Tuesday, January 26, 2016

January 26th, 2016: A Reaffirmation

It is a new year and I am back.  I would've closed that stupid greeting with an exclamation mark, but I am trying this new thing where I tone down my writing to reflect my usual state of being nonplussed (that's the 2nd definition in the Oxford Dic., not the 1st.  Unconcerned, in other words) by most situations encountered in my daily life or that I read about in the news.  Hooray for less bubbly prose.  Also, you may notice that I've altered the appearance of this blog after my seven or so months away.  I like to think of the new color scheme as being reflective of typewritten words on smoke stained paper, as though I were somehow a participant in the last great generation of American writers, which I am not.  Great, that is.  American, yes.  And that era is dead anyway.  This is the new media, and we are its slaves... ahem... I mean its pioneers.  I did keep the frothy beer in the background because I'm an inebriate by nature.  True, it would've been better if it was a bottle of middle-shelf whiskey with a few fingers missing, but I'll take what Blogger gives me until I can finally get off my lazy ass and take a picture of what I prefer.  And I'm rambling.

Now that that clumsy introduction is done with, I can announce my declaration of intention for this new year.  Here goes:  Write more!  Fuck, an exclamation mark! 

But seriously, I intend right now at this very moment to write more and for much of that writing to be present here.  There's still time for that to fail miserably, of course.  One never knows when one will be waylaid by a bout of clinical depression or find oneself sidelined by the ever more epic bender, now does one, now does one (there's a little play on some David F. Wallace for any hardcore lit nerds who might actually be reading this)?  I may also start to include photographs if I can muster the personal motivation to take my phone out of my pocket a snap a few.

And this year has gotten off to a fair start.  I've choked down a testament to self-loathing in song form, another testament to abhorrence of the local music scene here in Lawrence, KS also in song form, and my band The Rackatees--aided by our constant photographer/videographer companion Jake Gill--are finishing up a cinematic music video which stands as a testament to the Noir genre of literature a la Raymond Chandler... and booze.  Mostly booze.  A lot of booze.  More on that to come in what I'd imagine will be my next post.

Moving on.  With the change in appearance of this blog, I'd also like to welcome a change of tone.  Say hello to the change of tone, everybody!  Stupid.  Anyway, I'm going to fill this thing with even more failure by making it something more of a music journalism blog and do my best to cut out the political rage.  I know, there's plenty of music journalism blogging going on out there, and this is kind of a cheap shot for me, but that's life.  Just accept it.  I have.  And I'm sure that much about my boring exploits in this quote/unquote life that I quote/unquote live will make it on to these pages.  And yes, I could've stuck with the very literal eye-sore of the green/white color scheme, or maybe utilized an "edgier", Hot Topic inspired scheme to convey this change, but fuck that.  I like the colors and they're easier on my old eyes which by this point will probably be filmed over with cataracts in 20 years or less thanks to my job as a typesetter. 

That's still a thing, by the way.  I'm still setting type on the night shift.  Things are dead around here, allowing for the night desk to remain open and functional for now.  I got some new coworkers, only one of which grates upon my poor consciousness daily, and we all got a new CEO who's leadership philosophy apparently comes from watching Monday Night Football.  Highlights from his Meet-n-Greet speech:  "So, are you a winner, or are you a loser?"  Had to really bite my tongue during that one.

2016.  Shaping up to be another year I'll hardly remember.

Cheers, folks!

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