A random Wednesday or possibly Thursday near the start of the new year that we’ve all been praying will be a glorious improvement. The phone rings and as is increasingly my habit, at least when the Caller ID doesn’t come up as my bad friend Scam Likely, I pick up. Hello.

Whatcha doin’ babe, she asks.

Just, you know, watching the Insurrection.

I sleep well, maybe too long, and when the sun comes back and I’m out in it, doing my raking sweeping meditation, an old Elvis Costello song enters my head, and I think yeah, that’s right, that’s write. That’s how I enter back into things after the vacation which has been so bad for my vocation.

Red dogs under illegal legs
She looks so good that he gets down and begs

She is watching the detectives
Ooh, it’s so cute
She is watching the detectives
When they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot

They beat him up until the teardrops start
But he can’t be wounded ’cause he’s got no heart

You snatch a chill and you match a cigarette
She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet
I don’t know how much more of this I can take
She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake

You think you’re alone until you realize you’re in it now
Fear here to stay, love is here for a visit
They call it instant justice when it’s past the legal limit
Someone’s scratching at the window; I wonder who is it?

In this particular case, it’s MAGA barbarians! but pulling focus to a wider shot, it’s a girl named Destiny even though she’s no escort.

You realize you’re in it now.

As is often the case David Doel has a good general analysis.

Same for The Humanist Report.

And, to their rare credit, the mainstream has given time to the most puzzling and significant issue. Where in the hell even WERE the cops? And why is it that armed white gangs weren’t turfed into the ground, beaten, blinded, crippled like BLM protestors? Why were no looters, with the possible exception of one random woman, shot down like so many dark cattle?

MSNBC
NBC
Morning Joe Scarborough melts the fuck down.

Watch the fearful and agitated faces of Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow as they hyperventilate about their careers and summer homes–they’ll tell you they’re worried about democracy, but both of them are too smart not to know that democracy was over a long time ago. The same plutocrats who made them rich run the big show now, and they know this, all flag-waving aside.

Finally, the best take comes from JD again.

Here’s a few of the excellent tweets he used to build his case throughout the day.

Enjoy the full takes at your leisure. I don’t idolize the man, but I do appreciate him.

***

I do idolize this work, and I feel the guilt of a week gone by without engaging with it fully.

I was doing my part to recharge my marriage and my carnal self, and I consider that the only valid though temporary excuse.

I have a list of things at least, to use for backfilling the first days of the new year. Drafts and notes. I’ll either do them right or not. But either way, I’m back, and there is much work to be done, not just in terms of the practice of spill, but on the business and monetizing side as well.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.