I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time in the matrix, dear reader.  Which is not good for anybody.  I try to avoid it, but I’ve been right in the middle of it recently, and it’s taxing as hell.  Exhausting, and existential-crisis inducing.

N.P.: “People Who Died” – The Jim Carroll Band

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world, forever, it seems.
~ Arthur O’Shaughnessy

There is an imbalance in my world.  Something along the lines of, “If A is true, then why do I feel so B.”  Something I’ve found that helps with imbalances is sleep.  So I’m going to pursue that option now.  Didn’t write shit today.  Dammit.

N.P.: “THISKIDSNOTALRIGHT” – AWOLNATION

Living anywhere in the Anhedonia Valley means dealing with ludicrous heat 6 months out of the year.  And yrs. truly does not do well in the heat, dear reader.  I usually warn people that I’m in a foul mood from Cinco de Mayo until Halloween.  Which was once again the case this year.  But Halloween is over.  It’s November.  That insipid daylight saving time finally ends this weekend.  I’m even turning on the heater tonight.  So I should be in a much more reasonable mood until Cinco de Mayo.

N.P.: “Figure It Out” – Royal Blood

Happy Amateur Hour, rookies.   Now get yer damn kids of my lawn…I have whiskey to attend to just now.

N.P.: “The Chain” – Tantric

“No time for love, Dr. Jones.”

Oh man, I’m busy, dear reader.  Good lord.  I’m so busy, I don’t even have time to tell you how busy I am.

Today was remarkable in many ways.  I was a fan of today.

N.P.: “Like I Should” – Craig Robinson

I find it exceedingly strange that people are still referring to contemporary years as “two thousand and whatever.”   I mean, I figured it would be a few years of that weirdness at the turn of the century, and things would sort of relax into “Twenty whatever.”  When reading early writings from the previous 2 centuries, the formality of writers calling the years “Nineteen hundred and eighteen” is always comical. It sounds as if they were using an abacus to figure out what year it was.   But it typically didn’t take too long before they were just calling it “Nineteen fourteen” or whatever.  But we’re almost a quarter of the way through our own dreadful century and people are still referring to the present year as “two thousand nineteen.”  I’m hopeful that because next year’s number will match the century number, people will see/hear the awkward asymmetrical bulkiness of saying “Two thousand twenty” and finally shift to sleeker, sexier, symmetrical “twenty twenty.”  Of course, looking to the present generation of American speakers who even still continue to stupidly and compulsively bleat the insipid “I know, right?” for any kind of linguistic grace will only result in crushing disappointment.

I’m just so over it.  I can’t even.

N.P.: “Breathless” – Shankar Mahadevan

I have exactly nothing to say tonight, dear reader.  Not there there isn’t a lot on my mind…I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t…and not that I don’t have a lot to say.  But there’s nothing I can really say if I plan on getting any sleep.

Anyway, I just thought I’d pop in and say hey.  So, hey.

N.P.: “The Shame of Life” – Butthole Surfers

Happy Diwali, dear reader.

It is not unusual for me to read multiple published, allegedly edited, and definitely paid-for articles every day with basic grammatical and usage errors so egregious as to keep them from passing my most basic ESL composition class.  Which is depressing, but not quite as depressing as the fact that no one apparently notices.  Editorial in-boxes are not being flooded with vociferous complaints demanding better.  Nobody gives a shit.  The errors that I read are the same I hear made constantly by the herd who have no natural ear for the music of the language and learned their bastardized verbal perversions from inordinately-assed Armenians on reality TV.  Reading the same errors in news articles confirms their erroneous notions of grammatical competence (of course I am giving the herd rather a lot of credit here, assuming they spend any part of their vapid days actually reading anything).  It’s enough to drive a linguistically sensitive guy like me to drink.  Incidentally, it’s about time for a new desk whiskey.  Jack Fire can be quite nice this time of year, with its icy nights.

N.P.: “Empty Room” – Prince