Still on this vibe, and it may or may not be connected to a string of long nights with a flare-up of cluster headaches. It really can’t be sure but it makes sense. The mix is still fire though and this one in particular is rife with goth melodrama. We’ll take it as we head into the longest nights and latest daybreaks of the year. We’ll certainly take it. This DJ Fabio guy is tiptop. He makes perfect sense at a time where little else does.

The year is definitely winding down. It’s hard to even wrap my head around the fact that there isn’t a full work week left in 2021 and that the year is essentially done. It’s a wrap and it’s strange because the year has not been uneventful. Not at all, yet it’s still a blur. Only going back and tallying the receipts is going to prove to me now this morning that it happened at all. So strange to me… So strange… mostly that it’s not been a bad year at all, or not for me at least. It’s been quite good, to be honest, and yet it’s still a blur. I’m going to have to sit down and in earnest take an inventory of exactly how good it’s been. It’s good despite yet another close call with the health and the lingering issues with that experience. It’s even possible to say that the appendix and infection enhanced the good. It was at least a reminder that time left here is a really tenuous proposition and to take advantage of healthy moments.

Healthy moments though… It’s time for an inventory on that as well, but let’s leave this as a footnote this morning, or a placeholder. Healthy moments, indeed.

But it’s very far from being all about me and my year. There’s Covid-19 which is plodding along and taking people out as it goes. It’s mutating at it’s own pace and disrupting the world. There’s very little news now about how other countries are faring with it. Nothing of note from India in ages but that could just be American racism regarding the news. We’re accustomed to thinking of the other side of the world as a place where people die by the thousands on a daily basis. We’re used to thinking about Asia as a diseased place. That’s part of what got us into this mess in the first place. We thought that epidemics only happened there.

Surprise.

We began 2021 having our optimism for the year dashed by a horde of morons storming the Capitol and a continued media assault on sense-making in general. Simply put, we were reminded that we are an utterly moronic nation and that the biggest threat to our national security is our own idiocy. Books are being written on all this so it almost doesn’t make sense for me to carry on about the lack of sense. You all have your own eyes and ears. If you can figure out what the truth is, feel free to… well, no… leave me out. I don’t know if I care anymore. It’s all too much. All that’s left for me is to dance and eventually die.

Russia is making aggressive overtures against us in the cyber-sphere and continuing their efforts to undermine us through the propaganda war. Cyber-terrorists from those regions are going after our supply chains with everything from oil, gasoline, and cheese. They’re amassing troops on the Ukrainian border. President Biden promised he would get on the phone and talk tough shit with Vladimir Putin and maybe we should be grateful that it’s him having the conversation and not Trump who doesn’t know where Ukraine is on a map. Who knows? Taiwan is also at risk on the other end, and god only knows when we’re going to start to hear about North Korea starting something.

And of course this would be a prime time for any other hostiles to take action against us. A bomb is going to go off somewhere and we’ll all be screaming and pointing fingers at each other. There was a time twenty years ago when a terrorist attack might have drawn most of us together, but all evidence points to the opposite now. The left and the right here (not that there’s truly a left but the opposing factions of the right) are so suspicious of each other that it will only cause more division. We’ll need to get the blame game straight before any action is taking to secure things against further attack.

Just random notes here but suffice to say we’re properly fucked. It just feels like something big (and bad) is about to happen. Shit is already bad enough but we are primed for a novel event. Keep your heads low and your powder dry. It’s going to get (more) weird. Odds of something big not happening are very slim. Am I afraid? Sort of. I’m of course concerned for me and mine but I’m also resigned to it. This collapse was overdue and everything is pretty clear. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. If we get through the rest of 2021 and the winter without something horrible happening it will be the real Christmas miracle.

Fingers crossed. I want to be wrong. I’d be happy being wrong. For now though, the tracklist on this gem:

• NIGHT HAZE – Love Is Chaos
• LAS ERAS – Subte
• KALTE NACHT – Humans Are Mistakes
• CONTRE SOIRÉE – I’m Leaving Away
• NOROMAKINA – Vacio
• NNHMN – Der Unweise
• BUZZ KULL – Dreams
• ULTRA SUNN – Body Electric
• NONE OF YOUR CONCERN – Cinnamon
• SILENT EM – Citadel
• SCHMERZ – Misery ( Ghost version no edit cover)
• S. Y. Z .Y. G .Y. X. – Dangerous Creature
• ZACK ZACK ZACK – Bütün
• FRONTMACHINE – Strict Way
• VIOLETIGER – Transformation