I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

January 13, 2016 - 1:04 p.m.

DEW Line Sensors

I'm opting for honest today. Two of my favorite people have told me that the love how positive I am. My general philosophy is positive; I think it is best to always look on the bright side of life. But it's now always how I feel and sometimes I get frustrated from not showing it. So today I'm going to be honest and say I feel bad. When I got home last night I went into the cascade of what's wrong with my life. I know that's not a good place to be and broke away but I still feel it trying to break to the front of my consciousness. I saw that Brianne was online and talked to her for a while. That helped a lot. One of the bad things in my life is the lack of people to talk to when I'm not feeling "on," so it helps both to talk and to know there is someone I can talk to. OK so now you know how I feel as I write this. So now I'll write about yesterday but I might end up not being on. Maybe I will, maybe the wit and the insights will come. Maybe they won't. I'm not going to worry about it. Yes, I am. I am going to worry about it because I'm writing about people, many of them are people that know me and know how I usually write peppy little posts that are often quotable enough to end up in press kits. Hey I'm sorry if that doesn't happen today.

Last night was the second Tuesday of the month so I was at John Platt's On Your Radar. I should say this, it's officially simply "On Your Radar" I add the "John Platt's" because there are many things called "On Your Radar" and I want people to realize which one it is. That was my choice not John's. To me the series is about John's taste, he's central to it. If someone else took over it would get his or her name. You know it's my dream to have my own series that would reflect my taste; it's similar to but different that John's.

Last night's guests were EFRAT, The Steamboats, and Terry Kitchen & Mara Levine. I actually don't know who gets top billing in that duo. This was alphabetical by last night. That's now why I did it. I did it because last time I put Mara first.

Ok another aside, no links that aren't automated and no pictures today. I'm not feeling up to it and it's late. Eating might make me feel better so I'm trying to get this finished.

I got there only five minutes before theoretical doors. I try to go down early to grab my seat and say hi to the performers. Things were running a bit late so it was more than 5 minutes before doors. A number of the regulars were missing, I sat with Marty who texted me and asked me to save him a seat, Fred wasn't there so he got Fred's at my table.

Mara & Terry were up first. I met Terry years ago at SMAF but haven't seen him much since. Mara is part of my crowd. What do they do? I don't know. I'm going to give myself a pass on distilling their essence as I always try to do. Sometimes it doesn't come to me. I know, they sing really well. I heard Mara on the radio the other day and thought at first it might be Joan Baez.

Steamboat is one of those male high harmony groups. When did that become a thing? There's banjo, mandolin, and guitar. Two thirds are my Brooklyn peeps but clearly not in my social circles.

EFRAT is actually Efrat Shapira's band. It is not an acronym. She's one of my good friends and a The Budgiedome alumni. I was the emcee for her album release show. In her short set she did two unusual things, first a Bowie song, one I don't know. I think it might be from Blackstar which would explain it as I have only listened to that once. Then she did a new instrumental. Oh I see I didn't mention that she's a violinist. You know my thing for violinists. The instrumental was genreless, which fits her background, she's done classical, klezmer, bluegrass, jazz, and Americana. What it was is good, the rest is trivia.

After the show hung out with Allison and Joe for a while. I keep seeing them. That is not a complaint. This is my fourth time in this short year, New Year's Eve, the house concert at Coco's, Scott's CD release, and last night. Then I hung out with Bob for over an hour. I didn't even see him before the show. We strongly disagree in politics and had a nice talk on why that shouldn't stop people from being friends. We talked about a lot of other things too. He gave John homemade cookies and John gave me one so Bob will always be on my good side. He gives me chocolate.

I never found time for dinner so I had peanut butter on a bagel when I got home. Imagine how bad I'd have felt if I didn't have one of my favorite foods. Of course it's not my idea of dinner and days when I don't cook a real dinner feel like a failure. It was well after 11.

Sorry for the lack of pictures but I got home late and wasn't feeling happy and slept late this morning. I'll post them on Facebook today. I'm going to try and finish my set list for Tuesday when I join Brian on his radio show on WFDU. You don't want to miss that. It's a recap of my favorite albums of 2015.

I won't go into the existential angst which is what really gets me down but two of the things nickel and diming me. I just had a conflict with my toilet that I won with the aid of a plunger but that happens too annoying and my room is as cold as Falcon Ridge at night. One sweatshirt is not quite enough. I am going to buy a space heater today. I found a cheap one at Target. The landlady will pay for it.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile January 13, 2016
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