Those Who Oppose You

Howl, you sick beast. 

Make your mark. Break the bones of the ones who mock you, silence the voices, destroy their descendants.

You are here for a reason; justification or clarification is unnecessary - you can do as you wish. Those who oppose you must be crushed in excruciating pain. Make them suffer so others will learn. 

Your road is the only road, your dreams and desires override all others. Get what you want. Fashion your life exactly as you always dreamed it to be.

Howl, you sick beast.

Make your mark.

An Irish Prayer

 "Dear Lord, give me a few friends who will love me for what I am, and keep ever-burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope. And though I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me to be thankful for life, and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet. And may the evening's twilight find me gentle, still. Amen"

Your Mind Is A War Zone

Very few of us ever have clarity.

At some point in your life you cross the Rubicon into a life you can't understand. It becomes bewildering. But your mind won't let go. It just won't let go. That voice, that voice rips you to shreds. The real you belittles compromised you. You can't stand it and you can't silence it.

Booze and drugs are required, whether it's a once in a while escape or a lifelong passion, you got to silence that annoying voice. There is nothing wrong with that.

Brief aside: Do you think the War on Drugs is real? It became "official" in 1971 thanks to that paragon of virtue, Nixon. You can't stop drugs. People need drugs, they need booze. In large part because of the nasty things the government, the rich, and big business do to control your life, to limit it, to keep you in your place. Which is a place you never wanted to be, a tiny place, a suffocating space with shit jobs, shit pay and a whole lot of "yes sir no sir."

The war on drugs is just another dance, another way to misdirect the attention of the little people from what's really going on. It is a way for those in power to control who benefits from all that delightful drug money, who directs it, funnels it, controls it. The power elites (the scumbags) preach about evil publicly, and then spend the weekend in a $25 million second home to snort coke off their mistresses' sweet asses.

Ah, what a world.

Most people adopt a cynical world view about life and wear it on their sleeve. That cold-hearted, "that's life, baby - deal with it" type of attitude. But they don't really accept that because they can't accept that, and that's where the torture comes in. The War. You can see it on their faces. It shoots out of their eyes like fire.

Wonder how many people show up to work with hangovers every day.

A majority, for sure.

That's life, baby - deal with it.

Will I Ever Find Out?

 "I'd rather die at the hand of a friend, than that of an enemy."

Winston Scott in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

I wonder which of my friends would be willing to kill me.

It Is Time

I would like to be either Harvey Keitel or Michael Madsen.

Madsen exudes an over the top, tough guy cool, but in a restrained way. Keitel exudes an understated, tough guy cool in a sophisticated way. Either one of those would work beautifully for me.

I gotta decide soon.

It is time for the transformation.

Working The Odds

 "Picking one up he marvelled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives."

From The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny

This is my only hope at this stage of my life.

I am counting on it.

I am betting on it.

Selective Connection

 "I insist he comes along, said Gamache, holding out his hand to the boy, who took it without hesitation. A small shard stabbed Gamache's heart as he realized how precious this boy was, and would always be. A child who lived in a perpetual state of trust.

And how hard it would be for his parents to protect him."

From The Brutal Telling, by Louis Penny

Gamache in this scene is holding the hand of a boy with down syndrome.

Where I work, Ian comes in with his Mom every Thursday morning about 15 minutes after I open up. He has down syndrome. I don't know how old he is but he is not a little boy, he is not a child.

He has become my buddy. He lights up when he sees me, we fist bump every time, then we talk a little. When he learned my name a while back he started using it relentlessly. Every sentence has my name in it two or three times. It's cool.

His Mom is remarkable. She is so in tune with him, so patient with him, so delicately loving. They communicate perfectly, seeming to anticipate each other's thoughts.

I have seen other parents with a lot less patience for their kid's disabilities. I hate them.

When Ian has what he wants the visit is over. Our conversation ends abruptly and he and his Mom turn and leave.

He makes my Thursday mornings.

A lot of elderly people, a lot of very young children, and some people with disabilities come into my workplace. I get along well with them because I am a sensitive sort.

The regulars disappoint me. Every day people. Self-absorbed, insensitive, sometimes rude, impatient. They never listen, only talk.

I'm trying to work my way to a place in my life where I have minimal contact with other humans, unless it is a situation of my own making. 

Until then, I will connect selectively.

Works For Me

I have found a new comfort zone when I read.

Inspector Gamache. This is so unlikely for me, yet I am gobbling up these books and enjoying them like the finest dark chocolate.

A long running series written by Louis Penny. 

I think maybe I am a sexist. Maybe not. But I don't read female authors. I've tried a few and found them lacking in whatever it is I need from a story. Perhaps I pre-judge them, or maybe there really is something about the female perspective that does not provide the entertainment that I need.

However, the Inspector Gamache series is giving me the peace I need right now. The characters are human, they are fragile, imperfect, petty, substantial, quirky, loving, conniving, confused, cocky, self-doubting and more. They truly come across as genuine, flawed, sensitive human beings. Reading the books makes me feel peaceful. I sprinkle them in amongst other books I am reading so I won't Google 101 ways to commit suicide.

The stories are murder mysteries and they are good. But the characters blow you away. They are not superheros, they are your neighbors or normal people you meet every day. Even Gamache is achingly human.

I am not adequately expressing myself, so I'll let Louis Penny herself do it. In the intro to The Brutal Telling she writes:

"No one quite appreciates and recognizes the light like those who've lived in darkness. That awareness is what I try to bring to the books. The duality of our lives. The power of perception. The staggering weight of despair, and the amazement when it is lifted. The gap between how we appear and how we really feel.

At their core, though, these books are about the profound decency of Armand Gamache, and the struggles he has to remain a good person. When "good" is subjective and "decent" is a matter of judgement.

These books might appear, superficially, as traditional crime novels. But they are, I believe, more about life than death. About choices. About the price of freedom. About the struggle for peace."

This country being what it is right now, you may need to read these stories just to regain your sense of yourself as a human being.

They work for me.

A Powerful Work of Fiction, and.......................

thank God! - who could live in an actual country like this?

Big Brother Is Watching You

War Is Peace

Freedom Is Slavery

Ignorance Is Strength

"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at The Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms - one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended."

"He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you - something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your own senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it...........................

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

Slogans and excerpts from 1984.

I Knew You Were Faking It

 "Very few people do this anymore. It's too risky. First of all, it's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all."

Sylvia Plath

Alone Again

I really wanted Djokovic to beat Alcaraz. 

To win the Australian Open. To grab that elusive 25th.

Alas, it was not to be. I fear that record breaking major is fading further into the rear view mirror for Novac.

Djokovic is 38, Carlos is 22. Age vs Youth. Generation after generation in all walks of life.

I was hoping for a miracle to help inspire my own, the miracle it will take for me to go out in a blaze of glory.

Guess I'm on my own.

Again.

Perfect Peace

 If you long to connect your soul to the Absolute Truth of Life, if you want to feel the perfect peace that accompanies that experience, then listen to Tom Russell - specifically a CD called Blood and Candle Smoke.

What The Fuck Is Wrong With Me?

Stayed up until 1:30 this morning watching a documentary on Marc Maron - Are We Good?

Love Marc Maron.

Today I am tired. Can't concentrate. Can't get anything done.

Really?

For Christ sake, John Wick gets the shit kicked out of him 15 times in every movie, and then bounces back to kick the shit out of every remaining bad guy. Beats 'em, kills 'em. Viciously. And he accomplishes that even though he is suffering with nasty cuts, broken ribs, amputated fingers, exhaustion, and extensive blood-loss.

I'm tired?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Chilling

Recently read a book that was chilling. Written by Daniel Silva.

The story revolved around a white supremacist movement that had been festering, plotting, planning and growing, kinda underground, over a few decades. With a much bigger - MUCH bigger base of support than you would expect in a civilized country. Their ultimate goal was to take over the government of the country and cleanse the population so that it looked exactly as they wanted it to look. Meaning just like them.

Of course it was a work of fiction.

When they gained control of the government the plan was to harass the shit out of immigrants, beat them, cuff them, kill them, and deport them - at least the ones left alive. They would break every law and make up some of their own. If random citizens got caught up in the violence, so be it. 

This would all be done anonymously - masks, no badges, no visible ID - to protect the brave men and women performing the cleansing. Makes perfect sense.

The movement included and was backed by high-level politicians, billionaires, big business, lawyers, the military and other high-minded people.

Eventually the true patriots managed to thwart this plan before it could be completed, although it came very close to fruition, causing enormous death and suffering along the way.

A truly frightening read.

Thank God it was fiction.

Baldacci @ 100mph

I read a ton of books last year.

A whole hell of a lot of Baldacci, Chris Bohjalian, C.J.Box, Nelson DeMille, Robert B. Parker, Louise Penny, Daniel Silva.........................easy reading, baby - easy reading.

Great stories, well written - enjoyed them all. But I read fast, like a Japanese bullet train, and these authors are easy to read.

In 2026 I have decided to re-read many of the books that grace my impressive book shelves. The best of the best. When I moved in 2023, from a home we inhabited for 37 years, I had to decimate my book collection. I always bought books - no library for me - books are precious to me and they must be owned.

You can imagine how many books I accumulated over 37 years. Somewhere between a million and a Googol. I wasn't about to move them, so I created a system to decide which books to give away. Then I revised that system and revised it again and again. I had to keep widening the parameters because in my heart I did not want to part with them, but I had to. Each revision tore another chunk from my heart.

Anyway, that's why I say I ended up with the best of the best - books I absolutely could not part with. (P.S. - I now go to the library.)

Browsing my book shelves, I came across a great gift - The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. The book looked and felt brand new, and I don't remember reading it. I was drooling.

When I began to read it I quickly realized I had to slow down and concentrate. I was missing stuff and misunderstanding stuff. The language is so rich I really had to focus. When I did, the story tasted so much better. I am a large fan of great literature (I also enjoy watching foreign movies with subtitles - are those two things related?). You have to work when reading great literature, to get the most out of it.

If you haven't read the book but intend to - stop reading this.

Very emotional story. The two main characters, the two you care the most about and love, die. Bitterly sad. But other characters, again people you care about, down to earth good people, experience good fortune and happy ending lives. And the worst bad guy, a real vicious selfish jerk, gets exactly what he deserves - an untimely death.

I was emotionally disturbed at the end. Then I thought, well, this is the way life works. Lots of sadness, some happiness, some really shitty assholes to keep everyone off-balance.

The first book I pulled off my bookshelf was Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. Tough read because it's where we're headed. I had 1984 lined up to read next, and Animal Farm after that but, Christ, I am depressed enough already without bludgeoning myself with apocalyptic stuff - especially when it is rapidly becoming reality.

The Old Curiosity Shop was a gourmet meal.

I'll be mixing and matching this year - grabbing books off my shelves, grabbing easier stuff from the library. Exercise, rest; exercise, rest. I want my mind to get sharp.

I'd like to be intelligent when I die.

Admirable Indeed

You're a music lover.

More than that, music is more important to you than food, oxygen, and Italian silk ties.

Got a pretty extensive CD collection. LP's were forsaken in 2023 in a fit of insanity, forever mourned. But the CD's are doing a more than admirable job of nourishing the soul.

Two CD's are currently sitting on top of the CD player:

1) This is the Best of Miles Davis & Gil Evans

2) GP/Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons

Hot damn, brother - you got eclectic, exquisite taste in music.

Bet it brings you a great deal of happiness.

Upon This Realization..........................

I am a unique motherfucker.

I don't fit in with anyone, anywhere.

Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight

The prophets of my generation were songwriters.

Our religion was music and they were the high priests. 

They fought corruption and injustice with their words. They were fearless in the face of overwhelming blowback. Often arrested on trumped up charges. They put on concerts to raise money for good causes, for humanity, to try to change the status quo so humans could just be humans instead of pawns in an inhumane game.

They spoke out, they protested, they flaunted convention in every way possible. They fought back, believing they could change this country, maybe the world.

For a while there it felt like we were a little ahead. But we never really were.

The world is a corrupt and vicious place. Money and power rule everything everywhere and it has always been that way.

We "average" people think we have some sort of freedom, to run our own lives, but we don't. Only a little, and only up to a point. 

Everything and everyone we should be able to trust to protect us, fails us. Because they don't care about us. The contempt of the rich and powerful for everyone else is staggering."A piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla and one other thing" tells you everything you need to know about the scorn the rich and powerful feel towards us.

It has always been that way, but recently the venomous hatred and contempt, the willingness to resort to violence to maintain control, the easy way they lie about what they are doing to justify their means, are right out in the open. They are daring us to do anything about it. 

The world is being carved up by three dicktators who do not care who gets hurt or dies in the process.

The game is over. The world has been exposed for what it really is.

If You Want Us to Believe in Justice, Justice Better Be Real

 "They want it all, they want it now

They want to get it and they don't care how.........................

Want that Mercedes, that Gulf Stream too

They want to get it, get it from you

They want your life savings and your mother's ring

They'd like to have everything..............................

They want that mansion and they want it full

Of wine and women and political pull

They always have a President or two

That's how they get away with what they do

That's how they do it............................................

They bleed the companies they're supposed to run

Ain't no different than taking your money with a gun

They make it to Jamaica and their wire comes through

They sacrifice a lawyer and they're laughing at you........................

They don't get prosecuted don't even get charged

They're somewhere in the sun belt livin' it large

And the government says we can't prove they did it at all

Besides they've got these underlings ready to take the fall............................

These people that they stole from whose lives they laid to waste

They should have to meet them all face to face

And explain just why their momma didn't teach 'em not to steal

If you want us to believe in justice, justice better be real........................

They just don't give a damn"

They Want It All by Crosby and Nash  2004

Some of These People.............................

 "You could throw a rock in any direction in any part of this country and hit somebody who wants this country to look and taste vanilla and never come close to having a scoop of cherry or chocolate anywhere near the horizon of possibility. And some of these people will not stop until what we have today is replaced with something more 1930s Germany than 2020s America."

From To Die For, by David Baldacci

Indisputable Truth

 "A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is."

From Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Careful......careful

 If you indulge your unhappiness, while attempting to feign optimism for the sake of your spouse, you are walking a fine line indeed.

Virtually guaranteed to end up like Karl Wallenda.

Paradise Lost

If you live in a country ruled by a dicktator, I feel sorry for you. Heartfelt sorrow. 

Because I am sure your life is miserable. You have no one to protect you and look after your best interests as a human being. Your beloved dicktator is most likely doing everything in his power to destroy your life financially, health-wise, security-wise and every other way he can.

Because he doesn't even recognize your existence.

He did before he was elected because he needed you. Needed you to believe his lies, to believe he would protect you and improve your life so he could win the election. He won. Now he doesn't care if you live or die. In fact in some cases, probably a lot of cases, he wants you to die.

And if that dicktator is a cold-hearted, vicious, greedy and stupid man who cares nothing about the citizens of "his" country, you must be really hurting. A dicktator who feels it is perfectly OK to kill citizens who disagree with him. And then perfectly OK to lie about those murders in an attempt to turn it around and blame the victim.

It must be awful for you.

I am lucky. I live in the United States of America. A country conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

A Democracy. We have free speech. We can say what we want and be whoever we want to be. We have a Constitution to protect us, and laws, and a legal system, an ethical Supreme Court to interpret those laws with wisdom and compassion in a non-partisan way. We have principled elected representatives who think about nothing else but our welfare.

We are safe from exploitation and manipulation and violence. All of our citizens love and support each other because they understand that we are all in the same boat.

The people who live in this country are well educated and actively engaged in our political system. So they make wise choices at election time, which is what protects us from dicktator-wannabes. Serpents are not welcome here.

I am grateful.

The United States is truly a Garden of Eden.

Bob Weir (Requiescat in Pace)

Lately when I hear about the death of a musician from my generation, that announcement is followed by "leaving ____ as the only surviving original member" of the band.

I am sick of reading those words, but that is where I am in life.

You get to a certain point in your life where you can palpably feel your generation quietly slipping away.

In 20 or 30 years my generation will exist only as a memory.

Luckily for me and many others, the people who affected me the most were musicians, authors, and actors. Creative people who I can enjoy until the day I die.

And that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

Here's hoping

Working pretty hard. "I got blisters on my fingers!!!!"

I am digging through shit two feet deep to get to my soul.

Here's why.

"The soul does not love. It is love itself.

It does not exist. It is existence itself.

It does not know. It is knowledge itself."

From How To Know God, by Deepak Chopra

If I ever come face to face with my soul, my transformation will be complete. You probably won't recognize me right away.

But you might respect me a little more.

When Asylums Were in Vogue

Todd stumbled out of his decrepit house, down the rotting stairs, tripped and fell face first into the snow.

He stood with fists clenched at his sides and screamed like the lunatics used to when asylums were in vogue. Then he picked up the gun he dropped and continued across the yard towards his truck.

His next door neighbor, Myrna, walked out onto her deck and called "Hey Todd, what's happening, man?"

Todd whirled and shot her in the face.

Then he started dancing in the snow, a madman's dance, jerking around like a drunken marionette. Shouting "I did it. I finally did it. They can't take it away from me. I got proof. They call me a loser but they're full of shit. I showed 'em today. I won. I'm a winner. A winner!"

Todd turned and headed back towards his house, slipping, sliding, and giggling like a child.

It was a very good day.

WW

 "What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for."

Irish Proverb

This is an entirely reasonable proverb, spoken by a hearty civilization that has done the homework.

Let's face it - vodka drinkers are pretentious, sipping their cocktails with pinky finger raised. And they are sneaks - smuggling nips into work so they can drink on the job, on the premise the boss will smell nothing on their breath (I know - I've been doing it for decades, even though I'd much prefer to smuggle whiskey).

Tequila drinkers are insane. Tequila is liquid heroin. I love the stuff but I can't drink it because one drink leads to another until I am passed out on the floor with my pants around my ankles.

But whiskey drinkers, well, we are merely pursuing health. A cure for a cold, or the flu, or a bad marriage, or a shit-ass job, or a broken down car.

Yeah, baby - whiskey drinkers got, well, wisdom.