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.