Take a little trip with me.

  It's the first of April. I never have cared for April Fool's Day mainly because most folks are neither all that funny nor all that clever. I've only seen a couple of April Fool's tweets today and they've been blatantly obvious. I guess living in the bizarre reality that has been the last four years has sapped most people's tolerance for bullshit.

 The Derek Chauvin case is going into its fourth day. Here's a pretty good Twitter feed called Unicorn Riot that's been following the trial. The defense's strategy seems to be not only painting George Floyd as a danger but also that the cops were being threatened by the cops. It's going to be interesting to see what the defense brings because the prosecution is eating them up. A former supervisor of Chauvin has said he went too far.

 Another... interesting take on it is how guilty the witnesses all seem to feel over it, as if they're blaming themselves for Floyd's death. Particularly the young man who originally thought he passed a fake twenty. He was hard to listen to, bless his heart, and it goes a long way in explaining why this sort of thing keeps happening, why police brutality is so commonplace.

 You'll see these arguments online where people who support police brutality and inevitably someone will ask them, "Well, what if it happens to you or someone you love?" Once they get over the claim they'd never do something like that, the pro folks always say something along the line of, "Well, I/they probably deserve it." Think about that. Our culture has this worship of authority so ingrained that we think we deserve to have punitive measures used against us whenever said authority deems it necessary. 

 That's something about our culture we maybe should think about. It doesn't remove or explain away the racial aspect of police brutality or the other aspects of White Supremecy that, but I definitely think it has a structural component to this all-American comment of daily life. Same thing with yet another mass shooting. We for some reason think we deserve like this or, at least, it's a reasonable sacrifice. It should also be noted that the same people who think the cops are justified with what they do are the same ones who lose their shit when they get a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot. Go figure.

 Moving on, we've all had to consider Matt Gaetz's "oh-face" way too much this week. It's come out that he's given to show nude pictures and videos of his sexual conquests to others, even fellow Congress critters while on the floor of the House of Representatives. That's just creepy and gross. I mean, that'd be creepy and gross if he was 21, but for a member of the U.S. legislative body, it's almost beyond the pale. Even if the sexual trafficking of minors charge is bogus, he ought to be bounced just for that. For cryin' out loud, man, try not to act so much like the privileged frat boy douchebag you so obviously are.

 And that's about that. It's been cold but an otherwise lovely day and we finally got high-speed fiber-optic internet. It is nice to rejoin the 21st century. I've been buying more harmonicas, including a PowerDraw harp that I'm extremely looking forward to messing with. Maybe after my birthday, I'll buy myself one of these Lucky 13 harps that are tuned for bass playing.

 I'm having a lot of fun relearning harmonica and guitar. Maybe the best thing about learning or relearning anything - from a musical instrument to a sport to something like painting - is when a hurdle or a block that's been hanging you up and frustrating your progress just melts away. You figure it out and it becomes second nature. It's like discovering you have a super power.

All-night laundromat blues.

 Well, I did it again. I nodded off reading after supper and woke up after midnight with not one word written. This is the second time this has happened, the second time this month as a matter of fact. It's always on Gibberish days when, admittedly, had I something I felt needed pontificating on, it would already have been written.

 But no, nothing was coming today and, to be quite frank, nothing's here now. We're getting our weekly flood outside but that's almost become boring. I need a shower and as soon I wake up fully, I'll take it. For the nonce, I'll babble on until I catch word count.

 I was doing pretty good today, too. Woke up and hit the gym instead of waiting until the afternoon when I probably would have slept through it. Otis and I took a lovely early afternoon constitutional. I need to do something to change my sluggish mood, and I guess the only thing I can do at this point is to take advantage of the nice weather. The Psych Doc said I need to spend more time outside anyway.

 Anyway. I'm spending too much money on harmonicas, which is actually a sentence I have written before. I maybe shouldn't have bought that Blues Harp, especially since it was in A. That's an okay key, but not as useful as C. Played in second position, it works for songs in D, but that's not quite as useful. Of course, I'm not going to be playing with anyone soon but it's the principle of the thing.

 I've got a three-pack Hoodoo Hohner Blues Harmonica set that was super cheap. Apparently they're not great, but I just want something to blow on. The video I just got through makes them look really bad. Ah, well. The case looks nice. The Bluesband is decent for less than $10, but the fact is you get what you pay for. I may break down and just buy a Marine Band, but the East top makes a pretty decent affordable one. Maybe I'll wait and I buy myself one or two for my birthday. That's an idea. I got that Blues Man in A, maybe buy a Marine Band in C, and perhaps a Fender or a Lee Oskar in G. I've never played one of those.

 Boy, this is riveting stuff, but this is about as interesting as my thought process got today. One of Florida's dirtbag U.S. Representatives, the odious Matt Gaetz, went from announcing he'd take a job with Newsmax rather than run for re-election to being accused of sex with an underage girl. At least one, maybe more and maybe Tucker Carlson is involved.

 And for the record, I only call it "sex with an underage person" for legal reasons. It's rape. Sex with a minor is rape, especially if you're a 38-year-old man. There are allowances for 18-year-olds having sex with 17-year-olds that fall into a gray territory if one wanted to be an asshole but that's neither here nor there. This is not that situation.

 In any event, I am not terribly interested in digging into that dude's trash. He's a nasty piece of work and has shown he's something of a douchebag a number of times before all this came to light. Politics and the media is my beat but this sort of thing is... distasteful. I cannot for the life of me understand why people, mostly dudes, engage in this sort of behavior. Even among us plebes, big generation gaps like that never really work, do they? I remember a friend back in Athens who was pushing 40 and dating a 22-year-old. Sweet girl and he was a nice dude, but it was a fiery relationship, to be generous. Both were much happier after they split up. Another similar situation, every time I saw him away from her - and he worked at a CD store, so I saw him a good bit - he looked wore plumb down because they were always scrappin'.

 I'm not going to lie. In my early thirties, I went out once or twice with a young woman in her early twenties. It never lasted, though, for one reason or another. Usually because I was too weird for them after the initial blush or because - and I don't want to be insulting here - she just acted too young. People need to date close to their own age until their mid-thirties and then stick with the seven-year rule. That's half your age plus seven is the lower limit. For example, I'll be 46 next month so my lower limit would be 30. That's still a pretty big stretch, come to think about it.

 It doesn't matter, anyway, because I ain't dating anymore. I don't know if that's the reason I'm not interested in sex scandals - I was going to bring this back around somehow - because I've never been interested in sex scandals. Of course, this wouldn't be a sex scandal so much as a rape scandal, which makes it even more distasteful. But it will be news for the next couple of days.

 And that's word count so I'll be hitting the showers.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

 It's been a pretty big day, so let's jump into it.