Hey, I got it done, don't expect too much out of me.

  I'm not going to screw around tonight. I got nothing, in particular, I feel like writing about, but what the hell. Never stopped me before.

 Kicking things off, here's a good piece on the young Black activists who led the charge to change the state flag last year. Our good friends Ashton Pittman and Nick Judin at the excellent Mississippi Free Press. Do check them out. Mainstream media is dying a slow death but, surprisingly, Mississippi's got several quality online news magazines. It's like the surfeit of colleges in this state. Never have been able to figure that out.

 I'll just reiterate, but the kids who're written up in this story are what keeps me sane. They've got no choice but to make the state something better than just a place where folks are from. Mississippi catches a lot of shit from the rest of the country, and much of it we deserve. But people, actual people, live here and try to thrive. It's harder than most people think. We're still dealing with the 1890 state constitution that goes out of its way to disenfranchise Black people. What's crazy is it does the same for poor White folks, which doesn't bother the Powers That Be, of course. Racism is a helluva thing.

 So this has slammed to a serious halt. I got a Golden Melody, another Hohner harp. However, I'm still not up for the compare-and-contrast. It's a good harmonica, though. Nice, bright sound, easy feel, just a good instrument all around.

 It's been a good twenty minutes since I wrote the above. I think I'll watch a crappy movie. For whatever reason, I've got a hankering for the Asylum version of John Carter, Princess of Mars. That's the actual title of the book Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote. I saw John Carter staying in a hotel during my Big Trip. It wasn't bad, really, but one understands just why it tanked.

 I need to get around to watching Horn From The Heart but I don't think tonight's the night. That has to be a night where I can pay attention, and that isn't happening tonight. I don't know why I feel so whipped but I do. Some good brain fluff might be the ticket, though.

 A couple hours later...

 Well, I'm watching Princess of Mars and it's... definitely an Asylum movie. It's only dusting over the source material, but that sort of goes without saying. Guy's supposed to be a Marine in Afghanistan rather than a Civil War vet. It's not bad - for an Asylum film, granted - but it is taking a while to get moving. The guy playing John Carter has all the charisma of a bowl of grits, though. And bless her heart, Traci Lords isn't much better.

UPDATE: John Carter is played by Antonio Sabato, Jr. That explains a whole lot about his acting skills.

 Man, I'll be glad when this sciatic nerve settles down. I don't like moving much, sure, but it sucks that much more when it hurts as bad as this does. Something to look forward to in my old age, I suppose. I bet that's when I regret my monkish ways the most.

 Anyway, I've got word count so I might as well pinch this off. I'm going to leave it open, though, in case something comes to me. I know I keep saying that, but you never know.

Mr. Ledbetter, can you tell me again, what's a Mississippi Flush and how's it beat this hand?

 I really couldn't tell you why, but since I've moved back home I have gotten more... into? interested? engaged? enraged? Whatever it is, I'm more of it concerning the political situation in Mississippi. Maybe it's because I know, deep down, that I'll probably never leave for good again. Or maybe things have gotten just this bad in the past 20 years since I left.

 I've been actively engaged in politics basically since my college days in Florida. All through my time in Georgia and New Orleans, I've kept my head in even when it was considered a character flaw by many in my social circle. That being said, I'm not going to lie, it was mostly national politics. I dealt with local stuff when it affected me, particularly in Athens, but my eye was always turned to at least the U.S. Congress or, failing that, socio-political concerns that were greater than one state. The Confederate flag on state flags or at state capitols, for example, has driven me up the wall for years.

 I've always kept an eye on Mississippi. It's my home, much as I may not like that (or as much as my brother hates it). The bulk of the state or, for that matter, Itawamba County, I really didn't give a good goddamn. Now, my home is here in Peaceful Valley, this hill I live on. Then, though, it was just where I grew up. I stayed away and intended to stay away until I was put in the ground, and only then because I already have a grave site. Mississippi's where I'm from, I'd tell people, it's not where I am.

 Well, now it's where I am and unless something drastic happens, it's where I'll stay. I don't like that, but that's how it is. Anyone with half a lick of history knows Mississippi has a dark, nasty history, one that we're still trying to come to grips with. Like William Faulkner wrote in Requiem For A Nun, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Our history of slavery, Jim Crow, Medgar Evans, near-total political domination by the Klan for decades, and even the overall anti-labor history of treating poor white trash as nothing more than a bulwark for the rich and powerful.

 But now, it seems it's gotten that much more real. The ICE raids on the chicken plants that were used to rid the company of workers who'd made hay about sketchy practices by management. The medical marijuana initiative that's on the 2020 ballot. The ongoing horror of prisoners living and dying while in state penitentiaries and their deadly conditions. And now, the Nissan plant down in Canton is doubling the workers' load in the midst of CORVID-19 while giving the executives leave to "self quarantine". Why? Because we have a labor history that is actively hostile to any concept of a union.

 For the first time in a long time, state and local politics feel real and urgent in a way they haven't. Along with that, my general disgust with both parties and even soi-disant "leftists" and "socialists" as well as my long-dormant interest and sympathy for anarchistic political theory. I've said it elsewhere, one of the most attractive aspects of anarchism, to me, is the suggestion that you can use the tools of the system to change the system and you can do it in smaller, personal ways. Right here, right now, in Mississippi 2020, that just sings, man.

 I'll be 45 next month. I'm single with no kids and no real strong ties. I find myself at times cut adrift from my own head. I don't understand it nor do I want it, but I won't deny part of me envies my brother and his wife or my cousin and his family. I wouldn't trade my freedom for the world, but a man does need something to latch himself to, something to make the universe worth the effort.

 I'd might as well try to make this state a little better than I left it.

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.

Monday, January 6, 2020

 I've been putting this off all evening. My brain's not working today for some reason. It's not exactly like being blocked so much as I'm just tired. Still, the show must go on, as they say, for 500 words at least.