People disappoint.

N.P.: “Wish” – Kosheen

What’s crackin’, knowledgeable reader?
I’ll be honest, I was going to write about something here…kind of thought about it all day, but then now that I’m here, I started to write it, I just decided against it.  Not time yet, I guess.  Maybe I’m just not in the right mood.

Anyway, since I’m here, I Just wanted to say hello….hopefully there will be more to say tomorrow.

N.P.: “He Is” – Ghost

Work work work, blah, blah, blah.

I’m angsty lately.  Discontent.  Frustrated.  And not a little bit overwhelmed by everything.  I’ve been bitching about the ludicrous amount of quality television and movies that are being produced these days, and the weird anxiety produced when it’s all you can do to go through the various movies and series released on various media and platforms, sort through the crap and select what you want to put in your To Watch Queue, and then running out of time to actually watch any of the stuff, and the damn Queue just gets longer and longer….

Similar things happen with technology…especially software.  I am sent new apps all the time that are really good at what they do, but I’m already neck-deep in another app that I’ve been using for that particular purpose for 2-3 years, and was hoping to keep using.  But then something always happens with that app, and I end up having to look around at replacement programs, picking the one that’s going to function best for me and my seemingly ever-developing workflow.  This process involves some basic internet research, reading of reviews, and usually watching several different tutorial videos to see how the thing really works before drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid on that particular app.  And then once that is done, I have to learn the ins and outs of that app,   Which is, of course, something that I’m having to deal with now.

I guess I’m just annoyed by change.  And the fact that it seems to take a prohibitively long time to set things up to do whatever it is you’re doing, such that once you actually get things set up, the amount of productive time is pretty minimal, and just when you get into a groove, everything has to be changed again.

Sorry…this is boring.  I have written some decent stuff in the last four days, but it’s all going in the book.  The book…it’s weird as hell, dear reader.  I don’t even know how well it’s going, if I’m honest.  I think it will be extreme, one way or another: either a total flop or a revolutionarily big deal.  It’s either going to change everything, or nothing at all.  Whatever that means.

N.P.: “Natural One” – Shearwater

I’ve always been interested in “smart drugs,” and the smart drugs that have been en vogue for the last several years are nootropics.  I know you have Google, dear reader, so you can look that up if you want to know more.

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend from the Netherlands who happened to be selling bottles of a nootropic energy drink.  He did warn me: “In this country, you guys have 5-hour energy drinks…this one is a 5-DAY energy drink.  If you drink this on Friday, you better be ready to party Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday you think about sleeping.”

I don’t know about you, dearest reader, but whenever I find myself talking to anybody from the Netherlands about drugs, I feel the need to knock them down a few steps, just because they usually have that smug, “I’m from Holland where they invented drugs, so try to keep up if you can, but you Yanks are light years behind what we do everyday back home.” sort of attitude.  So I handed him a few dollars.  “Give me that,” I scoffed as I took the small white bottle from him.  I held the bottle up to my face to try to read the ingredients on the label, but the print was ridiculously small and I suspect also Dutch, so I rolled my eyes and unscrewed the cap.

“Hey, if you haven’t taken these before, you’re only supposed to drink half… the… bottle.”  He almost didn’t bother finishing his silly sentence since I had already downed the entire thing.  “Fuck you,” I said not so much to by Hollandic friend as to the universe in general, just to sort of summarize the general state of things.  This viscous liquid tasted like slightly expired cough syrup, but pleasant.  I felt the stuff kick start my heart immediately, just like Motley Crue.  A glance at my watch let me know my heart rate was suddenly somewhere in the triple digits, and I had the nearly overwhelming urge to call the governor and share some of my ideas on how exactly this state should be run.

“I have to go,” I told my friend.  “You weird Dutch fucker.”  No idea why I said that, but it seemed like an obvious thing to say.  My respiration rate had increased, my pupils dilated, and  as I was crossing the street to my car, I could feel both of my middle fingers involuntarily contracting and then become erect as the other fingers knelt down next to them, forcing me to flip off all of the cars in the intersection.  A few of them honked and yelled, but I interpreted that simply as the peasants recognizing greatness.

The rest of the day is a rather ghastly blur, thankfully.  I know I ended up back here sometime after sunset, pacing around in a circle with my shirt pulled up over my head, reciting trivia about the Manson family to family of gypsies that I had hallucinated.  That went on for some time until I decided that something had to be done to take the edge off, so I drank a large pitcher of grappa for dinner.  That helped, and I managed to nap on the marble floor of the kitchen for a couple of hours.

And now it’s time for Night Number Two.  There is a 20-foot purple penguin standing in the backyard, staring in my window.  He seems like the sort of purple penguin who really wants to hear trivia about the Manson family, so this might work out for both of us.

N.P,: “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin

Happy birthday, Mary.

Go to work.  Get married.  Have some kids.  Pay your taxes.  Pay your bills.  Watch your TV.  Follow fashion.  Act normally.  Obey the Law.  Keep repeating: “I am free.”

N.P.: “Hounds of Hell” – Dead Soul

I’m pretty sure that ours may be the absolute worst culture in the entire history of organized societies.  We have got to be due for another plague or some other “catastrophic” event that thins the herd by 30-40%.

Today felt significantly south of productive.   Caught up on some sleep, though.  And some reading.  And some recording.  Okay, so it wasn’t an entirely unproductive day.  I just didn’t get enough done on the book as I would have liked.

N.P.: “Run Like Hell” – Pink Floyd

Well, this day can fuck right off.  Didn’t like it at all.  Note to self (and you, dearest reader: never volunteer for anything.  It just never works out and ends up being unrewarding.  It’s really just a bad idea.

Didn’t write shit today.  Let somebody live and instantly regretted it.  Overcooked the wings.  Yeah.  It was that kind of day.  Nothing left but bourbon and bed.

N.P.: “Hair of the Dog” – Nazareth

No early morning writing sessions today.  Alas.  Managing to get some work done today, though.  275 days.

I was reading a story earlier about an alleged prophet in Ethiopia who showed up in the small Ethiopian town of Galilee (yeah, no shit), found the house of someone recently deceased, pounded on the door and told the bereaved the story of how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and that he could do the same thing Jesus did for their recently dead loved one.  But this wasn’t Jesus…it was just some jackass named Getayawkal Ayele .  I would not buy a used car from anyone called Getayawkal Ayele, let alone let him attempt to resurrect my recently deceased loved one.  But that’s exactly what the family of Belay Biftu did.  Hell, they dug poor Biftu’s dead ass up and let Mr. Getayawkal give it a shot.  Yeah.  So the “prophet” uncovers the corpse’s face from the burial garment (apparently to facilitate the corpse’s ability to hear) and begins shouting into the face of the corpse, “Belay, wake up!”  He does this a few more times when it becomes obvious that Mr. Belay is staying dead.  Obviously he’s not hearing.  So Mr. Getayawkal climbs on top of Mr. Belay’s rotting corpse and shouts even louder: “Belay, wake up!”  [There is video of all this available to the intrepid searcher on YouTube…I just watched it…it’s just as gruesome (and humorous (and pathetic)) as you might expect.]  So this clown goes on shouting until it’s somehow too ridiculous (even though this whole farce has been ridiculous from the jump), and he stands up and seem to concentrate expectantly, waiting stupidly for the body to animate.  After a few moments, the gathered crowd grows audibly suspicious, and Getayawkal starts thinking about what the hell he’s going to do now.  He shrugs dramatically and tells the crowd something that I’m guessing was something like, “Well, you can’t win ’em all,” and climbs clumsily out of the grave.
The video stops there, but that’s only because everybody holding a phone in the crowd had either fainted or put their phones down so they could use both hands to beat the hell out of the false prophet, which they did.  The police arrived and rescued Mr. Getayawkal from being killed by the angry family and villagers,  They also arrested him for abusing dead bodies which is a crime under Ethiopian law.

I understand the family;s anger, but they have to bear some of that: they fell for this nonsense so completely that they dug up poor Uncle Biftu and handed him over to this idiot.

Anyway, yeah.

N.P.: “Cirice” – Ghost

The last two days weren’t really worth a damn, writing-wise.  But then I woke up just after 6:00 this morning, wrote brilliantly for a solid hour, then went back to sleep.  I liked it.  I think every morning should be like that.

It’s September.  That pleases us.  There are football games on TV.  That pleases us as well.  Not because we give the slightest damn about football, because we don’t, but because football, means fall, and fall means rainy days and dark nights.  This pleases us greatly.

N.P.: “Faith” – Ghost