If I had a bead on what I need to make the moment last I just might try I just might try. I just might try.

  Anyone who's spent any time on Twitter knows that every other day or so, one person's tweet blows up beyond what they expected. The reason it blows up is usually because it lays out some trite "common sense wisdom" from someone who doesn't really need to go there and isn't bringing anything useful to the discussion. Half of Twitter tells them what kind of damnfool peckerhead they are while the other half argues for the same trite horseshit. Something about "not being the star of Twitter" goes in here but I forget how it goes.

 Anyhow, yesterday the big to-do was some woman who works for the NFL Network saying only hard-work and grind will bring success, she appreciates the time she worked for around 16 grand a year and has no time for those who won't put in the effort. What she neglected to add is that she's the heiress to some rich chili concern out of Texas, and was able to live at one of the three homes her parents owned while grinding it out at poverty wages. You never hear that part of the story yet it always comes up, and generally, the right-on's are one dropped spinning play away from bankruptcy at the best.

 Before we get too deep into this, I should note that I am extremely lazy. I might be the laziest person in Northeast Mississippi, which is saying something. I come by my laziness honestly. My momma was lazy and her daddy was lazy. Laziness is my heritage. When I'm on the job, I put in the work expected for the compensation promised. But if I ain't getting paid, I'm not going to bust my ass. You can hustle your way to the grave, I'd rather sit on my porch and pick my guitar while getting stoned.

 This has influenced my life. I busted my ass trying to "make it" as some sort of a journalist until around 27 or so, when I realized I was really no better off in the decade-plus of trying and was probably in worse shape. Maybe it was a lack of talent and skill. Maybe it was a lack of effort and gumption. Maybe it was bad luck, but whatever it was, the end result was killing me while breaking my heart.

 Part of the problem was that it's goddamn near impossible to make it as a freelancer unless someone else pays the bills until the ship comes in. This really didn't settle in until I read Hunter Thompson's first book of letters, The Proud Highway. Basically, he had to scrimp, save, borrow, and steal when he wasn't living off his wife, and this went on until basically, he got a big check for Where The Buffalo Roam. This was a double-edged sword because he became too famous to do his type of journalism. He's said he could've either gone back to being poor and hungry or just give in and play the role, and we all know how that turned out.

 I digress. Reading that, however, lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Unfortunately, it came too late to do anything about the absolute burnout I had from trying to make a living as a freelancer while having to hold down kitchen and bar jobs just to be able to eat, much less afford what I needed to do the job. I wasn't having any fun and I see no point in not having fun. It broke my heart when I realized all this, and the pain was only topped by the deaths of my father and maternal grandmother.

 Now, I said all that to say all this. Work and grind are fine and there is something to paying your dues in any business. But unpaid internships, especially, are bullshit and you are due proper compensation for your labor. You should have the right to tell anyone who wants you to work for "exposure" to piss off because anyone who expects you to work for free doesn't have your best interests at heart. They will screw you over, and as likely as not, people arguing for "the grind" have someone else paying the bills.

 Okay, so much for all that. The situation in Jackson is finally getting more attention, though I'm still a bit stunned none of the lefty alt-news websites like Mother Jones or Alternet are doing anything about it. Common Dreams does have a nice piece on the situation published today, so do check it out.

 I still haven't got my chromatic harmonica. I went ahead and ordered another one off of eBay from a place called dreamharmonica. Another cheap one, of course, but the first one was a 10-hole and 12-hole or better harps are the ones to get, apparently. And, yes, I would rather Buy American but that wasn't in the cards.

 I started a nifty book. It's another short-story collection of people writing Sherlock Holmes fanfiction but the twist is the authors are teaming the Great Detective with Occult Detectives. Some are classic characters, like John Silence, while some are original creations. The first story has Mary Marston, the future Mrs. John Watson, as Holmes' partner. The really nice thing is they're portraying Holmes as someone who knows he doesn't get magic but doesn't shut down completely when faced with it because of logic or some such nonsense. There was a Doctor Who book with that premise and it always irritated me. It was especially irritating because another Doctor Who book had the Fourth Doctor team up with Arthur Conan Doyle in the Watson role. Those Doctor Who books between the end of the series and the Fox TV movie really weren't that good, generally.

 All right then.

I may be blue forever after, but life can't always be diamonds and dreams.

 I need to knock something out, I guess. I'm just not switched on today for whatever reason. One of those days where I woke up in a bad mood and stayed in a bad mood. I don't know why but there it is.

 As I think I've said, I had some paying work this week and that's cut down a bit on my fooling around. I didn't do anything over a Tumblr but did keep up The News. Nothing great, granted, but all solid stuff. Sort of a solid B outcome that makes, if for nothing else, a nice baseline.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 One of the reasons I've stayed in a bad mood is the country's attitude concerning how we're dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. All over the country, AstroTurfed "protests" against governors' stay-at-home orders have popped up with goddamn Trump egging them on. It's gotten seriously dumb, too, with people claiming everything from communist-backed plots to dark warnings of Satanic influences pushing humanity towards the Armageddon.

 And frankly, this is all just too stupid for me to deal with. The media's laziness is helping the rather small group of loud yay-hoos with financial backing from the same people who own Blackwater, making it seem larger and more influential than it really is. In his daily rallies, Trump's gotten increasingly unhinged, not just in this area but in general. However, since most of these protests have taken place in states governed by Democrats - except one in Austin, Texas, led by Alex Jones for some reason - this has played into his stirring up the people as well as stroking his ego.

 It's so dumb and I've got to the point where I say damn the torpedoes and let the humanoids "go back to work" if that's what they want. There's enough liquid wealth in this country that we could keep everyone comfortably afloat well past the time it'd logically take scientists, medical experts and epidemiologists to maybe figure out something to actually deal with this epidemic that's caused the deaths of over 38,000 people. However, the wealthy class apparently cannot tolerate even a slight loss in the never-ending flow of cash into their dragon horde-like piles, much less throw in a little dosh to help the people that actually do all the labor that makes them rich.

 Those same scientists, medical experts and epidemiologists are saying that while this "social distancing" and "stay-at-home" orders - the very thing these peckerwoods are "protesting" - are actually working and giving folks a much needed breather. These same people are also screaming about hospitals artificial inflating numbers for governmental funds or, even dumber, Bill Gates is trying to slip in some sort of tracking device into any potential vaccinations.

 Of course, this is pulling in not just the anti-vaxxers nutters and Sovereign Citizen goons as well as the Q dingbats and Second Amendment clowns. Plus Alex Jones, so just plain old conspiracy grifters. Sort of a Justice League of the most embarrassing ideologies in the United States with the added bonus their actions will probably lead to more COVID-19 cases and deaths, and the President is wetting himself in glee as he explicitly gives them the nod and goads them on.

 If it weren't for my friends and family that could die from this, including my 70-year-old mother, I'd say to hell with them. They shriek about their Constitutional rights being trampled by state tyranny, when none of that has happened, mainly because they have no idea how that's supposed to work. At the same time, Trump's people are making money off this hand over fist while they actively work to dampen the people's ability to influence their government. And these wingnut dipsticks are hoping the federal government trounces the states' sovereignty because if you didn't know conservatives weren't hypocrites already, I can't help you.

 And don't get me started on the "I refuse to vote for Joe Biden because I really don't care what Trump represents and what he'll do with another term because it doesn't affect me" Left. Left to swing in the wind by Bernie Sanders - a fine example of why the hope of a Great Man to come and fix everything is a dumbass stance - they've now turned on Noam Chomsky because he's endorsed voting for Biden to get what he calls the "gangster in the White House" out. It's sort of funny to watch the Twitter political science brigade twist themselves in knots over this while still claiming their voices are worthy of my attention. "Punishing the DNC" is more important than any harm Trump could do and if his election basically kills any progressive moments for the next two generations, it's worth it if the Democratic party knows they don't like them.

 Ah, me. I'm just in a bad mood, like I said, and I've actually had a fairly quality week. I got some great feedback from my Editor at the new Freelancer gig. It's only going to score me around $70 or so, but the ego boost is worth its weight in gold. Furthermore, it wasn't the distraction and disruption I worried it might be. It all came along easily like in the old days, and that's an even better boost to my self-esteem. I don't know quite how to explain it, but losing that little skill staggered me pretty badly for quite a while. But here we are and that's good.

 Plus, I'm still pumped about the upcoming release of XCOM: Chimera Squad next Friday. More I look into it, the more pumped I become. I went back and played a little Rebel Galaxy Outlaw last night and it's still a fun little mess if a bit grindy. Still working on From Eternity To Here and starting to finally get out of the "here, we have to explain quantum mechanics/Einstein's relativity/basic cosmology first" weeds to get into the good stuff. Something else worth noting is that was the book I had on deck way back when I quit reading for whatever reason I quit reading, so again, another nice ego boost.

 Okay, it's getting late and the internet's being a pain, so let's go ahead and pinch this one off.

My words are all true. I'm lying to you, but the words that you hear are all mine.

 I think all this is going well, this Work and Fun business. After knocking out last night's News, I wound up writing one of my assigned pieces of Work in the wee hours and laid down the other one this morning. I'm still getting the flow of things but I do think they came out well. It is pretty dry stuff, but one of them at least let me have a little fun.

 Anyhow, the world moves along at the dumbass pace this reality finds itself in. Rolling off the president's incompetence, mendacity and constant flip-flopping, another group of states have gotten together to work out their "reopening" amongst themselves. The governors of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Kentucky have signed a multi-state agreement to coordinate strategies for reopening their economies, and why not. The president proves on a daily basis that he is indeed playing favorites, his favorites still manage to suck at their job, and his goons actively organize AstroTurf organizations to make things harder for "disloyal" governors for some damn reason, probably because they're bastards.

 Apparently he's still pushing for May 1st as the day the country is supposed to "reopen," whatever the hell that means. I don't see why it's such a hanging manner. Apparently thanks to the recovery of the stock market, the 10 most billionaire billionaires made an additional $51 billion by doing what appears to be absolutely nothing. As I've said, I don't really grok the stock market or why it's necessary for mankind's continued survival, but that's nice work if you can get it. Why we can't tax a modicum of that extra $51 billion they weren't hurting for so other 327,999,990 million of us can eat is beyond me.

 Speaking of rich rat bastards, Georgia's nepotism Sen. Kelly Loeffler - best known for being given her seat and making a shit-ton of more money thanks to insider trading at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic - has been assigned to the "task force to reopen America" because why the hell not. I refuse to believe Trump has that much wit to do something like this as a cruel twist. He's just a dumbass who doesn't give a shit.

 Let's see, what else... well, Elizabeth Warren finally came out and endorsed Joe Biden, which for some reason set the rabid ding dongs who can't accept Bernie Sanders wasn't just given the nomination by the party leadership he's been flipping off for the past five years. He, of course, readily endorsed Biden just a few days after he dropped out of the race, but Warren's endorsement opened those days-old wounds.

 So they've spent the day howling about "scorched earths" and Warren's obvious treachery against Saint Bernie. Where all this comes from, I don't know and really don't understand. Maybe it's just how my brain works, but this "Great Man Who Will Save Us All" is quite possibly the most dangerous and distracting aspect of American politics.

 For one, it's too much to lay on one person's shoulders. The ding dongs would have lost their minds if Sanders had actually won the nomination and found himself in the position of making the sausage of politics. That would have happened. And had he actually become president? Hoo buddy, to get anything done he would have had to do some serious shucking and jiving to get Medicare For All passed. Their heads would've exploded like popped zits if Warren gets them this het up.

 Look, y'all. There are no Saviors. There are no Great Men. Trump's loony followers think he's the Great Man, their Savior. If you think that's the way things should work, how society should run, then neighbor, you have been drinking some bad buttermilk.

 We see this so much lately, and not just from conservatives who you kind of understand they act that way. Liberals, leftists, socialists, communists, hell, even some anarchists for some goddamn reason. I really don't get it. I thought we'd left all this sort of thing behind when we collectively decided "divine right" was a bullshit stroke. Ah, well.

 I believe that'll do. I've written a good bit in the past 24 hours and I think that is plenty. Still looking forward to XCOM: Chimera Squad and will probably plop down the bread for it when it's released. Maybe give it a day to see what the "critics" say about it. I've already broken my rule with Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and that worked out well. Besides, between my birthday the other day and recent Work joys, I'm due a reward. And hey, if the Work blows up in my face, I'd need a treat to sooth the burn. Winner all the way around.

I've had all that I've wanted of a lot of things I've had, and a lot more than I need of some things that turned out bad.

 It's been an interesting week. But before we get too deep into things, let's lay out some links. Of course, most of it is about the coronavirus galloping through the world and particularly here in the U.S. of Good Ol' A. But that's the news, and it's so commanding that it overtakes just about everything else, especially the nasty shit the Trump Administration is trying to get across. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I'm particularly proud of Wednesday's entry. It deals with Bernie Sanders dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America and how it changed the landscape. It goes well with Thursday's Gibberish, which deals with how badly the loudest section of his loyal followers have been dealing with it. It's a good one-two punch, I think, and does a good job of laying out the whole stroke. But that's just me, check it out on your own.

 There's also a good bit at the Tumblr site about singer-songwriter John Prine who died Tuesday due to complications from COVID-19. I was a fan and I'm not going to lie, this one gives me the blues more so than an average famous person's death. He wrote some great songs, always put on a charming performance, and everyone I've talked to who'd know says he was a phenomenal human being. So it goes.

 COVID-19 has ramped up to the point where the United States leads the world in both confirmed cases at 532,000 and deaths with 20,000 plus. Unfortunately, we're fifth when it comes to recovery at just a little over 31,000 cases. It's taken off here in Mississippi, too, with 2,642 cases and 96 deaths. Right now, only Issaquena County has no reported cases, but that's probably more to do with it's sparse population, poverty and high percentage of African Americans. Indeed, it's the poorest county in the poorest state and the way we've addressed how COVID-19 is treated in the black community is just shameful.

 We're supposed to get some extremely foul weather here in Itawamba County tomorrow. They're calling for fierce winds, driving rains and a possibility of tornadoes. The family's planning on battening down for it, too, and they're not given to rash behavior. So I'm not sure how much I should put here, since there's no telling what sort of mess this place will be this time tomorrow night. There is a lot of news going on and I don't know how to squeeze it all in or do all the work for it.

 I need to look into how the Trump Administration is using the virus to fulfill the longtime conservative dream of dismantling the United States Postal Service, because that is happening. The reasoning we're hearing is that it's due to his "distaste" for mail-in votes and desire to tamp down the turnout for the November election. I'm sure there's something to that, but conservatives have had a hard-on for shutting down the mail for years, mainly just because they're dicks. "Use UPS or FedEx" they bleat, conveniently those two companies not only use the USPS but there's some places they won't go because it isn't profitable.

 Another particularly evil stroke from the Trump White House is a plan to allow the farming industry to use foreign labor as labor to keep down wages. You heard that right. The Administration that ran on the Brown Horde and spent the first two years screaming that "caravans" of dirty Central and South Americans were heading to the U.S. Border to take our jobs, corrupt our children and stare luridly at our women wants to bring in people not covered by U.S. laws so agri-business conglomerates can not pay anybody what they'd be due for picking the very food we eat. Amusingly - but not really - the reason we're given why this is "necessary" is because the industry is hurting due to the tariff fight with China, which has more to do with Trump waving his dick at Xi than anything sensible.

 But, again, this is why he was elected. You hear people say "Trumpism has taken over the Republican Party," but the truth is the GOP has always been full of bastards and a guy like Trump is the logical outcome of the past 40 years of development by them. They may have not planned on landing someone with such a pitiful need for worship or inability to take any amount of criticism as Trump, but that's a bug more than anything else. He's doing what they want, though, so he can tweet all he wants about how mean the press is to him and the daily nonsense in his televised briefings keep everyone occupied and depressed knowing what kind of lump we have with the nuclear codes.

 And so much for all that. I do have some good news. This has been brewing for a bit, but I haven't said anything because I'm a neurotic mess and worry about bragging on something that could easily blow up in myself. But all the i's have been dotted and t's have been crossed, so I feel confident in letting the cat out of the bag.

 I have a regular paying gig as a freelance writer. It's nothing special or fancy at all. I'm doing "content creation" for a buddy of mine who's based out of Atlanta. He started the company a little over a year-and-a-half ago and wanted to bring me on board when they got some solid ground under them. Back in Athens, he was a "fan" of my writing for Flagpole and we got to be friends because we share a mutual close friend. Good kid and I'm friends with his wife, as well.

 Well, I appreciated the offer but didn't push on it. However, the conversation was one of the little sparks that got me back to writing on a regular basis. So, anyhow, week before last, he touches base and says his company's getting a little more work than they can handle and was I still interested. I had to jump through a couple of hoops, understandably enough, but I got the gig.

 It's not exciting subject material, true, but having an editor to please again can't be anything but helpful to everything else. Furthermore, it's not going to pay too much but it's something "official" I can point to for other work. Most of my published work is over ten years old, and I doubt this blog would convince anyone I'm anything other than a borderline anarchist and hallucinogenic drug enthusiast. Which I am, sure, but that's not a way to get work.

 But more than anything else, this is just good for my mood and self-esteem. This is fun, but this new gig is work and that I'm wanted for this work is validation, which is something I do need. Since starting back writing, I've been plagued by doubts and recriminations. No one pays attention, is there any point to this, why do I bother, yadda yadda yadda. That's not helpful, believe you me.

 I don't know how this extra work is going to affect this or The News. It won't have much impact on the Tumblr stuff, as that's generally off-the-cuff fun. Way my buddy talks, he might throw me two to three things a week, and that'll be around 600-900 words. I may drop back to doing one regular blog that combines Gibberish and News, but I don't want to drop either because both are satisfying for their own reasons. We'll see how it all works out.

 Beyond that, buckle down for the weather and keep up the "social distancing" deal despite the fat cats screaming because they're not getting as disgustingly rich as they think they should. They don't give a shit about you.