Well, I hold up my hand. I'm just trying to understand.

  I seem to have shaken loose from the worst of the blues that have been sitting on my head for the past few weeks. I'm not exactly dancing down the street but it's not as bad as it was. And like with how it came in, I have no idea what made it leave out. It is what it is, I reckon.

 So let's get the News down. Decent week despite my lack of enthusiasm not only for writing but also for existence in general. Monday was a bit on the weirdness going on in Belarus while Wednesday we looked at yet another mass shooting that has become as American as baseball, apple pie, and cheating on your taxes. Friday was a look into the GOP trying like hell to sweep the Great American Temper Tantrum even further under the rug.

 Okay, then. I played a good chunk of Max Payne 2 last night. I know I'm late to the party on this one, but it deserves its accolades. Jumping around in slow motion while shooting people is a hoot. The story's not bad either, even if it shows that good noir fiction is extremely difficult to keep from becoming parody noir fiction. I also spent a good bit of time figuring out how to play Silverfall again. It's not a bad game for what it is - your hack-&-slash third-person fantasy RPG - but I'm not sure if it's all that special or singular.

 Back to writing and, thus, back to angsting that I seemingly can't write anything that flows free besides the News blog and, sometimes, this. Hell, I'm already blocked up. I was going to writing something about Critical Race Theory or the rising threat from petulant right-wingers, but I'm not really feeling it anymore. All I'll say is anyone who uses CRT as a pejorative is probably not worth paying attention to anymore and it might not be a bad idea to get a gun and learn how to use it properly. I'm not kidding. Don't go nuts, but I don't think these yo-yos are playing around anymore.

 Bah. I've been sitting on this for the past half hour and I'll I've done is browse some Red Letter Media videos and look up the tab for "Hoodoo Man Blues." Honestly, all I want to do is lay down and read until I nod off. Amazing, but that's become probably my favorite hobby. The Paul Butterfield documentary, Horn From The Heart, is on Tubi. Maybe I'll watch that. His end is pretty depressing, though bless his ol' heart.

 This has gotten to be like pulling teeth, man. I need to wrap this up and get on with doing nothing for the evening. I do wish desperately I had some of the good smoke. But that's nothing new, I guess, and there's nothing I can about it. That's probably why I've been so gloomy lately, knowing I'm stuck here, geographically and spiritually, for the duration.

 It's going to be a long summer, man.

Not going to waste a good lyric on this, either.

  Yeah, I put this off again. It's just past 11 p.m. However, this time I made a conscious decision to not worry with it until after the evening nap. I don't know if that's better or worse. Actually, I really can't tell if it matters one way or another.

 Still in the grip of the blues, for what that's worth. Things are still tasteless and boring, and there's nothing I want to do but sleep. I go see the Therapist Tuesday, and she's going to suggest traveling, but honestly, I'm not interested in that. I'm half tempted to cancel the session. Once again, I'm just not particularly interested in talking to anyone, much less someone who's going to make me think about the state of things.

 The PowerDraw is still out in the aether and I'm still waiting on the Paul Butterfield book. I am in a weird mood about Butterfield here lately. He really didn't make too many worthwhile records under his name, but he made for a great sideman. I listened to Levon Helm & The RCO All-Stars this evening and that proves it.

 Which, for the most part, your better harmonica players make for better sidemen than band leaders. Sonny Boy Williamson (both) and Junior Wells aside, there aren't many who make better records on their own. Little Walter might be the one who was great on both sides. For sure, Big Walter and James Cotton are better as sidemen, due disposition for the former and the latter's scratchy voice. And I really can't think of a white harp man who, well, doesn't sound like a white guy singing the blues. Charlie Musslewhite's an incredible player, but he sounds like a dentist who plays on weekends with a bunch of other dentists when he sings.

 Okay, what else. I'm still not reading anything or really paying attention to much of anything. I'll probably save this for tomorrow's News, but it seems more likely than not the GOP in the Senate will trash any hope of a commission to investigate what went down on January 6. What's more likely is Mitch McConnell is worried about which Republican congress critters have direct ties to the Great American Temper Tantrum.

 If I had to bet, I'd say we're not going to see a commission or any in-depth investigation into what, if any, responsibility Congressional Republicans or, for that matter, Trump has with the GATT. I'm not exactly sure why McConnell, especially, is so against anything coming up. The GOP is owned by Trumpism and, frankly, they're all down with the idea of "overthrowing the government" A good three-fourths of Republican voters - as in the whole party - refuse to accept the reality of a Trump electoral loss.

 And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Trump will be cold and in the ground, and that bunch of weirdos will still be screaming about the election being stolen. They just can't accept that most of the country couldn't stand him. There was a poll concerning QAnon the other day, and it said 25% of Republicans think violence is required to put the country on what they consider the right track.

 Frankly, I'm not worried. If the GATT proved anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that hardcore conservatives don't have the spine to go against any real resistance. They only wish they had half the sand of BLM or Antifa, and when the rubber meets the road, they'll buckle again and try to claim it was everyone's fault but theirs.

 Bank on it.

I'm not going to waste a good song lyric on this.

 I shut down today, which is sort of a shame because it was a lovely day. A bit too warm, but nice enough under the fan on the front porch. In any event, I wanted no part of it. The blues has a tight hold on me and I couldn't tell you why. It's been a thing for the past couple of days, itself coming off at least two weeks of being grumpy and gloomy in general. Today was just the limit.

 So I kept away from things as much as possible and really have no desire to stay awake or involved. Nothing has any joy or taste to it, I just see things I ought to do or should do or have no reason not to do, but none of them I want to do.

 That means this will be entirely skippable, a minor piece in the Matt Thompson cannon, and mostly bellyaching. I think the main reason I'm so put out is the psychic feedback from the Supreme Court's decision on the marijuana initiative two weeks ago. Sure, it bums me out that I won't be able to get ahold of medical-grade weed. That is a drag and I am desperate to get my head bad.

 But what really gets up my nose is the outright contempt the state is showing the residents. Over three-fourths of the voters - more people than voted for Trump or Cindy Hyde-Smith - approved this initiative, and the Supreme Court kills it on an unnecessary technicality because some bougie white-flight mayor wouldn't get her taste of the profits.

 That and the move by conservative state governments going out of their way to make voting more difficult than it needs to be for no real good reason. Or the bougie honky freakout over Critical Race Theory, which seems to boil down to little more than white folks not wanting to acknowledge we're not the heirs of Jesus we like to pretend we are. Plus, it's just too damn hot.

 I'm already tired of writing about this or, for that matter, writing about anything. I'm about three-fourths into Dragon Age: Origins and have once again hit a point of politics to slow me down. I just want to kill undead monsters, is that too much to ask? I'm still fighting my way through the Judge Severvus book and The Network of Time. There's nothing wrong with either, though the prose in the Severus book is sort of limp and the science book has the same problem all pop-science books have (three-fourths quantum physics catch-up, one-fourths the whole point of the book).

 Shit, I still have about sixty words to get through. Well, I have another harmonica coming. For whatever reason, these expensive harps - the Marine Band, the Suzuki, the Lee Oskar - all seem to have funky reeds on the second hole. Either the draw or the blow or both, it sounds flat. This has always been a problem, though, even 20 years ago when I was playing out regularly. I can't do anything about the Marine Band but I guess I could do maintenance on the others. Perhaps I should spring for a tiny screwdriver or see if Daddy has one somewhere. Daddy was big on tools and we still have a shit-ton of them.

 Anyway. That's word count. Stay frosty, neighbors.

Well, now, rules are alright if there's someone left to play the game.

 Okay, then. I'm going to get this done before tomorrow morning. There's just no excuse for that. It's going to be mostly filling up the white space, but you get what you pay for.

 It was a fair-to-middling week for the News, though whatever severe laziness - that is, worse than the baseline incredibly lazy - has started to affect that, too. Ah, well. Monday we looked at some of the legal peccadillos the state of Mississippi is responsible for, from a possibly catastrophic U.S. Supreme Court case deciding abortion to more rage at the state Supreme Court's ridiculous decision. Yes, I'm still pissed off about that. We looked at the ramped-up investigations into Trump's possibly criminal shenanigans Wednesday, and Friday was a touch on the Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire as well as the increasingly pitiful attempts by Trump cultists to keep the Big Lie alive.

 Now, another thing that brewed this week that I never had the time for was the business between the University of North Carolina and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist responsible for putting the excellent 1619 Project together in 2019. Guess I'm giving away which side of that kerfuffle I'm on. Long story short, back at the end of April Hannah-Jones accepted a position at UNC and it wasn't too long before local conservatives went ape shit.

 Why? They hate the 1619 Project. Why? Well, I don't know, really, but their whining worked. Hannah-Jones still has a job there but they rescinded tenure. To put it in a nutshell, she now has to be more careful as to what she says without the protection of tenure, plus she knows conservatives are gunning for her and smell blood in the water.

 As far as I can really tell, no one objects to the actual facts presented in the Project. They object to the focus Hannah-Jones took. They said it put too much emphasis on the idea that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery and that slavery was a capitalist venture. One thing they objected to was the perception that chattel slavery was a uniquely American sin. Again, nothing particularly was counterfactual, they who objected were doing so because they had issues with the Project's focus.

 I'm no historian, granted, and I have only a layman's interest in early American history. I do know most of the stuff we were taught in school was biased bullshit from the get-go. The Founding Fathers could've eliminated slavery. They could've told the slave states to go screw. They could've set a sundown on the practice. They didn't. Instead, they made sure Black folks were counted as 3/5 a person in the census while not allowing them to vote, to say the least.

 It's known that Great Britain didn't care for the Colonial practice of slavery. Dictionary inventor Samuel Johnson said, with a cutting edge, that "the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes." That is a burn. Now whether or not the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the Colonies is probably a bit much but it's not so crazy a stroke. Hell, Texas' independence came because folks there wanted to own slaves and the Mexicans thought that was just nasty.

 There's a regular stroke people who defend the Confederacy use and that is it wasn't founded with slavery in mind. That is, of course, horseshit. It's in the Constitution. The South pushed for more and more power in the area, even going so far as breaking other states' laws to retrieve runaway slaves.

 And it wasn't just enshrined in the government. The whole reason we have Southern Baptists in the first place because the rest of the church wanted to get rid of slavery. Indeed, there was a serious "ailment" called drapetomania. It was the affliction that made slaves run from their masters. Think about that. This was that world.

 Here's the cold, hard truth. America does not want to acknowledge its sins no more than most of us do. Slavery is probably the worst, next to the genocide of the American Indian, and nothing, nothing, in the 1619 Project didn't happen. Conservatives just don't like the focus, they say. But that's bullshit, y'all. They don't want to acknowledge the sin of slavery at all. It's rare the American History course in high school that gives it more than a passing mention, and the only time we hear of it being taught is when some goofball teacher assigns essays about the "good side" of slavery.

Thing is, though, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube and history won't be bulldozed over. That's why there's so much pearl-clutching over "woke." That's nothing more than the screams of folks who want to believe the fairy tale of history or ignore the changes in society. Conservatives, in other words.

Final thought. Interestingly, the people who fight hardest against what the 1619 Project represents are also the ones fighting hardest for state's making voting more difficult in the wake of the highest turnout of African American voters in modern history. Funny how that works out, ain't it? Have a nice weekend.

With one foot in the grave and one foot on the pedal, I was born a rebel.

  It's 10:30 p.m. and I'm just starting this. I knew I would put it off but I honestly didn't think about doing anything until now. If nothing else, that's an improvement.

 Talked to the Psyche Doc today. We mostly discussed how pissed off I am about the whole marijuana initiative debacle by the Supreme Court. I do wonder if the whole thing - the sessions, not the initiative - has become just two friendly people catching up. I come and go with my mood, and go through the world in a state of bemused irritation marked with wanting to be alone. I've come to accept that the rest of my life will be regularly marked with spots of deep blues and moodiness, and that's just how it is.

 That being said, and he pointed this out, I want everyone else to be as happy as they can be given circumstances. We both decided that's something to ponder on, but it's not a bad thing. The "music therapy" came up, too, though I've never considered relearning harmonica and guitar with occasional shots at the Cajun accordion. Baby Brother pointed out that the why's behind why minor chords are sad and where seventh chords go and whatnot is a "rewiring your brain" sort of thing. So, I guess that's good.

 What else is there? Today's been one of those "not pay attention to the news" days and from what I can tell, it's all "woke is destroying America" and the GOP desperately trying to sweep the Great American Temper Tantrum by Trump cultists. I need to come up with a better phrase for that. A cult presumes an active cult leader, and I really don't think Trump's that involved and directed. Same thing with it being a fascist movement. They do worship Trump as a savior, but guys like Franco and Mussolini put more effort into it than Trump ever did.

 Studying on it, I think the whole Trump phenomenon has more to do with him being a celebrity and a tv personality plus the American inclination towards if not actual authoritarianism, then at least having a Strong Daddy as a leader. Bush Jr. definitely got this and, at least in retrospect, so did Reagan. Trump isn't even as engaged as those guys were, and they were just ranch-standard Republican politicians. They still didn't get the firey love Trump does from his groupies, but I wonder if that's because they actually went through two terms. Both Bush Jr. and Reagan, by the time they finished off the second term, had some of the shine taken away.

 Trump's a unique case in American politics, though. I don't think he expected or even wanted to win, I don't think he ever put any real effort into the job, and he took every criticism as a personal attack driven only by personal jealousy. A rich prick who's never done anything on his own but has always had his ass kissed, that's the "leader of the free world." Bush Jr., at least, had an interest in doing the job, seems like.

 That's it, I guess. Forty-five minutes later and I'm googling Junior Wells stories. So that's that there then.

Tell me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

 This is getting to be a habit. This is the second time I've done this, not realize until the wee hours that I hadn't written today's Gibberish. Saturday was okay because I had something to get off my chest. And yes, I'm still extremely pissed off about what the Supreme Court pulled Friday.

 I am keeping up with the News, though it was pretty late yesterday evening before I got in filed. That's okay, I suppose, since it gets more attention and I'd rather people read that than this bellyaching. I do that better, anyway. It does rankle me that it's apparently all I can do these days, but such is life. Too bad this didn't happen 15 years ago when blogs were a thing. You watch, I'll be sixty and knocking out podcasts like a champ.

 As it is, I'm blogging, and far as I can tell, most of the bloggers of note either got real gigs or are on Substack. I've got a Substack site but I can't think of anything unique to do with nor worth charging folks actual money for. But there it is, I'd write fiction if I could but nothing comes. Maybe I should just try some straight-up fan fiction to get the juices flowing. Or maybe write some of the backgrounds I make up in my head for my characters in Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity.

 Speaking of video games, I've been putting more effort into the first Mass Effect. Like the Dragon Age games, it's a good story and fathoms deep. However, it requires a massive amount of time and that's what I got in spades these days. I also got further into Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood, as well. Switching the controller for the mouse-and-keyboard setup definitely fits better. It may feel better but having to aim with the right-hand stick has just doesn't click.

 I also got further into Gun and it's pretty nifty. It's been called Grand Theft Auto on a horse and that scans. As much as I dig up the Weird Western, I thoroughly enjoy a good real Western as well. It's important to remember that the popular image of the shit-kicker movie is as much fantasy as a sword-and-sorcery movie. That being said, the actual Old West is plenty interesting, as well. Arguably my favorite period of history along with the Golden Age of Piracy or the Roman Empire. Everyone should have at least one favorite period in history that they don't screw around with.

 Okay, I need to squeeze out another hundred words. The mood's not much better but I've moved into the "disgruntled resignation" phase of the game. Beyond that, I don't know. If I'm going to do any traveling soon, I guess I should do some planning. I think I'll hit Athens if just to get a hold of some decent smoke.

 I'll save the news for tomorrow, but the announcement that the legal dawgs in New York state are kicking Trump's potential court woes into the criminal area. That'll be interesting. Anyway, that's 500 words and I'm starting to nod off. I apologize for nothing.

If you don't like my fire, then don't come around.

  I'm not going to lie. I'm still pretty pissed off about the Mississippi Supreme Court decision yesterday. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. The more I contemplated the ramifications, the more infuriated I got. Ironic, isn't it, as I could've definitely benefitted from a joint right about then.

 In yesterday's News, I wrote about but to catch everyone up, the state supreme court voted 6-3 in favor of a lawsuit that invalidated Initiative 65, the medical marijuana initiative. Despite passing with an overwhelming 3-4 majority, the judges ruled it invalid because the initiative process requires signatures from all five of Mississippi's U.S. Congressional districts and we ain't had five since 2000. The lawsuit was issued by Mary Hawkins Butler, the mayor of Madison for the past 40 years. Madison is a white-flight suburb of mostly black Jackson.

 Butler's reasoning was that the initiative failed the five-district rule, but it's more likely that the city government of Madison gets a fairly solid chunk of any business' profits that sets up shop in city limits. From what I understand, most of it goes to the mayor's office side rather than the city council's side because the two hate each other. Of the judges, three are voted in and the other six were appointed by Republican governors but the vote was pretty bipartisan. That said, five of the six appointed judges voted against it.

 So, the judges decided that since the state legislature hasn't gotten around to fix the law or the districts, the initiative process was null and void from here on out. This is weird, because we have a Voter ID law that passed via initiative, and no one bucked on that. It will be interesting to see if that becomes an issue, but I'm sure the state government will tell anyone who does to skip rope.

 What makes things really interesting is there was an initiative going around to expand Medicaid coverage in the state and it's pretty popular, at least as popular as medical marijuana. That explains a lot, really. Voting in this state is extremely restrictive. One in nine citizens can't vote because they're ex-cons, and 60 percent of them are black. We can't do mail-in unless you have a "good reason" and a notary's signature. It's incredibly gerrymandered and up until last November, a governor had to win not only the popular vote but also a majority of the state's congressional district. That was an initiative, too.

 And that explains it, really. The state government was fine with initiatives until the folk that live in the state start voting for things that actually make their lives better. Voter ID is fine. It makes voting just a wee bit harder, so that's fine. But getting folks to a point where they can afford healthcare and not burn themselves out on opioids? That's got to be nipped in the bud.

 I said this on Twitter yesterday, but this isn't a bipartisan thing. Nor is a black or white thing or, for that matter a Protestant Christian or non-Protestant Christian thing. This state has a long, long history of wanting a Ruling Class and a Lower Class. It's burned into our cultural psyche. The whole country is like that, but Mississippi is worse. It's distilled down to its purest form. This is basically William Faulkner's whole oeuvre: people who step on folks to get to the top and the damage that causes for everyone.

 Of course, this gives the rest of the country an opportunity to shit on us while they don't actually do anything to help. I don't think people get that. Since the 1890 state constitution, the non-Elite of this state has been up against the wall and told this how it's supposed to be. Outsiders say move when they really can't understand that most people would if they could, but the thumb's down on folks. And not everyone wants to leave the only home they've ever known. Help or piss off.

 But I know they won't. Liberals or leftists, socialists or communists, none of them really, really give a shit about the people of Mississippi. White or black, doesn't matter, we deserve what we get because we can't push the thumb off us. I will say it again, but the most heartening thing I've seen since moving home is watching young people - especially young Black people - who are working to make the state a place to live rather than a place to be from. I just hope they realize there won't be any outside help.

 Ah, well. I was looking forward to buying pot legally on a regular basis come August but I'm not really surprised the state of Mississippi bent over backward to make sure it didn't happen. I just want to get high and get my head out of gear, I'll be okay. I'm not dealing with cancer or constant pain or glaucoma or opioid addiction. 

 It's a bummer but it won't kill me. Okay, before I go, let's get this week's News in. Monday was the Liz Cheney drama along with another way the state of Mississippi is making life harder for its residents. Tuesday was the fallout of the Cheney-GOP fight, which I hope completely destroys the party and every conservative politician.

 Yes, I am pissed off.

I had something for this, I swear.

  Well, I'll be damned. Here it is, 5:15 a.m. Friday morning, and I have nothing down for Thursday's Gibberish. I meant to do something. Even had a topic mapped out in my head, or at least something to ramble on about. But damn me if I didn't forget. I decided to go to sleep after supper and, whiff, that was it.

 I must've done this week before last. I usually try to get the News done by no later than 8 p.m. Central and usually shoot for around 5 p.m. Unless I have a topic, though, I generally let the Gibberish brew and bubble until close to midnight, and even then it's just to get something down on paper.

 And of course, whatever the hell I had bubbling is gone now. I have no idea what I was going to write about. I guess I'll just wing until I hit word count, if just for continuity's sake. I'm still on track thanks to last week's Actual Paying Work, so c'est la vie.

 Okay, so I'm going to dip my toe in one of the topics I try to avoid, and that's the Israeli-Palestinian business that's flared up in the past week. I avoid it because, as an American, that's got ethnic roots in neither group, I feel we - as a country - have said way too much about what's going on over there that nothing we can say now is of any help whatsoever. Indeed, I think our country's continual bickering does more harm than good.

 My basic stance is "quit being dicks and figure it out," it really shouldn't be that hard. That goes for whoever it applies to. Otherwise, this is something I stay out of. The question of why the U.S. pumps so much money into Israel is another third rail I'd rather not deal with, except to say we're pulling a lot of goofy bullshit in the Middle East and Israel is another pawn in that game. Far as I can tell, anyway.

 That being said, a lot of people engage in racism and antisemitism by picking sides in the conflict when they really don't give a shit about the day-to-day life of someone living in modern-day Israel, be they Palestinian or Jew. Antisemitism is, of course, an age-old sack of shit that we can't seem to shake loose no matter how resilient the Jewish people prove themselves to be. And we think all Arabs are shit even though Palestinians aren't Arabs, but no one ever said racism had to make sense.

 Okay. So much for all that. Again, my stance is "stop being dicks and figure it out," and if you want to pick at that until it turns raw, that's on you, bubba. Moving on, I got some feedback on my lost PowerDraw harp. The nice man is sending me a new one and hopefully, the screwed with postal service won't lose this one. Either way, I'm looking forward to playing with it.

 I've made a couple of strides in my re-learning process. Trying to build from the ground up, I think, was the right idea. I'm slowly shedding some bad habits and learning more about music theory. Same thing with relearning the guitar. It seems like I do better with feel than the technical side of things. When I played bass, I never went for fancy picking but always slipped right into that pocket. Same thing with guitar; I guess I've listened to so much slide guitar I can fake it, but don't ask me to play a scale.

 Okay, that's word count. If there's anything else, I'll save it for the weekend. Been playing a lot of Star Control, both the original games and the recent reboot. Lots of fun and all four are recommended. And that's that.

To get caught now would be the death of us all.

 Man, I let the day slip on me. It's 10:20 p.m. and I'm just now putting stuff down. Unfortunately, I have nothing I feel needs to be said, so there you go.

 I can't seem to shake the blues. I was chalking it up to pulling an all-nighter writing last week - not just the time awake but the mental energy of putting down 3,200 words of Actual Paying Work - but I don't know. Grumpy and gloomy, and I don't know what's bothering me so I don't know how to do anything about it. Nothing major, just edgy and tired. There's no taste in anything. Staying in bed all day not because of needing the rest but because I don't feel like being alive.

 It's not a matter of suicidal ideation, mind. Just boredom and ennui that will work itself out eventually, I know. It doesn't make it any more fun to go through while it's going on, though. These are the times I desperately want something to get my head out of the rut and get stoned.

 So I don't know. I finished the third book of E.M. Powell's "Barling & Stanton" books. I don't know if it is indeed the last book in the series but it did have a sense of finality to it. In any event, it was enjoyable even if the reveal sort of threw me. I was quite surprised when the guilty party was revealed.

 I've read a lot of mystery and detective fiction over the years, from Auguste Dupin to Harry Dresden and all points in between. In well-written whodunits, I'm pretty good at finding the murdered. I'd say at least four out of five times. Again, that's if it's well-written and not just a cliche-filled story hung on a detective novel frame. I'm looking at you, Dresden.

 That being said, I don't put as much effort into it these days. One of the reasons I appreciate mysteries is that if it's done well, it brings a good story with good writing without a lot of plot and bullshit to get in the way of the tale. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely room for art in literature - I'm a Faulkner man, after all - but sometimes you just want to enjoy a good yarn to pass the time.

 I've gotten into the groove with Hand of Fate 2, far as that goes. Since we got the fiber optic, I've been giving some of the big-file games I've gotten from Humble Bundle a shot. Last night was Conan Exiles. Okay enough for what it is and what it is, far as I can tell, is another World of Warcraft wannabe. Nothing wrong with that, of course, if that's your jam. I don't feel I get the whole experience because I don't really care for the co-op aspect of it. If I wanted to be social, I'd live my life entirely different than how I do now.

 Alien Isolation was also given a shot. Again, first-person horror games really aren't my thing and I don't care for crafting mechanics in every-goddamn-thing, but it looks well done. Unfortunately, it kept crashing on me. Whether it was because it just does that or my machine couldn't cope, I don't know, but it wasn't enough to make me put much more effort into it than I already had.

 You know what? I'm tired and it's been a day. If something interesting comes up, yadda yadda yadda.

Took a lot of courage to let the telephone ring.

  I let the day slip past me again. You know, I used to stay up all night all the time and be able to function just fine. Now if I do, it takes me a couple of days to shake the cobwebs loose and a couple more to get into some semblance of a normal diurnal routine. Ah, middle age, you are a rat bastard.

 I had some Actual Paying Work to do this week. It's why Thursday's offering is, shall we say, light. I sort of bit off more than I could chew, promising myself to 3,200 words rather than the 1,600 I thought I had. I think that gives me due to skipping a day's Gibberish. The News this week was pretty good, though.

 I did a lot on the sour weather the Deep South had this week because, well, there was a mess of sour weather this week. That was pretty much all of Monday. Wednesday started in on the weird civil war going on within the GOP, namely most of the party being pissed off that Lynn Cheney called out Trump and refuses to bend a knee. We followed that thought Friday with a little more on Alabama, Brett Farve continuing to be a sleaze, and the weird gathering of Dominionists Mississippi hosted this Thursday. Good week, check it out.

 Okay, then. I've been finishing E.M. Powell's "Stanton & Barling" series this week, or what there is of it. There might be more coming, I don't know. Long story short. he's a lusty but sensitive messenger who's good with horses, his fists, and the ladies. He's a rigid, straight-laced clerk for His Highness with a brilliant analytical mind and a dark secret that torments him. Together they solve crimes. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for a good time to use that.

 In any event, it's good stuff. I'm a sucker for historical mysteries and these are pretty good. It takes place during the reign of King Henry II after the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett and, as far as I can tell, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of the time. I don't know it's as quite as good as Ellis Powell's "Cadfael" series but it's pretty high tier. Check it out.

 I got yet another harmonica this week, this one a Suzuki Manji in B-flat. That pretty much completes me with the major keys I'd need if I were to consider playing in front of folks on a regular basis, which I am not. I probably could use an F-sharp but I doubt I'll fool with it. I got this because the Manji got good marks from several folks. I don't know, though. I don't like it as much as the Fender or Easttop harps and it's definitely more expensive than necessary. Sixty bucks to a forty-dollar Hohner.

 I'm still waiting on the PowerBend from China. It was ordered the March 9, and it's still not here. Monday's the last day, though, so maybe the second time will be the charm. I know there's no real point in me buying all these different keys, but it's given me a chance to check out some harps I never got to otherwise. You rarely see anything besides Hohners in music stories. Why that is, I don't know, but I imagine it's because they've got the name recognition.

 If I had to pick, I still favor Blues Harps and Marine Bands, but if I were to recommend a first-time harp, got with either an Easttop or a Fender Blues DeVille. A little under 30 bucks but a solid instrument, and you can't go wrong with that. The Fender Blues Deluxe is a pretty good buy for less than twenty, too, so keep that in mind. I do like the Lucky 13 and may think about getting another in a different key. After headache getting that one, though, I'm going to wait a while.

 Learning - or re-learning, possibly - has been fun. I'm trying to rebuild myself from the bottom because a lot of what I learned, I learned the wrong way or perhaps a way that could be easier done some other way. I find myself drifting away from practicing to having a good time with what I already know. I am picking up stuff that sticks, and that's a good thing.

 I don't know if there's anything else. I'm not really playing anything new. And I guess that's it. If you can, call your Mommas tomorrow.

Workin' for a livin'.

  I've got some Actual Paying Work to get done before tomorrow and, naturally, I've only dabbled with it throughout the week. I've got three articles due, all with an 800-word count, which puts me way over my own personal goal. So, since all my brainpower will probably be sucked dry by the time I finish them, this is what we're doing for today's Gibberish. If something clever just needs to be put down in digital print and isn't useful for the APW, I shall return. Otherwise, see y'all in the funny papers.

If I had my way, I'd never get the urge to roam.

  I've put this off all evening because I just haven't been in the mood. But it's fifteen after eleven and I should see if I can't get something done before midnight.

 I'm a little burnt out on paying attention to things. Woke, cancel culture, critical race theory, should we be paying attention to Trump announcing he's starting a LiveJournal, blah blah and increasingly blah. I don't know whether this is a result of having a president who's still in the boring phase of his presidency and one who is, well, boring. I can understand a little the idea the Bigtime Press is having trouble dealing with Life After Trump.

 That being said, I can also agree with folks who make up said press' readership saying how goddamn tired they are of reporters trying to keep Trump in the news. Well, trying to make "Biden's people react to Trump" is what they're considering news, apparently. On the plus side, it's always a good laugh when Press Secretary Jen Psaki rhetorically smacks some overpaid goofball's hand for asking a dumbass question about Trump.

 Still, Trump is important to the GOP. They're trying the eviscerate Lynn Cheney and Mitt Romney for their disloyalty to that weird asshole. It's very, very silly. I knew he'd have an outsized impact on the future of the GOP, but this is ridiculous. The flipside of all this is everyone who wants to stay in with the base is a complete douchebag on Twitter while complaining on the Sunday morning television shows how Big Tech and Big Media are censoring them. That geek Josh Hawley actually said while being interviewed on tv by that the reporter couldn't "cancel, censor or silence" him which is what he considers "asking a question clarifying a statement" as he hawks his new "vote for me for president in 2024" book.

 Like I said, tedious. Even more tedious is the drawers-twisting outrage conservatives are having on critical race theory. Everything is CRT. Diversity training is CRT. History that puts forth the controversial idea that chattel slavery was "bad" is CRT. Acknowledging the systematic racism that affected the lives of African Americans throughout the 20th century still has an impact on culture is CRT. Affirmative Action is CRT. 

 It's so dumb. I'm not interested in debating the merits of CRT but, for the record, I don't really see a problem with it. It's driven white folks nuts, though, to the point where anti-CRT types have slipped right over the edge of common sense. I saw one goob claimed writers Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright disproved CRT, which tells me this person not only doesn't know what CRT is, he's never read a lick from the two authors' work. Guess they learned the name of another Black intellectual besides Dr. King.

 Okay. I don't know if I can squeeze out any more. I do have some Actual Paying Work this week, due Friday. I don't know how that will affect this week's output, but who knows. I've been playing The Witcher 3 the last couple of days and I think I've got into the groove of the game. I may have to take a break, though, the thing is so goddamn dense. I'm also bouncing around with a couple of books and haven't found one that holds my attention. Nothing but harmonicas these days, y'all.

I would've joined the circus if I wanted to work with a clown.

  Man, May sort of snuck up on us, didn't it? I doubt I'm the only person to point this out, but it's an interesting stroke that May Day as a holiday to celebrate workers was due to something that happened in the United States but we've never celebrated it on a national level. Regardless, happy May Day, friends and neighbors, and don't let the bossman get you down.

 Anyhow. Let's get this News in before we get into anything else. I rarely note the Weekend News because more often than not, it's more of a filler-slash-wrap-up thing. Last weekend, though, I did something on Joe Biden's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide and what that's a big deal. It's worth checking out, I think, so please do so.

 Otherwise, it was a pretty ranch-standard week. We talked a little bit about the Census and possible gun legislation Monday. Wednesday was a look at the raid on Rudy Giuliani and Jackson's honoring Bobby Rush. I had a busy day Friday, so all I could do was clean up but we did explore the mess India's having with COVID if just a little bit. Good week, check it out.

 I said it there, but I'll say it here. I don't mind criticism or comments or dissenting opinions or any of that business, but don't come at me in bad faith. Don't pretend you're genuinely curious and paint what I've written in the most outrageous way possible. I don't have time to explain to you that me not trusting most gun owners who feel the need to be packing to go to Wal-Mart doesn't mean I'm a "gun control freak." Honest to god, life is way too short to put up with that bullshit for too long and, be real here, I probably don't give a damn what you think.

 And so much for all that. "Woke." That's become the conservative's go-to concept for what's Destroying America this week. Know this: don't pay attention to white folks who use "woke" as a pejorative. It doesn't mean anything beyond "giving me shit for being a butthole." It comes from AAVE use during the initial run of Black Lives Matter and means nothing more than urging black folks to be socially aware and vote accordingly.

 But like most things we do from Black folks, White folks have fouled it up. Conservatives are legitimately saying that we're having "woke corporations" doing stuff they don't like. It popped up when Coca-Cola and Major League Baseball criticized the unnecessary, poorly written voter restrictions recently shoved through the Georgia legislature. 

 Look. These are billion-dollar corporations and they care about nothing but the bottom line. You're a goddamn fool if you think otherwise. What's happened is these companies have run the numbers and figured there's more money to be made in "being woke" than is to be lost doing whatever the fuck conservatives want. Same thing with interracial or gay couples in cereal commercials, that's where the money is and they do not give a solid gold shit beyond that.

 What's killing me is these conservatives never stop and considered what this behavior by these Icons of Capitalism says about their politics and, frankly, them. Mississippi got rid of the Confederate flag because the NCAA and the SEC told them they'd boycott the state if we didn't. The weird anti-trans legislation we've passed and other red states are working on is causing the same sort of mumblings from these big-time moneymakers.

 None of this is new. Christine Jorgenson was in 1952, for cryin' out loud. And, no, I don't believe conservatives are really that concerned about the purity of women's athletics. After watching them spend 20 years trying to scuttle Title IX, you're going to have to try something else. For that matter, Georgia doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to ease of voting, especially after an election when the Black vote flipped the state.

 My man Ashton Pittman has an excellent piece in the Mississippi Free Press about systematic racism in Mississippi despite our oleaginous governor claiming otherwise. The part I found especially interesting was the number of eligible voters disenfranchised due to felony convicts is massively greater than the margins of victory for both Tate Reeves and Cindy Hyde-Smith. It's 16% African American, too, and while those aren't all guaranteed votes one way or another, it is pretty telling, and it's all from the 1890 state constitution. Something to keep in mind the next time you feel like giving Mississippi shit. The game's been rigged against us from the get-go.

 Okay, what else? Well, apparently conservatives are losing their water because restaurants are having a hard time getting workers to come back. It's being called a "hiring crisis," but they get furious if you suggest maybe workers don't think it's worth the effort to work those shit jobs for shit pay. They want to explain the stimulus and expanded unemployment, but I really can't figure out why they refuse to wrap their heads around the concept of "supply and demand."

 And you know what? If it is thanks to government money that line cooks, servers, and dishwashers don't want to work, as we said, "shit jobs for shit pay," good. The COVID pandemic not only exposed the holes in our government's ability to handle emergencies but also revealed just how fragile the whole American capitalist structure really is. People scraping by on starvation wages are told to find something better and when they do, the exploiters pitch a fit.

 Maybe shit will collapse in on itself once the stimulus/expanded unemployment goes the way of the dodo and maybe nothing will really change once things resettle, but so what? Work to live, don't live to work, and anyone who tells you different is trying to screw you ought of the money you're due. Your boss is not your friend and you are overhead. Have a good time and enjoy life. If you can figure out a way to pay your bills doing it, right on.

 All right then. That's enough for tonight. Y'all take care and have a nice weekend.