I'm not saying that the food was  NECESSARILY BAD... I mean nobody looked really sick to me, except some of the golfers, and Bachelor-party bro's.  But I couldn't really remark upon what was served for dinner, because dinner was again more or less a stand-up affair somewhere between the 75-deep four-row bar line, for "Signature Cocktails", and some crazy Kevin Bacon dance marathon. WAIT!, What were your two "signature cocktails"?  Oh, Never-mind; Those were maybe sooo elaborate with that shrubbery, and the giant laser-etched ice-cubes, that everyone just skipped to the self-serve wine and beer from the galvanized farmer feed tub.  (Nice touch!)  The staff no sooner threw the opening pitch out there with airline dinner rolls, before they began collecting cutlery from North to South. The West facing faux vineyard back-drop where the sun seemed pleasing enough, was lovely -- But it really scorched the babies, and the elderly aunts, and uncles.  I'm not so sure that wasn't just corn just behind a single trellis of concord grapes, but you can blur that in photo-shop.
We'll all call it a vineyard.  Anyway the clever use of the same floor-plan in these "Vineyard Barns" sure helped with guest orientation.  That they can make that same "wedding-barn-back-drop"  in 46 states, makes the bathroom far simpler to locate. For Sure, And I loved not having to drive afterwards, but maybe I should have just taken the early shuttle, before the dirty line-dancing, and the embarrassing stuff started. Also, given the two hour bus ride back into town... It was a bit like being captive in a slasher-zombie film noir.   ​

I would, -- But I'm watching the Season Finale of the United States that weekend...
Sometimes, all I can hear is this sustained hissing sound...  An extended effects reel of some 80's soda ad.; where constant fizzy bubbles tinkle like champagne against the top of my scull.  Foamy white-noise filling my consciousness, drowns my space-suit pajamas with a soothing  hiss. Here I lay still, mute, noise-cancelled -- Beneath the covers,  under the influence [of]  CBD,  synthetic melatonin, and Red Bordeaux. It would seem that every damn evening I tediously coax myself to sleep bewitched with terror, for the future. In this drugged space-time of my mute dread, I realize that when I was a kid, none of this shit mattered whatsoever. Yet, it's really tough to get back to that place.  Nothingness is [was] Bliss.
Today, I feel nothing for our future, it will not, (does not), belong to me.  My numb angst, panning the room by kindle-light, a cold glow casting shadows upon daily detritus, dirty dishes, or dead or dying plants.  My glowing inanimate still-life lay about a shadowy room, exquisite corpses cutely curled, petrified chalky Pompeii figures asleep -- While I am awake.  We are all waiting to fall asleep.  We have all been waiting to fall asleep for some time now. We would fall asleep at the wheel far faster, and once we have trashed this place we'll vanish from our shitty baby-sitting jobs, leaving the next gen to clean up the mess and fend.
Maturity dreams of itself poolside... in some idyllic Conde' Nast construct. But your maturity has actually gone 'Golfing' on some public course, leaving the kids home alone. Those in charge DNGAF about the Future, because they will be dead soon.  Golf Carts are re-fitted with ramps, wide-screens, Fox-News, A.C.. and Wi-Fi, while drivers re-write comfort into climate policy. Uninterested geezers have "Gone fishing"; or some equally slow-paced sport... whilst a half dozen Hot-Pockets thaw on the countertop, "the kids are alright", right? In this house salty packets of heart disease soften, because elderly adults run the country, and  APPs run the  microwave. Cooking, is a skill like cursive writing, or dancing, which is now as dead as the term Hip-Hop.  Nobody needs a microwave, because like the stove, or the oven before it... making stuff is a dead craft, a relic, a thing for machines. Today the Kids order their lunches using the blue glow of Door-Dash, and only immigrants need to know where it comes from, or how to operate the radar-range. In the twilight of my dystopian dreamscape, A refugee gig-slave arrives by e-bike with someone's lunch, tapping an android phone to the deadbolt, kitchen cans illuminate, and they unload a poly plate of reheated Hot-Pockets onto a spartan countertop, along with a smoothie, and an iced-latte some-such.  Kiddies push Daddy's card to "Make Lunch", but even the tap is gone, as numbers simply exchange transparently through the ether, incognito. 
"What's the weather like?"  "Here, let me check..."  Again, perhaps a blue sky day -- is what my phone says. But there is no need to open the front door.  Ancient technology such as the Mail-slot are being re-installed to facilitate meal delivery. The Tray slides through the bars and it's back to the screen we go.
An argument for how the slippery slope toward Autocracy in western democracies may begin may actually start with over-parenting.  This seems ludicrous on the surface but when we cede not just our power and independence to our parents to control every outcome, and every calorie, and we want decisions made for us, which we later choose not to vote against -- We create a marriage of convenience. When Protests become campfire parties, and we are complicit in the face of rising fascism -- mostly out of laziness, and comfort -- then it is simple to connect the dots to a culture shift from democracy toward an autocracy. 
Disbelievers have 'Gone to the Mega-Church' for redemption, re-education, a charity car wash, a marital affair, or whatever... Grown-ups are leaving the children alone by the pool secured with water wings, a tablet and a debit card. In these our diminished "united states" everyone is a baby now. (again)... The same adults who used to espouse maturity as a life-goal; (tutoring the maths, coaching cocky kids, and such) -- They are all fresh out of maturity. And so today, we  coast..., We are all coasting, pretending to be children, [again.] An amphetamine  symphony of self-care, malt-liquor disguised as diet seltzer, popping pills, poking syringes, a bit of filler here, and a tuck there.  The hiss is a chorus of diet remedies, & injectables, easing pharma into a lazy bloodstream with a small prick.  The pricks keep getting smaller, and the squeeze more unfeeling, while homeward-bound gen-Z babies fashion their celebrity status with an A.I. makeover.  If one doesn't actually interact with other humans, they don't have to look good in-person. So we pour money into our profiles. We are "at play", in a constant state of mediocre mid-life melt-down. 'Linked-in' masquerades as an HR professional, Glass Door as the exit interview.  Here, the adults fizzle... Hisssssss.... Slowly burning petulant fuel. Concerts become Rallies, drum beats use gun stocks, and the refrain repeats Marjorie's tantrums silo by silo.  Media trades un-truth as currency. A newly possessed Veruca Salt, or whomever else may have lost their shit today, setting the expectation of another childish rant quite unconvincingly. But you 'follow' her.
A Few Truths:
I will not be revered nor well-remembered, despite what anyone may eulogize.
I will not leave a symphony behind.
I will not write the greatest novel of our our time.
I will not medal at the Olympics. 
I will not medal at the Ozempics (either).
I will not be elected to public office. 
I will not invent a brilliant new gadget.
I will not Sign Copies of my first album on record store day.
I will not drive a fancy fucking Tesla.
I will not bake the best Pot Brownies of all time.
I have always been mediocre.
I will die un-remarkably.
And everyone is far less remarkable than their Linked-In states.
I have zero desire to normalize the Gen-blah solution for aging gracefully, by ignoring the problem.  Mid-rifts spilling over to celebrate a second muffin at the virtual work meeting.  There are no kids splashing about in these fountains of Youth.  Refusing to grow up wont avert an aging calamity. We paint over the wet spot until the ceiling caves-in.  Ignoring our gentle slope will not change it's angle nor the creases it leaves.  We are all sliding down together. The only tangible feeling left is that of gravity's pull.  There is no Fountain, No lifeguard. The Pools have all closed, Hunch-backs sun themselves by the blue screen shimmer. Parents pop a few gummies and continue their medicated descent down life's "Wet Banana". Baptizing mediocrity into a splash pool shaped not unlike a giant solo cup.  In my dream, The asylum has been breached like a levy --  a poetry of paper cups filled with potions, pills, and party-goers descend into  dark water fully clothed, and we drown in the spout of mediocrity.

"Night Swimming" plays softly, but the guitar part is all wrong. A dobro perhaps? The vocal has a reverb tremelo effect from some space-age country pop-star. Dystopia is a misappropriated 90's anthem, plagiarized, and sung by someone unworthy with a twang. Country Music and Jeeps push the narrative nostalgia of a simpler time and place, where we connected with our emotions, and with nature... But that script is a lie.
I'm almost there, nearly sleeping, and then a phone flashes, offering me news of another shooting, or discordant Trumpian fugue.  Then, something not so fresh surfaces, about appealing to Gen-Blah for Votes... "They love me", he says, and "The Blacks Too"  Of course they do! --  So much so that they'll stay at home come election day.

51 percent of the electorate actively normalize fascism, or sits silently while petulant children run amok.  Indulged kiddies will drown in their consumption, so long as daddie's NASDAQ hovers positively above them, and their elderly parents will keep them quiet with a green straw in their mouth and a Mastercard.  Hisssss... It is an exhausted exhale -- a last breath before we fall sleep forever.  My sister says she can't come for the funeral if it's during College Football season... The screen goes blank, and I leave no reply.

I awaken at a concert where I can't watch the band over a thousand glowing screens capturing peta-bytes of footage which nobody will ever watch again.  Annoying adult children forced to a concert with Mommy and Daddy, and they don't know any of the songs. They can't even fake it, much as I'd done at Church years ago. They annoy people watching the show, but parents think they are lovely... and clever ...And you are so failing them. More likely until someone actually says something to you, you'd have thought that your kid was "adorbs!" but you now feel the laser-death-glare of everyone else, who'd seem to indicate otherwise.  Yes, You, and your participation medals, and lattes, and your nine-year-old's loaded debit card, would seem to indicate a smidge of  failure.  Your pseudo-celebrity kid-smog sugar-coats a massive fail. Because they are ushering in Autocracy, You have failed, and so now you munch free-trade pistachios, slurp diet hard-seltzer, and deflect  onerous glares by the slapped face glow of your facial peel.  It's time... The Black Yukon is waiting. Climb aboard before the encore, and weave home, before bed-time, and you can struggle just like me.  Baby Sitting is exhausting.  Baby Sitting through the age of 23, 28, 31...  Is a trade which used to be staffed by minors, but now is the perpetual chore of Mid-life Parents who'd indulged that "Gap Year', and their kid's "Beer Pong Patio Party", instead of kicking them out. and cutting them off at the right moment.
Don't bring them along, it's embarrassing, and harmful.
I'm tossing now in my covers now, eyes moving faster, heartrate up. I'm frightened for the future. The future is asleep.
"If you need a helping hand  -- I'm totally happy to smack your kid for you", I say aloud.  [did I say that out loud?] 
In fact, I'll help with the kids for free, if you need a romantic evening out.  But I can only help when you face the fact that you, and they are old enough to know better, and nobody can question my methods.
I wake up sweating with the urge to pee. 
Faced with middle-class mid-life mediocrity, most make a choice to be numb, dumb, and boring, because being beige is simply easier. But... Saying dumb-shit like, "everything is fine", to normalize bad behavior, or turning a cheek to fascism is why nobody can sleep tonight. You are so exhaustingly lifeless that your fucking blood runs beige.  Some even patch-up their sinking ships with tattoos. Sure thing sign up for Kick-boxing, and Jiu Jitsu, decorate a full sleeve with fantasies of your toughness, while the dough rises.  Many of us sans le sexy fait accompli of relevance will rage against our own blase' machine. Today, many of our friends are behaving like coked teenagers, and we are complicit. The perfect "Con" is not to make everyone bend to one's will, nor to float within the bubble of one's invented self-care truths... But in convincing oneself and others day in and day out that one doesn't completely suck.
As we age, we have to settle into a few humbling  "Adult Facts":
1. We are all pretty fucking average -- Yep, even you.
2. Past accomplishments  (best left un-quoted), are tedious dinner party conversation.
3. If the cute neighbor seems to be hitting on you, Then you are plainly delusional.
4. If the cute neighbor's dog bites your hand, refer to "3".
5. You may never look as good or feel as well as you do today, so stop with the pity antics.
6. Yes you can rock that outfit, as long as (A). you totally own it, <and> (B). It fits your form.
7. Do NOT pretend to be a Sommelier, if you are serving cheddar and brie with that Cab.
8. Same with Cigars, Sports-Cars, Wrist-Watches & Tattoos.
  [These are tacky,  Always have been.]
9. Just stop with words like Cognoscente, and Touch-Base, that's fucking lame-splaining
10. Don't ask your server for ketchup; Find a decent restaurant or enjoy your McDonalds. 
​10.5. The long answer is almost always a lie.
11. Your Shrink is more fucked-up than you are, but just barely and was way more reluctant to show up today than you were, [Were it not for their student loans, they'd be seeing their shrink today too].
 
My news-feed sent me an article today, with a fetchy title like:
"Are young adults failing to launch today?"  Hmm... I wonder? 
They are the future, or so they were supposed to be, but they took a queue from you -- and you couldn't even medal at the '24 Ozempics. Instead you got a bronze in "worst role model ever". Now the battle royale for the  future (not our future) but theirs seems to be between those "Kids" who are confident that they are always right, but who are completely checked-out of inheriting the earth -- and the "Adults" who know they were never really right about stuff, but gave-up trying long ago, and covered their trail with tattoos. Unfortunately Nobody has yet made the perfect ironic T-shirt to wear to this party.
The End of the World is here, and it's General Admission.

Limited Mobility predicted a post boomer gold rush for Berkshire-Hathaway to buy up all of the Hospice, and cremation facilities, and to later partition every tennis court, doubling real-estate into two equal halves. While reducing our effort, we've also increased our portion sizes, so a full Tennis Court and fast moving ball has been replaced by Slow Ping-Pong, and Corn-Hole. Basically sports that can be played with a beer in one hand.  Pickle Ball is where good marriages go to die.  The general trend toward making sure everyone medals, and so that things are just plain easier is taught today in dystopia 101. The smart money is now on venues with more chairs, because the General Admission standing space is just too much fucking work for both adults and kids alike. Dancing only occurs in barns.
So-what, if your beverage portions go up inverse to your output.  Lazy old men run the country. Maintaining the "greatest generation" year over year is the big con. The Old Folks don't belong in this new world, but they are still running shit. Being Old is a status symbol like a well edged lawn, useless, but expected for some reason. Grass is the last vestige of wasteful 50's nostalgia. Mowers and blowers buzz, shadowed beneath bellies shrouded by an Ironic concert Tee.
So what!, you heard of them first..? [Did you now?] You own a record player, but never play it, because, "It is a lot of fucking effort, man.,"  Yes!... The Young adults display their beige bellies; curly love-handled quotations around their being wholly un-remarkable. Nothing new here.  I have friends who, if it meant a sure-fire VIP ticket to heaven, and an afterlife of piney IPA's could not pass the final exam, TO ROLL A JOINT (properly). So who is the loser? WHO IS FAILING?  Those who have truly lived, may be unremarkable, but they know it, and that set of aches and pains from doing stuff are totally different, than the ones we feign from desk chairs.

ANDWHOTHEFUCKCARES?  

There is a mixed crowd at every Music-Fest, where trendy elders bump walkers with literal babes. Kids wear ironic concert T's prefaded in Pakistan for Target, accompanied with shredded cut-off's, MUFFIN TOPS DOUSED IN GLITTER...  While the so-called Adults bid real dinero for pre-owned "authentic T-shirts" to prove that they (actually) heard of them first.  I realize that the Plop-Plop and the Fizz-Fizz, tonight is perhaps the twilight of my sleepy discontentment ending. My hissing stupor fading into a drool-worthy dreamscape, where people still gave a fuck. Twin fizzy biscuits fractured & melting bed-side into a piss-warm cup of effervescent hiss. Everyone has their own sizzle... My personal sizzle sound, all but imperceptible, sounds a bit like the ringing of ancient lawn implements, or perhaps ringing damage from that '88 Husker Du show. Or perhaps simply the concentrated anguish of every defeated sob and cry ever uttered by under-developed adults reflecting off the stratosphere and returning to earth as soft pissing rain... In a sense you could say that at least their sobs have finally left the building.   Launching the precipitation of my defeat as an adult. The collective inhale before an extended sigh of our entire planet's last gasp.   "We the people",  washing our hands of the scum of our forebears, and scraping their left-overs into the compost.  The trouble with longevity is that the adults get to live long enough to witness that whatever they'd been taught and later espoused is for shit, and to see the wreckage.  We linger far longer, than our expiry date,  and the system is now stacked to favor the meek, and the autocrats who run shit.

[Reprinted as a courtesy to Nathan from February 2023]
Grape  Cola  Stone-Fruit  Wheat
Bright  Sweet  Caramel  Cacao
​Cherry  Grassy  Flannel  Lilac
Toasted  Bourbon  Cream-Soda  Lactic
Floral  Dish-Soap  Anger  Panic
Rage...

 It would seem that everyone is adding "Tasting Notes" to each & every otherwise ordinary experience I may have today.  This I dare say will only set me up for disappointment.

Wine Store People seem to be retired Blockbuster Video clerks, who in truth were working at Comic Book stores in the 80's, and later graduated to Record Sales (c.1992)  -- In each of these hallowed spaces, their vaunted careers issued them carte' blanche to berate  clientele for not having refined enough tastes in Graphic Novels, Music, and in Film.  So what was obviously going to happen at some point, was (is) that 'they' (my friend Nathan for short) now work at the local liquor store in the wine department, (As In they get to place their name like so): "Nathan's Favorite Pizza-Wine Value" 92 pts". Under which the subtext reads: "If you have only Twelve Dollars, and need something for a friend's Pizza and a Movie Party, you could do far worse than to pick this Nebbiolo". But our boy "Nathan" has far larger plans for your Movie Night... Doesn't he?

Way Back when records were cool the first time around, (an era which lasted nearly half a century) we will recall this same guy, (our archetypal) "Nathan" raising his voice at a supplicant man-child for selecting "the wrong fucking" pressing of, or "the wrong blasted" issue of: Maus,  X-Men, Replacements, Metallica, Husker Du, and cetera. 

Now I'm pretty sure "Nathan" works at my local Coffee Shop, projecting heirs like he owns the whole Fair-trade roasting cartel, and "Nathan" wants to set us up with Coffee, whilst using the same Bullshit Confusing linguistic circus he'd applied in his last four Big-Top Careers: Comics, Records, Video Cassettes, and Wine.  We all know the collective "Nathan" and yet "Nathan" will never learn your name, and so... he'll call you Dude, Bro, and Dude-Man... Or just Man-man, hey!

It was Nathan's Idea anyway, (wasn't it) to highlight his favorite Picks in each genre, whether it be: Amazing Spider-Man #14 (The First Green Goblin mag), or The 1957 Classic "The Throne of Blood".  Back then, "Nathan" may have thought Kurosawa was a God, but We, (the lay public), may have thought 'Kurosawa' was a HiFi Stereo brand -- And perhaps some thought that Nathan a dick. Nonetheless he persisted with scotch tape, and signs were posted to chaperone your experience.

Thankfully, Today The collective "Nathan" has brought us a whole new linguistic apparatus called "Tasting Notes", and thank god we have them so we know how to feel in advance of each and every experience.

This week I discovered Nathan meddling in my Bot generated A.I. Movie Pix, e.g. "We think you may like", or "Because you Watched..." whereby we would have formerly relied upon a small laminated card below the tattered stack of VHS Cassettes at the Family Video -- Herein Nathan states with a flourish of fine point sharpie, that, "Reservoir Dogs is a decent violent 1992 plagiarism of the Hong Kong Action Flick, [City On Fire], but it's entertaining and has a fun, if loathsome soundtrack, and some wry humor by Stephen Wright. If you'd bothered to ask Nathan, he'd confirm [that], "basically every Tarantino Film is blatant plagiarism."
This Plagiarism dilemma, (Our Fondest Form of Flattery) reminds me of a Susan Sontag Book where she tries her level best to define conventional beauty in the canon of art's aesthetic Nudes on a gallery wall vs. simply liking to look at Naked people. 
The 'Nude vs the Naked' so to speak is an un-winnable argument (particularly with creepy Uncle types) who brandish big cameras & so called 'home studios').  The Naked vs the Nude "discussion" always brings a froth to a DINNER PARTY, so I won't tarry with that unsavory topic here. BUT for the brevity of exhausting Fake, vs Authentic... [Which I will redress in another Post], I've linked a brilliant Passage here.  But first that context...  You see that the same sort of, let's call it nuance, applies to the things which we purchase for "Street Cred".  We want to be liked, or simply admired, and as such we are bumbling through this life gathering things which are meaningful to us if only to win friends and influence people.  We seek to wear what the Cool Kids are wearing, and this accounts for silly shoes, watches, handbags, and even the cars we drive.  We see the slick marketing and we "Want That", and never pump the brakes to consider that wearing it, or owning it wont necessarily bring the good fortune, and friendship status promised in the AD copy.  The dilemma is best seen through the lens of those less authentic persons Such as Lenny Kravitz, who in fairness is merely a patsy for Brands to authenticate their wayward identities with a whitish-blackish crossover "Rock Star".  Lenny Kravitz is basically The Toyota RAV4 of the Music World, and he is for sale, because he is a sort of good looking, yet washed up star,  and because Vegas has an "In residence" waiting list.    So I'm lifting this article's synopsis from a far great writer without his permission because he hasn't emailed me back.   This is relevant to our soul search for our own authenticity -- Mine as well as yours, which I freely admit is plagiarism.  Just as blue-jeans come new with tags, in a deep indigo, and  you can pay a child on a Bangladesh floor to rip some for you, to fade them, and to wear them down and distress them, and so you end up buying a "new-ish" pair of oldish pants which should give you some instant street cred.  These are the most common forms of our mass appropriation, they are the so called Lenny Kravitz effect.  
That's It... There is the only awkward primer you will need to enjoy the following brilliant prose (below) from a fantastic if famous Camera Blog, 
https://leicaphilia.com/tag/lenny-kravitz/:

Q: Is Thorsten Overgaard a con man?
ChatGPT: I am not aware of any information that would indicate that Thorsten Overgaard is a con man. Thorsten Overgaard is a Danish journalist, photographer, and author who is known for his work with Leica cameras and his expertise in the field of photography. He has written several books on photography and has also produced a number of instructional videos and articles on the subject. There is no evidence to suggest that Overgaard is a con man or that he has engaged in fraudulent or deceptive practices. It is important to carefully evaluate the credibility of any information or advice that you receive, but it is not appropriate to make unfounded accusations or spread false or malicious information about someone.
Q: If someone falsified their accomplishments and claimed to be a photographer who has worked for Life Magazine and has falsely claimed to have photographed the President and other important people and claims to have a vast archive of photos with major professional archives, and that man gives seminars based on his false experience, would you consider that man a “Con Man?”
ChatGPT: If someone has falsified their accomplishments and is claiming to have worked for a prestigious publication like Life Magazine, photographed important people and events, and has a large archive of professional-quality photos, and is using these false claims to promote themselves and their business, then it would be appropriate to consider that person a con artist or a fraud. Making false claims about one’s accomplishments and qualifications is dishonest and deceptive, and it is not acceptable to use these false claims to gain credibility, attention, or financial gain. If someone is found to be engaging in this kind of fraudulent behavior, it is important to confront them and hold them accountable for their actions. It is also important to inform others about the true nature of the person’s claims and to be cautious when dealing with them in the future.
Q: Has Lenny Kravitz ever been a war correspondent?
ChatGPT: I’m not aware of Lenny Kravitz ever serving as a war correspondent. Lenny Kravitz is a musician and actor, and he is known for his work in the entertainment industry. It’s possible that you may have misunderstood something he said or that this is a joke or rumor that has circulated online. I recommend verifying the accuracy of any information you have heard before drawing any conclusions.
Q: If Lenny Kravitz has never been a war correspondent, why does Leica sell a camera called the “Lenny Kravitz War Correspondent” Leica camera?
ChatGPT: It is possible that Leica has released a special edition camera or lens that is inspired by or designed in collaboration with Lenny Kravitz, and that it is being marketed under the name “Lenny Kravitz War Correspondent.” It’s also possible that this is a joke.
​
Today, (meaning actually today), I discovered that the Bot we now Call Netflix, which replaced "Nathan" professionally during the pandemic, (handing him payroll protection funds, and then sending him packing into a career spiral as a school teacher), is also using succinct if wholly exaggerated single word adjectives such as:
Witty  |  Irreverent  |  Dramedy  | Parenthood  |  Danish  -- 
Or:
Ominous  |  Suspenseful  |  Thriller  | Slow-Burn  | Ensemble.

​Taking queues from 'The Sommelier Nathan' which my Netflix AI is certainly not, (nor is Nathan for than matter)...  We should not let it pass without scrutiny that "Dramedy" is NOT a camel Like Mammal with a Hump to store reserve liquids, Nor is that Camel "Danish" Like that fraudster Thorsten Overgaard... But you may find the need for subtitles, which is basically what this charade is promising, along with some "Slow-Burn", and some other bull shit tasting notes.

I know now that IF, I pick-up a bottle of White Bordeaux I can expect, "Freshly Cut lawn-grass, Honey, Minerality, Spice and Butterscotch"  -- Just before selecting a film to watch, (Deadpan, Offbeat, Thriller, Addictive, Anthology).  In selecting early, let's say round 12:15pm, I may still be sipping from a Pink Bourbon Single Origin, Shade Grown, Fair-Trade, Light-Roasted, 1300m ASL, Washed, and Fermented on raised beds Columbian Pour-over, with a tasting profile as follows: Tangerine, Caramel, Blueberry,  Fruity, Acidic, White peach, and Lavender.   Or just plain Caramel, Bread Yeast, and Raisin, if it be over-roasted, (frowny face).

So the day didn't begin here, but it seems like this day could now stray from comfortably numb -- to wondering what else may piss  me off.   It wasn't the money thing -- Nor the smug fucking glances through throw-back dorky RayBans.  I'd  endured far worse, but today it felt raw... like I was being led into a gas chamber where my final moments would be endured beside adult children, who were themselves still nursing pacifiers, but somehow drove Range Rovers the three blocks to disembark with strollers, blankets, leash the dog, and then stand in line for hipster abuse, before reversing the process back home to have a nosh.  Today felt like Tailgating sober, waiting for Morrissey to show up, only to find he never boarded his plane at Heathrow. Just before the Gas valves would be opened, I'd have to watch politely while people in full view of all these delicious offerings, "decided" like chess-masters whether to have the Bialy, or the Fucking Brioche. (because they couldn't make this check-mate move until the cashier actually greeted them). Alas we peel  away another adult child from the line as prickly venom from a smug-fuck cashier flips the iPad back from it's default opportunity to add  28% to an already scandalous tab.
Tasting Notes... Perhaps this line would move if they'd only had some tasting notes to tell them what emotions were packed into their sticky-buns.
Tongs, waxed paper, and a bag... Exotic Tools which required very little of this staff member's post-baccalaureate, in "Communications". Yet, adoring fans lavish praise, voting "Yes", "Smiley-Face" and "Thumbs-UP" adding gobs of gratuity with their chip cards, Instagramming that shit, while biting into the other CCP mind-suck tik tok charade. 
Todays Tasting Notes... (sigh)
Somehow this line felt engineered by the same "Childish Consultant" who brought us the toothpaste aisle where every last tube is locked behind a Lexan vault, beside a "press for help" button that simply chimes an alarm sound until pissed-off yawning staff come to douse the fucking racket just before blowing their brains out.  ...And please don't get me started with Deodorant.

What if you'd just wanted a bagel, or a slice of Quiche?, Is it mandatory to suffer so?
Then, there is the cost for this ride; Roughly Twenty-Four Bucks for a bagel and such.  No foamy hot beverage, just a biscuit in a fucking brown bag.  I wonder if the Bagel, and the Bag have their own clever tasting notes, or if the Bagel may actually use the tasting note: "Brown-Bag" as an adjective.
Money is pretend anyway, so why not pay the employees directly for this food and the tasting notes they bring?.., this way the company doesn't have to pay them.  My inner dialog with the rational me, recites the job interview: "...Um-like, the tips are pooled, and everybody gets some, Also you get to eat anything that falls, or is broken", "And you get free coffee, and this cool selvage blue apron ...here" -- "Oh, But.., um like, we don't actually pay wages or anything, and so, here is a 1099." 
What I'd realized in that line was that whether it be Larry, or Nathan who'd be judging me today at the check-out line, chiding me for not quite getting the most out of what was on offer, It was perhaps their moral duty to assist by being a bit less judgmental, and a bit more authentic.  I'm not saying that Tasting Notes should (necessarily) be ascribed to each and every pastry, (Leeky | Cheesy | Flavorful | Fucking Good) but, perhaps if "we" were to exchange the tasting note-card for an authentic interaction, I'd like that.

Today I pull away from a sneering purse-lipped flaming gender-ambivalent person, whom we'd all formerly known as Larry.  Now perhaps pejoratively "Lipstick Larry" or more fondly "Lonna"... But 'they' (Larry) are nevertheless not flattered with crimson lips and purple eyeshadow...  It's really still just Larry, so we all go along with the transformation each morning.
And so, I am straddling my bike, awaiting my  brown-bag flavored breakfast. Combined in said sack, is a smashed quiche, and basic bagel for ~$24 dollars plus tax.  It was now 8:04 AM, and the day was well underway. 
​I'd soon need coffee to come to grips with my reality. This morning's routine flatland half-century took me barely two and a quarter hours, to earn the bonus bagel. Head now cleared by a few hundred thousand breaths, unrelenting runny nose, chapped lips,  freezing toes..., and a long humiliating line devoid of tasting notes, I'd head home to grind the beans & make my own fucking coffee.  (as if people still did that).
In my fridge  were of course some fresh eggs, butter, ham, cheese, shallot, garlic, assorted micro-greens, and even crème-fraiche, but the fridge seemed to lack the motivation to make it's own fucking quiche, so I'd have to warm the oven for this brown-bag breakfast, and it's accompaniment,  the bagel.
But why the bagel?  Did I even want one?  I'd burnt about a billion calories, and grabbed that on  Impulse -- like one may grab the Inquirer, chap-stick, condoms. Perhaps never to read nor enjoy. Comfort often arrives through trivial shit, so I'd had it with lines and bought the bagel too. But bagels are all beige and empty, and acting as metaphor for my morning. Bagels are the Dockers of the breakfast world.  Maybe there is a balance between the beige  inauthenticity of this line I'd escaped from, and the eccentricity of Nathan, or Larry for that matter.   They were all just lined up there were they not?. But in spite of the saturation  of my own saltiness, Nathan and Even Larry were somewhat authentic, because they had their own opinions. And there is noting beige about glittery teal eyeshadow.
Nobody really pushes the bagel, right? -- And perhaps they are the last to sell out because of their beige nature.  Nobody publishes the price for these. (nor anything for that matter) Quick maths, prove the bagel to have cost roughly two-seventy-five. As I recall, the slice of quiche was delicious, The Bagel, completely inauthentic -- but the Beige-Bagel, while disingenuous was as close as I'd come that day to pulling on a pair of dockers, and using those condoms with a long lost "MPLS Friend". Dare I  say that the Bagel may just as well have tasted like 'Nathan'.
​​

Druidic peoples, so called Pagans, and basically anyone (even practicing Catholics), who ever worshipped the sun, realized rather early that not having the sun around most of the day long would lead to long liquor lines, food shortages, inventive alternatives, and depressive snacking. "Creative Alt-snack sellers served Newts Toes, and Coca Leaf Crickets, Chicle, and ground a bunch of stuff up with spices and called it sausage... or chorizo.  Hungry Savages even found a way to milk sheep, goats, and cows. It becomes a real existential struggle to find any 'rando' fare of sustained winter energy. Ever more inventive candy coatings would come much later. In the so called "Dark Ages", Snack-Food stumbled into more earthy flavors such as Mud and Dirt. Finally, as colonized slavery made all the labor easier for the leisure class a " Happy Snackcident" happened the Moment reluctant Spanish aristocracy sweetened the mud-like bitter cacao powder, iced it and served it at church while worshipping Santa.  
In 1680 cocoa was served in combination with melted ice to the nobles present at the auto-da-fés. The popularity of the drink among noble women was such that, (not content with drinking it several times a day), they were drinking it in church too. This indulgence pissed off the bishops, who started a propaganda poster campaign in 1861, banning chocolate sipping in churches during lugubrious sermons.[36] What would later become a "Coffee Clutch" ...Chocolatadas, held at the end of "church services", became popular amongst the ladies. And so they built Rectories.
It should come as no surprise that this ritual and new found snacks were stumbled upon around Winter's Shortest Day.  When one stares back at a fancy package and remarks that eating "THAT" or Eating the whole bag of "THAT" was a bad fucking idea; It is born of despair, and necessity.   At Stonehenge the Primary Massive Trilithon faces  outward from the middle toward the mid Winter Solstice Sun, a sort of "Talk to the Hand" from a far smarter, and industrious pre-history.
Today, inventive adult assholes decided that Clocks (another nasty invention, born of restless loathing for increasing darkness)  are reset to accelerate the squalid greyish glow of our skin against our LED daylight.  In Modern times we scuttle outdoors in metal coffins for food, and race home to compress crumbs beneath our blankets for another 15 hours of darkness. Pasty pallor betrays the Instagram filter.
Bygone "Boys of Summer" or "Madonna" singing "Holiday", aboard a cute dimpled grin,  we dine upon dreadful grey salty crap, bad bar food, frozen meals, canned goods, and all-in-all we act like eating crap is worthy of the so called "Holiday Season". We even substitute cool Music for old fucking Christmas Carols which most mumble through, for want of anyone recalling the second verse.  Snack bags, and Cookies you'd steer clear of in mid June -- will now make your "Season bright".
As many times as we have endured the winter's grip, we remain amateurs.
 Amateur /ăm′ə-tûr″ Noun: 1. One who has not yet figured out how NOT to do something.
2. One lacking the skill of a professional, To not be good enough at something as to make it one's profession. 3. One who has not or does not accept money in exchange for a task/ activity. Our elastic relationship with the truth, stretches thinly veiled toward greedy gluttonous boredom. Unsurprisingly Spam and the Mc Rib by which we hail Seasonality have roughly the same ingredient count, and shelf-life. We are all amateurs this Holiday, because as many times as we have been here... Our recidivism rate is 100%
re·​cid·​i·​vism ri-ˈsi-də-ˌvi-zəm : NOUN, 1. a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior.  Recurring. From the Latin recidivus (Re) Back, and Cado (I Fall).  e.g. Fall Back. (Funny Right? just like Daylight savings time... I digress) 2. The act of a person repeating undesirable behavior after having experienced negative consequence of/for that behavior.

Consider anything called  "Pumpkin Spice". And ask but one question... Why? Why does this caloric fictional horchata-fueled abomination propel anyone around our equatorial "upside-down"? 
Desperation.  That's Why. In here fictive orange Wonka characters serve "Turkey", beside cemented fruit segments locked like Han Solo in verdant Jell-O.  Is there any moral in this fable? Yes, simply stated, Watch Out! for the fucked up inventions of the idling brain, including  those scriptured in bad blogs. This Junk-Food will all will flush counter clockwise until spring which is a mere six months away.  Have Faith, and crumble some chips atop your casserole.
Fictive traditions purport to perfect celebratory smorgasbords of pure evil. And Yes, this awful nostalgia fueled Holiday cuisine may kill us all, if the hum drum doesn't do it first. Hence the inventiveness of space-age snacking.
​As if the so called Holiday's were not beige enough on the merits of Venison, Dark Meat, Herring, and Casseroles... our decor, (excepting a trillion tiny light-bulbs strung everywhere to simulate the bygone sun)... We are now forced to decorate, nay deck the halls with really dumb shit.
1. A dead Tree, desiccating in the corner dropping needle dander.
2. A Fucking Red Plant, know as the churlish Poinsettia.  Noun: A Crimson abomination, (basically) a tiny blood stained tree which never fades, Poinsettias are not a flower, They do not "Point" at anything in fact, and they smell like vomit on compost.
​3. Pumpkin Spice..., Period.
4. Old Socks hanging around out in the open, some with snacks in them?
5. Glazed Meats, [You are welcome].
And... Every other first year intern-brainfuck snack-food creative project from Frito-Lay, Mondelez, Heinz, and InBev seem to be introduced this season, when you simply lack the will power to say no.  Introducing the worst shit ever invented and packaged by your thirteen year-old stoned-self. It' is how things get done during the Holidays.

OKAY, so Candy fucking mac-n-cheese, in all it's Rosicrucian splendor seems so foul that one can add to their Xmas List for Santa to bring nothing but the head of this Kraft intern to them in a  pillow case.  Come the 22nd at around three in the morning, we can begin to look back at this like a bad dream, or maybe just wait until after New Year's Day to change your trajectory. It is a slow snowy road-trip, so drive carefully, perhaps humming a bit of U2 or King Missile instead of a carol, and remember  "Nothing Changes on New Year's Day".

A well formed sentence never comes as easily as insults, or curse-words. Our poverty of compliments, like currency, can't mature without some seed money. Whether you are on your way up, on your way down, or simply on your way out... Holding the door for someone can change someone's day, and a positive ripple occurs without condition.  Any Simple nuance can change people slightly, just as the subtleties of an object can inspire creativity. But subtleties can be tough to identify, let alone gather in our digital age. Forming an object in your mind, misses a lot of nuance as humans were wired to consolidate patterns not context,  and fill in blanks by bias.  Appreciation of simple forms is lost to the robots we've become, and the nuance as it were, is the special sauce of art. Modern vision means that forms are separated cleanly from all that goes into making them, and what they should be. What do you cherish? Prejudiced, retouched, cleaned-up, weightless, without atmosphere or shadow, leaves only the flattened GIF version of what was once cherished.  Gestalt efficiencies to our world view frees-up space in our crowded minds exchanging a cuddly warm bunny with a compressed cardboard cutout of a cat.  Because gestalt principles already filled in all the blanks, we see a lot of our worlds alike, and we see them without considered objectivity. With our heads buried in screens, we surf select & shop shapes and colors; We befriend a cover photo, and even get romantic with a GIF.  (E)fficient perception is flatter than 2D, and it is a total bore. The shopping graveyard of online detritus resting beside any dumpster, commits our historic record to the landfill in a comical sediment. Cheap-shit forms our historical record.  Excavations will later reveal the archaeological absurdity of compacted crap we've consumed by GIF.  Some say that not getting wrapped up in the little things -- Or fixating on what one wished for, but didn't achieve, is peaceful, even blissful. But If ignorance is truly bliss -- Then why am I so miserable contemplating dumb shit on a rainy Sunday?
Mindfulness.
If gravity let go today, the Abyss you'd fall into would be 'space', and all of the crap you owned would scatter around you like flakes in a snow-globe.  The fractured jetsam (a billion tons of  cheap-shit) would smack you in the face and neck. Assuming you'd showed restraint in your online life, you'd still be throttled by someone else's Shake-weight, or Shark Vacuum. And of course that wake-up call would arrive far too late. If we are edging toward the apocalypse, via A.I. and Climate Crisis, then what kind of flotsam would you prefer hit you in the head?  Something nice from your shoebox of collectibles, or someone's discarded Ab-Flex? 
Shouldn't postponing all plans because of lousy weather, leave me at peace to consider larger analog concepts?  Perhaps take a bubble-bath? Finish some house project, build a jigsaw puzzle in my bathrobe?  Or... perhaps more online shopping?, because I don't own a bathrobe.
Consider the shape of our digital world, where actual context became the faded fantasy of the digital age.  Sound-bites and snap-shots support 2D scrolling for the forgeries of our forgotten authenticity. Digital consumerism is like unfolding a map of the place rather than visiting the place. Software becomes the Pumpkin Spice Latte, while Hardware is the Coffee it should have been.  It's a cover-up for the daily crime of not tasting, seeing, feeling, or touching anything intrinsically valuable.  Can you even trust a person who drinks shitty coffee?
We are all typically busy rushing around getting shitty coffee and such, and in spite of so many daily considerations, we often fail to recognize the patterns and the objects which connect us with our path.  Since the Big Bang, this our home, our universe, even our multiverse trends toward only one end -- Exponential Complexity.  

OK, so for the kids... real truth is actually a fucking pencil.  Pencils (a matriculation from crayons), are where one could begin to express themself.  Of course you could start with charcoal,  merely the soft naked art-school fuck-buddy of the pencil -- But both serve properly as your VIP ticket to that funky rave we call human expression.  Here is where you'd likely begin with a fresh sheet of paper if you were to understand your 'ID', express yourself, and perhaps save  thousands in therapy, breaking the cycle of this plastic life.  You cannot begin to draw with a digital pencil, Stylus, digital pen, brush, raster editor etc... until you begin to feel, and work with the real thing.
History will remember bad faith actors disgraced and pulverized under the tumble of this steamroller of disingenuity whilst a rickety combine separates the chaff of false morality from the textured wheat of the real thing. History will also recall the great masters, who'd managed to raise a pencil to paper earnestly striving to express themselves without the corruption of an iPad, or Photoshop. Perhaps this is why an actual art museum is so therapeutic, in the still morning before the crowd of phones come in.  Generally we go there as we would a Cathedral, to revel in the awe-inspiring bliss of analog solitude.  I've yet to visit a museum where 'Photoshop' was the main exhibit, and I've seen some strange shit. In fact, it seems that Curators & Docents deplore retouching. The chasm between analog sketchbooks, and those who'd cut their teeth on a tablet "Sketchpad", is critical to understanding the Photoshop effect.  The digital sketchpad closes shapes, shades the top lip, renders the shadows, imparting a "3D Effect", and forging a thing until the thing is cooked... But the thing is not your thing, nor did you actually make it.  Just as never having rolled a Patterson tank full of wet silver dust, will disqualify you from the basic understanding of capturing a photo.  It is a false premise to state that things have changed... but they are for certain less authentic in photoshop.
Creation of a thing requires mistakes, & to understand a thing requires touching it, not merely retouching it. A fresh sheet of paper, or a Canvas, or a roll of film promises plenty of margin for error, and perhaps a cost consequence for do-overs. Skill; increases with the consequence of no do-overs.  This was true for video games, and it is true for graphic arts. The physics of light are the essence of photography, and the light and shade of a pencil upon paper is the rote required to learn to sketch. Paint is damn tough to lift back up off the canvas, or to swap layers, and create a clone... A program called sketchbook or sketchpad is a simulacrum of sketching, but it is NOT a sketch-pad, those are NOT pens, NOT Brushes, and That stylus is NOT a Pencil.
​Ce n'est Pas Un Crayon

It is likely that the low bar for entry to our celebrity culinary cruise hangs upon uber Creeps like Guy Fieri who cannot simultaneously be your chef god, and be the loathsome slob who drips greasy food down his ironic Concert-T on the "Food" Channel.  You can adore celebrities, Sure, but you cannot adore "Celebrity Chefs" who cannot even make a good grilled cheese sandwich. Of course, we won't all agree upon who deserves to win the cook-off -- but in some netherworld fantasy-land devoid of Polish-Sausage Police Procedurals and nauseous Netflix re-runs..., we've elevated uncompelling ordinary cooks in the kitchen, to be forefront celebrity chef-ish assholes.  Clever Chefs who'd once made us smile with flourish and a bit of knack in the kitchen have become mega-stars.  How can this be?  How can it be simultaneously true that it takes 12 hours to shoot a 20 minute cooking show, another 20 hours to edit -- just to celebrate a single 'clever' contestant soundbite?  Julia Child and Jaques Pepin made the entire meal from prep to tasting in front of a single camera cut.
What's been rising in food-land's sacred pyramid, is mostly made of glass.  Chefs who'd once aspired to cook for people, now aspire only toward celebrity -- And also to berate staff and their unworthy guests. Yelling for likes, in the socials is noteworthy if only because if this were the case with Doctors -- Or wait... That's the wrong analogy, ...because Dr's are generally untouchable douchebags too.   Napoleonic aspirations have perhaps simply become part of the modern condition.  The loudest and most brutal amongst us are buoyed to stardom, because it's all part of our celebrity popularity contest, which used to be just another humble job. So let's say that if teachers became celebrities, like congress, chefs, and presidents -- then we'd barely learn our ABC's before dropping out to become a Firestarter.
So, when did it all go wrong?  When did the humble kid who hung onto mom's apron become a Trumpian Tantrum?  Is the Camera to blame?  The internet? Cable Access TV? What Year and where did we kill the affable charming chef, and spill 'Kitchen Confidential' all over the ceramic tile?  I distinctly recall the year 1993, when I'd visited a "Hot"  local restaurant and well before closing the kitchen, the chef and a few sous came forward to the bar with a bottle of Stoli vodka. Just before spilling even more shots, they'd finished an 8-ball on a piece of crockery, then they cranked up Motley Crue to a fuck-you volume before dancing on the bar-top... shocking guests. The music roared, and although I was a young punk -- Even I was appalled.  The next Month we were seated at a wildly expensive Prix Fixe "Hot-Spot" to burn scarce money and 4.5 hours on Foam, Foix, and some Jellied crap, between more foam, and some more sorbets... I recall we'd left hungry -- So we hit up the Wiener Circle for a Char Dog and Fries. Perhaps the Early Nineties spawned that Insolent Brat Chef Cult. Perhaps...  Or was it Vegas? Hollywood? Cable Access? Can we blame Cats?, or what?

Green Tea has nearly as much fluoride as your toothpaste, and a liter of tea can reach the Maximum daily fluoride intake.  Anyway Fluoride is a neurotoxin, so how much is good? and when have you had too much? Does this factor in your decision to get jacked on fluoride.
Straight from the NIH:
"Each increase by 0.5 mg/L in the water-fluoride concentration was associated with a decrease by 8.8 IQ points in the children who had been formula-fed in the first six months of life." Which explains some of my own issues... You are welcome.  But don't worry because it is not the Fluoride which will kill you, it is the abundance of choice. You are simply not wired for this many options of the same fucking thing.
So... I'm sort of right here -- That Toothpaste is sort of bad.  Too much of anything... And, Everything in moderation, right?
Yep, I know what  you are thinking... It's not your fault that you and your kid are having trouble deciding on what brand neurotoxin, you'd prefer. Perhaps you've reached your Recommended Daily Allowance already, and are just entering that dreaded tunnel. But seriously, all of this has been studied to death, and you will be OKAY once you find the right toxic combo for you, even if you've become so retarded as to select Charcoal, and its slimy comrade, Baking Soda to juice up your freshening routine.  What you are still sure to struggle with, is WHICH ONE? ...And the existential even  Nietzschean question of Why?
God may not be dead, and anyway, you will not need her by your side for this Sisyphean drama.
Researchers have found that some ways of measuring the negative impact of too many fucking choices upon decision-making -- (They seem to be less reliable than others)... Namely, perhaps that the most dramatic measure of decision confusion — "paralysis", or the likelihood of someone simply refusing to make any decision whatsoever —is “wildly erratic” across the range of studies and scenarios.  Toothpaste is that exact quagmire.  It is simple stuff, but it is killing us softly, willingly. 
"MY" California Psychic (Sondra), said that I was not likely really channeling Nietzsche. She told me that, "Toothpaste was not innately evil", "but that my angst was perhaps fraught with the scale and menace of too many damned choices", "That I would not directly die from Fluoride, hunny...", and then she gave me the number for a "California Psychiatric" service.  She'd predicted that, "Once I actually made a few choices of preferred: Toothpaste, Deodorant, Hummus, Yogurt, and the like", "that [I'd] likely just stick to that brand, and [I'd] be OK", "but" she conceded [that] "Therapy was not really her thing..."
Anyway she, (Sondra, my psychic) said [I] "...should avoid the toothpaste aisle altogether", and candy too". and she knew that My grandmother worked in a Candy Factory, even knew which one... and she also knew that My mother recently passed away with all of her teeth, and that she was quite indecisive...  She also said that I "had a cute blonde dog", and I'd supposed that all of that was likely out on the internet someplace... Except for the bit about my Grandma's second job, and her dentures... which was weird.
I have to decide now whether her consult was "Life Changing", But I suppose I have some decisions to make first.