When the blues come knockin', you better open the door.

 Another day lost in the ozone so another night of filling the white space until I hit word count. That's just how it is. I'm not getting paid for this so I see no reason to do it differently.

 This has been a weird week. Whatever ennui has got me in its clutches isn't letting go. Again, I'm not depressed or blue or angry, just lazy and disinterested. I haven't been to the gym all week and I doubt I'll go tomorrow. I haven't written anything but this and the News for a couple of weeks, and more than once I've come close to giving myself a day off.

 I don't know. I do know I need to get on the road for a while or figure out a painless way to get my head bad or something. I really don't want to change anything significant but this probably isn't healthy. I play my games and pick my guitar and blow my harps and pull my squeezebox and read my books and take naps. Lots and lots of naps. Maybe the only thing I enjoy more than naps is that lucid-dreaming time just before you fall asleep or just after you wake up.

 I've been reading an interesting Weird Western called The Six-Gun Tarot by one R.S. Belcher. It's the first book in the Golgotha series and you can tell he's spending most of the book setting up the universe. It's fun and well-written, though, so I imagine I'll get around to the other three books eventually. He's throwing a lot of different things into the stew, from Lovecraftian horrors to ancient female assassins to skinwalkers, and I always like that sort of thing.

 I haven't been keeping up with the news coming out of Atlanta about the shootings, but there really doesn't seem to be much to figure out. The guy shot up a bunch of message parlors because he, like far too many of us, figured "Asian women at a massage parlor" equals "paying for a hand job." But it's not racist, apparently, because it's not out of bounds to assume all massage parlors that staff Asian women are thus. Naturally.

 There was a place in Athens, may still be there, I don't know, but it was supposed to be a tug-job shack. There was also supposed to be a place that a dude could buy time in a glass booth watching a girl dance or get nekkid or both, sort of like a peep show joint. Again, I don't know. I find strip clubs, just plain old strip clubs, boring. It's not a knock against sex work or sex workers, it's just never been my thing.

 It is distressing that's where our society's brain goes to without almost hesitation, not only that there's no other situation massage parlors could be but that it's somehow understandable or not as bad this dude decided he had to kill what he thought were sex workers. That it's not racist to assume Asian women are sex workers because what else could they be, says the Modern American Bluenose.

 Anyhow. I'm rambling and probably not making too much sense. It's depressing that so many people on Twitter mistake "being an asshole" with "being a clear, unemotional, cynical thinker." No, you're an asshole, and maybe if you keep having to explain that the awful thing you just said "was just a joke," perhaps you suck at telling jokes. Something to consider. Maybe stop being an asshole because life is short and you'd rather not have your epitaph be "man, fuck that guy."

 So that's that for now. As always, if something comes up, blah-de-blah-blah. That's enough for now, I reckon.

Someone fetch me my coat and hat and hand me my walkin' cane.

  I don't really have a whole lot today. My brain's lazy. I'm not blue or depressed or irritable or anything. I'm just more sluggish than usual. I've skipped the gym the last couple of days and spent most of it reading, ignoring the rest of the world.

 So, really, nothing terribly unusual, just more so. Luckily the News isn't suffering, as that sort of thing just comes naturally. I guess that's a holdover from the journalism days. Sometimes you have to fill the white space and it doesn't matter that the muse isn't there because the job needs to get done. It's similar to working on a kitchen line, doesn't stop so it doesn't matter, just get it done.

 Beyond that, I don't know. "Cancel culture" and Cardi B's naughty song is still running the discourse on Twitter and I still can't be bothered to give a shit. It's funny and almost a cliche how the caterwauling over that "W.A.P." tune really isn't all that much different from Elvis' hips or that evil jass music causing nice white girls to dance. Or the devil's tritone or how reading novels is ruining young people's minds.

 No shit, culture warriors used to lament people reading novels and even tried to pass it off as some sort of mental issue. They also used to bemoan people reading newspapers on the train in case you thought "them damn kids and their celly phones" is a new thing.

 Eight people in the Atlanta area were shot today, most of them Asian American women working at health spas and massage parlors. They've caught one dude for it. Nothing's been written in stone yet, but as it was a white guy I'm going to go ahead and assume it's something to do with the rise of anti-Asian violence in this country over the past year. If I'm wrong, don't worry, I will apologize to the mass murderer.

 This is because of "the China virus." This is because of "Kung flu." This is due to all you assholes and the former president trying to stir up a little racism and xenophobia in order to distract us from the complete failure to deal with COVID-19 in any sensible way.

 And, yes, this guy was taken in without being shot or pepper-sprayed or put in a chokehold or anything like that. And, yes, it's because he's a white dude and you are a goddamn fool and probably a racist if you want to argue otherwise. And, no, no one's saying he should've been shot dead on the spot or Dylan Roof or anything like that, it's just that it's pretty fucked up that we as a culture have decided that cops immediately shooting black people is the place to start.

 And, yes, a lot of this is on Trump. He encouraged it and inflamed it and never took the time to try to calm it down. There was no reason for it but he kept calling it the "China virus" and reminding everyone he calls it the "China virus." So fuck him and fuck anyone who voted for him and fuck anyone who thinks one thing didn't lead to another because they really don't care about people getting murdered by angry white dudes for whatever reason angry white dudes want to murder people.

 Okay. That's word count and if anything comes up, I'll add it. But for now, I'm sort of tired and, frankly, sluggish in the brain. So, yeah.

Shine on, harvest moon.

 I decided to take a little nap after my evening constitutional, around 6 p.m. or so. Unfortunately, I woke up about 20 minutes ago and it's fifteen after eleven. So this will, naturally, be a little rushed and jumbled and might not make it in before midnight, Country Standard Time. Especially since I have some cake to eat.

 It was a pretty decent week for the news. Mainly focusing on the passing of Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, that was the story that dominated the news. People really don't grasp the implications of this, one of the biggest for-the-people pieces of legislation passed since LBJ's Great Society, one that enjoyed over 70% popularity yet not one single, solitary Congressional Republican voted for it. A number of them are trying to take credit for it already, naturally, while the rest are gearing up to use it as a point of attack in the 2022 mid-terms. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 I really don't know what else I can put here. I stayed up most of last night playing yet another game of XCOM 2 so I spent most of the day sleeping it off. I have about three or four games going, both with the DLCs and without, and with various mods installed. This one, however, is straight vanilla. I'd say I was between a quarter and halfway through the main story. I haven't taken down any of the Chosen but I'm well on my way.

 I finished the second volume of those "Sherlock Holmes meets occult detectives" short story collections, and this one wasn't as enjoyable. Maybe it's a case of too much at once, but I really don't think it works as well overall. For one, Holmes was too constantly a faux skeptic and not willing to open his mind when the evidence proved no other option. There was also an appearance of Auguste Dupin, the hero of Edgar Allen Poe's detective stories, which were the first example of what we know as detective stories.

 Anyhow, it cast them as buddies when the original stories had Holmes dismiss Dupin as a joke. This one has them dogging on Poe and that's a sore point for me. I'm a fan and how his literary executor trashed his reputation for a century. It's an interesting story and worth looking into. Somehow, a guy named Rufus Griswold wound up being responsible for Poe's work and legacy after the latter's death. He loathed Poe and went out of his way to trash the author. He's the reason we all thought for so long that Poe died drunk in the gutter.

 One of the places I want to visit is Baltimore solely because of its connection to Poe. The Ravens are my backup football team after the Saints because they're named after one of Poe's creations. After Mark Twain, he was probably the first author I was obsessed with as a kid and one of the few I'm still sort of fascinated by. His work more than anything else influenced the kind of horror I like and is probably why I find splatter media so dull.

 Anyhow. Enough of that, I guess. Today's my brother's 44th birthday and that means next month I'll be turning 46. I talked to him on the phone today for a while and he seems happy and content with his life, and I'm glad. Most of my closest are doing well and have found what seems to be their bliss. I wish I could figure out mine beyond "being allowed to nap as much as I want."

 Okay, then. I got to word count with 10 minutes to spare, so I guess I'll post this. As usual, if something comes to me I'll come back to it. And, as usual, I doubt anything will.

Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.

 Today is Douglas Adams' birthday. He would've been 62. He died in 2001 at 49 which isn't near as old as it was to me back then. He died that May and that September the whole world went to hell. I doubt the two are really all that connected, but given this universe one never knows.

 He's one of my favorite authors and, depending on the day and my mood, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is my favorite book. It's not just because it's funny, which it is, most definitely the funniest science fiction book ever written and arguably in the race for the funniest of all time.

 In my dotage, I can look back and see just how much that book affected me and how I approach the world beyond its humor. Let's tell a story. It's 1988 and I was in eighth grade. The school's library was having one of its semi-regular book fairs. Basically, it was an opportunity to buy paperback books that were considered acceptable reading for junior high students at a slight discount.

 I couldn't tell you just what I would've been looking for back then. At the time, I was in my "read the classics" phase, which covered everything from Herman Melville to Issac Asimov. Plus humor books, particularly Lewis Grizzard or Dave Barry. Yes, children, at one time Dave Barry was extremely funny on a regular basis.

 Anyhow, all four of the Hitchhiker's books were for sale. This was before Mostly Harmless was written. I was familiar with the name Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but that was mainly because of the legendarily hard Infocom computer game, and all I knew was the name. Though I didn't know it, I was already a "fan" of Douglas Adams thinks to his work on "Doctor Who." In particular, he wrote City Of Death, one of my favorite stories, and was the script editor for the seventeenth season starring Tom Baker, the only Doctor that matters.

 So, for whatever reason, I decided to buy Hitchhiker's and So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, the fourth book in the "trilogy." So I read the alpha and what was at the time the omega of the series. I will admit that SLATFATF fell flat on the first read and it wasn't for a couple years that I appreciated what it brought to the table.

 But HHGTTG hooked me from the get-go. It was just so funny and that meant something when science fiction, particularly science fiction literature, was so in love with the smell of its own farts. It didn't take long before I bought copies of The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe and Life, The Universe, And Everything, and managed to read holes in all of them. My brother eventually bought me an omnibus, noting that I had rendered the original copies akin to the Dead Sea Scrolls due to multiple readings.

 Remember, this was way before the internet was in everyone's pockets much less their homes. All I had to go on about DNA and his career came from the rather self-defacing introductions he wrote for his books. So, before too long, I knew HHGTTG started out as a radio play - though I had no idea how this would work, Northeast Mississippi remember - and that he'd worked on my beloved "Doctor Who." This lead to probably the most effort I've put into learning about anyone who wasn't Hank Williams, as I spent the next few years buying up all the DNA media I could.

 I first got the comic book produced by DC which... wasn't good. Then I saw the BBC television version of the radio play which was much, much better. I found a script book of the original plays and LP releases my first year in college. Then, finally, some ten years later, I heard the radio play. That was how the story was meant to be told and it's the best version by far.

 The Dirk Gently books - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long, Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul - didn't really land at first, but the first book eventually because a close second to HHGTTG. LDTTOTS still ends with a poof, I think, but it's fun up until then. My brother bought Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchhiker's book, and the non-fiction Last Chance To See, at once the funniest, most heartbreaking book you'll come across.

 As the years rolled on and I read more of it - and learned more about Douglas Adams' life outside of writing the books - I got a deeper meaning out of it. For one, how much the books reflected Adams' line. There's a throwaway line in the first book where Ford Perfect angrily wonders why he tied himself to Arthur Dent, the big whiner he is, and then you think he spent most of his career refining Hitchhiker's rather than writing new stuff. Makes you wonder. Mostly Harmless was written as his daughter was hitting her teens and his marriage was strained for this, that, and the other. Makes you wonder.

 Beyond that, I wonder if people got the wrong thing from the books. Like the towels. A throwaway gag which I took to mean how one never can tell what one might really, really need. It still isn't that important or earth-shattering. The other, for me, is the Answer. Forty-two is absurdism and shows just how little chance we have to understand about Life, The Universe, & Everything. Even more telling, though, is the ambiguity of The Question. We don't even know what we're asking, and there you have the last 2,000 years of philosophy.

 More importantly, the galaxy he portrayed gave a glimpse into how absurd existence is. Even advance, galaxy-spanning civilizations have to deal with red tape and bureaucracy. Very British. Other books gave more, like the holistic nature of reality and the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash. I don't know how much he knew about the Many-Worlds Theory of quantum mechanics, but it's funny to me how much it locks in.

 Mostly Harmless ends with the Vogons destroying the Earth with Arthur and Ford on it, and the last thing Arthur sees is Ford laughing his ass off. Adams said later he wanted to revisit the trilogy because he didn't like that dark ending, but to me, that was the perfect way to end it. Life is absurd and messy, and far too often if there's a joke, you're the butt of it. So you might as well laugh.

 DNA's passing still makes me sad. It's still too young. The 2005 movie was okay. The revelation that all the Hollywoodization of it - the love story between Arthur and Trillian, the addition of John Malkovich's character, etc. - was his doing makes sense. I would say he had more stories to tell but, hell, I don't know. My brother notes he spent so much time trying to get the movie made he didn't tell more stories.

 Maybe so, but The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is a great book and a great story. I'm glad it was written and I'm glad it's part of my life. Like Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas or Go Down, Moses, it's a book I'll read again and again for the rest of my life, and get something different from each time. And it's always worth a giggle, and that's not bad a'tall.

 For what it's worth, I don't count And Something Else... because it sucks. It's bad Hitchhiker's fan fiction. I don't like that guy's other books, the Artemis Fowl ones, either, and I hope I'm not holding the turd that is ASE... against him. Because it sucks. I mean, really sucks. Don't bother.

She's got a big, bad record on the heartbreak radio.

  I really have nothing tonight. The day drained me some. Otis had a visit to the vet, partly because it's time for his yearly check-up. A lot of it, though, was questions about his change in behavior and how much we should be worried by his colored, liquid shits whenever he gets into the cat poop. The good news is he's got nothing seriously wrong with his insides, he just needs to stop eating cat poop.

 The bad news is on top of being deaf and losing his eyesight, the vet said he more than likely had the dog version of Alzheimer's. That's partly why he frets so much in the evening. I'll be getting medication for it in a couple of days, but it does make me feel sad. He's pushing 13 if he isn't already and he's definitely lost a step in the last couple of years. The very real possibility exists that I'll see 50 without him and, even worse, his decline will be marked by more and more things he can't do.

 I don't worry too much about my own mortality, but getting old is a serious drag. Even worse, it seems like I have to work harder just to do what I do to get through the day. It's also a drag to see everyone I love getting older and to know that I'll probably lose some of them before the next decade rolls around. That's how it goes, though. As my friend Branch told me years ago, "Life is people you love dying."

 A little maudlin, kids, I know, but I'm sick to my eyes of the whole Dr. Seuss debate. I can't believe we're, what, seven days into it? There is just no reason for this. I don't really understand what the Seuss people are supposed to do. They made this decision, figuring it best for not only Theodore Geisel's but also their own profits. The argument seems to be that due to "wokeness" and "cancel culture," they had no other prematurely option to bend to the will of the SJW's even though no one had complained about it, but that's just stupid. I don't see how anyone with the merest inkling of how the publishing business works thinks that could be so.

 The other issue they seem to miss is the same one people who gripe about mixed-race couples in cereal commercials or movies with female heroines miss. If these big conglomerates are seeing the writing on the wall, maybe your the one in the wrong. Do they really think Disney would take such a stance if it hurt the bottom line at all? No, it wouldn't, you bloody fools, calm down.

 Ah, well. So much for all of that. If I thought any of it was genuine or being argued in good faith, I'd spend more time down in the ditches fighting the good fight. But I really don't see the people - conservative or not - worthy of the time and energy, especially when journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on Black Lives Matter in this country.

 So that's enough for today. I don't know what else. I'll probably spend the rest of the evening blowing my harp and fighting alien invaders. There are worse ways of spending one's time.

I can't come up with anything clever and I'm too lazy to work on it.

  So the chromatic harmonica that got lost in the mail showed up today. What the hell, I got something free to play with. It was a mistake, anyway, as it only has ten holes when it's supposed to have twelve.

 Anyway, let's knock out the news. We stayed close to home this week, concentrating on Mississippi's legislators spending more time trying to usher in a stinker of a tax cut plan and banning trans students from high school girls' athletics. And though it's apparently getting better, Monday was as much a look at the absence of media coverage of Jackson's water problems as it is actual coverage of Jackson's water problems.

 Man, my internet connection is slipping in and out. This is going to be a pain in the ass. I don't know why it's doing it or what's causing the issue, and I'd almost rather it just cut out completely rather than do this on-off bullshit.

 Okay, I've lost all train of thought here. I am not, not, writing about "cancel culture" because I honest-to-God don't care anymore. "Cancel" is all, I don't care anymore. They - whoever "they" are - won't be coming into my house and taking my Warner Brothers Loony Tunes collections. If so, I have guns. I never read Dr. Seuss or had a Mr. Potato Head, and everyone is misunderstanding the whole "Muppet Show" situation.

 This is why being a country music fan before anything else makes life a little bit easier. Way before my politics took its hard left turn, I knew Hank Williams Jr. is a bit of a shitass. I understand perfectly why the Seuss people wanted to pull those books or why "The Simpsons" did whatever they did with the Apu character. I'm just tired of honkies think this is more important than a state capital going without water for nearly a month or a whole party going out of its way to screw over voters.

 I don't know what else. I've talked all I can about XCOM 2 and I'll probably spend a bit more time with Star Control: Origins and Outward before the weekend's over. I'm lazy. Not gloomy or depressed or even angry, just lazy and I really don't feel like I have much to look forward to. I don't mean that in a bad way, either, if that makes sense. Just one day after another and that's... okay?

 I mean, I'm having fun with my harps and my guitar and my accordion. I'm enjoying my books and playing the same three or four computer games. I've developed something of an obsession with Steve Marriott which will keep me busy for a couple of days. I've enjoyed this collection of "Sherlock Holmes meets Occult Detectives" short stories but I think I'll move on to something else. Maybe jump back into Many-Worlds books.

 So I guess that's about it. I just need to fill out the word count at this point. I may go back to sleep or I might mess around with a game, I don't know. I ought to go ahead and finish XCOM2.

Would you cry if I said I'd lied?

  You know, I had the whole shpiel worked out. I was going to rant and rave about the latest iteration on "cancel culture," specifically how it's not actually a thing much less a significant threat to life in these United States. I was going to go off on how you have to actively deny reality in order to stay outraged and how maybe - just maybe - some things and people deserved to be "canceled," or rather deal with the consequences of their actions and words.

 But by the time I got home and sat down and then took a walk with Otis and laid down for a bit of a nap after reading and listening to Little Walter, I found I just didn't care anymore. Of course, I am referring to the recent kerfuffle surrounding Dr. Seuess and, to a lesser extent, the Potato Head and Muppets controversy. Just for posterity's sake, conservatives are losing their goddamn minds about the three.

 The Seuss people decided to pull six of his books from publication due to racist content, and yes it is extremely racist, while Hasbro decided to stop calling the sets "Mr. Potato Head" and "Mrs. Potato Head" but nothing else. As for the Muppets, whatever streaming service was broadcasting "The Muppet Show" wanted to add a disclaimer to a couple of shows where the humor might a bit too risque for the children watching a show that was originally intended for an adult audience anyway.

 And of course, all that is being twisted into a conspiracy by socialists to ruin America because conservatives are not only stupid and gullible, they're also too lazy to fact check their claims of impending doom. I've even read where Joe Biden is supposed to be directly responsible for the Dr. Seuss business, which was actually decided by the people who represent Theodore Geisel's heirs. The other two are decisions by massive corporations who made these moves to protect their bottom line.

 Look, y'all, "cancel culture" is not a thing. No one forced Disney or Hasbro to do anything and both are rich enough if that they really believed they were being "bullied," they could tell protestors to go skip rope. The only person I can think of who's actually been "canceled" and pretty much removed from the public scene is Michael Richardson. After he went on that weird racist tirade during a stand-up appearance, he pretty much dropped off the radar. "Seinfeld" is still on the air, as far as I know.

 Even Bill Maher and the Dixie Chicks made comebacks, mainly because theirs was mostly reactionary pants wetting itself. Louie C.K. is receiving standing ovations at his Las Vegas shows. Mel Gibson still makes movies. Their star may not shine as brightly, but tough shit, you did awful stuff so suck it up, buttercup. The Earth rolls on, and society doesn't owe to you to remain static.

 Well, damn, I guess I went into the rant anyway. Ah, well, it is what it is. I broke down and bought Star Control: Origins out of a Humble Bundle yesterday. Apparently, Stardock and the original creators have made peace and the former isn't shitting all over the latter anymore. It's all right, basically an upgrade of Star Control II without the original names of the aliens. Or so far, anyway, I'm told it changes after a bit. I should take another whack at Star Control II. It's a good game but it gets above me fairly easily.

 Okay, that's plenty. It's late and I'm tired and, frankly, I just don't give a shit. It bothers me sometimes that my initial reaction to far too much of the national Zeitgeist is "fuck it, let it burn."

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.

That's a cold shot, baby. Yeah, that's a drag.

  We're back to Saturday and the last remnants of Winter Storm Uri have left nothing but the realization far too many cities' infrastructures aren't up to snuff. In Jackson, Mississippi, and all over Texas people are still without water, power, and sometimes both. Some people are going on two weeks without potable water. Imagine that. Can't drink anything or boil anything, but you also can't brush your teeth or flush the toilet. People are doing the Good Lord's work helping out but this should serve as a fierce wake-up call that the way things on the most basic level are simply not cutting the mustard.

 This isn't a question of politics, really, or how much government should or shouldn't be involved in daily life. When things like this storm - or Katrina or the tornadoes that tore up Nashville several years ago - happen, that's what state and local government are for, if nothing else. I don't want to dig too deep into the CPAC silliness going on or give my credence to shit Bill Maher thinks is worth talking about, but it's ridiculous that they still think "cancel culture" is the biggest worry facing the public. I'm pretty sure the folks in Clinton or Houston aren't at all concerned with whether or not people are nice to Bret Stephens.

 Anyhow. The News this week was fairly useful, I think, and I did what I like doing. Monday we looked at some of the ridiculous goddamn power bills hitting folks in Texas as well as Trump's taxes being fair game. Wednesday and Friday took on Biden's appointees, Mississippi's dumbass tax ideas, and more examples of how way too many of us have no idea how government works. I wish I could figure out a way to spread it around more that didn't cut a bad stroke with me. There's only so much linking-to-Twitter-or-Tumblr one can do.

 The tremolo harmonica I ordered late last week came today. I'm still waiting on the chromatic harp, and frankly, that's the one I'm looking forward to most. I just here recently figured out I didn't have to splurge for a $150 sho'nuff Hohner harp when I could spend twenty bucks on a cheap one to dick around with. That's a little irritating, but what can you do. I imagine it's being held up due to a combination of the Big Freeze, COVID, and the residual attempts by the Trump Administration to trash the postal service, but I ordered the tremolo harp five days after I ordered the chromatic harp.

 It's a whole new ballgame, and that's something neat. Basically, a tremolo has access to all the notes you can get on a regular old diatonic without having to bend notes. From what I can tell, it's rarely if ever used in blues. However, it's probably the most popular type of harmonica for the rest of the world when it comes to folk music. Apparently, they're really a big deal in South Asia. Different holes are drawn or blown for different notes, but only for that note. Like, you got one hole that will only draw a C while the one diagonal to it blows a G. That's probably not right, by the way.

 Notes can't be bent on tremolo harps and the breathing required is a different game. Anyway, it's nice to have something new to mess around with. I also dug out my cheap accordion from out of the basement. I'm not sure why I'm getting weird about the harp again, apart from it being something to do when I otherwise have very few hobbies. I have no illusions about playing out even if I wanted to.

 When I was in Gainesville, I fell in love with the harmonica and, specifically, Junior Wells and Rice Miller, aka Sonny Boy Williamson II. Florida's a big blues state, and I got to do a lot of playing with folks. I had a little tackle box full of harps of different keys and makes, mostly Hohners like a Marine Band or Special Twenty. I played with blues bands - white guy blues bands, of course - and classic rock bands, and even had a Shure Green Bullet microphone for a while.

 That all changed in Athens, though. I didn't have the mic anymore and most of my harps were blown out. In any event, Athens really isn't a blues town at all. Neal Pattman lived there before he died, but the closest that place got to anything blues-like was jam-band blues. No thanks, even if I could. So, I concentrated on guitar and bass, playing in a few country and cowpunk bands. When I moved to New Orleans, I did some fill-in gigs with R&B and Cajun bands, but before too long I was just sick and tired of bar life. I fiddled around with the accordion for a bit, but that is a hard nut to crack so I couldn't get into it. Maybe now that I've got the time.

Like I said, I have absolutely no desire to play music with other people. With the axes I'm using - harp, guitar, accordion - I don't have to. Bass playing - the kind I like anyway - sort of requires a band of some type. You can't play in the pocket if there's no pocket to play in, that's just common sense. Believe you me, playing music with people is a trip unlike any other and if you ever get the chance to do it, please do so. I highly recommend it. You don't even have to be good, long as you know two chords.

 But this is just something to do. A hobby that's something other than playing video games, writing stuff no one will read, and getting cross-eyed about politics and the media. Just something to have a little fun and fill the hours. I wouldn't even call it "making music." My brother still makes music, far as I know, and he hasn't had anything to do with a band for years. He composes and records stuff. How he does it, I don't know but I do know he does it and it fills his soul.

 It's just fun to figure out "Crazy Arms" on guitar or working my way around the ol' tin sandwich. That's what it's all about. Whenever my life went south it's because I was doing something other than trying to have fun. It doesn't take much, thankfully, and I'm a Lazy Guy.

 Anyhow, I think I've written about all I can on that topic. I'm already looking up Slobberbone songs on YouTube to post on Twitter. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Sometimes I give up on love, but sometimes I dream.

  Yeah, another day where I really don't have a whole lot going on. So we'll just fill up the white space until we reach word count. I'm not sure why I can't shake this dragging feeling. I know it's Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I've got plenty of sunlight. Who knows. The worst part about knowing you have chronic depression is also the best part. You know where the feeling's coming from just as you know there's really nothing you can do about it.

 I've been very discouraged about the writing thing lately. The fiction stuff seems to have dried up and I can't get any new Actual Paying Work. To be fair, I'm not really trying on the latter. This has been like pulling teeth for a couple weeks. The News has been going well, but that's easy to do.

 What's getting to me, though, is I'm going on a year-and-a-half of this and almost no feedback. I really don't believe the hits I get here anything more than web crawlers, and while it's nice to get a bit of acknowledgment when stuff's linked to Twitter, I know it's just people being supportive. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and I appreciate it. But it is what it is, and I ain't going to bullshit myself.

 Someone suggested I do a Substack, which I almost took as an insult. I can't get any communication when I offer it for free, who in the hell would pay for that nonsense. I don't know. I guess I'm just dealing with a bad bout of the blues exacerbated because I've no way to get my head bad and step outside it. That and having no one to talk to, not really, except for the two head shrinkers once a month. And Momma, I suppose, but I don't like getting deep with her. She either looks for solutions, which she's awful at, or sees places where (she thinks) she messed up, which just isn't helpful at all.

 I'm not getting much joy out of anything right now. It's kind of a bummer because I know all I can do is just ride the bastard out. I suppose it's a benefit that I don't have any demands on my time these days. These were the times when I'd break down and cry before going into work, being thankful everyone was used to me coming in stoned. My eyes were always red.

 Maybe it's because I've been reading a bit of philosophy here lately. Nothing specific, just a fairly enjoyable intro-type book to brush up on some things. Like every now and then, I have to reeducate myself on logic because the concept is so used and abused by damn near everyone as of late. Gene Roddenberry probably had a lot to answer for in the Great Beyond.

 Beyond that, I don't know. I've been buying more stuff from eBay, something I hadn't done in years. I came across chromatic harps cheap, so I bought one of those and a tremolo harp. I never could talk myself into getting top-shelf versions of either, as a good one costs over a hundred bucks. Shit, I just Googled up one that was 17 grand. Someone needs their ass beat over that. My brother once noted that asshole yuppies spending too much money on guitars they rarely play meant the tools of his trade were priced out of his range. I never made a living blowing the harp, but that damn sure goes double for harmonicas. A straight-up Marine Band will run you at least 50 bucks. Makes me crazy to think that Junior Wells once went to court for stealing a really good one that was $1.50.

 Harmonicas are great, though. Better than guitars, I don't care what anyone says. I don't know you'd write a song using a harmonica, but there you go. Not just blues or rock, either. Country harp is great. Charlie McCoy, Mickey Raphael, Don Brown, Roger Crabtree, and my friend Rob Peck.  For the record, what he didn't teach me about harp wasn't much. Everything I've learned since has been building on that. I hope he's doing well.