Saturday 3/27/21
* All of these mass shootings in our country. "Fitty" becomes more relevant by the month. A story entirely of our times that is timeless. I feel like I am offering history on a platter to these people in publishing. There it is. This is history. All you have to do is reach down and take it. And their hate for me is so great, that that cancels out all else. Though I have done nothing to these people. I feel like I am offering them the best story that they have ever received, or could ever receive, and they just answer to other things. Other things determine all. And they're not good things, and they're not fair things, and they're not things that have anything to do with the work. Someone puts this work out there, and it will explode, because it's the best work in American fiction, and it's the most important.
* You glance at social media and you see that people will do anything for attention. They must have attention because they have nothing else. One sees those people who "mark themselves safe" at every chance they get, no matter that the event in question occurred 270 miles from their home. Anything to say, "Look at me, please, please, please, please look at me." For no valid, earthly reason save the hollowness of the life. And the subsequent need.
* If there is a more annoying commercial than that Geico "scoop there it is" one, I don't know it.
* Today I walked ten miles, ran the back-up stairs ten times, then did ten hill sprints. These back-up stairs are strange. I walked past them many times, and thought they only went up a short distance. Then I ran them, and realized there was another level. Well, it turns out there are like six other levels, I discovered today after I was done with the regular ninety. There must be like 300 stairs here. It could be a goodly amount more, actually. I had thought the stairs off on the other side of this road were private stairs, but they're part of this entire ascent, which is called Summit Path.
* I sent a piece to the New York Post.
* I sent an idea about Jelly Roll Morton to JazzTimes.
* I think I'll probably be doing something important tomorrow regarding the Beatles book.
* I will do, perhaps, a post at some point on my beliefs regarding masks, which I am certain are not like anyone else's views regarding masks. But I will say in the interim that the hectoring, pietic mask culture is one that nonetheless allows for our great love of gluttony. As if gluttony is sacred. A birthright of Americans now. Mask culture dictates, "You must wear this or you are very bad," but with the addendum of, "unless, of course, it's time for you to ram a giant sub down your gullet. Then, by all means, ram that sub, because that takes precedence, of course." It's never, "Wait until you're home, big boy." It's comical as I walk around and see someone maskless--same person who wishes to lambast you if they had the courage as you hone your body and mind--just ramming food into their gob. You care so much, huh? But you couldn't wait until you're back inside, where you spend most of your life?
* You're much more likely to succumb to heart disease. Which becomes a yet riskier proposition with drink. When we are we going to talk about those things?
* Almost everything is about power. The less of a life someone has, the more power they want. The less talent someone has, the more power they crave. The more self-doubt, the higher the valuation of power. It's meant to fill in gaps. To take empty pockets and put something in them. A paste. There is an impulse for control. Beethoven controlled the power of the music he composed. His primary outlet. Most lives now are so lacking and empty, that this impulse has nowhere to go. It goes to sad, angry, pathetic reaches at power. Power is then underwritten by rhetoric. The stock phrases we now use to lie to ourselves. Rhetoric is underwritten by how commonplace it is, and how many people are using the same rhetoric. Because they are in the same situation. They're less individual people than they are constituents of a kind of oozing mass. The mass tries to force untruths into being truths. Because that's easier. And they have those numbers on their side. The digital age means they also have mob rule/bullying on their side as well. This age ambulates the mass. Hardly anyone cares about anything, really. Look at what people pretend to care about today. They didn't care about it even in the pretend way two years ago. Five years ago. They wouldn't care about it now. Because it's not about what they care about. It's about what enough of them are doing. And doing so that they can tell themselves they're a good person. And for attention. And the pocket-paste of which I've spoken. But none of it is real. What is real is usually despised.
* A problem to be solved.
* Boston College advanced in the NCAA hockey tournament because of a COVID issue for Notre Dame. Someone testing positive, I assume. It occurred to me that you could win the title without playing a game. Think about it: BC plays tomorrow, and if they win, they go to the Frozen Four. So at most you have three games left to win it all. Let's say each of their next three opponents have to forfeit. Do you then win it all? You didn't play a game, and another team--the one who made the finals--would have had to win three games. They'd be 3-0--or 3-1, technically--and you'd be 0-0. That is the system in place right now, so that's how it'd be. That really should not be the system in place. They're just counting on that not happening. But it's not impossible.
* Blind Willie Johnson and Tommy Johnson could have had a great blues-off.
* I read an interview with the director responsible for that infamous Orson Welles "drunken" Paul Masson wine commercial. I always knew there was something else at play. Welles wouldn't have been drunk, slurring his words, because he was "bombed." He was never that way. And he worked far too hard and did too much to have been that way. The director said Welles had been shooting all night on a project in Las Vegas, gotten in his limo, taken a sleeping pill to sleep during the ride, and then didn't sleep at all, and was pretty out of it when he got to this other job. They tried it, obviously he couldn't remember or say his lines, so he had a nap, and then everything was fine. Goes to show you though how much people always wanted to nail this guy. To get him. Catch him looking bad. Probably one of the ten smartest people ever to live. And a lot of people didn't like that.
* Saw some of the Bruins game today. The Sabres--lowly Sabres--were competitive for most of it. They tried. Charlie McAvoy was easily the best player on the ice for either team. Showed juke and creativity in the offensive zone. Tried to truck a few people, too, but didn't really line them up. He plays an angry game, in a controlled way.
* As I run my stairs, people have been shouting things at me of late--mostly bros, and hot women. The bros give me these hard looks--like they're embroiled in an intense, bro-y evaluation process--and then say, "Get it!" The hot women say a variant of, "Wow, you're doing amazing! Keep it up!" I don't know what to say to these people. I usually opt for a manly nod. Of the variety where you have much sweat on the brow, so you can only nod a little bit, lest you shake the sweat droplets into your eyes. Then there are the elderly. They simply like to say, "good morning." To this I respond with words. People like a nice, "good to see you."
* I'm watching 1952's Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford and Jack Palance, and I have to admit, I'm sort of rooting for Jack Palance, because I don't like Joan Crawford very much, but I don't like Jack Palance much either.
* I bought Easter cards for my nieces and nephew. That they do not like Peanuts makes this more challenging. (NB: Who doesn't like Peanuts? Consider judging the children harshly. I'm joking! Relax. But, still.)
