Every day is like survival.

  I let time slip up on me. It's twenty after eleven and I'm not going to bust my ass about making the deadline. We'll see how it goes.

  I finished Jonathan Howard's After The End of the World, the second book in the Lovecraft & Carter series. Long story short, an ancestor of H.P. Lovecraft and one of Randolph Carter team up to deal with the gibbering horrors from the dawn of time. He's a detective and she owns a bookstore. Together, they fight Deep Ones.

 It's not bad. Actually, it's pretty good. First time in a while that I've dealt with an actual page-turner. It does some decent stuff with Lovecraftian horror but the characters and pacing make it worth the effort. Howard also writes the Johannes Cabal: Necromancer books and they're fun, too. Anything where the main character is introduced by storming Hell and demanding the Devil quit screwing with him can't be bad. In any event, check 'em both out.

 I still don't care for multi-book stories, but I read the first book and got hooked before I knew what was what. I don't know what I've going to read next, though. I'm in one of those moods where my brain feels damp and nothing brings joy. I wish I knew what to do about that.

 Ain't going to lie, I sort of hoped that access to regular smoke would make things fall into place, but that ain't how life works. Especially my life. I don't think people really appreciate how untethered from reality I feel, even the people that know me well enough to know that my wiring's all messed up.

 But what are you going to do, and anyway, no one wants to hear all of that nonsense. I haven't even been able to nail down a movie worth watching, so I'm making my way through the Cinematic Titanic to-dos on the Shout Factory website. I think they're my favorite of the MST3K offshoots. They're not as condescending as Rifftrax can be, there's just more fun to it. I say it's due to Trace Beaulieu. He strikes me as a guy that always has a good time.

 Beyond that, I don't know. I need to figure out another 140 words or so. Gavin Newsome won his recall, but not being tied into California politics more than I absolutely need to be, I think that probably has more to do with Larry Elder's crazy ass more than anything. People forget the last time they tried this goofy shit, it was to put Arnold Schwarzenegger in the statehouse. Never underestimate the desire for Americans to give celebrities political power. We will climb a tree to do that, and frankly, a B-lister radio nutcase ain't quite it.

 Okay, then. By the time I finish this nonsense, I should be able to get the forty words I need. I may watch another Cinematic Titantic or read a bit or hell, I don't know. Most of the time it feels like all I do is pass the time, but it's even worse these days.

 Ah, well. Nothing lasts forever.

I can't come up with anything and I haven't figured out how to write out guitar hooks.

  We're on Day 14 of the 2020 United States Presidential Election. The needle really hasn't moved, except the Michigan GOP is actively trying to disenfranchise African American votes in Detroit, and Rudy Giuliani's attempts at arguing Trump's claims in court are, in a word, comical. Someone else compared it to a Lionel Hutz bit from The Simpsons. To me, it looks like just what it is: a not-particularly-good lawyer trying to turn bullshit into buttermilk when he hasn't worked a case in court in almost 40 years.

 Anyhow. It's been twenty minutes since I wrote the above paragraph. I just don't have much going on tonight, I guess. We'll run for word count, but I surely don't know what I'll fill this space with.

 I'm still working on the Brian Greene book. Those things are pretty meaty. Even dumbed down to a layman's level, physics and cosmology books are always heavy, even when the writing is sharp. Greene usually is, but still. It's heavy subjects that require heavy thinking, and I usually wind up reading some Hunter Thompson to calm down.

 Trump fired his cybersecurity guy Chris Krebs because the man debunked one of the Boss' many, many false claims concerning his crushing defeat in the election two weeks ago. But so much for all that. I am still sick to the teeth of writing about the goddamn election and that cheap bastard's refusal to accept reality or, for that matter, the brainless chumps that believe every hint of bullshit like it was Gospel.

 I'm going to indulge in a little loose thinking, so feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs. A lot is been made of the fecklessness of the Democratic Party the last couple of days. And feckless they are, let's make no bones about it. There's some talk about who Biden will appoint to his cabinet and, as equally galling to some, who he will not appoint. Put it this way, he doesn't need to screw around too much with the makeup of the Senate right now.

 One thing sticking in the leftist/liberal craw is the intimation that the Biden Administration might not pursue legal action against the Trump Administration once the former gets settled in the White House. Now, I admit, I'm not keeping too close attention on this particular stroke, so I'm not sure there actually is anything they can nail him on. The New York attorney general has first dibs on his orange hide and there's nothing the White House can do about that.

 However, while we again do not dispute the basic gormlessness of the Democrats these days, one does wonder if they're not doing the best they can under the circumstances. One thing most people forget is they have to cover a lot of ground, from far-leftist loons like me to Republicans genuinely embarrassed about being lumped in with pea-brained fascists and everything in between, plus the big money men.

 Furthermore, and I know people will dispute this because it's easier than thinking, I think the Trump Years have taught us the Big-Time Media is easier on the Republican Party. How long did it take them to say the president is a liar? How many puff pieces have we seen trying to figure out why Trump supporters worship him when it can be easily explained as "Americans love authoritarian assholes?" They've not changed in five years, what's so hard about this? They abandoned George W. Bush because he refused to be quite that awful and Sarah Palin when she couldn't keep the grift going, is it so surprising they'd go for a celebrity who's pretended to be a business shark?

 It wasn't all that different during the Bush Administration, really. It plays into familiar narratives and that's always easier than thinking. We pretend affordable healthcare and guaranteed wages are some sort of socialist pipe dream while we also pretend "pro-life" actually is or that morality is only white, Christian, and financially successful regardless of how it got there. So, they're up against a lot. That's not suggesting they're above criticism or, indeed, current criticism should let up. One of the reasons the GOP is so successful despite being a black hole of politics is their message of greed and exclusion doesn't require much work.

 I don't know what else. I've been listening to a lot of Taj Mahal lately. For the longest time, I never really ventured outside his earlier records but I've come around. A lot of Cannonball Adderly, too. It's great stuff to fall asleep to, for whatever it's worth. I've been finding really low-quality horror movies on Tubi or ShoutFactoryTV diverting as well. Just awful shit, but hey, they're free. Can't beat that with a stick.

 I guess that's plenty for today. As always, if something comes to mind I'll come back around. Otherwise, catch y'all at the News tomorrow.