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.