Category Archives: Lucubrations

I’ve got a lot on my mind, but nothing I want to write about.  Saturn was visible in the daylight sky, which needs to happen more often.  Other planets should be close enough to be visible in the sky.  Not just like a really bright star, the way Venus looks, but close enough to see the shape, and where the sunlight is falling on it, and the weird rings and colors.  And we need more than one moon.  And the moon we have is lovely.  But it’s lonely up there, and it leaves our sky looking rather…desolate.  We should have three moons.  And more vividly visible planets.
Then, if we fill our skies with blimps and dirigibles, and it rains all the time and everybody walks around hidden by black umbrellas, then things will start looking more like I think they should.  Not that anybody asked.

N.P.: “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll)” – Dropkick Murphys

Happy Solstice, hippies.  It’s the first day of winter, the shortest day and the longest night of the year, which makes it one of the finest days on the Gallaway Calendar.
Speaking of the calendar, I’m considering stepping things up schedule-wise with the books, given the recent brush with mortality.

N.P.: “Flieger Gruss Mir Die Sonne” – Eisbrecher

I was promised fog the last two nights, but no fog was delivered.  That feeble meteorologist is again promising fog tonight, but he has about as much credibility as the governor these days, so I’m sure tomorrow morning will be clear as a fucking crystal.  Why, Lord…why must you keep your humble servant in this, the most meteorologically banal place on the planet?  What the fuck, Lord?  Don’t just hang there…do something!  Make it rain!  How hard can it be?  You created weather…deploy that shit.

N.P.: “Night Flower” – cEvin Key, Edward Ka-Spel

All apologies, dear reader…you know only the most extreme forces of nature could keep me from our nightly get-togethers.  I had to deal with Death.  He showed up rather early for our meeting…about a decade early by my reckoning.  Anyway, I (with the help of a few friends) politely invited Death to kiss my ass, for this week, at least.  I felt a little bit bad for Death (I think he got written up over it), but just as he has his schedule, so do I have mine.  And my work is, in my humble opinion, far more important than his.  I mean, come on:  any idiot can go kill a list a people…only I can write these books.
Dude doesn’t talk, much, Death.  He actually doesn’t talk at all.  I suppose he doesn’t have to.  But it dragged our little kerfuffle this week out about twice as long as it needed to be.

N.P.: “One of the Living – Extended Version” – Tina Turner

So three amateurs solved the Zodiac cipher.  The FBI’s been trying for 51 years, but they couldn’t do it.  Most impressive.

N.P.: “96 Tears” – Garland Jeffreys

Welp, it’s raining, so the strike’s over.  That was a most effective work stoppage.
I don’t know how you feel about Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” dear reader, but the best movie version I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot of versions) is hands down FX’s 2019 version starring Guy Pearce and Andy Serkis.  Guy Pearce does for Ebeneezer Scrooge what Heath Ledger did for the Joker, which is to make him realistic and believable instead of previous incarnations which were all cartoonish and campy.  I’m also a big fan of the way they explain ghosts and purgatory and hauntings and the mechanics of how all that works.  Brilliant acting, a great script, great production…I highly recommend.  Streaming on Hulu at the moment.

N.P.: “Doctorin’ The Tardis – Radio Version” – The Flag

Morocco-Israel peace deal.  The first such arrangement between the countries in decades.  The fourth mideast peace deal in as many months. Happy Hanukkah.

Congressman Swalwell should be found guilty of treason and shot on the White House lawn.

Still no rain, still on strike.

N.P.: “I’m A Wreck – Live from 2020” – AWOLNATION