I know the right people don’t find this obscure at all.

…and just because it is when it is, VOTE.

So, election day’s a week out. Ideally, by the end of next week, we’ll have a better picture of what the next four years will look like; whether to sigh in relief, or continue stockpiling non-perishables in despair.

The full-time voting residents of this house have already voted. Early voting at the county registrar is mobbed daily. Even though our particular precinct is somewhat crimson, with regular Saturday morning flag-waving mini 45 rallies and swag vending set up in the parking lot of the derelict Rite-Aid, nobody really questions that Virginia’s gonna go blue. All of our statewide offices have been so for years, and we have comfortable Democratic majorities in both state houses and our House delegation. There are just more of us in the major metropolitan areas and Interstate corridors than there are in the wild red wilderness.

Watching my friends in so-called “battleground” states is more concerning. The land of my birth, Pennsylvania, seems to be the epicenter of the conflict this time around. In this age of COVID, while I’ve barely seen evidence of candidate appearances, the Keystone State is seeing the Biden campaign pop in for quick jaunts from the DE home base, President Obama in Philadelphia, and ridiculous numbers of Super-Spreader MAGA rallies. I can’t imagine how swamped the airwaves are with campaign ads. It really must be overwhelming, for Pennsylvanians, and for my friends in Ohio, and hell, Georgia and North Carolina(!), which, in a strange but welcome turn of events, are in play.

As I alluded to, my vote, while important, isn’t going to be the one this election turns on. You folks in those battleground states – stalwarts like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida; and new upstarts like Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina – are absolutely key.

That’s why it’s important that, if you haven’t voted already, to get on that – make a plan to ensure you get it done. This year, what with the pandemic and all, is weird; if you’re confused about how to go about things this year, there are plenty of resources; Vote Save America is one; Vote411 and I Will Vote are others. Take your pick.

I’d like to tell you that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, as long as you participate, but those days are passed; after stuff like this, this, this, or this, all just pulled from the surface headlines this morning, it’s important that we get a change in management; a return to at least the appearance of civility and competence. So yes, I encourage you to vote for new management.

Make a Plan. Vote.

As predicted, the weekend was pretty low-impact. Friday night involved some livestreamed-over-the-internet theater (the kid kicked ass in a very intense role), Saturday was a brisk five mile hike, doing the shopping, and spendng a few hours engaged with the virtual version of the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, or as it was called this year, NoVFF. I sat in on a panel or two, and watched the nominee concert for the Pegasus Awards, for which we, the Blibbering Humdingers, were nominated for “Best Performer” again this year. We didn’t win, but it’s still cool to be nominated, and the concert went off without a hitch (and my bandmates looked great in their performance – one day we’ll get to play together again). And honestly, I spent most of the rest of the weekend reading, cooking, and watching a couple of movies on the television.

I mostly stayed off the news, which was a pretty nice thing to do, though I did, while out adventuring Saturday morning, listen to this interview with Joe Biden, a long-form, 45 minute discussion about all sorts of things. It felt good listening to a candidate spend ten minutes geeking out over the environmental science of carbon capture agriculture and reclaiming fertilizer from manure, showing purpose, understanding, and enthusiasm for deep-dive policy issues. It was honestly refreshing.

Also – you have a week until election day. Vote; early if possible. Make a plan to do so. It’s important.

If things go as planned, this week should continue the theme. The weather’s not been great, but I’m hoping for a couple of nice days this week to get out and bike; I can always use the exercise for physical and mental health, and it’ll ideally help me deal with some of the body-appearance issues I’ve been struggling with (I’m feeling particularly fat right now, which is not news, though the intensity is up there), at least superficially. Work should be low stress as well, ideally, but who knows; all I do know is that Monday morning will include mandated ethics training, and I guarantee, it’ll be just as exciting as it sounds.

Told ya.

Another Friday reached. Another week behind me. All told, this one’s been a little less stressful than the last few. Sure, there’ve been headaches and roadblocks (one of the backbone financial systems supporting multiple agencies has been choking all week, preventing me from getting important requirements funded, and more importantly, keeping many people from submitting time sheets in order to get paid, for example), but it’s not been all bad. I made some progress on a few projects, am in the midst of enjoying a pretty good book, got some nice hiking in (even if my leg muscles didn’t appreciate it much), learned from the monthly reports that I’ve made all of nine cents from online streaming of my record since July (listen to me on your favorite service and help me get that dime!), and had some nice conversation with friends, both electronically and face-to-socially-distant-face.

Also, a friend facing a pretty serious health crisis is making excellent progress toward recovery, and another couple of friends had a baby, and all are doing well.

Oh, and this sucks. While we’re all watching Rudy tent his pants and scream about waterlogged laptops, these kinds of things, which could affect tons of people (including maybe me) are quietly slipping through. Vote, people.

Some tentative, low impact things on the agenda this weekend, but nothing involving much moving around or investment, which is fine with me.

Not going to belabor this post further; it should be about the weekly playlist anyway. This week comes from the algorithm-generated “Time Capsule” playlist on Spotify, which plays mostly like spinning the radio dial around my sophomore year of college. Two eras of Van Halen, and dueling semi-blasphemous band names, including that tune at the end, which, as far as I’m concerned, best captured the heady optimism of the early 90s, when we were all so hopeful about the future.

I would love to have that feeling again.

1. “River of Deceit” – Mad Season
2. “Panama” – Van Halen
3. “Only Wanna Be With You” – Hootie & The Blowfish
4. “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)” – Cinderella
5. “Bring On The Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
6. “Zombie (acoustic version)” – The Cranberries
7. “Best of Both Worlds” – Van Halen
8. “Need You Tonight” – INXS
9. “It’s My Life” – Talk Talk
10. “Head On” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
11. “The Freshmen” – The Verve Pipe
12. “Blood And Roses” – Smithereens
13. “Right Here Right Now” – Jesus Jones

Yes, Chuck, you may, objectively, be in the best shape of your life right now. Be proud of that. However, realize you’re not 20 anymore. You might indeed have the stamina and strength to push through a brisk seven mile hike on some rough forest trail in less than 90 minutes. You indeed might feel great afterward. But you’re 46 years old, and those joints and muscles don’t exactly bounce back like they used to.

Enjoy your ibuprofen for breakfast.

To add some reasonably specific context to my general frustration with the world, I present, for your edification, an actual conversation I had with a work colleauge this morning:

Colleaugue: As a side note, it is a little shocking how much touch labor has to be used to get [this simple work thing] out….

Me: I agree completely, though this is my typical experience with the process. If there’s anything I can do to help streamline this process, I am happy to do so.

Colleaugue: “It is what it is” as we say.

Me: As we say. I truly wish we could get past that and add “…but if we changed this, it would be better” to that statement.

Colleaugue: We couldn’t be in more violent agreement. Sadly, I am quite jaded by all I have witnessed here. It would be SO EASY to get this place better streamlined, the problem is fear and ignorance with a big ole spoonful of EGO. But anyway, back to my crayons…

Me: Violent agreement indeed. Thanks for the sympathetic ear. No need to color inside the lines. 🙂

In the office, in politics, in the world in general, I find that people don’t really have an interest in making things better. I’m not sure if it’s laziness, stress, the desire to have something to complain about, or inertia. I think my co-worker is on to something with the “fear, ignorance and ….EGO” thing as well. A lot of people spend so much time building their own little empires within systems to make themeselves important, and to those people, “being important” takes a much greater priority than “making things work effectively” for everyone.

When I talk about making things work, I’m not talking crazy cost-cutting, earth-salting “efficiency expert” tactics either. Nearly everyone in a given process has a role, but our roles, as described in innumerable “team-building” seminars, are there to complement those of others, not put up roadblocks.

As much as I hated overall message of the “business school” component of my higher education, on the the theory of “teams”, they were right on the money. But as is nearly always the case in that “academic” discipline, the theory takes a back seat to Art of War, zero-sum profit-making bullshit, and reduces the human element to simply another resource.

In forty-six years of watching and interacting with people, especially in the last few years, I’ve seen that for the most part, the actual concept of “working together” is anathema, especially when it comes to the people in charge. And those people in charge have convinced (or otherwise conditioned) everyone else below them that “it is what it is,” and there’s no changing it, leading to bureaucratic or other sorts of impediments at all levels of any process, and as long as people pay lip service to our better angels, the system continues as always.

Seriously, I recently had someone who’d spent weeks throwing up roadblocks to a given organizational goal I was working toward, say “Teamwork Indeed Makes The Dream Work” to me without irony once I’d managed to jump through all of their (and everyone else’s) hoops.

Grrr.

I don’t really have a solution here. The current system is broken, and in the last four years only more so, since the current American Powers That Be have made it permissable to shed even the thinnest veneer of cooperation or responsibility to the greater good. The national motto hasn’t been E Pluribis Unum for quite some time. In practice, for most of my lifetime, it’s “Fuck You, I Got Mine.”

For us to get past this era of selfishness and self-importance, things have to start changing at lower levels and work their way up to the Hallowed Halls of Power™, though there also has to be examples of such behavior at the top for people to emulate.

This is why Americans have politicized masks in the time of COVID. Masks aren’t so much about protecting yourself, but those around you, and looking out for your neighbors and fellow humans isn’t something that modern Americans do so well, especially when the guy in charge can’t or won’t model behavior to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Most days I’m not sure we can get past it, and that America as a nation is doomed. When the basic tenet of the religion the currently ruling faction pays lip service to is “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself” and the behavior of that faction advocates for the opposite of that at every turn….

I struggle to find hope.

I hate that qualities such as basic empathy are derided by those in power as weak. I hate that selfishness at the expense of others is rewarded. I hate that even listening to those on your team that have the expertise in a given area is not the basic standard.

I just don’t know. I try to do my part for the good of those around me, though I struggle to believe that anyone else beyond the absolute lowest lowest levels is interested in doing the same.

I just want people to focus on “what could be” rather than “what is.” I want people to look out for each other and do the best for us all. I’m not sure how we get there.

It’s for that reason I’ve already cast my ballot for Joe Biden in the Presidential election. He wasn’t my first choice, and we might not agree on absolutely every policy point, I know he’s the kind of guy who listens to others, has tremendous empathy, and will definitely model the kind of behavior that I’ve been talking about in the last however many paragraphs.

And if we get there, it might at least be a start, to allow us to work toward what could be rather than what is.

And, apart from a few hours of low-impact office work today, this week’s in the can. It’s not been entirely unpleasant, and kind of eventful. I visited my actual office for the first time in more than six months, and survived to tell the tale. I mysteriously pulled an abdominal muscle doing a five mile run/hike through the woods Wednesday night, and aggravated it by sneezing and blowing my nose all day long thanks to inhaling all the after-the-rain mold, and I woke up this morning to discover I’d sold almost $50 worth of Java Moss out of my fish tank overnight.

It seems I have another hobby that kinda pays for itself.

These things are far from the most interesting events of the week. Wednesday evening, after I’d settled down with a well-deserved beer to watch a couple of episodes of “Santa Clarita Diet” (seriously, watch that – it’s so much fun), I get a call from my lovely spouse about her after-dance class adventure, leading to this guy spending a little time with us:

This is Rince (“Rin-Ka”; Irish Gaelic for “dance”). It appears he got dumped by the shady exotic pet shop up the street from the dance studio, and he was rescued/retrieved from under somebody’s minivan in the school parking lot. He’s currently chilling out behind me in the home office munching on hay, to be delivered to his forever home with one of the dance teachers and her husband this weekend. He’s kind of awesome, though our place is not ideal for him; too many cats, not enough space. Still, we’ve been enjoying his company and keeping him entertained for a few days.

As for the weekend, there’ll be some recording of competition dances I won’t be involved in, a planned trip to grab cheesesteaks from a food truck, and likely some more zombie Drew Barrymore.

Anyway, tunes. Spotify “Discover Weekly” playlist, typical mix of alternative-ish tunes I’ve never heard before. The insert of “My Grandfather’s Clock” at the end of #5 was pretty cool, and the bass tone on #10 is slammin’ and I want to duplicate it:

1. “What’s the Rhythm” – Mike Krol
2. “So Much Better” – Evan Olson
3. “Bad Ambassador” – The Divine Comedy
4. “In The Street” – Big Star
5. “Joy Division Oven Gloves” – Half Man Half Buscuit
6. “Starstruck” – Sorry
7. “Good Good Things” – Descenents
8. “Nightlights I” – Nana Grizol
9. “Faster” – Manic Street Preachers
10. “Body of Years” – Mother Mother
11. “Everything Has Changed” – Best Coast
12. “After School Special” – Blue Sky Roadster
13. “Something Bigger, Something Brighter” – Pretty Girls Make Graves

I think I might be able to honestly report a reasonably okay long weekend?

I didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary, but nonetheless it was a break from the hassle of work. I cooked some decent meals, got a little biking in before the rain, maybe booked a future gig at a local drinking establishment once things start settling down, and should it happen, it’s likely to be reasonably safe and healthy. Cool.

I also had a friend throw me a little recording project to focus on, which was honestly exactly what I needed, since I’ve been trying to focus on my own projects and hitting a wall. Adding a little something special to someone else’s work is way less pressure than building mine from whole cloth. I’ve got a good record and a half’s worth of songs written or in progress, and I’m struggling to get back into the recording frame of mind. This is helping; if it ever sees the light of day, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

On other less calming subjects, tomorrow afternoon is going to be interesting. After working from home for more than six months going, I’m actually venturing back into the office for a meeting. It should be pretty low-key; a handful of us in a large conference room, talking through some issues related to an upcoming project. Still, it’s kind of a milestone. Not that I’m going to make it a habit; this business, in spite of the crap coming out the executive mansion, is far from over, and I’m quite capable of pushing my virtual paper from my desk in the spare room without venturing into any super-spreader situations.

I’m still a little stressed. But I’ll manage.

Oh – if anybody needs some java moss, my tank is once again overrun and I’m selling some to finance my fish-keeping habit:

The week’s ending slightly better than it started, I guess; “nothing particularly significant” is better than “total emotional breakdown,” if we’re keeping score.

The low point was Tuesday afternoon. I got through the work day well enough, apart from the usual bullshit regarding the ever-shifting office policy and SharePoint gatekeeping. After shutting down for the day, I racked the bike and did a relatively refreshing fifteen miles along the river; the weather was gorgeous, and the trail wasn’t particularly heavily populated, giving me a little peace.

Stopping at WaWa afterwards for a cold drink was probably a mistake; too many absent or wrongly-worn masks, idle presidential hero worship from the young clerk, and just a bad vibe all around. I came home soon after, to find a mess that I didn’t react well to, then checked the headlines to find dead guitar heroes and ‘roid raging Presidents…

I just broke down. It wasn’t pretty.

Last couple of days I’ve been practicing self care. Gave my muscles a rest (after almost fifty miles over three days), stopped by Castleburg for a pint, finished a pretty decent book.

The head’s a little clearer now. Hoping it stays that way.

As far as this week’s playlist goes, it’s all over the place. Decent mix of indie/alternative, with a few favorites mixed in. I love the title of #9, and #15 was the last gasp of an edge before the artist became a Triple A power ballad staple instead of a full-on rock band, more’s the pity:

1. “Gentle Tuesday” – Primal Scream
2. “Opus” – Uranium Club
3. “Shoot You Down” – APB
4. “Marquee Moon” – Television
5. “Miss America” – David Byrne
6. “Two Girls Kissing” – The Swirlies
7. “Birth, School, Work, Death” – The Godfathers
8. “Be Kind to Me” – Supercrush
9. “Heteronormative Horseshit Blues” – Shipla Ray
10. “Left of the Dial” – The Replacements
11. “In God’s Country” – U2
12. “Every Time a Bell Rings” – Half Man Half Buscuit
13. “Friends of P.” – The Rentals
14. “Heart of Glass” – Toadies
15. “Long Way Down” – The Goo Goo Dolls

While I was logging my trail miles over to your left last night, my wordpress install pointed out to me that since I started using the platform to run this ‘blog back in 2007, I’d written 1,999 posts. My first thought for the 2k milestone was some kind of retrospective something, but honestly the world is just damned heavy right now.

So I’m just going to go with something fun, light, and numerically appropriate for the occasion: KISS.

I don’t want to consider what I’m going to do twenty posts from now….