Nah, I'm not even going to bother.

  I'm going to go ahead and get something down. I plumb forgot Thursday, didn't think about it until 4 a.m. Friday morning, and was too lazy to do anything about it. I had tried to remember, honest.

 I didn't even try to fill in Friday. Had a doctor's appointment and ran some errands in Tupelo, so by the time I got home, all I wanted to do was nap. I did know, I just didn't care. I got a really sharp piece on the News about the Mississippi Legislature coming up with a medical cannabis bill that's actually better, best I can tell, than what Initiative 65 would've given us. The rest of the week is pretty decent, too, despite having plenty of Actual Paying Work to do.

 I've been putting some serious thought into making a major change. Specifically, cutting this bullshit out. I might get one or two good pieces out of this shit a month, and the rest is just me trying to fill space. It's no fun and discouraging. I started this just to get back into fighting shape and hopefully make some interesting boil out of it. That hasn't happened.

 So, what I might do is go ahead and keep an MWF-plus-weekend schedule for The News. The music stuff will stay on Tumblr just because it's easier to plug in music or videos and is easier to retweet. Blogger is pretty rickety and I don't believe it'll ever get much better. It seems like it's an afterthought that isn't irritating enough for Google to dump like they did Google Plus.

 Anyway. I'll kick it around but I'm pretty much settled on it. Like I said, not only is it rarely any fun, most of the time it just makes me feel worse. I don't see the point in all that.

 Just got back from Otis' late afternoon walk. He never wants to go far - down to the curve, up to the Old Place, or just around the property - but he wants to keep going out. He's been having a worse time getting around, full-on balance issues. And they're worst after dark. Getting old is a drag but watching your dog getting old is much, much worse.

 Watching a Cinematic Excrement episode on "Mommie Dearest." I've never seen it, but the Smeghead (that's what he calls himself) is talking about how perception can differ, particularly when it comes to abuse in a family. Momma can completely ignore the abuse she suffered from Daddy and Poppaw and then in the next breath tell one of the most horrible stories you ever heard about some of the shit my father pulled. I'm not condemning nor complaining, it is just an interesting stroke to ponder, I think. The mind plays tricks on you, sure, but not near to the amount you play tricks on it.

 I don't cotton much to child abuse. I think corporal punishment is child abuse. I think yelling at your kid is child abuse. I think preventing them from something they enjoy for an extended period of time to punish them is child abuse. I don't have kids and that's one of the reasons why. I do not understand how even what I consider proper parents do it, not going to lie. Not strangling my dog because he spends an hour-and-forty-five minute going inside and out at 3 a.m. So, yeah, forgive me if I judge and take it with a grain of salt.

Programming note.

  I have some Actual Paying Work to do tonight, so this is going to be short. It's an interesting topic, on dram shop laws, and I'll let you look that up for yourself. Considering how infertile my brain is as often as not, I'm thinking about stopping this.

 That is, stop writing Gibberish every Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday. Half the time I forget about it because most of the time I have no interesting ideas. I'd still write something from time to time when I had something to write about, but I have to wonder if trying to squeeze toothpaste from an empty tube is doing me any good.

 I'm going to think on it. I wonder if I've run this experiment into the ground. The News is still doing what it needs to do for me, but there's just no way I can turn that into anything but a hobby. How all those Substack folks can do what they do and live with themselves, I don't know.

 Anyway, it might just be my blues talking. Once Fall comes around or the pandemic breaks, maybe I'll be in a better, more productive mood. Time to get to work. I'm drifting and if I'm going to drift, I'm going to get paid for it.

Another man done gone.

  It's ten o'clock but I'm not going to be caught out bad tonight. I got nothing particularly interesting to say, but that's never stopped me. So here we go.

 I've been playing a lot of Pathfinder: Kingmaker lately, getting back to where I was in my initial game before I drifted away and forgot what I was doing. I'm bad to do that, particularly with long, involved games. I still need to get back to Dragon Age II and XCOM 2. Don't ask me why beyond I don't really care for endings. I chalk that up to a love of comic books as a kid. Honestly, Spider-Man is 20 years older than the last time I paid attention and he's still in his mid-20s.

 Watching a movie called Coven. It's about witches and it's not good, so far anyway. Granted, I'm not an expert on all things witchery, but it does seem to me like they're just making shit up as they go along. Of course, there's no reason to not just make shit up as they go along. The witch lady who's the boss of the coven is also a massive pill even before a demon posses here. I don't think I could meddle with the darker powers of the world with someone that obnoxious. So far, I do not recommend it.

 I have been watching a lot of horror movies. They're almost like detective novels, in that there's a familiar path they all take and all that really matters is how well the story's told. Well, it's not exactly the same, I guess, but a bad horror movie's easier to take than a bad comedy. I will note that I don't care too much for slasher movies or what's deemed "horror porn" and extreme horror. It's not so much the gore that bothers me, it's that there's plenty of examples of humans being absolute bastards to each other in the real world. If I'm going to deal with fiction, give me demons and movie witches and werewolves and cosmic horrors and whatnot.

 For what it's worth, I know there are real witches in the world but they're not like fiction witches, mainly because they're not as shitty as movie witches. That's neither here nor there, though. The witches in this movie make me think of the witches Terry Pratchett was making fun of in the Tiffany Aching books. All black leather and revealing clothes and impractical boots.

 I wonder if chaos magic is still a Thing. Fifteen years ago, it was the go-to hoodoo bullshit middle-class yuppie spawn used to pretend they had a solid grasp on the universe. The Wikipedia entry has a section on "post-chaos," but that mainly reads like practitioners pissed off they didn't get their ponies. There's also a guy who's mixed chaos magic with Lovecraftian concepts like the Great Old Ones, which seems like a really bad idea. I'm half-tempted to buy the book just to see how bad an idea it is to invoke the concept of massively powerful entities that don't even consider us insects.

 Hey, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is out and it's getting good reviews. Excellent. Kingmaker was apparently a lame dog on first release and took nearly six months to get playable. There's a Season Pass which means there'll be DLC, which means I'll be waiting until all that DLC comes out before I drop a nickel on it. Just my personal rule and, usually by that point, any and all stompable bugs are fixed. Besides, the Season Pass version is going for $80 so screw you, man. I got enough to keep me occupied until the price lightens up some. I mean, I'm all for supporting indie developers, but come on, man.

 Well, this is as good a place as any to stop. Don't watch Coven. It's a turkey and it's sort of dull.

You know I don't need a lot of money 'cause I ain't going nowhere.

 I generally avoid "political sex scandals," to paint perhaps too wide a brush. But that's the point. Katie Hill was forced to resign from the House for basically being in a threesome that took naughty pictures of themselves. Matt Gaetz is accused of trafficking underage girls for sexual purposes. They're both considered "political sex scandals" and that's just bullshit on every level.

 So I've kept away from the Andrew Cuomo affair. From what I can tell, he's been credibly accused of being an extreme creep to his female subordinates and staff. I don't think he's assaulted anyone, but that doesn't make anything better. He's the mayor of the most important city in the world, he can't act like that. Come on. I don't know why this continues to be so difficult for powerful men.

 But what was most interesting to me is, we've known about this for at least two weeks, and all we heard out of Cuomo was "fuck you, plebes, come and get me." Even as subordinates quit and his staff begged him to shut up and sit down if nothing else, he belligerently stuck to his guns.

 Until this morning, when a piece in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow concerning how Cuomo gave Obama a call to complain about a wholly unrelated deal the New York City AG was shaking his tree over. Before we all finished lunch, Cuomo announced he'd step down from his office in two weeks. He might've opened up himself to ethics violations, but for whatever reason, he is no longer the most powerful mayor in the country.

 Don't fuck around with Ronan Farrow, y'all, that boy's a beast. He's spent the past couple of years acting as an investigative journalist and made a practice of putting power men who seemed untouchable into the fucking ground. Notably, he's the guy that brought down Harvey Weinstein, a rotten piece of filth that should've been buried alive a long time ago and everyone knew what he'd been doing.

 That was entertaining to see. Always nice to see no-bullshit, ball-stomping investigative journalism, and you'd think people would know not to mess with Farrow. The minute he calls for an interview, you might as well announce your retirement from whatever because he knows what you've been doing, even if you don't.

 As I said, though, generally I find "political sex scandals" distasteful. It's either a powerful man being a nasty creep and calling it a "sex scandal" that merely downplays truly horrific things like rape and sexual assault. Or it's because someone's trying to get their rocks off in a way society pretends it disapproves of though no one is doing something they don't consent to, and more often than not it's used as an excuse to shit on some woman for having sex and not feeling dirty about it.

 I'm a guy that firmly believes any animosity that women feel against men is legit because of the obnoxious shit we continue to do despite being told otherwise, over and over and over. I also firmly believe it's possible to maintain healthy, respectful relationships with the women in your life - people you work with or go to classes with or work at your favorite restaurant - and have an active, interesting romantic/sex life and not be a creep about it. Guys who complain women always take it wrong never seem to stop and think that maybe it's something they keep doing that turns the ladies off.

 Don't ask me to explain it because apparently, it doesn't seem to register. If you're interested in someone, pursue them and leave everyone else alone. If they tell you to fuck off, then fuck off and get on with your life. I have never understood putting any effort into someone once they've told you they're not interested. Life is short, there's plenty of fish in the sea, and frankly, I got other things I want to do as well.

 Of course, that's not something I have to worry about now and my approach to romance might possibly be partly the cause of my monastic lifestyle. But so what? Have a good time and be nice to people when you can. The rest is just details.

 Right, then.

He packed no star as he wandered far, where the only law was a hook and a draw.

  I'm really not in the mood for all this. I don't have anything interesting to say nor have I done anything noteworthy the last couple of days but sleep late some more. But, needs must, so let's squeeze something out and get on with our evening.

 I did have a rather vivid, narrative dream. Essentially, it was set in a future dystopian utopia-type of deal. Everything appears great, no one's hungry or poor, but... that sort of thing. There was a powerful central government and everyone was tagged. However, being tagged wasn't necessary for different reasons. That being said, some sort of technology was necessary to do about anything, so essentially everyone had cell phones that were used to do everything from opening the bathroom door to buying a hamburger at a concert. No money, that sort of thing.

 It started with a rebellion being crushed, and our Protagonist survived the last crush by hiding sort of like in Ravenous. Somewhere along the line, - five years sticks in my head - he steals one of the government's soldiers' ID box and claims his chip was burnt out due to an EMP. That sort of thing happens all the time. Riding on a train taking young soldiers back home to visit, he masquerades as a veteran and picks a stop way off in the boonies. Seems like it was in the Pacific Northwest.

 So, he starts walking in search of a fabled technology-free community, basically, so he isn't executed by the government for being a rebel. For the most part, though, no one cares about the war. During his travels, he sees how the Great Society fails like the rebels thought it would but he also sees how it succeeds in ways they never expected. At one point, he comes across a concert and people having a good time, which doesn't mean anything in particular except he has to radically alter his course because he can't actually buy anything.

 Anyhow, as he got close to the mythical Luddite colony increasingly conflicted about everything I woke up. I don't know where it goes from there nor do I know if there's anything in there worth expanding. I do think it says something about my own internal conflict with the good and evils of American society. The richest, most technologically advanced country on the planet that's being ravaged by poverty and an easily avoidable pandemic out of human arrogance and selfishness, that sort of thing.

 Probably related to stories I've read about former Confederate soldiers in a post-Civil War America, a la Johnny Yuma. I've mentioned before how much I dislike my dreams. I like the narrative ones and just wish I could do something creative with them. I guess if I could, I wouldn't be doing this or the News. It's probably for the best, though, as everything I've read lately says making any sort of living as a writer is a rube's game.

 And that's about that. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of the evening. I may just go back to sleep or I may play some more Pillars of Eternity II.

Come one, come all. We're gonna have a ball.

  I ate too much. I'm sure everyone wanted to know that, but it's true and I'm fighting off drowsiness because of it. Still, I want to get this knocked out, and, no, I don't have anything useful or interesting to add to the conversation.

 Though I brought it up with yesterday's News, Initiative 65 was supposed to go into operation this week. If it weren't for the greed and selfishness of certain Republican lawmakers around the Jackson area, I would've been able to swing by a dispensary in Tupelo yesterday afternoon after my therapy session and pick up a half-ounce. However, because of said greedy dirtbags, I could not. Indeed, it's doubtful any serious progress will be made on this, either this year or at all. I really don't see the current state government busting their ass to get this done regardless of how popular it was with the population.

 To expand a bit on that thought, the real problem with Mississippi politics isn't the Democratic versus Republican in most of the rest of the country. We've had rotten bastards running us for about as long as we've been a state. We were founded by plantation owners and, to be quite frank, that mentality still exists. Race is definitely part of it, but there's a huge class divide, as well, more so than most of us white folks want to admit. The reality that we're the rich's bulkhead against Black folks isn't one we want to own, much less admit that we're sort of enjoying the situation.

 This culture, this country, is full of mean-spirited, rule-crazy swine, people who worship the wealthy and powerful. It's why every time there's a video of a cop beating the shit out of someone with a broken taillight, some jackass says "well, you should follow orders." That's what they're saying, we deserve to be controlled and certain groups deserve to be in charge. If you ask them what they'd say if it happened to them or their loved ones? If they're honest - and they often are, surprisingly - they'd believe they'd deserve it.

 Crazy, I know. But that's the world we live in and that's the world these screwheads want. My running theory on such inexplicable behavior is that we're slaves to the Narrative. We believe in Stories. There has to be a start, a middle, and an ending, and it all has to make sense. There are Good Guys and Bad Guys, all easily and readily identifiable, and it must be unambiguous. It has to make sense. That's what the story says.

 And the universe just doesn't work like that. Nor, for that matter, do any of the major religions preach this. God may have a plan but we don't know it any more than we know Allah's will. The universe existed for billions of years before we came along and will most likely exist for billions of years afterward, with no evidence left behind that we stomped the terra.

 This infuriates us. It terrifies us. The anti-vaccination movement is based on this. It just isn't sexy enough that the Powers That Be push vaccinations because if they let us all die to an otherwise easy-to-prevent viral infection, it might be harder for the rich to become even richer. There has to be some sort of sinister reason. There must be a reason to go through this much effort to control a group of people who can easily be influenced by semi-clever beer commercials.

 That's enough for now. I've been digging into Pillars of Eternity 2 again and perhaps I'll actually finish it this time. We'll see.

Yeah, just post the damn thing.

  This is the fourth day, hand running, that I've stayed in bed until well into the afternoon. I'm not staying up too late nor am I sleeping the whole time. Indeed, I'm getting a good bit of reading done. I just don't want to get out of bed and face another day. It's fucking tedious, man.

 Every time I talk to the Psych Doc or Therapist, they ask me if I have suicidal thoughts, and I don't, not really. I just don't want to be here and I'm not sure that's the same thing. I'm in a dark place right now, though, and I don't see a way out of it. I avoid Twitter because there will come a point where I tell someone they should've been drowned at birth. This is why I don't argue with people there or anywhere else. It's rarely worth it.

 Simone Bailes bowed out of the team gymnastics event during the Olympics and conservative white dudes (and wanna-be conservative white dudes) are losing their shit over it. We're told she's doing it for her mental health and they're all pissed off that she's "not tough enough," but I'm convinced they're all pissed off they're losing the opportunity to gloat if she doesn't get gold. In any event, if anyone should be ignored about anything, it's conservative white dudes.

 I really haven't been paying attention to the Olympics this time around. Partly because they're in Japan and there's a 10-hour time difference, but mostly because I don't have cable nor do I have a girlfriend who wants to watch it. That's how it worked out the last time I paid attention, which I guess was the 2012 Olympics. We watched a good bit of it and, pretty much like every sport, it's not my thing but I can appreciate excellence wherever it's found. I've seen Bailes do her thing and if she feels she needs to step aside for her own health and the good of her team, who am I to judge. Not a white dude conservative critic, that's for damn sure.

 Anyhow. I don't know I really have anything else. I've been reading a couple short story collections that are based on Lovecraftian themes. One collection's stories are new-ish while the other collection pulls in some classics by folks like Robert Howard and Robert Bloch. They're both about equal, so far, and I'm switching between the two. Most of the time I can't tell the difference, but they're both fun.

 It's tying in with the fascination with pre-historical societies or the possibility thereof. The Appalachian Mountains are almost 500 million years old and pre-date the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. That's pretty stunning to think about, but it sort of puts a new spin on some of the "ancient evils" in Lovecraft's New England and could totally bypass any weird connotation with Native Americans. I never have been that into Conan or Middle-Earth stuff, so I wish I could come across some fiction that uses this. I could write my own, of course, but that doesn't seem to work and I don't know how to make it so.

 I am tired of being depressed and miserable. I don't see a good way out, life is just going to get tougher and more painful. Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow will be different. It won't, but what other choice is there?

No kidding, I'm ready to fight.

 I'm not going to go into detail about this week's News. I'm just going to link to them. It was a decent week's worth of work, though. I'm feeling very squirrelly, so I want to lash something together, take a shower, and hell, I don't know.

 I'm so stressed out I can feel my blood pressure be high. That tooth that was working itself loose over the past month popped free yesterday. One of the back molars on my left side, it didn't look like what I figured. I guess this is the start of that bit of fun, but it upset Momma something off. "You're too young," she said. I don't know. My sciatic nerve has yet to cool down and I'm tired of being in pain. And I swear, I think my eyesight is getting worse. I'm wearing my glasses as I'm writing this.

 Not a happy bunny, nope. I've figured out why I've been so stressed and generally miserable lately. Everyone around me is stressed. The brother is stressed because of the new house and his wife is stressed because of her mom, which makes him more stressed. Momma's stressed because my uncle's heart is giving out on him and it's driving his wife, Momma's sister, even squirrelly than she is normal. My cousins are stressed, so talking to them is a landmine field.

 I shouldn't have any stress, but for whatever reason, this is making me a little nuts or, at the very least, exacerbating the already gloomy funk I've been in all summer. And pointing out I don't have anything to take the edge off is boring even me. Seriously, I would beat your momma's ass for a joint. Even some reggie, your grandmama would get a beating.

 It's getting weirder out there, y'all. The wingnut outrage machine has cranked up over claims that the COVID vaccination represents some sort of government control, like the entire world is in on this, all to make Trump look bad. I really don't get the endgame. We have actual U.S. Representatives arguing that getting a shot is equal to giving in to the communist hordes. The most-watched television talking head is claiming the shots are losing effectiveness. And the hoi polloi is more than willing to slit your throat if you disagree with them.

 I'll say it again, beloved, but I don't think it's a bad idea to learn how to defend yourself. It's getting to the point where they'll feel whatever they do is justified to "save the country" or "save the children" or "save religion." Nothing penetrates their field or shakes them from their faith. The goofy shit in Arizona is coming up snake eyes and they're convinced Trump will be put in the White House come August.

 The next two election cycles are going to be off the chain. Again, if you decide to buy a firearm, make sure you learn how to properly use and care for it, and the proper way to store it when not in use. Guns are toys. They're tools and their only purpose is to kill people. That may be how you have to defend yourself. You shoot to kill, shooting to wound only happens in movies. Keep that in mind and never fool yourself otherwise.

 Okay. On that cheery note, before we wrap things up, something that's been running through my mind the last day or so. This is a fiction conceit, so don't flip. Specifically, pre-historical civilizations, like in Robert Howard's Conan stores or Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Human beings as we recognize them have been around for 200,000 years but our recorded history only goes back at the most 10,000 years. That's a big whack of time unaccounted for, especially when you consider how much humanity has changed just in the past 1,000 years.

 We still have hunter-gatherer groups, what we've considered "primitive" societies for so long. There are islands in Asia and tribes in the Amazon that are protected from modern contact. We also know societies have changed from those types of societies to something we'd recognize as cities just to go back to the old ways because of this, that, or the other. Like the Mayans, they just... dispersed. Hell, even most of Europe changed greatly between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of nation-states.

 For all we know, for all we can say with any degree of certainty, what we recognize as "civilization" didn't happen until 6,000-10,000 years ago in Egypt, Sumer, and Crete, along with a handful of other places. Far as we know, for all we can say, that 290,000 years was spent with us being hunter-gatherers that really didn't move around a lot. We know the climate went through massive changes more than once and we know we almost died off as a species, willowed down to a little over 10,000 people. Or so some folks think.

 But I've been finding it diverting to think of pre-historical civilizations lately. People overestimate the durability of mankind's efforts. The pyramids survived because they're fucking huge. A large, vibrant civilization existed in North America well before 1619 but fell to European-born diseases caught by brief contact with Viking explorers, leaving almost nothing behind. Of course, by the time we got around to looking, we'd decided that only the white man could do "civilization" and were prepared to be a dick about it.

 So, what if there was a thriving civilization we'd recognize as such that's disappeared. What if there was more than one. It's not a new thought, of course. It's used a great deal in Lovecraftian fiction as well as Marvel Comics. Hell, half of Marvel's background is based on Conan stories.

 And those civilizations don't have to stop at a sword-&-sorcery level. I mean, it only took us at most 10,000 years to make it to the Moon. I've never come across any, but I'm sure there's fiction out there that touches on advanced civilizations that rise and fall before Gilgamesh. All sorts of stuff we haven't even thought of could've been developed. Hell, we could've achieved faster-than-light travel and left the planet, perhaps under the threat of devastating climate change.

 Just throwing it out there. My ideas are always great but my execution is crap. I've tried to sell them but never had any takers. I guess that tells me all I need to know.

I got nothing for this. Sometimes it works like this.

  I let this ride too long today. It's 11 p.m. and I desperately need a shower. I get started on this, I'll be dicking around until god knows when. So I'll just get something down and come back to it. I'll have to sit up until my hair dries, anyway. Hold tight.

 Okay, that's done. I'm starting to let more time pass between showers and that's not a good thing. I was supposed to have a video chat with the Psych Doc today but I slept through the damn call. No kidding, was asleep a whole 45 minutes and woke up one minute past the point of no return for a callback. I've got it rescheduled for tomorrow, though, so that's... something.

 Be honest, I wonder if I didn't subconsciously do it on purpose because I'm not looking forward to the talk anyway. Along with the Therapist, he's basically the only human interaction I have all month with anyone I'm not related to, but I am not really inclined to discuss the shitty mood I've been in for the past month. Cranky? Yes. Irritable? Yes. Depressed? Yes. Fatalistic? Yes. Separated? Yes.

 Have a clue what could be behind it beyond just my bad head wiring? Hell, no. I couldn't tell you, don't even have an inkling. Part of it is just being stir crazy, sure, but let's face it. Even when I travel, I don't seek out companionship or company. Even when I'm visiting Athens or New Orleans, the best times are when my hosts and/friends leave me to my own devices.

 But I've always been like that. I remember one of my first visits to Athens, I stayed with the then-guitarist of The Drive-By Truckers and his then-wife. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing and knowing what I know now about their relationship (y'all, never hook up with a musician until they've gone through three or four serious relationships) she was barely consulted. For as long as I knew her - we've since lost touch, but I hope she's well - she'd tell people I was the perfect guest because she didn't have to do a thing while I was under her roof.

 It's a double-edged sword, walking this path. But hey, no one cares about that. Don't ask me what they do care about because I don't know and I really don't care.

 The Northwest is getting baked right now. The other day, Portland, Oregon, was the second hottest place on the planet. And those people don't have air conditioners. Years ago when I visited Chicago, I stayed with a friend of a friend who didn't have A/C and it just happened to be the hottest Fourth of July to date on record. Let me tell you if you don't know, being in a city when it's that goddamn hot is miserable. Even worse than here or New Orleans, I think, because we're at least used to it and planned for it. 

 I feel sorry for you poor bastards with kids or, more specifically, those kids. We have fucked up the planet. Or to be more precise, we've fucked it up to where it may not sustain us anymore. George Carlin has a bit that explores this that I'm sure everyone has seen, and there's something to that. Whatever killed off the dinosaurs also killed off something like 90 percent of multicellular life on land. Life finds a way to survive, but we're not needed for that to be.

 And on that cheery note, it's time to pinch this off. Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. I think I'm just going to go to bed.

You bought it, you name it.

  I keep putting off the Hohner harmonica run down, I know, but I'm going to do it again. I don't feel like I could give it the justice it deserves right now. I want to watch that Paul Butterfield documentary, Horn From The Heart, first anyway.

 Anyhow, the News. Monday was a little bit about the G7 and Wednesday was some background on Juneteenth, which was made a federal holiday. We wrapped it up Friday with how the U.S. Council of Bishops are being assholes about Joe Biden's pro-choice stance when no one but them and the worst people on the planet really cares.

 And they are the worst, don't get it twisted. One of Biden's dogs, Champ, died today and they're having a time making jokes about it. Even worse they're comparing it to the death of his son Beau. I've said it before, I've got no particular love for any president, much less Biden. He's doing a decent job but the job is a shitty one that requires shitty actions as often as not. Most of the "good" any president does - from FDR to LBJ - is to keep the lower classes from hoisting the black flag. The Democratic Party is a part of the problem as well.

 But conservatives are something else, boy. Between this and their spittle-flecked fight against what they think is Critical Race Theory, from the insistence of the Big Lie to the outright refusal to do the very least to get ourselves on top of this COVID business, they continue to show just how much they should be ignored. They bring nothing to the table.

 Some asshole ran his car into a Pride Parade, striking two and killing one. Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill that would remove liability for people who drive their cars into protests if they feel it's necessary. This is just the beginning. Same thing with the gun law in Texas, it's just asking for abuse. I know some are thinking that a Pride Parade isn't a protest, but it doesn't really matter. The very existence of LGBT+ people is an existential threat to conservatives.

 I'm in a bad mood. There's no real reason beyond the Grand Ennui. The family had a nice get-together for Baby Jay and I found out why I'm getting bum notes on the Two Draw, and my brother said he and the wife might come out in July via Atlanta. If that's true, I might be able to get him to get me some smoke. So that's something, not such a bad week.

 I've been sitting on this for a half-hour. I need to get in another fifty or so words. I finally got around to trying out the Mount & Blade games I picked up yonks back. I also gave the Hitman reboot a shot and an old-school RPG called Inquisitor that I don't remember getting. I still can't find my way into the Hitman games and Inquisitor is indeed an old-school RPG, in the Sacred mode. Not bad.

 That's just over five hundred words and that's good enough. I'm not sure what I'm doing with the rest of my evening, but it doesn't really matter I guess.

I knew I lost the light and was moving through the night, running from the grand ennui.

  Man, I'm stressed out. Otis isn't helping. Every evening after supper, we spend about two hours trying to keep him from digging up the carpet or tearing up whatever he can. He wants to go back out for a walk even though it's dark. I don't think he understands that, so he cries and fusses until he falls asleep. It's irritating as hell.

 I don't why I'm stressed out. It's definitely related to the bad case of the blues I've had lately. We're in the middle of a week's worth of storms and rain, and I shut it down today. I've been doing that a lot lately, even on days following a better-than-average night's sleep. It's not that I'm not getting enough rest, it's that the world bores me and I run out of things to occupy my brain. So it's better to sleep than letting my mind wander into generally dark places.

 I'm tired of being here, man. I've got nothing to look forward to and the only thing I can think of that's keeping me on this planet is not wanting to do that to Momma. I'm tired. I'm bored. I'm defeated. I find myself outright lying to my Psych Doc and Therapist just so they leave me alone.

 This is like pulling teeth, man. I thought about doing this in the morning but thought maybe I'd be in a better frame of mind. Turns out I'm just lazier. I could volunteer for some Actual Paying Work but, frankly, my heart's just not into it.

 What is my place in this world? That's a strange question for a nihilist to ask, I guess. There's no point or reason to existence beyond what we make, and I have no problem with that. People find their niches, to play on the old cliche, and it doesn't mean a career or artistic pursuit or anything like that. I truly believe my brother's found his niche as a husband to his wife. She's had a bad run of luck and needs someone to support her. Same thing with many of my friends and their marriages/relationships.

 It took me a long time to accept that, I admit, but I still don't think it was ever in the cards for me. I just can't figure out what it should be. I don't think it's this, not really. I don't know if I missed my time or how it works, but there is no point or need for what I'm doing here or The News. It's been done and done and done, but I really don't know of anything else I can do.

 I've put it down here before, but I never thought I was a legit writer. It was just the first thing I did that someone told me I did well. This and trivia, and apart from Jeaprody there's no way to make a living knowing random shit. I definitely never thought of myself as a reporter, not really, nor did I ever really want to be one.

 But here I am, at 46 and still no idea what to do with myself. I know being in my brother's place isn't in the cards, but I'm admittedly surprised he's in it himself. It's not something to hang my hat on, though. I don't know, man. It just seems like a huge waste of time, all of it. One day after another.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You know it ain't right to do me like you do.

  I'll go into this in more detail in tomorrow's News, but this is a big deal. Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all three counts against him today. It shocked the shit out of not only him but I think most of us. The jury went into deliberations yesterday and by 2 p.m. it was announced they'd come to a verdict.

 I'm no expert, of course, but I really don't think there's a hard and fast rule about how fast a jury comes back from deliberation and how the verdict will play out. Personally, I wasn't sanguine about things. I watched most of the trial and really couldn't see a way anyone could've come to any verdict besides guilty. 

 This is America, however, and we are as a culture still somewhat in love with authoritarian rule. Racism plays into it, no doubt, but I really think it's all connected. You rarely see a stone racist who isn't down with society being set up in such a way that Certain People are kept in their proper place, even if violently so. This is why Donald Trump won and why there was such outrage on the right for Major League Baseball's decision to pull out of Atlanta for the All-Star Game due to the new and unnecessary voting restrictions.

 There is a serious meltdown going on in the Wingnut World and while it may sound petty, I'm here for it. A more miserable bunch of jackanapes and poltroons I've never seen, and anything that causes them misery is worthy of at least a chuckle. Again, they're horny for authoritarianism and it's good they're disappointed. Hopefully, the stress will give them constipation and days of discomfort.

 I've been thinking about the prosecution presenting its initial case, particularly the first few witnesses. They were at the scene and actively involved in the whole thing. Particularly the first young man, who was the one who thought the twenty George Floyd gave him might be counterfeit. He was made to chase Floyd down, and he broke down on the stand out of guilt for kicking the whole thing in gear. It wasn't his fault but he felt guilty, and I hope out of everyone involved he's got some peace.

 Sentencing will happen come June barring any appeals, I don't know how that works, but that's for another time. Moving on, the weather continues to be great but it's supposed to get cold and rainy before the Sun comes back around. I bought another damn harmonica today, a Fender Blues DeVille in G. It's a sickness. I've been pretty pleased with the Fender Blues harp so far and the DeVille has gotten good marks. Plus, it looks cool, plastic comb notwithstanding. I'm losing that prejudice anyway, as plastic comb technology has come a long way since I last worried about it.

 I do wish I could remember which harmonica I had that came in a red case. Special 20 maybe? I don't remember owning a Special 20, but I can't for the life of me think what else I had back then beyond the Marine Band and the Blues Harp. I'm starting to catch up to my old chops and, in some places, surpassing them. I never really "got" tongue-blocking techniques, but I think I'm getting it. I'm not sure if I'm bending properly, though. I keep reading it's tough to do, but it's one of the techniques I haven't lost. Sounds good enough, anyway.

 While I don't regret it too much, I am sort of bummed at myself for staying away so long. Athens wasn't a blues town and I'm no band leader. Frankly, apart from Neal Pattman, I don't think I ever saw anyone play a harmonica except maybe on a rack, Dylan-style. I didn't hear much harp in New Orleans, either, apart from Grandpa Elliot, but by the time I moved out of the Quarter, I had no interest in live music anyway.

 Still, I probably could've put more effort into any of it and zigged instead of zagged, but if that ain't the story of my life, I don't know what is. My whole travel has been choosing one path or another, and I don't think I ever really chose poorly, but I can't help but wonder. Back in 1998, I was offered a job with a company that built stages and sound systems for outdoor concerts. It'd mean I could've traveled around the country but also require moving to Minnesota. I could've got a free ride to Southern Miss but chose to go to the University of Florida. I could've moved to New Orleans rather than Athens in 1999.

 I don't regret anything but I would sometimes be interested in seeing how things would've turned out otherwise. But there you go.

And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose.

  It's Thursday, for what that's worth. I really don't have much to roll with, so we'll just try to fill the space. As we do. Ever since I got the idea for this blog's purpose, nothing's been banging to be written about. Y'all help a poor boy out, huh? There's got to be a bit of esoteric knowledge someone would like more information on.

 Anyhow. A couple of things come to mind. One, there seems to be an issue restaurant owners and managers are having finding workers. They can't get people to work for them, either because they've found something else to do that pays better and/or is more fulfilling, or because they're living good enough on the stimulus check that's a couple of months old. They can't figure out why people don't want to come back to these jobs, be it working in a kitchen, waiting tables, or cleaning dishes.

 Well, for one, they're shit jobs. I've spent the bulk of my adult life working in kitchens and even at the best of times, for someone who actually enjoys cooking, it's a goddamn miserable job. The actual chefs I've known have told me some horror stories about putting in 80 hours a week, but even working a normal 40 is killer. You're on your feet for at least six hours with little or no break, it's hot and you burn yourself no matter how careful you are, and if you cut anything you will wind up slicing a finger open.

 Furthermore, health insurance is almost non-existent even with the ACA. If your boss doesn't shell out for it, it's still probably more than a worker sees each paycheck. And forget about taking days off if you get sick, most bosses aren't down with that at all. And that's in the best of times, not when we're trying to wrestle down a pandemic that could, if not kill you, could permanently scar you if you don't get quality health care. Don't bet on it.

 However, it seems to be beyond the pale to maybe look at raising wages and paying someone enough to live on. People say "these aren't meant to be careers," but I really don't think everyone is interested in a "career." Some people want to spend their free time hunting or playing ball or building guitars or knitting or running RPG's, and the job they hold down just keeps the power on and their bellies full. Hell, most of the time I was a cook it was because I was trying to break into writing somehow or another.

 Look, y'all, the paradigm has changed. Last year caused a lot of scales to fall from the collective eyes. "The way things work" just doesn't work. Capitalism or socialism, it really doesn't matter, things have to change and if employers want people to do the work that makes them money, they're going to have to give a little more than they used to.

 When FDR brought forth the New Deal and when LBJ created the Great Society, they were reacting to circumstances wherein had they left stuff alone, the lower classes would have started slitting throats. People want to claim either were socialist heroes/villains, but that's what it boiled down to. I really believe we at that point now. Billionaires made out like bandits during the pandemic while most of us were wondering if we'd get through the month. Shit's going to have to change.

 Speaking of shit that must change, a kid named Adam Toledo was shot by Chicago police last month. He was 13. At the time, the cops claimed he had a gun and they had no choice. Turns out, the released bodycam showed that not only did he not have a gun but that he had his hands up when he was shot. A cop tries to do something to save the kid's life and he's shown crying at his failure as his bodycam was shut off.

 So there's that there then. In the wake of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, we're still having the discussion over whether or not something needs to be done about police shooting people. One thing that continues to amaze me is how many people are, not to put too fine a point on things, are completely fine with police having the carte blanche to shoot and kill whoever they want whenever they feel like it while rarely suffering any consequences if said shooting victim wasn't actually doing anything that a reasonable person would agree that was worth shooting.

 A lot of it is racism. This is a racist country and we really hate Black people as a country. We're not disputing that nor do we wish to downplay it. However, what's notable to me is how many people would be fine with such behavior being done to them or their loved ones. Think about that, they would be fine with being shot and killed - or their loved one - by police, even if it was a mistake. 

 Whether they really mean it or not, that's what they live by. They think that's how society should be and how authority should treat the rest of us. I don't know what to think about all that nor what to do about it. The same people who howl about the First Amendment are fine with Their President/Congress shutting down speech or limiting the ability to protest.

 That's built into the American character, as part of our natural psyche as thinking we're right about everything or that the story's all about us. I really don't know what we can do about that.

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.

Loop de loop, upside down in reverse, just so we can make another turn for the worse.

 Aw, man, the Bottle Rockets broke up. I just learned this today, but back on March 2nd, frontman Brian Henneman announced he was retiring after nearly 40 years on the road. I honestly didn't realize he'd been in the game that long, but we're all getting old.

 I'll come back around to the Rockets in a minute, but let's get the News out of the way. Monday we looked at the push to make Washington, D.C., a state as well as the push against it, including the whys and wherefores of both. For the record, I'm in favor and see no reasonable, logical argument against it. Wednesday was about the second mass shooting in two weeks. There was another shooting last night but I'll deal with that in tomorrow's wrap-up. Back to normal, I suppose.

 Friday was a discussion about the recently passed voting bill in Georgia. Again, for the record, I'm not seeing a logical, reasonable argument for it beyond "way too many black people voted for Democrats." While things like the water bit might get the headlines, the fact is Gov. Brian Kemp and the GOP made it so Trump's attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election just because would've been okay next time around. In any event, it - and the ones put forth in Mississippi and Texas - are completely unnecessary to ensure a fair election and only exist to make it harder to vote. Me, I'm for same-day voting and I.D.'s being supplied free of charge by the federal government if they're "necessary," and I'm not convinced they are.

 Okay, the Bottle Rockets. I first fell in love with this band 25 years ago after hearing "Indianapolis" on the local too-awesome-to-last radio station. It was indeed love at first sight. I've always loved my country music and I've always been fond of the stuff that has a little rock & roll grit in it, like Steve Earle and Waylon Jennings, but could also be smart and vulnerable. Like the similar V-Roys from Knoxville, the Missouri group was my Platonic ideal of what a two-guitar-bass-drum band should be.

 Plus, Brian Henneman's one of if not the most consistently amazing songwriters to write no-bullshit rock & roll since at least Dan Baird or maybe Eric Ambel. I can't off the top of my head of a bad song of his, and the vast majority are flat bangers. Plus, he's a monster picker. My brother has said that in a just universe, Brian Henneman would've been the top go-to songwriter for Nashville from the '90s and early Aughts, and we wouldn't be hearing this tedious "back when country music was good" nonsense.

 Speaking of my brother and the Rockets, he saw them before I did. He was at a nightclub in Tunica seeing someone - and there's no telling knowing him - when four scruffy-looking dudes came out and starting setting up equipment. He thought they were roadies. Nope, the Rockets were the opener that night and they rocked it out. (CORRECTION: It was Todd Snider's What The Folk Festival at the New Daisy in Memphis. We regret the mistake.)

 I saw the Rockets maybe eight or ten times, from the first time in Orlando after 24 Hours A Day came out and the last time in Atlanta just before I left North Georgia. I'm pretty sure I've seen every interaction of the band and they were one of the few musical acts I'd pay direct money to for their albums. Them and Swamp Dogg, my brother jokes that everyone else I've "canceled."

 Back when I was a music journalist, I interviewed Brian at least twice and he's a helluva nice guy. He's just like you'd think he'd be from listening to his songs. That's part of the band's appeal and charm. There's no pretension, no gimmick, no posturing. Just straight-ahead rock & roll that's fun more often than not. Dan Baird is still doing his thing but it seems like he's forgotten how to write a hook in the last few years. I'm probably just missing it, though. I know music moves on and the stuff that turns on the kids these days isn't necessarily made for me, and that's okay, but it was nice to know the Rockets were out there banging it out for me.

 But I understand why he's retiring. I didn't realize he was pushing 60 but as I'm closer to 50 than 40, so that's on me. Like most folks, the band's been stuck at home the past year and he says he's just not inclined to change that anymore. That rings true, as well, because there are a whole lot of things I used to love to do that I don't miss either.

 So, thanks, y'all, for the good tunes and carrying the torch. I hope everyone involved enjoys the rest of their ride and I appreciate it they shared some of it with me and the other folks that dug them. That, my friends, is rock & roll. And for the record, all their albums are recommended and the first two have been repackaged in a very nifty presentation with some cool unreleased and live tunes. Dig it.