

 I do feel for their friends and family members who've had to deal with this sort of crap - always antagonistic, often violent - and folks who've watched their loved ones dig themselves deeper into a conspiracy that had no basis in narrative structure, much less reality. I'm lucky, I know, that even in the very conservative family I have, none of 'em ever went full Q, probably because they hadn't heard of it. But I know what it's like living with someone who'd rather get drunk than anything else, and I can only imagine that having someone you love go full Q is something similar.

 That being said, the actual Q folks can go skip rope. No one forced them into it, they did it all of their own free will, and laying the blame on someone else infantilizes them and absolves them of responsibility. It's like The Great Man said, "You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump." They'll have to accept that and if they refuse to do so, well, I guess life will go on. With or without them, it don't matter, we've got plenty on our plate.

Wave that flag, hoss, wave it high. Do you know what it means? Do you know why?

 It was cold, grey, and rainy today, so I shut down and decided to ignore it. So I did. And, of course, not only did I pay attention such days make my brain a bit mushy. With that in mind, we'll just fiddle around until we hit word count.

 I did have something bubbling under but I don't think I should waste it here. It's fairly universal, though, so it won't hurt to sit on it. In short, there's a reason knowing how American politics actually useful and just hoping for a savior never, ever works. Getting stuff done actually takes a lot of work. In short, it's outlined on Twitter here.

 This is why I have such frustration with the American left. That is politics to the left of, say, Joe Biden but would be relatively moderate elsewhere. Instead of understanding what it will take to actually get stuff done - mainly, time and effort - they seem content to piss and whine that they're not given the keys to the kingdom based on their moral superiority alone. It's not all that different from the current temper tantrum thrown by Trumpists, actually, infuriated that the People would have the gall to think someone else should be president rather than Father Trump.

 Speaking of which, by this time tomorrow evening - hopefully as you're reading The News of that day - Donald Trump will no longer be president. He will be on his way to doing whatever the hell he does for the rest of his wretched existence. I personally don't care if he's held accountable for his actions. This is, after all, America and we do not hold the rich and powerful accountable for shit. I just never want to hear his opinion on anything ever again. It's embarrassing we had to for so long.

 Granted, I'm sure we're looking at at least four years of the sour losers whining that they didn't get their way and, no doubt, a certain amount of petulant violence from clowns who don't get the president isn't and can't be a king. Fuck 'em. The Klan once held outsized pull in the country, not just the South. Now they're considered a national shame and participants are considered worse for having even the briefest association with them. It'll be like that for MAGAs one day, hopefully, and sooner than later.

 Moving on. I've been digging back into the Ultima games, particularly the ones I haven't played (IX and the Underworld games) as well as the mods for the Dungeon Siege games. They turn the original into updated versions of V and VI. They're pretty neat if goddamn hard. Of course, V was pretty hard all on its own, but this is something else. At the same time, the mods expand the stories of both. For example, in VI the war with the gargoyles was sort of a background thing. In the mod, it's an ongoing thing you have to deal with along with everything else. At least at the beginning, anyway. They're a little on the buggy side but a hoot for long-time fans. Here are the links, Ultima V: Lazarus and The Ultima VI Project.

 Granted, that's fairly niche even though there's a strong community that still reveres the games. I never got into Ultima Online because I refuse to keep paying for a game after I bought it once. There's a spiritual sequel called Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, but I haven't been able to get into that, either. It's a MMPORG like Elder Scrolls Online, and those things just don't move me. For one, two dozen random yay-hoos with ridiculous names all jumping around trying to do the same quest as you are takes me out of the game. I'm not one for "emersion" but I do prefer my games self-contained.

 Okay, that's good enough for now. We'll see how tomorrow goes tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be interesting.

I'll be what I am, a solitary man.

  While I'm trying to think of something clever, let's go ahead and knock out The News. It was a pretty good week's worth of work if I do say so myself. Then again, weeks like this last one are like mana from heaven for journalists. That it has been an active one is an understatement.

 Monday was the first glimpse at some of the fallout from the Trumper Temper Tantrum on January 6 that got five people killed and over 25,000 members of the National Guard station in Washington, D.C. Wednesday brought the sublime joy that is Trump's second impeachment. He can finally brag about doing something no other president has done.

We took a look at Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package Thursday, what it contained, and why some folks were miffed at it. I'm not talking about Republicans, who can't get hard if they don't know poor people are suffering. I'm talking about the leftists raising Cain because the stimulus check was $1,400 (plus $600, making $2,000) instead of $2,000 right on top of everything.

 Maybe so. As I've said quite often, we here in Enon Holler operate under the axiom "money talks and bullshit walks." I think a lot of the other aspects of the package that help the truly up against the wall - like unemployment benefits and food programs - but there's definitely room for more jingle in everyone's jeans. Plus, the changing dynamic in the Senate opens up the possibility of better things to come.

 Dropping back a bit, I really feel for the people who live in D.C. right now with it full of soldiers and promises of butthurt suburbanites cosplaying another insurrection. After living in college towns and particularly New Orleans, I know how tourists sometimes ignore that their destinations actually have people who live there for reasons other than to bring them their food. Washington is full of folks, something like almost 700,000, and a fairly decent whack of them have nothing to do with what's going on in the Capitol.

 There's been a few verified reports of Trumpists harassing the locals, sometimes violently, when said local was just trying to get home from work. That whole affair just screams "I demand to speak to your manager" from privileged, entitled yuppies who can't accept the rest of the country thinks their baby is a tedious asshole.

 While I'm no fan of the FBI, of course, it's been amusing as hell to watch those yay-hoos having to deal with the consequences of their actions. What did they think would happen? That no one would doubt they had the right? Well... yes, that's exactly what they thought.

 I do think it's going to get worse, though, and Wednesday's inauguration is going to be a mess. As much locking down of Washington the officials are trying to do, Trumpists still think they're entitled to overturn the election and that God is on their side. And the Republicans that are encouraging them are louder than the ones trying to get them to act like they're from somewhere.

 This sort of scene is being repeated in state capitals across the country, I'm being told. I confess, I don't have a clue as to what to do about it or how to make it change. This isn't due to Trump, he's just a symptom of the disease. This has been brewing for years, probably my whole life and decades before. I think it speaks a lot about the rot at the core of the American Dream that we're so easily led to this point.

 It'd help if GOP lawmakers would quit encouraging this behavior and stop pretending that making sure everyone can afford health care regardless of their employment status was the first step to communist totalitarianism. This isn't a "both sides are bad" thing, and if you're given to expressing such trenchant comments I'm more likely to ignore everything you say.

 Anyhow, I think that's good enough. I dug into a bit of Disco Elysium the other night and it's looking to be a pretty cool ride. Right now, I'm on an Arthur Alexander streak and that's always highly recommended. Beyond that, I don't know. Enjoy your weekend, friends and neighbors.

There's no guesswork in the clockwork of the world's heart or mind.

  I use the phrase "that's politics, baby" a lot but I don't think I've really defined what it's supposed to mean. Basically, regardless of how nonsensical or petty or wasteful something done by either party seems to be, if it's legal it's okay in that it's all part of the process. The Game, if you will. In fact, it's expected as there's more to politics than dull speeches and empty promises.

 There's an old saying that learning about how politics actually works is like learning how sausage is made. You're better off not knowing because reality can be stomach-turning. Before we get too deep in the big muddy, I do want to emphasize that I have no formal training or particularly special expertise on this matter. My degree was in journalism, but I spent more time interviewing bikers and musicians than I did state legislators or city aldermen.

 This is just the cynical ramblings of someone who's been fascinated with the process for roughly thirty-six years, ever since Ronald Reagan stomped Walter Mondale like a government mule. I had to pay attention to election night for a school project, and between that and trying to understand the jokes in Bloom County, I've been hung up on it ever since.

 As my own political compass evolved and drifted further left over the years, my fascination with the process has only deepened. Add in my natural cynicism and lack of a romantic soul, I think it gives me a somewhat unique perspective on why American politics works out the way it does. For example, a lot of Trumpists are unable to understand why Joe Biden, a man with all the charisma of dry toast, got so many votes across such a broad political spectrum. Or, for that matter, why the Democrats would go ahead with this second impeachment even though Trump is on his way out regardless. Or why so many Republicans would drop him like a bad habit after last Wednesday's Capitol siege even though it infuriated the Trumpists.

 It's not always pretty, it's not always logical, and it's not always evident why it's being done in the first place. That's politics, baby. Of course, the problem arises when one side plays the Game by different rules they expect from the other side. And while I am very left-leaning, my interest in anarchism allows me to take a grander view, I think. I don't like the evils of the U.S. government, for example, but I understand why we have one and, maybe, why we need one. I may be all in for Medicare For All but I understand why Bernie Sanders failed to get a broad consensus on the matter. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix the government and that doesn't mean that M4A isn't a goal to work towards.

 I said all that to say all this, though. In the last four years, we've all learned just how little we know about politics. It's a messy business. Bernie Sanders is sharp enough to understand that if he wants to get M4A, he has to work with the rest of the Democratic Party and can't just tell them to go skip rope. It's also probably why McConnell is falling on his sword trying to scrape Trump off the GOP's shoe. Politics is a long game and it's never, ever quick, clean, and pretty, and the sooner we acknowledge that the sooner we can grow up as a people and advance as a society.

 That's partly why I can't seem to shake loose this political writing. My mind's trained in journalism and I'll always be fascinated with the Game, but I'd love to have the inspiration to write about something, anything, else. I realize that a lot of it is simply because I don't get around much anymore. Back when I was interviewing bikers, musicians, and the rest and getting their stories, I had more places to go. Now, the best I can do, fiction-wise, is character sketches and thinly veiled fan fiction.

 Anyhow. As I write this, it's 7:20 in the morning. I could tie it off here but I think I'll let it hang until at least this afternoon in case something else pops up.

Standing in the lonely light of a silver moon with the unexpected destination of my home.

  It never fails. I spend yesterday bragging about easily the nonsense is moving from my brain to the screen and, blap, it squeezes itself off. Typical. I guess part of the problem arises from the simple fact that the shit continuing to go down in Washington is filling my head.

 Which shouldn't be surprising because there is some wacky shit going down there, man. The House is meeting to see about impeaching Trump again, this time for inciting the wilding that went on last Wednesday. So, because the goddamn Capitol chambers were breached by a passel of rabid dingbats and I have no doubt they'd of pulled some horrid shit had they been able to chase down a Congress critter, they put up metal detectors.

 Of course, Republicans squawked. Around 10 or so set off the detectors and refused to have the wand used on them, some jerk just walked around it, and that goofball from Colorado Lauren Boebert just kicked up a massive fuss, claiming she had a permit when she didn't. Were it me, I'd just assume that not only were they all armed but that they're connected in some form or fashion to the folks who pulled that siege Wednesday. Indeed, Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar have direct involvement, apparently, and someone led a group of them through congress on a reconnoiter.

 And it accomplished nothing and will continue to accomplish nothing. Nothing concrete, anyway, I would not be surprised if more blood got spilled before this time next Wednesday. Mostly because it's blatantly obvious these goons don't have a single clue. They keep nailing folks for obviously illegal actions last Wednesday and almost to a man they've said "they didn't mean it because they didn't know" what they were doing was bad.

 How dumb do you have to be to think that will fly and how dumb do you think everyone else is? It's privilege and arrogance, and I don't mean White Privilege (though I'm sure that factors in). Americans seem to truly believe that if they don't think, they can't be held responsible for their actions. We believe that life has a Narrative like the tv shows and movies we watch and that we're the heroes of that Narrative, so everything should turn out okay whatever we do just like it does in the movies. And if we're ignorant about the actual laws and rules of the games we're playing, well, hell that never stopped Bruce Willis in Die Hard or Stallone in Cobra or what have you.

 So it's less something that's happening now because of recent events, but it's something deep and rotten in our culture and national psyche. I don't know if it's a particularly American thing, I just look at it filtered through the American lens that's because this is all I know. I mean, I've been to Canada and Amsterdam and Venice, and they're nice, but those experiences do not measure up to the rest of the 45 years on the planet.

 This means something is Wrong, but we knew that. We're a country founded on slave-owning patricians, breaking every treaty we had with the Native Tribes while we tried to exterminate them like coyotes, a place that didn't give women the vote until 1918 and even then it wasn't all women. And on and on, it's just now here lately we've been putting the effort into living up to the ideals we've always claimed we've had. And that's not even getting into foreign policy because, whoo boy, y'all think that's a new thing? Look up the Monroe Doctrine, neighbors, we've been dicks about that for quite a while.

 You know, in a horrible, twisted way the week's events and the possible nightmares to come are a perfect cap to the 2020 Election and maybe the four years of the Trump Era. Hell, it might be a perfect closer for the first 20 years of the Post-American Century, when Truth burns like alcohol on an open wound. The past year especially has exposed the cracks in the foundations of this country.

 The idea that Capitalism, at least how it's approached, is not only insufficient but it's actively harmful to a large segment of the population. Religion is empty, fame is a drug more dangerous than anything you could smoke, and the government is run by buffoons because that's the way we like it, buddy. You disagree, be prepared to catch bullets because our right to shoot you outweighs your right to not get shot. It's in the Constitution.

 I've been quiet on Twitter and doing my best to avoid the news beyond writing The News, and I wish I could make myself take a break from all of it. I know I can't, though, not completely. This isn't a noble thing nor is it an addiction, it just is. Talking with the Psyche Doc yesterday, we both noted how staying stoned all the time was an attempt to block out the entire world, being fine with blocking out the good if the bad was as well. There's something to that and more than one of my fellow riders was of the opinion I indulged in too much of the good smoke.

 Maybe, but damn, it'd be nice to have some now just to take the edge off. Okay for that.

I'm the train, I'm the train.

  There's a school of thought wherein people encourage, themselves or others, to be "weird" if that's what their natural inclinations tell them to do. In my experience, that definition of "weird" means, at best, a quirky sense of aesthetics or a deep love of some "geeky" form of pop culture that really isn't all that weird. I mean, Dungeons & Dragons is a billion-dollar franchise and no weirder than fantasy football. If that.

 I say all that because as a bonafide "weird" dude, I've never, ever felt like I belonged or like I was doing something properly. I'm not saying this makes me interesting, don't get me wrong. Having no personality and less charisma, I'm pretty damn dull and it's a tribute to my friends that they put up with my goofy ass. I've never been able to fit in anywhere and I've always felt like an outsider in any social group I found myself a part of.

 For the most part, that's okay. Whether by nature or purely self-defense, early on I developed a preference for my own company. Put simply, there's plenty of stuff I can do by myself and that's what I've always enjoyed the most. Apart from sex and playing in bands - which I'm convinced come from the same impulse - that's all I prefer to do.

 The other thing is I have some very dark thoughts on a lot of common-place stances. I won't go into great detail because I don't want to, but to draw it to current affairs, the deaths arising from the recent siege of the White House by Trump partisans doesn't move me all that much. Don't get it twisted, any loss of life hurts the soul. At the same time, though, it's a testament to something that there wasn't a larger death count. People were trying to break into the Capitol building after spending a day howling threats of violence and revolution.

 People keep trying to compare it to the Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests earlier in the summer, but that just don't fly. The former would've been mowed down before they got within a hundred yards of the steps and the latter wouldn't have gotten much closer. Plus, we're learning a lot about how law enforcement agents were a part of the siege and how the fuzz on the ground more or less gave them directions.

 "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" I guess is what I'm trying to say applies here. We act like the worst shouldn't happen, but that's where we put ourselves. People who regularly engage in protest understand when you go against the Natural Order, it will smack you in the face It shouldn't be that way, but there's a lot about life in this cruel world you could say that about.

 Anyhow, let's get the News done. Big week, of course, and every day had a lot to get in. Monday was the setup, Wednesday was the delivery, and Friday was the fallout, which is ongoing and a long way from being over. I think I did a pretty good job breaking it all down into bite-sized chunks, but a week like that is like a too-big meal. You're never going to do it full justice.

 Another thing I feel is worth touching on is the de-platforming of the President from Twitter and what that says about free speech. First and foremost, it says nothing about free speech because a platform has the right to rid itself of profit-harming individuals. I'm not at all surprised conservatives are screaming censorship and, really, that they're claiming a non-governmental, privately owned business not doing what they want is akin to communism. They're kind of stupid that way, honestly.

 For the record, I don't think they should've booted him so long as he was President. Something something official record something, sort of thing. I doubt the absence of him egging his worshipers on will result in less violence and I bet they've got something dramatic planned for Inauguration Day. However, the first nasty crack after he's no longer officially president, yeah, dump that bastard.

 I guess that's plenty for now. It's been an exhausting week and I'm tired of all of this, but I guess everyone is. I did get some good news this week, though. I did an informal bit of journalism this week for local tobacco and smoke shops in Tupelo - including one flat-out head shop, who knew - and they're all fairly positive about things when the medical marijuana initiative rolls out this summer. They're also more or less confident Tupelo won't be left behind, and that was my big worry. This part of Mississippi is extremely conservative, even for Mississippi, so wrap your head around that.

 And this was nothing but a head shop, too. They had some vape stuff, but come on. It was set up like every head shop I've been in, rows and rows of glass pipes and bongs behind the counter. Wild.

I knew I'd lost the light and I was moving through the night, running from the grand ennui.

  Man, yesterday was tedious. Exhausting. Luckily today was cold, wet, and miserable, and since I had nothing to do, I did just that. I'm somewhat calm down but I won't lie about it, yesterday got me extremely wound up. Took me one of the Klonopin the Psych Doc prescribed and it put me down.

 On a side note, I've never been a pill guy. Weed, naturally. Psychedelics, any day. That's about as far as I go. Being speedy never appealed to me anyway, so I've never messed around with coke or meth or anything like that. I unknowingly smoked a joint once that had been laced with meth and it was awful. But god's truth, yesterday was my first experience with opioids of any kind and, frankly, I don't recommend them. It's that sludgy, underwater feeling like overindulging on vaped weed. I don't care for it because it brought my brain to a screeching halt. Half, hell, most of the reason I like pot is it kicks my brain in gear.

 The other reason is that it soothes my nerves and that would've come in handy. The actual storming of the Capitol was bad enough but watching wingnuts try to juke the narrative was irritating. It was Antifa infiltration or they were pushed to do it because Democrats dared disagree with Father Trump. I really don't get that. For the past four years, they've been outright threatening civil war if Trump didn't win re-election. For the past two months, they've been screaming that if the election results were overturned because they say so, they'd have no other option but bloody revolution.

 But when they finally kick off the Second War for Independence & Trump, they want to point fingers at everyone but themselves. Astounding. Even dumber is how many of these yay-hoos made selfies of them jerking off in a Congress member chair or ripping down pictures of that RINO, Abraham Lincoln. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer, no.

 Interestingly, it seems everyone but the Most Faithful are running from Trump like he's been sprayed by a skunk. It started with Melania's chief of staff and, so far, we're at Betsy DeVos putting in her resignation. I figured she was ride-or-die especially after the solid he did for her brother week before last. Lindsay Graham turned on him and actual Republican congressmen are suggesting he be either impeached or at least have Amendment 25 laid on him.

 Some are sticking with him, though, and it's rarely a surprise who. Ted Cruz for one, but he's a worse suckfish than Graham. Soon as someone else becomes the Big Dog in the GOP, he'll latch on to them. He thinks it should be him, of course, but no one likes Ted Cruz. And Josh Hawley's dumbass, well. Simon & Schuster dropped his book deal so he's crying about the woke mob, but the sad and sorry fact is that boy's too damn stupid for his ambitions and has all the charisma of a bucket of white paint.

 He's still got Newsmax and OAN on his side while FOX News just goes back to blaming liberals for everything from the breakdown of society to their aunt's gout. And there's the whole cop thing - how badly they bungled the riot or perhaps aided and abetted it - that needs to be unpacked.

 Someone else can do it, though, because I am done with them. They've been telling us what they are for four years and yesterday they showed us. It was like when people riot when their team wins whatever championship, just revelry in destruction because you don't have to clean up the mess.

 They're not worth taking seriously or working with or trying to mend fences. They see me as an enemy? Very well, then I'm their enemy. I can live with that.

 Okay for that, then. I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Trump made a video where he promised a peaceful transfer but he didn't concede nor do I think he will. The MAGA faithful isn't budging in their sense of righteous nor do I think they will. I don't know how or what the end result will be, but the Game is forevermore changed.

 Might as well have some fun, right?

Was it singin' through my nose that got me busted by the man?

  I'm trying to not pay too close attention to what's going on in Georgia or, for that matter, D.C. They've had an amazing turnout, something like 80-90% of all registered voters. In fact, they saw a bigger turnout than they saw for the November election. Right now, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have a decent lead, but it's still too close to call and too contentious to not take it seriously. Rural counties are trickling in but turnout is lower than in the urban areas, I'm hearing.

 As for Washington, well, what can you say? Mike Pence says he's not going to do anything outrageous, which pretty much means regardless of all the shenanigans being pulled by Trump dingleberries like Josh Hawley, he'll properly count the electoral votes that have already been cast and registered. And the Trumpists are massing in town and promising violence if they don't get their way.

 They'll say the election's been stolen and if you ask for evidence, any evidence, they'll give you links to YouTube videos that'd make Templar conspiracy theories wonder how they made that stretch. And if you don't agree with them, they'll say you're brainwashed by the "mainstream media" because that's the only other option. It's the same thing Green folks said back in 2016 when you doubted anything Jill Stein said.

 Anyhow. It'll be funny as hell if Trump's post-election nonsense costs the Republicans the Senate. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are awful enough as it is, but the whole "Brian Kemp and Brad Raffernsperger won't steal the election for me, so don't vote for the Republicans" is going to have an impact. We're also seeing massive turnouts from Black and Hispanic voters, particularly the latter. Up from nine percent to thirty percent. That's pretty stunning and it's due to heavy-duty GOTV efforts from folks in-state.

 We're also hearing that FOX News is cutting away from election coverage. That doesn't really suggest one thing or another, of course, but it is interesting. And early numbers from Democratic-leaning rural counties show both Warnock and Ossoff with a 25-point lead. There's also a 98% turnout. Wow. Shows what happens when you act like a shitass to an entire state.

 That's one thing I'll be happy to see the backside of once Trump's out of office. It's bad enough to see conservatives act like shit to parts of the country because you think they all think differently, in lockstep, then you do. Sure, liberals do it, too, especially to the South and that's irritating as hell. And I'm not going to lie, I'm not the patriotic sort, we all know that, but one thing I do have an appreciation for is the actual people I share this ride with. I really don't appreciate a president, any president, saying cities and states that don't kiss his ass are garbage. San Francisco and Arizona are just as American as you and me, so fuck that noise.

 I haven't been doing too, good a job ignoring Georgia, have I? It's still leaning towards Ossoff and Warnock, pretty closely at roughly 51-49 for both as rural county votes roll in. I think it's time I checked out. I snagged some new games from the various sites' winter sales. Unavowed, for one, which I played a bit of. I remember the old-school adventure point-and-click, solve-the-puzzle-using-lateral-thinking games, and it does a pretty good call back to that. Plus, I like the concept. I still have Disco Esylium and Outer Wilds to check out, and I still have a $10 coupon to Epic that's good until tomorrow. I really can't decide on something else to buy, so I imagine I'll let it run out.

 And at the rally, Trump supports are chanting "Victory or Death!" I mean, come on. That's just silly.

I pity the mother and father when the kids move away.

  The first weekend of the new year, and we wonder what sort of horrors 2021 has for us. I really don't think anyone had a flat clue that 2020 would be as nerve-wracking as it was. It was weird and odd and continually strange, and I'm almost inclined to believe the idea that this is all a computer situation just because it was what it was. And most of it was centered around the goofy bastard in the White House.

 It started off stupid. Remember Trumpites getting all bent out of shape because they thought NPR's annual Fourth of July reading of the Declaration of Independence as a knock against Trump. Remember that? Wasn't that dumb? Wasn't that embarrassing? And it just got worse.

 And just because it's on my mind and I want to get it down. I've been watching a lot of horror movie reviews by this kid that runs under the handle Decker Shado. He and another guy whose name I can't remember will make a deal about how poorly most horror franchises handle continuity. Like in the first Friday The 13th, the murderer was Mrs. Voorhees and Jason was dead thirty years while in every other movie in the franchise Jason was the killer. And even then, he went from a thin survivalist type with a sack on his head to a hulking brute in a hockey mask to an unstoppable undead killing machine.

 Plus, there's funny business with passages of time between movies and the whole weirdness that was Jason Goes To Hell. Pretty much every horror franchise is like that in some form or fashion, and it drives the horror geeks up the wall. Well, I've found y'all a solution. It's the Many-Worlds Theory at work. The reason, for example, so much changes from Evil Dead to Evil Dead 2 to Army of Darkness to even Ash vs. Evil Dead because every movie there are slight shifts in the story and things that don't mesh with previous films because each one exists in slightly different universes.

 One interpretation of the MWT is that there's a continual shift in reality due to quantum decoherence, and for the most part it's not supposed to be noticeable on a macro level but this is a movie with a guy with a chainsaw hand. Since there's some serious evil magic involved, it makes sense that reality would shift every time big juju goes down. 

 Anyhow, that's been on my mind a lot lately since I've been reading Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality, and if nerds would just accept that instead of getting their drawers twisted over continuity, this would be a much better world. So, hey, I haven't done the News. For the most part, it was an ongoing back and forth concerning the stimulus checks and the Nashville Christmas Bomber. Good week's worth of work. Nothing fancy but good, solid journalism and/or blogging.

 I do put a lot of thought into the Evil Dead franchise, and I really need to finish the last season of Ash vs. Evil Dead. It was surprisingly enjoyable. Ash is supposed to be nothing but a complete screw-up but is destined to be the only one to defend the world against the Deadites and Necronomicon Ex Mortis and he's great at that appeals to me. It goes back to the idea that stories are more entertaining when the protagonist isn't a Chosen One of some sort. For me, anyway, but I'm funny that way.

 I think I'll wrap this up here. I'm not sure if I'm going to read or play a game or take a nap. Either way, it'll be a good idea.