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

Not enough actual writing today, but rather a lot of thought and planning.  Teaching a seven-hour class tomorrow (yeah, 7), so with any luck my voice will be so completely fried by the end, I’ll have no choice but to write.

N.P.:  “Deus in Absentia” – Ghost

Got a goddamn chemical burn on my tongue.  Nothing serious, just enough to piss me off.  There’s not even a good story behind it.  Self-inflicted but unintentional chemical burn.  On my tongue.  Pththththth.
Ouch.  Shit.

281 days.

N.P.: “Majesty” – Ghost

“Biloxi Blues” remains a favorite.
Rest in peace.

Hey Dearest Reader…how’s things?  Good, I hope.  I’m busy as hell, but I wanted check in and say hi and thank you for being here.  Still.  After all this. You are to be rewarded.
Okay, gotta get back to it.  See you back here tomorrow.

N.P.: “Absolution” – Ghost

Fuck Eddie Vedder.  And also fuck Netflix for cancelling The Joel McHale Show.  Dicks.  Each day, the “cable killer” becomes more and more like just another cable company.

Work is coming along on the book.  It’s not nearly as fun to write as other stuff has been, but it is extremely different from the other stuff I’ve written.  Which makes it difficult to gauge whether I’m doing a good job at it or not.   i guess we’ll see.  289 days left.

N.P.: “Institutionalized 2014” – Body Count