Start 'em.

Is that the time? Are you sure? Seems like the sun just went down. Are you certain that THAT is the sun coming up again? Possible that it's just a distant thermo-nuclear explosion. Think of the times we live in. No? Okay .... morning. Uhhhhhlll.

Hey, don't look at me like that. Everybody .... and I do mean EVERYbody ... gets caught in the Winter doldrums, bobbing around between the cross currents of time, never catching a break until the first signs of impending spring. Not that this is all that much of a Winter. I mean, it's been 30s and 40s for about a week now, here in the dead of January in upstate New York. But despite the freakish weather, we try to hold on to tradition here. We of Big Green don't give a damn about how nice it is outside. It's winter, damn it, and we're determined to get nothing done.

While it shouldn't, this includes work on music and other sound stuff. That's been kind of stalled, frankly, but again ... doldrums. That said, we should be back in the studio on Friday if we can stay awake that long. I'm starting to think we have some bear-like ancestry back a few generations - I have a strong inclination towards hibernation. In fact, I'm getting sleepy as I type this. Bouncing bowling ball ... riding up the side of a dragon's tail. Yep, sleepy.

I know ... we should all be beating the bushes for work, right? Of course, that presupposes the notion that we give a flying fuck. As that web video makes clear, honey badger just don't give a fuck. Besides, why should we beat the bushes? Haven't they suffered enough? And what about the law of averages? If we all strive to excel, NO ONE will be average anymore. Isn't that a violation of the law? Sounds like it to me!

These are matters that consume the mind and confound the soul. Or confound the mind and ... confuse the soul? Soul Confusion - there's a good name for a band. See? I'm already working hard, friends. Goodbye winter doldrums. And so on.

Swear in.

This past Christmas, my sister gave me the box set of John Lewis's graphic memoir March, about his early days as an organizer, civil rights leader, and founder of SNCC. It's a great story and pretty timely, as the principles of non-violent activism and resistance are likely to come in handy in the coming years. Of course, as you know, John Lewis has been in the news over the last few days, though not because of his books. He spoke ill of our president-electoral, as Sam Seder so accurately calls him, and that naturally brought a somewhat delayed social media response from Herr Mr. Hair, who drunk tweeted about John Lewis being all "talk, talk, talk," and never getting anything accomplished.

Lots of people have taken issue with this reaction, and more than 50 sitting congresspeople elected not to attend Trump's inauguration as a protest. And this incident is being spun in the media as just another instance of the president-electoral not being able to let any critical comment pass, of being too thin-skinned or too sensitive. I have to say, though, that I think there's more to this social media rant than just the T-bone's usual expression of his hyper narcissism. This incident seriously smells of Bannon, which is to say that it's a strategic tirade, aimed at a very specific audience.

Remember that Trump's alt-right fans follow him on Twitter. They're his attack dogs - when he Twitter bombs someone, they pile onto the carcass. Ripping on John Lewis is prime grade red meat for those fuckers, and what better time to pull it off than on Martin Luther King day? I took a look at David Duke's Twitter feed and saw that he posted a photo of Congressman Lewis with the headline: "Another loud-mouth, do-nothing Democrat. No hero here - just another Racist; zero results for blacks his entire tenure in house!" That's just a slight variation on Trump's message, which Duke posted under the hashtag MAGA - "make America great again".

As the Cheeto-headed freak takes control (the nuclear codes in his pocket), bear in mind that he is not just a thin-skinned loudmouth. He is part of the broader reactionary political machine that encompasses Congressional Republicans, conservative foundations, rogue billionaires, and sheet-wearing (as well as non-sheet wearing) Klansmen. The problem is bigger than just one man.

luv u,

jp