Welcome to Trumpland USA

If there were a chance it would be published, I would send this letter to the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the WaPo, and every other major paper. But it would not be published.

To the Editor,

I am looking at the absolute state of this country, and I want to know when the hell people are going to wake up to what that orange fool is doing in the White House. This lunatic is literally building a bunker inside the fucking ballroom, and the spineless bastards around him are just letting it happen. 

The Windy City and Me

The roots of Chicago stay with you, no matter how many miles or years pile up. For me, that footprint started when I was eleven years old, living for four unforgettable months on South Kedzie Avenue with my Gramma Mary. Down on the Southwest Side, near Gage Park and Chicago Lawn, the city had a distinct, working-class grit. At eleven, that stretch of Kedzie was my entire universe. It was a world of brick two-flats, corner stores, and the constant, lively hum of the neighborhood. It was an eye-opening introduction to the real heart of the city. 

Years later, I returned to Chicago as an adult, but this time, the city showed us a completely different side of its character. 

The Voice I Thought I Lost

 

Me, 17 years old

All my childhood and teens I sang, sang all the time. Played guitar. Music was the thing that brought me to life, and I wanted nothing more than to buy a PA system and join a band. The singers I listened to shaped my style. Grace Slick, Tina Turner, Ann Wilson, Janis Joplin, Janis Ian, Joni Mitchell.

My dad always encouraged me in my music, always asked me to play and sing for him, always got happy when I learned a new song or wrote one. He especially loved that. He gifted me my Harmony Sovereign for Christmas when I was twelve and paid for guitar lessons twice a week for several years. He was my biggest fan.

When I was fourteen I won a school wide talent show singing the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel and accompanying myself on my Harmony Sovereign guitar. That was the kind of kid I was. Music was where I lived...

Chicago: Where the Music Took Hold - TWICE

I am willing to bet good money that the first music I ever heard was my mother singing to me in Chicago, the city where I was born and where I lived for the first three months of my life before we moved to Boston. 

The year I was eleven, life went pretty cattywumpus. I'd been living with my mother for the previous year, and that pretty much imploded due to my special needs as an undiagnosed bipolar person. I returned to my father's home, and since he was in the middle of relocating across town and setting up housekeeping, he asked his mom, my Gramma Mary, if I could come to Chicago and stay with her for a month or two. Gramma said yes...

Ukraine Is Still Standing and Russia Is Still Throwing a Tantrum

Russia’s full scale invasion keeps dragging on like the world’s most deranged midlife crisis, and somehow the Kremlin still has not figured out that Ukraine is not going to fucking die just because Moscow thinks it should. Ukraine is fighting for its existence while Russia stomps around like a pissed off toddler who found out the universe does not revolve around its crusty Soviet nostalgia fantasies. Every missile Russia fires is another pathetic attempt to bully a country that has already proven it would rather crawl through hell than surrender a single inch of its land.

Ukraine keeps doing the impossible. Cities get blown to shit and people sweep up the debris and rebuild like it is just another Tuesday. Soldiers rotate out of trenches that look like the inside of a nightmare and go right back because they refuse to let their country be turned into Putin’s personal fucking theme park. Families scatter across continents and still manage to support each other with a level of resilience that makes Russia’s entire propaganda machine look like a clown show. The whole nation is held together by grit, grief, and a collective fuck you aimed directly at Moscow...

Reblogging an update from my Ukrainian friend

 Hello.

Thank you very much for not forgetting about me.

Everything is fine with me. But now is a very difficult period. Russian imperial fascists are shelling Ukraine's energy infrastructure every day. We are having major problems with electricity, heating, water, and mobile communications. All this is complicated by the fact that we are having an abnormally cold winter. The temperature is 20 degrees below zero and lower. It is very cold and there is a lot of snow.

But we are holding on and will continue to hold on.

Due to the lack of electricity, my internet is not working properly. And the mobile internet is very weak. Sometimes it takes hours to load a single web page. That's why I can't go online very often right now. I have internet, but it's impossible to use because of the very slow speed.

My Vegemite Initiation

I wrote this many MANY years ago about the sticky black salty ambrosia called Vegemite. I reproduce it here for your enjoyment. Brace yourself, it's gonna get weird!...

I miss California

 

The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, built for some world expo or other. It's absolutely beautiful. And with the sunset in the background, and the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance, just wow.

I miss the beauty of the Bay Area. Texas is so fucking drab.