Happy New Year everybody

Well, I wrote a depressing blog yesterday, and then took it down, not wanting to be a total bummer. 

Roger wrote me and asked where it went and I put it back up this morning. 

When I'm happy I'm happy and when I'm not I'm not and I have never been one to bullshit my readership. 

Not like I am some paid organ grinder with a monkey set on this good green earth to entertain you.

I haven't been real happy lately. I have been scared and depressed.

But it is probably not as bad as the inner morning demons trick me into believing. 

And I notice that with most people still high from all that nog and Christmas cheer, less and less people are making any attempts to enter my orbit.

I don't blame them. Radioactive.

I am working on a side gig right now that might pull my ass out of the fire. If I can make it to February everything will probably be alright.

So I will put on my happy face on New Year's eve, historically my worst day of the year. Why? Too many stories to tell you but it all started in Times Square in 1972 when my girlfriend was blacked out drunk and a guy blew a New Year's whistle in my face and I ended up in a fist fight on one side while trying to keep her from falling into the gutter.

Very memorable. I've never been the most comfortable person around drunken people. Anyway I have had some good one's since then and hopefully we are turning the corner and 2025 will see us fervently making America great again. We can broadcast or sell tickets to the initial round-ups and the deportations should make for great television.

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Speaking of television, I binge watched Shogun this week on Hulu, now part of Disney +.

I am a huge Clavell fan, Shogun, Taiko, King Rat. I loved the first Shogun with Richard Chamberlain. 

I didn't want to like this one but honestly, the acting is superb and it was even better than the first one. Less romanticized, more believable.

Except for the tenth and last episode which I found to be quite anticlimactic. 

I will have to watch the first one again if I can find it but I sure don't remember it leaving you hanging like this. 

Not like they could make a whole new season out of the assumption of power.

But then again, they are creating all sorts of crap in Middle Earth that Tolkien never had anything to do with so I guess anything goes today.

I think the whole Shogun series was shot in cold Canada, interesting scenery but it works. Beautiful cinematography.

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I have been on a strange YouTube kick, watching the SoulTrain network, I was a SoulTrain dancer. You don't realize how important this show was to the black culture until you watch some of these videos.

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I have had three or four people tell me how much they loved the Bob Dylan biopic. Linda my cousin sent this today.

I am not a biopic person. If I was around for the original, I don't need to see the remake. I've seen Dylan a couple dozen times, know his music quite well. Even read Chronicles.

Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison killed me for the genre. I really don't see the point. 

I even hated the people of Laurel Canyon movie, told through the lens of the Wallflowers.

Having said that, some people I respect, like Joseph and Linda, loved the Dylan thing so maybe I will force myself to see it and try to change my mind.

And I have yet to hear from a person who didn't love it.

I guess that is about it. I hope that you all have a wonderful and safe New Year's eve.

Please don't drink and drive. Call a cab or an uber. 

Best wishes in the new year. Let us look to Shogun for hope in the future. When all looked its most bleak, a victory was still secured, although it took a lot of pain and sacrifice and an occasional suicide.