My Fellow Canadians,
It is Christmas time and I am going to be dropping the F bomb a lot.
Not because its Christmas. But just because WTF? Have you guys been paying attention to what the fuck is going on down here?
Recrudescence. Sums it up. The election pretty much devoured every other event of the year in terms of sheer magnitude and, well, recrudescence. I don't think many people actually get what is happening - at least they don't seem to see what I see happening. And I can't say that what I am seeing is the truth, partly because obfuscation of truth is a huge part of what it going on.
But I did get my 100 dollar check from " United States of America Inc.". And I have never ever been more terrified of one hundred dollars. Hell, I've never been even a little scared of one hundred dollars. In fact, in most cases, I am overjoyed when I get one hundred dollars. More on that later.
I REALIZE THAT SOME YEARS MY LETTERS HAVE BEEN EXCESSIVELY SERIOUS AND DULL. That is because I am a Very Serious Person, and as a VSP I can sometimes get very cantankerous especially when a fucking computer is demanding that I prove I am a human by asking me to tell it which box has pictures of buses when I know damn well it's a computer and it already knows which fucking boxes have fucking buses.
But this letter I assure you, just like the past year, will prove to be both gruelingly long and absolutely hysterical!
This year the unhinging of our society from any moral or rational compass manifested itself in such humourous ways. I'll start the comedy here: a Banana Duct-Taped To A Wall was purchased as "art" for 6.2 million dollars and eaten by a billionaire. The absurdity of both the art world and the world's wealth disparity is thusly sidesplitting good fun! This is so much funnier when one stops to think about the millions of starving children all over the world who can't afford to eat a regular non-duct-taped-to-a-wall banana.
Another amoral single human being, at least he might be a human, has demanded annual compensation for his job that totals more than the annual GDP of over half the nations on earth. And that one multi-billionaire controls more strategic satellites orbiting earth than all other nations combined. He has all but declared himself the ruler of earth and is now going to be part of the United States Cabinet (of curiosities) making actual decisions about the future of our nation and planet. Let's face it. Trump might get the golden prestige of calling himself the greatest President ever, but Musk is going to be calling the shots.
The aforementioned check was from that billionaire, Mr. Musk, whose United States of America Inc. wrote it out to me for signing a pledge that I support the Second Amendment. I mean WTF, of course states have a right to form well-regulated, armed militias to defend themselves against an over reaching U.S. federal government. But the Second Amendment says nothing about defending themselves from "United States of America Inc.". That is the scary part.
We have witnessed an absolute rout of an election in which a devolved Republican Party, swooning over absurd wealth and head over heels in love with a cadre of amoral, elitist billionaires, handily conned a stunningly large segment of the population into buying the notion that they alone can fight the wealthy, elite billionaires. Tell me that is not absolutely hysterical (in the 19th century meaning of the word). They ran a campaign of deception, lies, and twisted logic polished and glistening with absurdity like fool's gold. And now, emerging victorious, they are hell bent on preparing to replace the American system of government with an all-powerful, Orwellian oligarchy run by elite billionaires, in which Lies are Truth, Truth is Banned, Money is God; inexperienced brown-nosers are selected as cabinet members, corporations no longer have to lobby political leaders because they are the political leaders, the wealthy and powerful and those loyal to them are above the law, and we are all fucked up the ass. It's a good thing you are all bilingual so I don't need to apologize for my French
On the bright side, the rebuilding of Notre Dame is the exact opposite of a billionaire buying a banana as art and eating it. It is a delirious art dream, formed from the joyful, ephemeral mist of collective aesthetic idealism, reinforced by flying buttresses masoned out of insoluble human love and passion, and a collective embrace of a completely non-monetary, historical, and romantic goal by a huge percent of humankind and, to be fair, actualized by the French - who think it should be a human right to retire at 62.
Between the two sides of humanity, I prefer the latter.
The year for me personally was just as bizarre, but as I mentioned everything fades in importance to the recrudescent rising of The Trump (don't you just love that word in connotation?). But in a brief humourous recap: After trying and failing to finish my album in late '23, , it began with me attending an international blues competition in Memphis when Memphis froze over as if it were Hell, and a hellacious ride from the airport to our hotel with a psychotic professor from Brooklyn (see my blog for the full account). There was a foot of snow and ice, the water mains froze, they couldn't find the keys for the snow plow that someone donated back in 1934, and the city was paralyzed. I came back home and immediately chopped off the tip of my ring finger whilst trying to cut a stale cheese, and in short order had my car totaled by a stoned dump truck driver who thought it would be a fun game to drive backward down an entire street in a four ton dump truck while only looking forward. I'm not making that up. He got into the truck without first looking down the street behind the truck, sat in the truck, started it up, put it in reverse, didn't look in his mirrors, kept looking forward, stepped on the gas and proceeded backwards, and would have maybe even made it all the way to the intersection were it not for my car which stopped his backward momentum after only about 40 feet. (See I told you it was funny). I worked seven days a week for three entire months to prepare my "nightmare rental house" for sale and sold it (yay for me), fought and bested two huge, corrupt mega-corporations (Citizens Bank and Fed Ex) (yay for me again), herniated 3/5ths of my lumbar vertebral discs (working on the house). I was unable to see a doctor for three months and subsequently spent much of the summer and early fall flat on my back. I made very little progress in my modest creative goals set forth LAST year, and then witnessed the elections as detailed above.
Whew, what a year!
I read a blurb in the NYT that claimed that now that Donald is president, wealthy people feel more comfortable buying art again. Oh Boy! What great News! Of course, we are talking about the BS art of New York City where a wealthy art-collecting elite can purchase a floating basketball in a giant aquarium for 15 million, and then watch it sink over time (Jeff Koons)! Or the aforementioned fruit taped to the wall. I will give the billionaire credit for taking the duct tape off of it before he ate it.
My plans to build a studio for me (to house my basketball and banana collection) were put on hold until we saw the electoral outcome. I am planning on taping a banana to a basketball and duct taping that to a wall. I am selling it for 20 million. After all, it has both a banana and a basketball and at least twice the amount of duct tape! Please let me know if any of you are interested. I'll give you a friends and family discount. Now that the election is over, if they put tariffs on goods from Canada, building supply costs will make it too expensive to build. Last year you sent me a nice box of Maple cookies. This year please send 2X4s. The rendering shows the proposed second floor studio. The addition would have been built by tearing off the original second story bedroom that was on the left side of the house (hidden in the rendering by the new structure) and replacing it with a larger room upstairs with suitable ceiling heights and then adding a sun room below.
Despite what is going on in the world, I remain completely hinged, Ask anyone. I am so well hinged right now, We are finally coming down the home stretch on the Album. 13 Tracks, 12 originals. I am looking for a good mixer/engineer who knows the blues and specifically the acoustic variety.
We think of you all and wish all of you the very best for the season and New Year.