Before I commit a crime.

  It's 8:15 p.m. and I haven't written anything. I should write something, I suppose, but I've got nothing going on upstairs. I reckon we'll gonzo it out until we hit the word count, then.

 I did write a little something at the Tumblr site about the Marx Brothers. Specifically about Animal Crackers and more specifically about the scene where Groucho is screwing with Margaret Irving and Margaret Dumont. It was a little bit of fun, so check it out or at least watch the movie clip.

 I'm going to avoid politics if for no other reason than to have something to write about tomorrow. I will say that interview Trump gave last night with Laura Ingraham and his resulting speech today in Kenosha are full-blown, bull-goose looney. Once again, how anyone thinks this guy is fit to run a crap game much less a country is beyond me.

 Some are trying to use it as proof he's slipping and there's been a weird thing of him claiming that he did not have a series of mini-strokes earlier in the year when no one else brought it up. I don't buy that. My main objection to Trump becoming president in 2016 is that for over 30 years I've thought he was a cheap, two-bit dirty landlord and a complete buffoon who's only rich because he was born rich. I based that assumption of his first book and television interviews of the time, and nothing in the past three years has altered that perception.

 Just because I haven't had a chance to say this elsewhere, but I think I'll skip Bill & Ted Face The Music. Don't get me wrong. I love the previous two movies. In fact, I think Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is one of my all-time favorites. That being said, I don't know if I'm up for seeing a movie of two guys who showed so much promise as young men finding themselves spinning their wheels as middle age sits on their heads and farts. I'm sure there's a message for me in there somewhere, but I don't think I care to hear it.

 I really haven't read anything of note nor have I been playing any video games the last couple of days. I have been re-reading Jorge Luis Borges short stories, but I don't think that really counts as I've read them quite a few times. If you've never read any Broges, I highly recommend his collection of short stories, Ficciones. Words fail me when I try to explain them, which is probably why I never made a literary critic, but they're fun, mind-bending reads. Sort of like Philip K. Dick but classier, Borges' world flows and changes, and you never quite know where they're going to go. I recommend "Death and the Compass" or "The Garden of Forking Paths" to start. If you dig on Umberto Eco, as you should, you'll dig on Borges' stuff.

 I've been listening to a good bit of blues lately. Nothing special or unique, just standard the Muddy Waters-Howlin' Wolf-Little Walter axis. I will recommend Hard Again, one of Muddy's last albums. He made it with Johnny Winter and it's just some powerhouse stuff, especially considering the crap Chess was trying to throw together in their dying days. Muddy made out better with stuff like The Woodstock Album but Wolf's last few are just sad. That being said, The Back Door Wolf and Message To The Young really isn't all that bad. Little Walter was, of course, dead before all this happened.

 Okay, then, that's word count. Maybe I'll come back to this but I probably won't We'll see how it goes, but I imagine it'll be tomorrow before I fool around with anything else.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

 Momma bought her a Jamey Johnson CD, The Dollar, from Amazon, so she gets the MP3's along with the physical CD. I have Amazon Prime Music Unlimited so she's playing her new album as well as discovering the 300-plus Gigs worth of music I have on there. That should keep her occupied for a few days.

 She's also in a really good mood with lots of energy. See, Momma's 70, has had torn ACL in both knees, had one kneecap replaced and is overweight. In the last couple of days she's been going to the gym at ICC, and after a long, long time of trying to find one that's right for her - particularly here in Northeast Mississippi - she's hit pay dirt with this one. She says she's got so much energy she's worried what's going to happen, because that's how her mind works.

 I tell her enjoy it because I feel like someone sucked the life right out of me. I don't know if it's the front that's moved - it's rained like pouring piss out of a boot all day - or because I've been out of lithium since Monday. It's been refilled, so hopefully that'll whack me out of this mood. Granted, this is just another fluctuation in the sour frame of mind I've been in since the first of the year. Might just be the Brand New Year Blues, I don't know.

 Part of it is frustration with this. I've been pounding away at this gibberish for six months plus, now, and it's still pretty much the same gibberish it was when I started. I am still enjoying myself but one thing that's bugged me for years is a lack of purpose, a lack of direction for my existence, and frankly, I'm not finding one here. Fun is fun, sure, but maybe I've spent too much time having fun. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with leaving no footprint on the sands of time, and a hard look around makes me glad I'm not leaving anything behind when I leave.

 Ah, well. Dark thoughts and foul moods. My cynicism is getting the best of me and I'm finding myself with less patience with the rest of the world. Twitter gives too many people with too little to say too much of a platform, and our only recourse is to be that much more vapid and unoriginal. It's all performative and glamour without actual substance, it feels like. Which is, of course, arrogant as hell of me. Where do I get off passing judgement on everyone else's plasticity when I've got nothing going on inside.

 Anyhow. The third day of Impeachment is in swing, and it seems the GOP strategy is to not pay any attention through the actual trial while expressing outrage that anyone would dare question that Prince of Men, Donald Trump. The Democrats are providing a good case and there's still something like six Republican Senators on the bubble, but when the rubber hits the road, they're doing what they're told.

 Again, the GOP spent the past 30 years getting the base in the mood to attach themselves to a charismatic authoritarian who'd threaten "enemies", be they foreign countries or the U.S. press or even just people who didn't vote for him. What they didn't expect, though, is Trump's ascendancy, someone who'd take that spot with none of the subtlety or skill that American politics requires. Reagan, Nixon, either Bushes would've gotten away with something similar if all they cared about was pleasing The Base. That's all Trump cares about, though, because The Base feeds his ego and they would be perfectly happy if the last thing all of his "enemies" saw the barrel of a gun.

 I don't know. I'm just in a mood. Here's another link to the Willie Nash petition and another example of how half-ass Mississippi runs its prisons. Again, though, the average Mississippian is fine with this, because the cruelty is the point. We're a very Puritan/Hobbsian nation and especially state sometimes. I am about a third of the way through Pillars of Eternity II and spent most of my waking moments today reading Jorge Luis Borges short stories while listening to Johann Sebastian Bach while it rained all day.

 Let's be honest, if nothing else, that's not a bad way to spend the day.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

 Had a dream where I was doing something like this, except I was writing it out by hand and it was always about musicians. I don't know why either, I didn't explain it to myself in the dream. In particular I was writing about Neil Young and my handwriting - which anyone who knows me will tell you is perfectly wretched at best - was getting worse the more I wrote. Plus, I was trying to finish up so I could go back to Brazil for some reason. Dreams are weird, man. Anyhow.

Saturday, Jan 4, 2020

 Man, I really don't want to do this. I am drained and tired. Yesterday was too much. I don't want to do anything but sit outside, and it's too cold for that. Let's ride with the King nevertheless.