SOFTWARE…further evidence that much of the most interesting music and art never even approaches widespread recognition. No A&R ghoul comes close, not even walking down the same block as the artists creating stuff like this. It’s probably better off that way for everyone involved, or at least less pressure, even as I can’t imagine finding time to create art and hold down a steady gig to pay the rent. And get a family involved? Try living an artist’s lifestyle with a stroller parked in the front hallway.

I don’t know who Software was, or is now. I don’t know if they struggled to find time for this. That’s all in my imagination. For that matter, I know nothing about this person behind Archaic Inventions, the site/blog that curates and compiles all these arcane, often cassette-only releases. I guess we all find time for our passions, no matter what they turn out to be. Maybe finding the people who do these things is my passion. It certainly consumes my time.

It’s still dark now at 6 am. I woke up a couple hours ago and the room was unusually bright. Usually, here in Brooklyn with 3 1/2 million other motherfuckers, light through the bedroom window at that hour means a car out front or night-time construction. Not this time though. I put on my glasses and looked out and the (mostly) full moon was lined up perfectly with the window. It was an unusual moon, stark white rather than the usual yellow/yellowish. It (the moon) hung there, perfectly aligned. Funny the feeling it gave me. A cool warmth. An everything is a-okay vibe. A go back to bed mood. And then I laughed because despite myself I am still superstitious the way others are. I mean, why should a rock hung in space by the laws of gravity and physics and reflecting the light from a ball of burning gas carry that sense of magic? It’s just a rock. A big fucking rock. It’s just a big rock.

Isn’t it?

It’s just a rock until it’s not.

My walkabout yesterday morning led me to midtown Manhattan, where just about 7:30 on the corner of 6th Avenue & 46th Street a man coming out of an ATM got brained by a lunatic. I was on the scene shortly after and the victim was lying visible and visibly awake in an ambulance where, as the cops on the scene said, he had no memory of what had happened. The perp had been detained and was sitting in the back of a cruiser. A policeman told me they, the victim and the attacker, would both be headed off for separate hospitals. But why is this important? I suppose because it could have been me who’d been bashed over the head and carted off with my brains scrambled. It could have been my blood on the pavement in the intersection. Life is tenuous. It’s just fucking random. You never know. Ten seconds in one direction or the other and you could be the victim or the hero or you could move with your life entirely anonymously. Nobody that morning would remember your face or even seeing you.

Or they’d remember you as the dude sitting in the ambulance looking utterly confused and upset. Someone would be home that night remembering your face and being grateful that they are not you. Shit is random like that. We even take the randomness for example and sit around complaining that it’s the same shit over and over every day until the end of time. Maybe we should be grateful that it’s the same old shit. Something new happening may not necessarily be something good happening. You could wake up in an ambulance with a fucking crease in your head and then you’d be thinking awfully hard how you’d rather have that same old boring shit.

Be grateful always, even for the boring shit. The same old shit. The shit you take for granted. Just be grateful.

Anyway. I need more coffee.