“The weather will continue to be bad…There will be more calamities, more deaths, more despair,  Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere.  The cancer of time is eating us away.  Our heroes have killed themselves or are killing themselves.  The hero, then, is not Time, but Timelessness.  We must get in step, a lock step toward the prison of death.  There is no escape.  The weather will not change.”
~ Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, 1934

N.P.: “I Tune In” – Cryo

“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – You may know that your society is doomed.”
~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

N.P.: “7 O’Clock” – The Quireboys

After innumerable delays and excessive weirdness, I am just about ready to install the final piece of hardware in the Death Star new studio.  I’m hopeful that will be completed this week.  And then things might get rather intense.  And move rather quickly.

N.P.: “Justify My Love – Radio Edit” – Ingrid Chavez

Happy New Year from Anhedonia, California.  Pthththththththt.
I figured out what’s bothering me so much about the The Herd getting so giddy about the new year: they’re just setting themselves up for crushing disappointment as far as things suddenly getting better with the arrival of a new year.
Here’s what’s confirming for me that we don’t know shit about Covid: right now, California is the sort of epicenter of Covid, but with the exception of our elected leaders, people have been following protocol, masking and distancing and generally avoiding each other like we have the plague (because apparently we fucking do).  We’ve been living under some of the most restrictive lock-downs in the country.  Yet despite all of the above, hospitalizations and ICU cases are soaring.  But then there’s this: there is basically no flu this year.  In the United States, the flu is statistically relatively non-existent this season due to masking and distancing and hand-washing and the rest of it.  That is in every state in the country, including California.  It seems that masking is extremely effective for dealing with the flu, but seems to have either little or totally unpredictable effect on the spread of Covid.
It’s always struck me as odd how complacent Americans have been about typically losing 80,000 people a year to the flu.  But now, having successfully eliminated it, proving that we can save 80K lives if we choose, do you think people will continue to wear masks after Covid is no longer a threat?  Considering the present level of bitching and whining, I’d find it highly unlikely.  But they should.  Because as bad as Covid has been, it’s a big pink titty compared to what is coming.  A real Black Death Judgement of God Plague will not be in any way as patient and forgiving as Covid has been.  It will be the sort of thing that decimates humanity before we even understand what it is.  The sort of thing where people go to bed perfectly healthy and wake up dead.  Covid has shown us quite clearly what a disease-infested Petri dish our previous way of life was.  We ignore this warning at our own peril.

N.P.: “Killing Grounds” – Front Line Assembly

Happy New Year, dear reader.

N.P.: “I’m a Believer” – GIANT

Anybody else would quit at this point.  Anybody else would say, “It’s all just too much.  I gave it a good shot, but it’s all just gotten to be too much, fuck it, forget the books, forget the writing.”  But not me, dearest reader.  Nope.  I’m dumb and stubborn enough to press on.  Besides…what the hell else is there to do?  Also besides, you’ve stuck with me this long…I can’t leave you hangin’.
It’s time to finish this.

N.P.: “Young Men Dead” – The Black Angels

Pththththththththt.

N.P.: “Bittersweet” – Galactic

Not believing in anything makes for a rather tedious existence most days.  I miss the things I used to believe in…they gave life meaning, and made the horribleness of a cruel and brutal reality significantly easier to cope with.  I am quite envious of people of faith.  I’m presently envious of everyone running around in the first thing to resemble a good mood in months because it’s almost New Years and the calendar says that the present year is ending.  It must be so comforting to take an arbitrary construct and actually believe that “reality” will bend to the construct.  “Good is rewarded and evil is punished, I am a good person, therefore I get presents on Christmas Day or entry into the kingdom of heaven” or whatever.  That old chestnut.  For the rest of us, oh we of little faith, it’s narcotics, hard liquor, and art, and if those ever quit working, good luck.

N.P.: “Trust In Me” – Siouxsie and the Banshees

Took another day off from writing.

N.P.: “Rock Me Amadeus” – Front Line Assembly, Jimmy Urine

Took a rare day off from writing.

N.P.: “I Want Your Body” – Nymphomania