Lit City Blues

Ok, I'm three years in, and I'm going to start expanding some of these and defining them a bit more clearly. You'll notice some blank spaces because I'm still thinking about what to do for a lot of them and will add them over the course of the year to hopefully be fully updated by next year. (Also, I'm not sure I did this last year at all? So if I skipped a year, I'm sorry.) My 42nd revolution around the sun began with a trip to Colorado to see Brandi Carlile in concert with the Missus. We went to see the sunrise over Rocky Mountain National Park. We did some hiking. It was a great way to spend a birthday. 50 Before 50 Self Improvement 1. Run a 5K: I honestly don't think I'll do it more than once, because I'm not a runner by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd like to do it once, unless there's a walking challenge or something I can do? 2. Ride the whole week of RAGBRAI:  Again, I did a day, so why not the whole week? (Plus, I know it mig...

This was going to be a completely different post, but as usual, the never-ending slurry of chum that is the political feeding frenzy in this country changed all that. Originally, I was thinking I would chip away at this notion that the internet seems to be convincing itself that the Democratic Party's approval rating is somehow indicative of their impending doom. Arguably, the generic ballot at this point in the cycle paints a different picture, and a lot of the disapproval of the Democratic Party is coming from their own voters, angry at the party's general impotence and the fecklessness of the DNC in general. So, it's a talking point I don't particularly rate all that much. At this point on Twitter, it's essentially clickbait/ragebait more than anything else. (Ditto with any tweet that ends with THIS IS HUGE-- I assure you, it's not particularly HUGE. So, calm down... and stop inventing Tweet genres. It's annoying.) That got me thinking, though: are we in ...

I think the first time I ever listened to Talking Heads was on CD in my parents' old stereo system. I know technology is a wonderful thing and blah blah blah, but I was thinking about that stereo system the other day. The speakers were strategically placed around the room. The record player, the CD player, the cassette player, all in one cabinet with storage below for vinyl records. The way the sound bars jumped and shifted with the music in that late 80s-'90s kind of way. (Side note: am I the only one old enough to remember seeing neon markers for the first time? That was like an event when someone had magenta, electric blue, hot pink, and neon yellow markers in elementary school.) But the album that introduced me to Talking Heads was Stop Making Sense . It took me years before I actually got around to watching the movie (often cited as one of the best concert movies ever made, something I would co-sign.) I had a greatest hits compilation on CD ( Sand In The Vaseline: Popular ...

If you ever watched The X-Files when it was on back in the day, you will be very familiar with the poster that hangs in Agent Mulder's office of a UFO hovering over the landscape with the bold caption: I WANT TO BELIEVE.  In our current time of nonsense, I find myself drifting more and more to the position of I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE, because every time the internet gets all riled up over some sign that our populist fever is breaking or some indication that there's a scandal that might finally have the current President dead to rights, it never seems to go anywhere. But very quietly, I'm starting to wonder about the following: 1. The Nativist Delusion: Real Or Cope? Illegal immigrants have become the Right's answer for every social ill, in much the same way that structural racism was blamed for every social ill by the Left at the height of Woke. We can slice and dice Medicaid and Medicare because it's costing so much because of all the illegals on it. Can't f...

  1. Look, I've been saying it for years now, but this has to be the year of Book 4. It's grinding away, little by little but at minimum, I'm going to get this damn thing into a workable draft format this year. If I'm very lucky and write very well, I might be into revisions by the end of the year and beating into shape for a final draft and a release. I have no idea why this is taking so long. I have no excuses to offer. I just really, really want to get this- at a minimum- closer to the finish line this year.  I sat on Book 4 for the majority of the first quarter and I'm breaking back into it now. I think I have a better handle on where I'd like to take it, but it remains a work in progress! 2. Let's Get Some Vinyl: I finally got another tattoo and will probably get another at some point this year, but I really want this year to be the year I expand and actually use/listen to our vinyl collection more. We need more storage for it and I'd like to make p...

Happy Birthday, America.  It's an odd one this year. I think there's a saying floating around out there in the universe that America is a country that will try literally everything else before doing the thing they know they're going to need to do in the first place. President Trump got his big, beautiful bill. We get no tax on overtime until 2028. Seniors get a $6,000 tax cut just because, and the rich get yet another tax break, and the social safety net gets shredded a little more. I might be inclined to believe that things will work out in the end, and they might, in a half-assed, mediocre sort of way, because President Trump seems to have preternatural amounts of luck. We heard a lot of talk about the Biden Economy and how people were suffering under the Biden Economy, and there were people who felt that, but a lot of people didn't see any difference at all. What if the script flips? What if some people get burned, and for a lot of people, their tax refunds get bigge...