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The More You Know

I also have my funerary arrangements in place. One thing that I brought with me out of the horrible 90s was the urgency to get that shit taken care of so your survivors don’t have to. I contacted The Neptune Society (again, based on my experience in the 90s) and arranged everything so Ben wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t cheap, and they force you to buy a ridiculously expensive wooden box to hold your ashes that isn’t worth a quarter of what you’re charged, but it was still cheaper than going the traditional route. When the time comes, they’ll pick up your body pretty much anywhere in the world, take care of all the paperwork, cremate your remains, and deliver the ashes to your loved ones.

Many years ago Ben gifted me a big blue Tardis ceramic cookie jar with the intent it would hold my ashes until he could decide what to ultimately do with them. Personally, my first choice has always been to have them scattered at North Baker Beach in San Francisco, but I realize the logistics of actually pulling that off are more difficult now since I don’t actually live there any more. My second choice would be in Sabino Canyon north of Tucson. Ultimately, Ben will do what he feels is best and brings him the most peace, so if that means scattering over the back yard so the dogs can roll around and play in me, that’s fine too.

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For Those Who Have Large CD Collections…

Do you find that you actually only listen to about a dozen discs with any regularity? I know I have my “go to” titles that seem to get all the rotation in my collection especially when I don’t know what to listen to.

In no particular order, they are

  • Verve Remixed (vols. 1 thru 5)
  • The Best Of Blue Note
  • Blue Note Reimagined
  • Blue Note Reimagined II
  • Marla Glenn – The Best Of
  • Nina Simone – Four Women (box set)
  • Chris Isaac – San Francisco Days
  • George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice
  • George Michael – Faith
  • Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue
  • Miles Davis – Blue Miles
  • Disco Discharge – European Connection
  • Anything on the Three Blind Mice (Japanese Jazz) label.

And of course, probably because of the novelty of something new from Madge….

  • Madonna – Confessions II

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It feels like a good portion of this nation is on death watch right now.

My social media feed is filled with photos and videos gleefully documenting the markers of his physical deterioration, with rising hope as his public appearances grow more sporadic, with almost giddy prognostications of his departure date from this place. People are posting their plans as if preparing for New Year’s Eve or a World Series Championship.

I am not exactly one of those people.

Yes, he has been an odious blight upon this planet and a cancerous presence to this nation. He is, without question, one of the single most objectively horrible human beings our species has produced.

Setting aside the reality that his passing would elevate a successor who is smarter, shrewder, less impulsive, and potentially far more effective in accelerating this country’s slide into theocracy, authoritarianism, and economic devastation for everyone but the billionaire cadre of amoral tech bro vampires who elevated him to the platform to begin with.

But I don’t wish for his death.

I wish he’d never been born.

If he departs this mortal sphere as I type this, it will do nothing to undo all the evil that his now bruised hands have wrought, to erase every vile thing his presence has exposed as he ascended politically.

It will not rewind the years of those who lived in squalor and poverty in New York City, on whose backs he built his jittery, hollow empire.

His death will not bring financial restitution to the thousands of workers and contractors left abandoned by the many bankruptcies that emancipated him from responsibility.

It won’t give back wholeness and healing to the girls and women he violated in secret or maligned in public.

It will not reverse the irreparable damage he has done to a political party whose members individually and collectively abandoned every legal and moral expectation to fall prostrate before him.

It will not elicit repentance in a white Evangelical Church that parted ways with the compassionate, loving namesake of its faith tradition and fashioned a vicious, sneering, profane, God-mocking idol out of his antithesis and bowed down before it.

His passing now could not allow us to unsee the repugnant grievance cult he unleashed here; the historically hateful movement of miserable people who’ve spent the last decade reveling in an unrepentant ugliness because he gave them consent.

It will not remove the legion of incompetent, predatory, corrupt sycophants he poisoned our government with; people who have and will continue to dismantle and pervert our systems of care and legal oversight.

And his death, as much as it would feel like an initial reprieve from the chaos he has engineered and the unfathomable suffering he has spearheaded, would do nothing to conceal the vile sickness he exposed within the people around us: the long-simmering racism, the scalding contempt for foreigners, the phobic hatred of human beings for their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Long after he is gone, we will be left with what we now know about our family members and friends and neighbors; about the people in our churches, about the parents of our children’s friends; about the pillars of our communities, about those we trust to govern us, to protect and serve us.

These atrocities, sadly, will all long outlive him.

He lived, and his life has done its brutal, irreversible damage.

And with that being true, I do not wish for his death; not yet.

I hope and pray that he lives long enough to face legal accountability for his crimes; that he will not depart this place before escaping consequences for the willful disregard he has spent 80 years showing for the laws of our land, for the disparate humanity that has called this place home, and for the sacred and powerful platform he never deserved to begin with.

I want him to live long enough to face a cell before he faces his maker.

And I want to live long enough to see it.

That will be cause for true celebration.

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Did I Say Eight Was Enough? I Meant…Nine, Er…Ten Was Enough

You may have noticed that sapphire blue beauty in the top row in some of my recent posts.

It’s a Sony D-EJ985. While not from the last model year Sony made portable CD players or even the newest in my collection, it (along with the D-EJ915) are my favorites and is one of their best IMHO.

You’ll also notice another D-EJ985 in silver at the lower right corner. That one appeared on my eBay feed first, and was advertised as “Untested. Comes with charging stand, but power cord is frayed and I have no gumstick batteries to test functionality.” It was ridiculously cheap, looked to be in excellent cosmetic condition, and since I’d been wanting this particular model for a while and the 985s are usually way out of my price range, I jumped on it. I figured I could always send it off to “my guy” Shawn for repairs if it wasn’t working.

Of course, as is often the case, within a day of sending payment, the much more desirable blue one appeared. That color! Yowsah! I had to get it. (It was also manufactured in a plum/maroon color.) Despite my rather monotone existence, I do enjoy splashes of color.

It was selling for about $20 more than the silver model, but the seller evidently didn’t do his homework prior to putting it up, because I got this one well, well below what a fully functional, “tested” unit typically goes for.

Turns out they both work beautifully. I have Sony power bricks that work with them just fine and I’ve even got an inline remote that came with one of my MD players that is essentially the same thing that originally shipped with the 985s.

I certainly don’t need two of the same model in my collection (even if they’re different colors) so I’ll be eBaying the silver one this weekend.

 

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Fly My Pretties, FLY!

These are the members of McConnell’s staff the criminal conspiracy who are keeping his status a secret from the American people.  Let’s fill up their email boxes and let them know how we feel about this.

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Perks Of Being 60 (Or More) Years Old

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation, you’re likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run—anywhere.
4. People call at 8 pm and ask, “Did I wake you?”
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There’s nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now probably won’t wear out.
8. You can eat supper at 4:30 pm—and no one will question it.
9. You can live without sex, but not without your glasses.
10. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable level.

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Morning Tunes

Hott City – Ain’t Love Grand (1979)

This album—although never a commercial success (and as far as I know, the group’s only release)—holds a very special place in my heart. One of the few pieces of vinyl to survive my expensively-stupid great purge in the late 80s, I still have the original white vinyl copy that Steve Golden gave me all those many, many years ago.

Needless to say, it was quite a treat to stumble across the CD in 2024.

Don’t judge me.

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Just When You Think They Can’t Go Any Lower, They Pull Out A Backhoe

never underestimate the ability of the shitweasels in the Donnyverse to take current events and clownfuck them into something evil.

remember those four young service members who lost their lives last week, while fighting in Preznit Fuckwit’s pointless and illegal don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran — the ones who Donny dishonored at their dignified transfer, by using them as props, and putting his own disgraceful words into their lifeless mouths?

well, apparently the Pentagon doesn’t want you to remember, because they just un-personned them.

read on, and prepare to get super fucking angry.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran.

By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war.

what in the hallowed name of Memory-Hole Jesus is this bullshit?

when The New York Times committed a journalism and asked for an explanation, Pentagon spokespeople were basically ‘hamina hamina hamina,’vomiting out multiple, conflicting excuses.

of the three shifting alibis, this one’s my favorite:

Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.

oh really, Pentagon? that’s what you want to go with, that ‘it’s technically not a war, so they’re technically not war dead’?

fuck you. fuck you completely. repeat that explanation to the faces of those service members’ families. I dare you.

you better believe we’re in a war — an unwinnable one that Dear Leader started — but these double-talking sons of bitches are going out of their way to call it anything but.

oh look, somebody taught Lord Shitticus a new word.

“and that’s what this— skirmish we have going on, I call it a skirmish. this is with this skirmish we have with the ISLAMIC REPUBLIC— of Iran. and I call it that. because, let me tell you, they are getting hit so hard. and they want to make a deal. but I say they’re not ready to make a deal. because every time they make a deal they want to change it, and everything. they’re not ready. they’ll be ready very soon.”

sweat-drenched loser says what?

listen to Donny try to weasel out of culpability for the death, destruction and chaos he’s wrought. oh, it’s just a wee skirmish. what’s the big deal?

that’s not what a skirmish is, you demented fuck.

A skirmish is a brief, minor fight or a small argument. It usually happens away from the main battle or is an unplanned disagreement. [1, 2, 3]

sorry pal. skirmishes don’t get the Strait of Hormuz shut down, nor do they send the price of oil into the stratosphere. wars do that shit.

who do you imagine taught Donny to say ‘skirmish’? do you think it was Nosferatu McGoebbels? nah, that doesn’t sound like him. it was probably Donny’s stalker-slash-diaper-nurse, The Human Printer. she was with Dear Leader at the dignified transfer.

why on earth did Natalie Harp need to be there?

look, we all know why the Pentagon erased these four fallen: because they didn’t want Donny to be embarrassed by the ever-rising death toll in the reckless WAR he started for no coherent reason at all.

that’s just disgraceful.

the Pentagon won’t say their names, so it’s up to us.

They died serving our country. They should be honored, not erased.
Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Hawaii
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Texas
Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28, of New York
Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of North Carolina

holy shit, Uncle Jeff, did you just agree with Bill Kristol, posting on Elon’s Nazi Bar and Child Porn Emporium, of all places?

yes, I did. that’s how far through the looking glass we are.

it’s all so galling. We the People deserve so much better than this. We the People deserve truth and accountability, not a war machine that hides its dead so the colicky piss-baby in the Oval Bordello won’t throw a tantrum.

“we are closing schools and hospitals in this country, so we can bomb schools and hospitals in other countries. there is never enough money for education and healthcare, but there’s always enough money for war. this morning, we learned that one of our own, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, was killed by an Iranian airstrike in Jordan. Isabella grew up in Carrollton, not too far from here. she was just 19 years old. she just graduated from Hebron High School. Isabella was sent to serve in a reckless war that no one asked for. we pay for it with our tax dollars. Isabella paid for it with her life.”

full disclosure: I may have teared up a bit just now, while typing out that transcription.

your reminder that the guy Talarico is running against — Ken Paxton — is a serial adulterer who let a confessed child rapist walk the streets of Texasthrough some sweetheart plea deal, just like the one Donny’s dead pedo bestie got in Florida.

that’s what the Texas Senate race is all about. honor vs dishonor.

Isabella Gonzales was nineteen years old, and sent to die in a war that some easily-manipulated fuckhead started because his despot bestie Bibi Netanyahu goaded him into it, and his piss-drunk Secretary of Death assured him it would be done and won in an afternoon.

say her name. say all their names.

Donny Convict is such a fucking imbecile.

I realize that just saying that breaks no new ground. in fact, it’s the main topic of conversation around here — but some days he just out-stupids himself.

look what he posted to his crappy app.

MAGA CANDIDATES WON EVERYTHING LAST NIGHT IN ARIZONA, A COMPLETE SWEEP!!! I WON ARIZONA 18 MONTHS AGO. THE DUMOCRATS ARE DUMBFOUNDED. AFTER DECADES, ARIZONA IS BECOMING A REPUBLICAN STATE. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL! President DONALD J. TRUMP

isn’t it stunning that the president of the United States has no idea how primaries work?

do you think maybe Donny’s diaper nurse could take him aside and explain to him that the reason Republicans won in Arizona was because only Republicans run in Republican primaries?

maybe she could also explain to him how batteries work.

“… did with the Green New Scam, where— we were scammed. the whole country was— I wasn’t scammed, I got it right from the beginning. I got it from— the first minute when I heard this crap. you know? they were saying wind was so wonderful, so wonderful. except you couldn’t— watch your television. they wanted to watch the debate. Donald Trump against Sleepy Joe Biden, nobody could watch it because the wind wasn’t blowing. remember that? ‘darling, we’d like to watch the debate tonight. I’m sorry, the wind isn’t blowing.’”

what in the actual small-batch artisanal fuck is Dear Leader gibbering about? how are the nice men with the butterfly nets not interrupting Donny in the middle of his reverie to carry him off to a padded cell? the man’s brain has gone fuckity-bye.

if Joe Biden had ever told a story about ‘they couldn’t watch TV because wind,’ the press would have had a field day. five new books would have come flying out of Jake Tapper’s ass, on the spot.

and yet, when Dear Leader does it, crickets.

let’s do a quick fact check: did this happen? was ‘nobody’ able to watch the Donny-Biden debate because ‘the wind wasn’t blowing’ — or is it a thing that never happened the most?

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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