I’m a terrible fortune teller. See too many possibilities. They’re all happening, none of it is happening, and all the varieties between them are happening. Such is life when the film between realities tear and shrink.
Well, that’s how it feels, sometimes.
Here in the U.S., we’re approaching an election. “It’s yuuuge,” some might claim. The possibilities, fears, and anxieties proliferating cause rolling responses: “Oh. my,” “Oh. no,” “What the fuck,” and “Here we go.”
Third Eye Blind presented us with the perfect song for now. They did it back in 1997. “How’s It Going to Be” has a softly tinged nostalgia, illuminating the questions we all experience. “How’s It Going to Be after x,” becomes an urgent plea before falling to soft, wondering surrender.
Perfect for this special year of pandemic, climate change, shifting alliances, and elections we have numbered, 2020.
So the classic editor is moved, not gone, the WP blog tells me. What a compromise mess. They sent me an email telling me it was done after the fact. Fairly, they may have sent an earlier heads up that I missed. Once again, I’m not a WP happy camper.
Though it’s witless Wednesday, I’m not going to address POTUS 45 and the GOP, save this item. They’re just too SMFH witless.
For some reason, my wife drifted into the living room and turned on the telly. This was about five PM. We usually turn on the local news at six PM for weather and wildfire updates. COVID-19 updates have been added to the menu although the net updates are way superior to the TV updates. My spouse was laughing through an old show, “Sliders”. I entered to check what was going on. (Television watching and laughing in the afternoon? This is highly suspicious.) Commercials began. She said, “This is the lawsuit channel.” We then saw four ads for suing, for Catholic Church abuse, the Boy Scouts of America, mesothelioma, and asbestos damage. What a world what a world.
I desperately ‘need’ a new office chair. Got rid of the old thing in Feb, then, COVID. Been doing time with dining and folding chair. This spoiled writer’s butt has mentioned its dissatisfaction several times. In June, I began shopping them online, then…broken arm in July. As I’d be the one carrying, lifting, and putting the chair together, I felt holding off was prudent. Been this long, right? Probably order one after I shift casts. I’ll likely buy through Costco. A, cashback. B, a forgiving return policy and easy process.
Got my coffee, you know? Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Good morning, good day, good evening, and goo night.
Today’s free association link arrives from doubt. Writing doubt plagues me. I injoy what I write but is the shite fit for human consumption, or will someone lock it all away in order to save humanity?
There is also doubts about civilization, the onrushing ‘merican elections, the POTUS’ state of mind, and life, generally.
Many songs, groups, and albums featuring doubt flit n and out of the conscious stream. Only Death Cab for Cutie’s 2011 song, “You Are A Tourist”, glommed on.
The song is like progressive alt to me, which I suppose is akin to autobiographical fiction, magical realism, and new adult fiction. It’s a sunnyish, upbeat song, though, and satisfied my psyche’s craving.
2020 certainly feels like a new age. Divisions in the U.S. make us wonder what’ll happen after November’s elections. As people shun wearing masks and distancing, in part because POTUS 45 doesn’t mask and weakly endorses the CDC guidelines, signs are growing that the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be here for a while.
Raucous dreams consumed the night. Oh, yes, there was too a floof fight.
4:30 AM. In this corner, wearing long black and white fur and weighing in at sixteen pounds…Tucker.
In the other corner, by the kibble bowl, that eleven pound ginger blade who used to be called Meep!…Papi.
I know Tucker started it because it’s always Tucker. Little combat was involved because Papi is a shrieker. His first one bought us awake and out of bed in one leap, and it was done. I swear that we moved like ninjas…little aging, graying ninjas…
But it’s email that gives me today’s theme music. Money…financing…sales ending today…the calls for assistance and donations and contributions dominated the box in a depressing blitz. Pelosi claimed her email wasn’t about money but Biden openly asked. Amazon and Costco crowed, look at what everyone is buying. Animal shelters and rescue groups wanted cash. The USPS needs help…
Such an AM gut punch even before my brekkie and coffee. Making them was when the theme song came: “Money (That’s What I Want)“.
The Beatles had a big hit with it, but I was channeling The Flying Lizards’ 1979 cover with Deborah Evans-Stickland. The Beatles were nakedly raw and emotional in their money demands. The Flying Lizards brought a mocking, flat monotone to their appeal.
My email solicitations were across the gamut: fear — they’re winning, they’re winning, give me money to fight back — to logic — no, it was all fear, fear of what will happen if you don’t give or buy, because you will be losing.
Anyway, that’s my music choice for today. Please listen and send me money. And stay healthy. Wear a damn mask.
My political ire is rising with the latest trumpshit. First is the jump out the gate questioning whether Kamela Harris is eligible to be POTUS. If you haven’t read the ‘opinion piece’ in Newsweek…don’t. Such garbage. Be a while before my respect for Newsweek returns.
That was just starter fluid for my anger. What’s going on with Trump and the GOP the destruction of voting rights is first class authoritarian play. Further infuriating me is the GOP obstacles arising by sabotaging the USPS. We as a nation have worked to find improvements in the USPS and how the mail is handled and delivered. Here comes the GOP, breaking the fucking system so they can undermine democracy to remain in power. It’s a scorched earth plan for victory. Sickening, sickening, sickening.
As it’s happened in the past whenever a political party dirties a nation, enablers turn their heads so they don’t see. In this instance, they’re burying themselves in misinformation.
Eventually, Trump, the GOP, and their users will follow the natural course to crash and burn. By then, judging from their current activities, the destruction they’ve wrought will be huge. Then people will stand and cry with shock, “Who knew?”
That’s happened every damn time. Then they’ll shed croc tears and protest their innocence, “I didn’t know.”
All that at last takes me to a 2006 Pink song, “Who Knew”. Frothy and poppy in melody, it carries dark lyrics about things happening that’s not noticed until you awaken to events after it’s all over, when nothing can be done. Pink sang,
When someone said count your blessings now ‘Fore they’re long gone I guess I just didn’t know how I was all wrong They knew better, still you said forever And ever, who knew?
That’s where Trump supporters and enablers stand. They believe his lies, and that of his administration, rationalizing his morality as good, twisting logic and facts to fit their spin , and will profess to believe until it all comes crashing down. Then, when the air is filthy again, climate change is crushing our society, and the number of people starving and dying swells, they’ll whine, “Who knew?”
As commercials rev up — “Come see us. We’re all wearing masks and are following the guidelines and taking precautions!” — and election day grows nearer, everybody is trying to seduce us as consumers and voters in America.
Buy, buy, buy! Vote for me, vote for me!
It’s right in my head that today’s theme music is Billy Squier singing “Everybody Wants You” back in 1982.
Woke up with The Who’s rock opera, Tommy, in my mind’s center hall. Then the two song medley, “See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You” (1969) goes on loop.
It’s an appropriate song when thinking about the cults of politics percolating around the world, especially of the great wing type, especially of the Trump cult. It’s in sharper focus for me because that’s my country. I hear and read the staggering knots and twists employed to justify supporting him to the detriment of everything that matters, unless you’re white, wealthy, and male. The Evangelicals, Blacks, and women who support me startle me, but this medley seems to illuminate their position.
On the one hand, you have Trump – Tommy – isolated and self-centered, emotionally distant. Where the analogy collapses is Tommy knows his state and wants healed; Trump is blissfully unaware of himself and doesn’t want healed. He doesn’t know he’s sick. Feeding his base, he doesn’t see himself as sick.
Then you have the base. The comparison with Tommy shines here.
Listening to you I get the music Gazing at you I get the heat Following you I climb the mountain I get excitement at your feet
Right behind you I see the millions On you I see the glory From you I get opinions From you I get the story
Listening to you I get the music Gazing at you I get the heat Following you I climb the mountain I get excitement at your feet
Decided to post the Woodstock video as it captures the essence of that time in rock. Have a listen, please, and as they say in America, “Have a nice day.”
Every once in a while during my life, I encountered a person (or group) that so infuriate me, that I think, “You know…if I had the means…”
Know what I’m talking about? Right, getting a gun and putting them down because the world would be better without them. Maybe planting a little C4. It seems so easy on TV.
But I’m not that kind, except sometimes in my writing. Still, the wistfulness of sometimes solving a problem ala “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” as AC/DC proposed back in ’76 seizes me, ya know?
“December” is about endings and breaks from what’s going on. For Ed Roland, the songwriter, it’s about parting with the band’s manager. Pour moi, I pull the sarcastic and bitter sense of weariness from the sound: it’s done. Let’s end this, and this is just the polarized, argumentative state of the United States. I went to see Trump and the disastrous GOP reign end. The sooner that comes, the happier I’ll be.
