Hello, folks. Are you on prescription drugs, trying to cope with reality? If so, good luck with that. Beware the opioids, of course. Maybe just some primo weed, eh? Or Wild Turkey 101.  MD 20/20? Sniffing glue? Or maybe you have religion. Possibly an organized, writ large system of faith or your own proprietary brand of belief in a higher power? As in see above, any of those noted options, possibly in a combo of indulgences. Hey, whatever gets you through the night.

You have your act together, sans any substances, or supplications to the imaginary Big Guy in the Sky? Good for you. This blog is my crutch, my form of relief from the fatal condition known as life. Oh, this and some abv beverages. And beyond, but not in need of rehab or anything like that. We all need stress relief. Anyone who claims to be stress free is a on something, for sure. Xanex (or the like). Or not awake. Not paying any attention. Or maybe dead. I’m confining this screed to life here in the good ol’ U.S.A. okay? You know, the country formed by our founding fathers. Good men they were, except for the slaves they “owned”.

I’m stressed. People! Especially the power brokers, but even random encounters with my fellow commoners. Opinions. Attitudes. Beliefs. Behavior. To truly express this everyday version of drip, drip, drip angst, I refer you to Charles Bukowski’s poem entitled The Shoelace. Bukowski told it like it was. Who’s telling it like it is today? There’s much to tell, most of it not pleasant. You know. Lots of men in the news. The buffoon in the White House. Congress again trying to give the wealthy yet another tax break by taking from the rest of us. Endless wars. Racism. Religious hypocrites (Roy Moore!). Scapegoating. Divisiveness. Plus the latest outrage, the daily busting of sexual assaulters (guys, c’mon) and the resulting ever-louder and angrier movement known as Me Too (good for you ladies!).  These revelations are becoming as routine as the mass shootings that plague this country. The subtext of most of the noted stress points invoked here clearly is: men behaving badly. Well, no one is perfect, regardless of gender, but there sure seems to be a much likelier chance of some male of the species causing everyone else concern, from that doofus in the White House to what I call Murder, Inc. a.k.a. the Republican party, to the scumbags who treat women like their personal playthings, to the street thugs jacking cars, or driving cars through retail shop doors and grabbing the goods, a sort of much more loud and violently expressed version of the five-finger discount,  or the deceptively “quiet” closeted psycho who, when it’s time to SNAP, with the help of the male-dominated National Rifle Association, is easily able to obtain an assault rifle and express his twisted disapproval and disappointment.

I’d like to think I’m not part of this seeming male-dominated source of stress, grief, shock, rage, tension and turmoil.  Okay, I’m generally in contempt of the public-at-large, that being because too many people, male and female, seem not to be able to think for themselves, and mistake prevarication and bullshit  for prime beefsteak. However, I am respectful toward the elderly, small children and animals. Well, most of the time.

There’s a Chinese proverb that goes: may you be born into interesting times

My lifetime? Interesting? Some of it. Although I can I can think of many other adjectives for all that I see or hear.

There’s something happening here

there’s a man with a gun over there

telling me I got to beware.

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound

everybody look what’s going down.

Hey, for what it’s worth…