So now it’s Venezuela, is it? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m reminded of a line from that 1979 redneck anthem “Family Tradition,” by the would-be-outlaw son of the iconic “So Lonesome” American troubadour who once set the standrd for country music as the people’s music, on which Sr.’s newly all-is-forgiven electric-geetar racist sire and …
So I was driving into work this morning, a little late, as a houseful of pets can make you, when I glimpsed something my brain pleaded with me not to see. It was Monday, stranded there beside the road, the sky ahead ominous with dark clouds, a big rain a-comin’. I rode on past, even …
So we’ve actually reached the point where NASA feels it has to deny keeping kidnapped kids on Mars — on Mars! FYI: At its hypothetical closest, Mars is roughly 33.9 million miles away. And there ain’t no air up there. Or out there. Or, y’know, wherever there. The point that shouldn’t need making here is, …
Some days, the world is just too much with us. Some of us, anyway. Me, to be specific. And today was so very much one of those days, one of my days. The news of our ongoing national trainwreck got to me more than usual, and if you know me at all, you know it …
I find myself increasingly disconsolate. I have been singing (mezzo-baritone), as you know, in that five-man barbershop quartet, Ring-a-Lung-Dung, which interprets the works of overzealous German nationalist composer Richard Wagner (of “Ride of the Valkyries” fame) through hand-puppet mime performances. We routinely give our all, outfitted in “Scream” masks and tight beige leotards, to overemphasize …
So every day, it seems, someone else at some prestigious news organization publishes some “fact-checking” piece on this or that bit of blustery blatant untruth from President-Elect Blowhole. To which I have reached the point of asking: Are you fucking serious? Because do you think this, in any way, helps? Trump don’t care, baby, and …
These last two days: So first my iPhone, essentially free a couple of years ago (accumulated points), yesterday made its death knell clear, ignoring a new Sim card and all factory resets; it’s now a pre-corpse of stumbling WiFi, no calls, no text, no Internet, no Siri and her prudish answers to my naughty questions, …
As I have delved even deeper into the music and writings of Leonard Cohen since his passing, searching for a particle of solace in what has been for me a profound loss, I am struck, again and again, by the thought that we simply did not deserve him, this sage of a man, nor his …
There are not enough benzos and bottles o’ wine in the world to blank out the Franking obsessive nightmare of frantic online poll-of-polls watching and the dread of creeping fascism as half the electorate happily chest-thumps its way to the prospect of fewer freedoms, and lunatics with guns standing proudly in front of bathrooms to …
Monday. And how. As I’m spilling pet food all over the counter with frantic animals underfoot first thing this morning, the TV tells me that the man running for the most important office in the free world, the man who should recall in ANYONE who is paying even half-ass attention the terrifying trappings of the …