The this and that of the world from newsworthy to interesting to the mundane.
June 11, 2025
Modern protestors and rioters are an odd mix of narcissists, whiners and mentally unwell people who only believe in their own entitlement without consideration for society at large. They see our cities, streets and public spaces as their stage to perform. There is also this strange cottage industry composed of live streamers outside of traditional media outlets who make money following these crazy people around as they cause their chaos. A strange and bizarre world these days.
June 10, 2025
June 07, 2025
Andy Warhol in the United States flag in 1983. People unfamiliar with Warhol might be surprised to learn how proud he was to be American.
American life in 2025: the more I think about it, maybe the country needs some level of insanity as a reset to saner times. The country has been out of whack for the past twenty-five years.
Kim Wilde - Kids In America (1981)
June 03, 2025
Hearing tonight that Edmund White, gay literary legend and personal favorite, has died at eighty-five. He will be missed, but he left a wonderful legacy and lived a long and rich life.
May 31, 2025
May 27, 2025
Sitting in my cozy office this evening listening to a podcast by Richard Dawkins. The weather outside is unique and nice for late May. It is breezy and cool in the upper 50s after more storms this afternoon. In the last three days we have had 3.79 inches of rainfall which made for a soggy Memorial Day. This is the wettest May I can remember with almost eleven inches of rain so far this month. I have long suspected that I would be quite happy living in the Pacific Northwest with all of their dreary weather.
May 19, 2025
May 10, 2025
May 07, 2025
I finished reading Donna Tartt's epically long novel The Goldfinch this evening. It was the book that never wanted to end and was filled with tedious, repetitive rants from characters who should have all died in the most excruciating manner. I have to ask: how was this ever published, was there an editor and how in the fuck did that win a Pulitzer Prize? The book was so terrible and such a flagrant ripoff of Great Expectations that it made me angry.
More evidence that you are being manipulated by AI and bots on the internet and that Reddit is no better than any other service.
April 30, 2025
This month has went by so quickly. Onward to May. Spring, like autumn, is festival season and so far I've been to two.
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There was the Chamblee arts festival, which had the feeling or as some say "vibe" of "put a bird on it" from Portlandia.
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| Braselton, Georgia. Photo by me, April 2025. |
Then there was the Braselton antique and arts festival which had no antiques and the art was velvet Jesus paintings and Gulf of America tee shirts. It was located on a farm and parking was in a muddy field that was filled with fire ants. It was like walking through a muddy minefield.
From 1978, Every Kinda People by Robert Palmer. This song reminds me of the late seventies as a carefree kid on the boat and shopping in the air conditioned department stores with my mother. The seventies were such a different time.
April 19, 2025
Love Tractor - Spin Your Partner. This video features an old tractor at the beginning that was identical to my grandfather's. I loved riding on that tractor as a boy.
April 10, 2025
Crossing Lake Lanier today as storms tried to overtake me from the north. Today I realized that I have settled into this lifestyle adjustment almost four years since moving away from the city. I do not believe I could be dragged back to a city and especially not Atlanta. People who I have not spoken to for the last decade would not recognize my life. All that matters is that I recognize myself.
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| I-985 near Gainesville, Ga. |
Symbolic of this time in America.
Terence Trent D'Arby - Sign Your Name (1987)
April 08, 2025
I can't write enough about how much I like Cindy Lee's newish Diamond Jubilee album and the title track. I've been listening to it for a couple of months now.
April 07, 2025
One of the peonies, though beautiful, chose the wrong time to bloom during two rain soaked days. There was 3.13 inches of beneficial rainfall on Sunday and Monday. March was very dry and this was a help to start April. So far this month, we have had 3.68 inches total. The roses have begun to bloom and the tulips have been nice here at home too.
Son Volt - Drown
April 02, 2025
The internet has become so gamed with spam, propaganda, nefarious algorithms and AI that it is near impossible to use for any meaningful purpose. The internet of the 1990s and early 2000s may have been slower, but it was more genuine and useful then. People were also still living in reality and were not having their brain consumed by the internet.
March 28, 2025
March 21, 2025
March 08, 2025
February 26, 2025
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| Jay Sebring |
After watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood again tonight (I love that movie), I looked up Jay Sebring. I had known enough about the Cielo Drive murders to be familiar with it, but I decided to learn more about Jay Sebring. I did not know he was born in Birmingham, Alabama or was a well known hairstylist or that he was that beautiful. I need to learn more.
February 24, 2025
I watched the Tom Green documentary and it was certainly not what I expected. I enjoyed his absurdist humor back at the height of his popularity, but where his life is now is a dramatic shift. He and I are roughly the same age and I do understand the desire to get away to the woods as he has done, but it is obvious he does not have the same edge and sharpness that he once had. The change seems to be more than just a mellowing out that comes with age. I still think he's interesting, if in a different way.
February 21, 2025
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| Monroe, Georgia this week. |
It was 17 degrees this morning. This was likely the last day of teens until next winter. It has been a cold week, but the tulips and the lilies are coming up from hibernation.
Another good week of writing as I find my way through this next novel.
This might have something to do with the next novel.
February 20, 2025
The ideological capture of the corpse of what was Atlanta's gay and lesbian newspaper that was once known as Southern Voice is sad. It happened years ago in an effort to appear more trendy and hip. That shift alienated its audience who supported it for decades and started the paper. It is no wonder that it recently changed ownership again. I hate that they presume to represent gay and lesbian Georgians because they don't and most of them rarely if ever leave their perches in the city.
In this recent post they cannot even see their own intellectual dishonesty and revisionist history. They revel in it. It is no better than the other side.
This was the announcement when it was sold in 1997. Reading it is like opening a time capsule on what was a newspaper for gays and lesbians.
February 19, 2025
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| Flowery Branch, Georgia on Monday |
Dark days are here. Even Nixon in his most corrupt and dangerous moments would not have thought of doing this. In the span of my life, we as a society in this country have changed to a degree that was unthinkable. People have gone so far off the deep end that they are unable to recognize what is normal and what is abnormal. The danger is ever present and people go on without blinking.
"Oh beautiful for spacious skies and now those skies are threatening. They're beating plowshares into swords for this tired old man that we elected king. Armchair warriors often fail and we've been poisoned by these fairy tales."
Don Henley - The End of the Innocence (1989)
February 14, 2025
Mid twenties this morning and it is spectacular. Writing has been going well on the next novel.
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| Blossom Dearie 1966. |
Blossom Dearie - I'm Hip Take that Beatniks.
February 13, 2025
Checked the rain gauge this morning and after the heavy rain overnight, the two day total climbed to 4.4 inches. It was the heaviest rainfall since Hurricane Helene. That was nice to get heading into Spring.
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| A beautiful and charming album cover from 1957. |
Grieg - Lyric Pieces
February 11, 2025
Winter returned today with rain and upper 30s.
Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains
February 10, 2025
99X is like the alternative nursing home or a pet project to give the original staff something to do in their waning years. How much of the 'getting the gang back together' needs to be done?
A few years ago driving through central Illinois, I scanned the radio dial and landed on WPGU, an alternative station run by students at the University of Illinois in Champaign. It is how a modern alternative radio station should sound. Granted most new alternative music is pretty limp.
February 06, 2025
This warm spell can end now, I enjoyed it, but I'm ready for winter to return.
Meta, owner of Facebook, stole millions of copyrighted books and used them to train their AI. Hmmm. Zuckerberg stole the idea behind Facebook so what's new? And Aaron Swartz was prosecuted by the government and killed himself over making academic journals publishing tax payer funded research available to the public for free? Everyone should watch the documentary about Aaron which is available for free on the Internet Archive and elsewhere.
February 04, 2025
I went for a walk for a few miles yesterday in the seventy degree weather - it's too early to be this warm. I pondered how the internet is increasingly clogged by bots, fake content and AI. The internet is close to being ruined. Monetizing social media has helped that along as people are desperate for clicks. It should be required by law that if you monetize a social media account, say for example on Facebook, that it should be disclosed on every post and then I can decide who to block. Also, I wish there was a way to block every stupid reaction video and scummy "influencer" on Youtube. Lastly, after reading Reddit for the last couple of weeks, I realize it is nothing but propaganda and much of it is fake and misleading too.
January 29, 2025
I loved Mr. Roboto by Styx as a ten year old kid in 1983. I was listening to the lyrics this morning and now I understand why.
January 24, 2025
Four days with snow on the ground this week and today is hopefully the day the last of it melts. In my mind, I am floating in the ocean on my back, I smell coconut scented sunscreen and Jefferson Starship's Miracles is playing.
January 20, 2025
Today begins whatever the next four years brings. It feels like falling off a cliff and not being able to see the bottom. It's a crazy fucking country.
Living in America - James Brown (1985)
January 18, 2025
The potential snow threat in Georgia for Tuesday will be a non-event here with possibly flurries. The best chances for snow will be Macon southward. I'm glad it will be nothing of note this far north.
I don't know what the U.S. will become in two days, but my expectations will be low and that it will become more dangerous and ugly.
Edge of America - Duran Duran
January 14, 2025
After four inches of snow on Friday and having the snow linger on the ground until Monday, we have the full moon tonight known as the Wolf Moon.
Loafing last night, I heard Hayfever by The Trashcan Sinatras and now I'm listening to the entire album, I've Seen Everything from 1993. It is good stuff that I missed out on when I was twenty from one of those bands who I often heard about, but never paid attention to before.
January 09, 2025
Daybreak Thursday looking southwest from the second floor of the house. It was 19 degrees this morning and there was a herd of six deer on the front lawn. The deer foraged and walked in the direction of the river as they readied for the winter storm coming on Friday. The snowfall should be heavy in the morning before mixing with sleet. It will be a significant storm and that is exciting.
Rush - Tom Sawyer
January 08, 2025
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| Brasstown Bald. |
The late afternoon view from a camera atop Georgia's highest peak at 4,784 feet shows snow and ice in place before Friday's storm. Further south, here at home, at 1,000 feet we made it above freezing for four entire hours today for a high 37. The ground is frozen as hard as concrete. A pair of large doe deer ate berries in the front yard early this morning when it was 23 degrees. I'm expecting in the neighborhood of three to four inches of snow with potentially some sleet for Friday.
The Chameleons - View from a Hill
January 07, 2025
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| Louisville |
My former home of Louisville saw nine to ten inches of snow over the weekend. I was envious. This coming Friday it appears that it will snow here in Georgia. It won't likely be eight or ten inches and it will be only the second time it has snowed since purchasing this house in almost three and a half years. I look forward to it.
Slint - Washer
January 05, 2025
Hotel Costes 4 - London In The Rain
January 02, 2025
Facebook plans to unleash more AI and bots on the service. Of course this news is buried during the holidays and at the same time as the new overreaching terms of service go into effect. It is overrun with AI garbage now and flooding it with even more sounds perfect. I hope people have had enough and finally let it dry up and fly away. (Rollingstone article)
Continue reading The Road & The Trail for 2024.
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