Already January 2nd.  Huh.  Not much going on around here today.  I mean, the usual book-work and a tragicomic wrestling match with a synthesizer, but that’s about it.

So let’s talk about 1979, specifically the slow-motion train wreck involving Simon John Ritchie, known to the spitting masses as Sid Vicious.  The Sex Pistols’ bassist – a job title that implies he actually played the instrument, which is generous – found himself on trial for the murder of Nancy Spungen.  Sid was out on bail, wandering through the New York winter like a terrifying puppy, only to OD on heroin before the gavel came down.

It’s like the punk rock equivalent of a Greek tragedy, if Oedipus had worn a padlock around his neck and couldn’t play three chords.

But then if we go back to January 2, 1939…this is where my headache really starts to throb behind the left eye.

TIME Magazine, that bastion of journalistic integrity and shiny paper, decided to name Adolf Hitler their “Man of the Year.”  Yeah, that actually happened.  Apparently, the editors looked at the burgeoning geopolitical nightmare in Europe, squinted really hard, and though, “You know who’s really crushing it right now?  The guy screaming at stadiums.”

I can picture the editorial meeting.  A room full of men in suspenders and fedoras, smoking cigarettes indoors, debating between the inventor of the toaster oven and the architect of the Third Reich.  “Well, Frank,” one of them says, puffing a cloud of blue smoke, “Adolf certainly has…presence.  He’s very dynamic.”  It took a special kind of myopia, a failure of imagination so profound it’s almost impressive.

So much for all that…time for round 9 with this goddamn synth.

N.P.: “Awake” – The Joke Jay