Sort of a different vibe here in the bunker this morning but it’s been headed in that direction. Maybe the warmer weather is waking me up. We’ve had everything from mid-thirties to mid-eighties in the last couple weeks. End of the day though and it’s mostly warm. Everything outside has gone deep-summer green and it’s hard to stay inside. That’s going to change up the vibe some, so a surf-punk compilation from Greece? Why the fuck not?

The internet is vast, and that may sound obvious, but every so often we could use a reminder. If you’re looking for something and it’s not right there at the top of a basic Google search, then it probably doesn’t exist. I don’t even really search for something specific, or not that often anyway. The stuff coming in over the transom, like this collection, is pretty astounding on its own. You won’t have to try very hard to have your mind blown, provided your mind is open. It’s like going fishing but then just sitting by the pond and having fish jump out of the water at you. You’ll never go hungry.

It’s been quiet lately, or rather I should say that my head has been quiet. Quite frankly, I’ve been doing my best to ignore the news. There was one story last week that hung me up a bit. An ex-Marine is being simultaneously canonized and demonized for choking a homeless guy to death on the F train during rush hour. The details are strange and horrible. The victim has been terrorizing people on that train line for ages now. Depending on whose story you’re listening to, he was either just hungry and shouting pleas to whomever might listen, frustrated and despairing, or being menacing. I’ve personally witnessed him threatening people and being physically aggressive/abusive at least a half dozen times. He has shoved me. He once followed me down the 2nd Avenue platform threatening to cut me. I saw him through a container of unknown liquid on a mother and children. I saw him go mental and empty the car of a train, thrashing and screaming and hitting people. Word is he was currently being sought for knocking over a 67 year old woman near one of the stations on that line.

So I don’t know what he was up to this time but I don’t doubt that he was violent. Was there a way to subdue him or minimize threat without choking him for 15 minutes and holding onto him long after he had stopped moving? Most likely, yes… so Jordan Neely, in my estimation, was murdered by a psychopath at least as dangerous as he was. The trains are scary sometimes, but the point is, the same people now protesting for justice are the same people who were protesting a few months ago when Mayor Eric Adams was going to round people up against their will and hospitalize them for showing behavior dangerous to themselves or others. That may have included Jordan Neely. I’m against violations of human rights, but at the same time, Jordan may be alive today had he been involuntarily hospitalized. What might have happened to him? Could he have been stabilized and housed? I don’t know, but I found myself getting upset about the story. Frustrated and then angry, really. Angry at the system. Angry at people Angry at myself.

So I withdrew again. All this stuff going on is bigger than me. This war can wreck your head, and it is a war. It’s a war against reason and sense at the very least. It’s killing people too. It’s stacking bodies.

I don’t know. I don’t know why I wrote this here, but it had to be somewhere. It’s been occupying space in my head.