TL;DR?! Mostly observations made from the bleacher seat tossed with a mid-year review of 2020 New Years resolutions.

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June 29, 2020 Well, looks like mid-year scrolling through the ‘drafts’ folder the correct choice for making 2020 New Years Resolutions was ‘not’. But we tried.

As is customary to mark the passage of “annual” as we roll the calendar into a new year, we make up lists of changes to make in the coming year in an effort to make them “better.”

I started off the year with the resolve that I’d push ‘publish’ on a post no matter how bleak the subject matter, no matter how often I grind the same dead ax over and over, no matter what high horse or rickety orange crate I find myself shouting from, I would fearlessly push ‘publish’. My bold resolve dissolved in the tide of events we now swim in — the COVID-19 pandemic, the re-energization of social justice movements (Black Lives Matter, voting rights, policing and incarceration), ascendant economic downheaval, the treasonous blowout sale on military personnel by the Bone Commander in Chief Spurs and today I see that a plague of locusts is rolling into New Delhi, India. Another one to add to a long list.

The summer solstice passed us by a week ago so this is as a good a time as any to revisit the good intentions we had in January.

Enjoy!

Or not.

2019 Sculpture Milwaukee
Magical Thinking, Gail Simpson/Aris Georgiadis

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Bix

Across the street, Bix is my neighbor’s dog named for Bix Beiderbecke the American jazz cornetist I’d never heard of until I met Bix the big black beautiful dog.

Bix loves me. He steps his way across the street to see me when he should not. He sings to me the song of his people when I ring the doorbell. I know it is the song of his people because the doormat says so.

And so as I picked up my fluffy little dog’s Tootsie roll-sized poop to drop it in a small wastebasket in the garage, I think of Bix and I take a moment for wonderment that for my dear neighbors, Bix’ waste management is a BIG deal.

Update June 29, 2020 – Territory. My fluffy little dog’s territory is his yard. Bix’ territory is his neighborhood and beyond. And Bixy has been sick. Get well soon my big black beautiful four-legged friend.

Milwaukee Spots

The DNC will be in Milwaukee in July of 2020. In an effort to be a source of local “color”, I will post a sundry assortment of Milwaukee photos, places, and stories from my misspent youth, adulthood, and middle age.

Update June 29, 2020 – I’m crossing my favorite ‘Milwaukee Spots’ off my list as a big COVID nope. The DNC will be held August 17-20. The venue was moved from the FiServ Forum (capacity: 17,341) to the Wisconsin Center (ballroom capacity: 3,150) with more emphasis on virtual events.

The upside to the change in the DNC Convention plans is that I can virtually observe.

Geriatrics at work

Mr. Viva and I watched The Rolling Stones 2016 Havana Moon concert stream last night (December 31, 2019) and blessed be, the only regular who isn’t over 70 is Darrel Jones, the bassist who is not a Stone but has played with them forever.

According to the wiki-Wiki-Googles, the free concert drew about 500,000 people and The Rolling Stones rocked.

On the Graham Norton Show, Henry Cavill talked of being dehydrated for shirtless photo shoots. Photographic evidence suggests that dehydration enhances muscle definition. And so Mr. Cavill reported that he was thirsty so thirsty for those photos.

When I watched The Rolling Stones they looked thirsty so thirsty minus the beefcake musculature. Gimme shelter? Rolling Stones rock but look all like ‘gimme water.’ Just sayin.’

Locate the sentence as clean as a bone.

For 2019, I kicked off with a mediation on James Baldwin’s advice to write a sentence as clean as a bone. Clean sentences are hard work. In 2020 I would like to excavate more thoroughly, more decisively, and possibly over there — in a different pit — think of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones digging in Raiders of the Lost Ark in a different place than the Nazis. I’m want to explore some new and different digging territory. The sentences will be written. That’s clean.

Update June 29, 2020 – The public execution of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 means my interest in, and consideration of James Baldwin’s writing took a different direction. I am reading Mr. Baldwin not for style but for content.

And we will be the better for it. James Baldwin is a brilliant thinker.

Circuit Court Judges

January 2020 – Well, this was distressing to read. Given that Senator Comrade McConnell withheld Senate judiciary approval during the Obama Administration for judges all the way up to Merrick Garland for Supreme Court, 1 out of 4 current circuit court judges have been appointed by the Trump Regime whose recommendations come via The Federalist Society.

Pantone Color of the Year

Well, this is rich. Classic Blue is the Pantone Color of the Year.

I hope there is a blue, blue, classic blue wave of cleansing vote in November. Ignore the polls. Vote.

Julian Castro drops out of Presidential bid

Jan. 2, 2020 – Upset I am! After years of declaiming that I am an independent, in a moment of self-reflection and coming to truth, I am a Democrat. I registered.

The strength of the Democrats is their big tent which has room for many factions, points-of-view, policy positions, circus rings, ring leaders, etc. I consider it a feature that they are a slow-moving behemoth. In having to reconcile various party factions, the arrival at a piece of legislation most of them can agree on and pass is a good thing.

And so it upsets me that with the s*it*how primary system the DNC is running that both Kamala Harris and Julian Castro — two of the more diverse voices in the sea of old white guys and Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar — that there must be a better way to select the party’s front-runner-spokesperson-banner holder.

If I compared Kamala Harris with Marianne Williamson, Harris would still be in. And Julian Castro head-to-head with Andrew Yang? Castro would still be in. And I would question “Andrew who?”

Individual Mass Transit

In a distraction from all the politics, I think about self-driving autonomous vehicle transport A LOT. I’m all in and most drivers I talk to are all NOT. Like it is not going to happen. Well, I disagree. I’ll make the case. Self-driving vehicles are in our future.

Update June 29, 2020 – Individual Mass Transit (IMT) seemed like an up-and-coming trend. With COVID, unemployment, unrest, political machinations beyond what we ever thought an untethered and unhinged POTUS could get away with — 2020 has been a year of massive, rapid change socially, politically, economically. Individual Mass Transit has moved to the backseat where it will be nice to visit for a break from the rest of the mess once and a while. IMT will be my flight of fancy, why not?

I started this post in January 2020 looking forward to a new year. We are half-way through the year but it feels so much longer.

If a human year is 7 dog years, is it 2023.5 yet?

Wishing Bix, the big black dog who lives across the street and loves me, good health.

Peace my friends. Be well. Wear a mask and above all, be kind.