Something positive to begin your week. 

Don't try calling Ken. He's long dead.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, or whatever other manner of weirdness you're into this week.  We'll be back with something new in the first week of December.

The Pale Horse

 credit to Pennsylvania artist Benjamin West's rendering of Death Rides a Pale Horse & to Peter Gabriel for lyrical inspiration

Death rides a Pale Horse,

or so it's been said

Though none know for certain,

except for the dead

The outdated metaphor

for post industrial age

This steed has been blindered

and placed in a cage

A mere horse could not carry

all the killing required

So the rider dismounted

and the ride is retired

There are no green paddocks

where he is put out to stud,

for the Pale Horse is sterile;

his seed is a dud

So he lives out his last days,

where he's feeling no pain

Death rides not a Pale Horse

No, I'm sure it's a train

His four legs still willing

to carry Death's charge,

but the saddle a burden

that's grown much too large

Death has a mission

that none shall impinge

If not on a Pale Horse

then by the syringe

Death will ride still,

for what the Pale Horse may lack,

is easily delivered

by a train on a track

So heed well, friend, at crossings

Again the refrain

Death rides not a Pale Horse

No, I'm sure it's a train

Tackle Box

This is the car at the edge of the road

There's nothing disturbed, all the windows are closed

The tackle box had been coated in dust. Before it fell from it's place on the low bed trailer to the dirt floor below, it had appeared as just one more dust and debris covered box or crate in stacks, covering the middle third of the trailer. Rolled up at the front of this trailer there was a heavy, green canvas tarp. It appeared that this tarp had been purposed, at one point, to provide a protective cover over the contents of the trailer. At one point, probably decades before, it had been rolled away to retrieve something and then never rolled back into place. It was only because of this that Lonnie had inadvertently dislodged one of those stacks and tumbled the tackle box from it's niche.

Freed of years' accumulation, the tackle box was suddenly identifiable, there on that dusty barn floor. It's surface, though still coated in the grime of age, now clearly indicated that it was a two-toned, polypropylene plastic tackle box, of a style and construction virtually unchanged since it's introduction in the early 1970s. The bottom half was a hunter green, the top half in a beige remarkably suited to absorbing and assimilating dust. It had a simple clasp closure, with a locking pin still firmly in place. It did not seem to have been jarred at all in it's fall from the trailer. There had been a solid thud when it fell. Clearly there was some weight in it, yet there had been no loud clatter of many loose objects disturbed, as one might reasonably expect with a tackle box.

The air was hot, very humid and thick. Lonnie found himself momentarily sickened, suddenly overwhelmed by the sharp, piercing senses assailing him. The heat was oppressive, sauna-like. The steam bath was pressure, ever more cranial pressure. Sweat poured from every pore of his body, his heart rate accelerated. He found himself nearly gasping, wheezing for every breath. The dust, everywhere. The overwhelming smell of straw and stale, wet ropes; growing with years of mildew and neglect. His blood pressure rose, pulse pounding in his ears. The pressure! The heat! Head swelling, ears nearly popping. The sound of restless cicadas. And crows. Blackbirds. They were everywhere, swarming. Every sound, every call, amplified, echoed and distorted.

Lonnie felt something strange. He was leaning there, paralyzed over that tackle box, his face red and eyes bulging. Sweat rained from his brow and chin, and he shook visibly. His head and face screamed of a fever, yet the shivers appeared as from cold. Every bit of the exposed skin on his arms and neck bore the gooseflesh of one immersed into an ice bath. He was looking down, directly over the tackle box. Beads of sweat dripped from his nose and landed on the tackle box, pooling until forming a muddy trail through the grimy coating on it's path to the ground. He wanted to reach for it, but the muscles in both arms seemed to have contracted. No matter how hard he willed it, he could not move. It seemed to him, for a few brief moments, that time itself had been frozen still. 

It was later, he wasn't certain how long, that Lonnie had some hazy memory of losing consciousness in the barn. He could not remember hitting the ground, nor could he remember how he had come to be seated in the car in which he found himself. Regaining consciousness was painful, disorienting. He could feel a spike running through his brain, into the top of his neck and down his spine. Blinking against the light he found that he did not know where he was. He could recall that he had arrived at this barn, the building only a couple hundred feet away as seen through the windshield. The windshield of a car he did not recognize. He somehow knew that he had come here in a car, but not this car. He knew he had been in that barn, though it was completely unknown if that had been an hour ago or thirty years. And not even the faintest inkling as to where this place was.

Wincing against the pain in his skull, Lonnie turned his head side to side, gradually rotating his neck to release the grip of an awful knot there. While doing this he caught a glimpse into the rearview mirror. All known instincts and experience told him that the reflection he saw there was his own. Still, something lingered on the fringes that told him this was not so. He had to hold still a moment to examine this face more closely. Whenever he turned this way or that, cocked an eyebrow or the blink of an eye, every impulse translated in time with the reflection in the mirror. It was him, but... perhaps a younger version? Or perhaps someone related to him, a cousin maybe? Even at that, there were enough subtle differences in this face that it did not correspond to any face Lonnie recalled arriving with.

In the instant that this realization crept into his mind, he impulsively reached up and roughly turned the mirror away. Then he looked over on the front seat, next to him in the passenger space. There sat the tackle box. He knew instinctively that it was the same one. He remembered standing over it in the barn. Except that now it was completely clean. Not a stain or speck of dust anywhere on it, looking as new as when it had been on the store shelf. Hunter green and beige, front locking clasp, collapsible top handle, three trays, rubber gasket seals, model 8619.

Lonnie did not consider himself a fisherman. The last time he could recall ever fishing had been as a teenager, perhaps fourteen. Thus, his knowledge and experience of tackle boxes was limited to a roughly five-year period of his childhood. Just the same, there was a familiarity with this tackle box that went somewhere beyond his short-term recollection of the barn. Resting there on that car seat, in it's pristine condition, the tackle box caused a flash of memory in his mind. 1975, the sporting goods department at some store. Maybe it was Sears. There it was, on the shelf. That one and at least three others just like it. He was only left further confused by this strange vision, trying to sort whether this was an actual memory of his own, or if it was that of the face he had seen in the rear-view mirror.

He dared not look into the mirror again, to search the face of that vaguely familiar stranger. He tried for a moment to look about, beyond the barn and in other directions, in the hope that he might see something recognizable. Something to give him some desperately needed bearings, some clue as to where and when he was. Whoever he was. He could confront the reflection later. 

Lonnie found that he could see only the thick grasslands surrounding the barn and the car. The sky above was a blinding, white sunny haze, bathing a radius of one-hundred yards all around the car. The light seemed to form a great orange orb, a three-hundred-sixty degree glowing, fuzzy opaque. Shapes beyond could be faintly glimpsed as shadows, indistinct and incomplete. There seemed to be a low hum that accompanied this field, generating a static charge that made the hairs on his arms and neck stand to attention.

Well, Lonnie was unnerved to be sure, but he was not yet afraid. There was some part of his mind that refused to succumb to panic, still insisted on rationalizing through this maze. To the very best of his ability to determine anything, there were only two physical constants within this sphere. There was the person within this body and the tackle box. Everything else was a mirage. Having arrived at this conclusion, there was only one logical course remaining: he must open the tackle box. He knew he had to do it. There was no curiosity as to it's contents, he just knew it was necessary to discover what was happening to him.

He had no idea what would occur as he watched that pair of hands, hands he could only assume were his own, reaching for the seat. Those hands arrived at the tackle box and slowly lifted it from the seat. Lonnie held it aloft for nearly a full minute, turning it one way and another to look at all sides. Eventually he dared to give it a little shake, so as to perhaps divine some of it's contents. He did not learn much from this. He then set the tackle box upon the bench seat next to him.

He felt that his mouth was dry, tasting of dust from the barn. He took another look around the car and for a moment thought he might just return the tackle box to the barn. It couldn't be too hard to find that trailer. An unseen force compelled him to open the box, yet there remained a part of him that still wanted to avoid this, if at all possible. Unconsciously he reached for the car door, preparing to make for the barn. He fumbled blindly with the handle only to discover that the door would not open. Somehow, he still remained strangely calm. At some deep, subliminal level there was an understanding that there was some purpose to be fulfilled here, not to be known or understood. He retracted the pin and unlatched the clasp. He could feel the little puff of dead, decades old stale air burp from the box as the rubber gaskets released their grip. A whiff of decay. Before he could open it any wider, he was startled by the sudden ignition of the car's engine.

Lonnie dropped the tackle box back to it's place on the seat. Looking out now, he was no longer parked outside of the barn. He was now sitting parked on a gravel lane, a short distance from a creek bank. It wasn't any place he recognized. It was raining out, not hard, but enough to keep the wipers running. Lonnie looked with greater attention to the details of the car now. As best he could surmise this was a mid to late seventies model of a Chevy Nova. Everything seemed to carry an almost overpowering scent of plastics. Automatic transmission, column shifter. AM/FM, maybe a cassette deck? He reached to switch the radio on. Black vinyl seats. The speakers crackled to life with a shriek of static. Lonnie worked at the tuner until a clear signal came through. The song Tom Sawyer, by the band Rush was playing.

Lonnie hadn't figured it out yet, but he now found himself in August 1981. When he had left his home in Sabine Falls that morning it was 2025. He had driven out of town to a farm, not too far distant, to take a look at an estate sale. No one in Sabine Falls knew where Lonnie was headed to. It was Saturday, so he was not expected anywhere that his absence would be noticed. He had been in the barn, at the estate sale, when he had stumbled into the tackle box. As best he could understand, it seemed the tackle box had brought him here, to this strange place. He would never come to learn that he was at an old canoe launch on Mingo Creek, just a short distance up the road from the estate sale.

He turned the volume down, let the radio play on. The raindrops and wiper blades kept rhythm with the music in an odd synchrony. Underneath these sounds was the gentle hissing from the leafy boughs captured in the breeze overhead. It had begun to appear that there must be some greater storm brewing in the air. It was gradually pressing down upon him, the leaves curling over to display their pale undersides. Despite the rain, Lonnie wanted to venture outside the car to explore this place. He could see no one, nothing present that might seem to explain why he was here. Unconsciously, he was desperately trying to avoid the contents of that tackle box.

Lonnie began to believe that the tackle box exerted some force, somehow, that prevented him from leaving the vehicle. From somewhere inside himself a strange voice whispered, nudging him to face this object of his fear. It seemed to come from within, yet he had an uneasy sense of it; that this voice bore the specter of falsehood. The confrontation sought was not to vanquish the fear, only to submit to it's inevitability. Even while a part of his mind screamed to resist this, Lonnie found himself unable, by thought or force, to do so. He observed his own hands take up the box again, even though he could not feel that he had consciously willed this to happen.

Looking down at the box he could see his hands trembling, but he could not feel this movement. This physical body seemed to be in control, yet he was not in control. Captive in that seat, he watched as the lid was raised. The sudden strong smell of plastic pervaded the confined space. There were two trays of compartments integrated to the operation of the hinge, unfolding to their place once the lid was fully opened. All of the compartments were empty. There were no lures, no hooks, no other angler's hardware. Within the main compartment, the bottom of the box, there were only six clear plastic bags of lead sinkers. They were raindrop shaped, in sizes ranging from thirty to two-hundred-fifty grams, according to the labeling. The bags comprised a total weight of eight to ten pounds. He could see nothing else inside the tackle box.

Lonnie suddenly felt a deep sense of disappointment overcome him.  There was some kind of expectation that inspection of this tackle box should have yielded something more, but the strength of this emotion seemed quite out of proportion. It felt heavy and crushing, almost like the sudden loss of a loved one. He was definitely feeling this, the physical manifestations of deep disappointment in the hollow of his gut, yet it did not seem that this strong sense came from within himself. This was so foreign that he could make no sense of it. Somehow it wasn't right, but any way of describing what was wrong eluded him. Larger raindrops began to pelt the windshield.

This growing sense of unease gripped him for several minutes, holding him paralyzed in his seat. The pace of the rain increased while the wipers labored to keep up. The weight of this gloom gradually subsided, giving way to a quiet, calm resignation that he was left powerless and could only await events to unfold. The acceptance of the circumstance brought peace to a troubled mind. The rain and the wipers carried on their exchange with a relentless rhythm, like the gears of some eternal clock. There was still music playing from the radio, now muffled and unrecognizable, a mere low frequency hum below the surface. Lonnie allowed himself to simply fall into the sound.

For the first time in his entire life, Lonnie was able to sense, to feel his spirit. This was something he could embrace but could not touch. It was undeniably there, though devoid any physicality. He understood, for the moment at least, another plane from which he was only an observer. With the emotional weight lifted he felt something else "leave" him. It was barely perceptible, yet he was aware of some piece separating from this spirit. In the instant that this severance occurred, the universe froze. The rain ended, the air outside grew still. The windshield, now cleared, presented the same view of the place, with the waters of the creek frozen still. Everything was still.

He could feel that he was still inside the car, though absent any physical being. There was no reflection in the rear view mirror, no hands upon the steering wheel. And the tackle box was gone. There was no panic, he remained perfectly calm. An inner peace told him that all was as meant to be. Like a pause button released from a video recording, the scene outside the car resumed it's normal ebb and flow. The waters again rippled across the creek surface, leaves fluttered gently in a sighing breeze. Shafts of sunlight danced intermittently across the grassy banks, peeking out from a steady armada of fluffy cumulus cloud. And there was a young man, picking steadily over the rocky lot and heading for the water's edge. The young man was carrying the tackle box by it's handle, in his right hand.

Lonnie felt his spirit will that he follow the young man. He was then, in that instant, outside of the car and hovering over his shoulder. Vicious mosquitos and deerflies buzzed about in the thick, post-rain air, but there was no flesh for him to feel their sting. Without gaining a full look at the face, he was still certain this was the young man he had seen in the mirror. He wore the same clothes and, more importantly, he was carrying that tackle box. He still could not understand why, but he knew that everything he had experienced this day was tied to that tackle box.

The young man reached the creekbank and turned right to round a point, which provided a sheltering arm to the boat launch. Following downstream he stalked through a reedy patch at the edge of some rocky shoals, a stretch of some thirty yards. By that point they had traveled beyond line of sight with the launch and the car. At the end of these shoals the bank rose three to four feet above the creek. Vegetation was grown thick here, leaving only a narrow path upon a ledge. Grapevines choked with Virginia creeper were festooned about the low hanging limbs, casting the creek's edge below with an eerie gloom. The young man climbed the bank and proceeded up the narrow path. Another twenty or thirty yards he bobbed and weaved through tangled roots and overhanging foliage, until there was a narrow break in the growth.

Here, there was one of many small tributaries that fed into the creek. It terminated in a large gouge out of the bank, with a deeper pool at its edge, guarded on either side by ancient red oaks with their roots exposed against the banks. The young man stopped here a moment, at first apparently gauging the distance across. He then sat down upon the ledge, placing the tackle box on secure ground before working his way down into the crevice. Somewhere below he had found a secure perch, allowing him to stand with just the top of his head at the ledge, still able to reach the tackle box. After a moment a hand did indeed reach up to take the box away.

Lonnie drifted over to a spot directly above. The disembodied spirit gazed down and watched as the young man, crouched upon a large set of roots, appeared to be trying to immerse the tackle box into the water. A closer look revealed that this was not so. Obscured by a tangle of roots there was a small niche dug out from the muddy creekbank. At the current water levels this space was about two and a half feet above the surface. It was easy to see, all along the shoreline, that the high-water mark was well above this point. The young man was reaching as far as he could, without stepping into the water, to place the tackle box into this nest. It wasn't looking like he was going to pull it off. 

This silent struggle was abruptly disrupted. Two rough looking characters, appearing bigger and older, had emerged from the brush on the other side of the small stream. This was not a well-traveled path; they had to have been lying in wait. The ruffians splashed into the knee-deep waters on either side of the young man, taking him by complete surprise. He had been precariously balanced upon that set of roots, already vulnerable. Caught as he was, he was able to provide little resistance. There was only a momentary struggle before they had taken him, one on either arm, then plunged his head into the waters. They thrashed about for several minutes. The young man had kicked and pulled furiously at first, but as the muddy waters filled his lungs his movements were reduced to the twitches of death, until left floating face down in sixteen inches of water. The whole event happened within a span of five minutes.

Lonnie had observed this, horrified, in his spirit state. He had no voice to cry in protest, no hands to lend in aid. The deed done, the two assailants fled off into the brush from whence they had come. Lonnie felt no urge to follow them; there was nothing to be done. Unnoticed by all, in the melee the tackle box had fallen into the creek. Before the young man had breathed his last, the tackle box had been swept out into the main current. In the tumble, all of those sinkers had slid to one end inside the box. With the gaskets still sealed around the lid, the air inside still provided enough buoyancy to keep the tackle box afloat. One half of it's length remained above the waterline, bobbing up and down slightly as it drifted downstream. As it slowly floated farther and farther away, Lonnie gradually dissipated into the ether. He was gone, to shine on in another plane. Lonnie never learned what happened to him. Or why. Where he has gone, he needn't worry over it.

He never learned that the young man's name was Patrick, or that Patrick had been a drug dealer. Business had been brisk that summer. The Mr. Natural blotter had been a good buy, enthusiastically received by the market. As with all good things, when there gets to be too many on the boat the party will get out of hand. Patrick got word that the heat was coming, so he decided to remove his stash and hold it on ice until things cooled down. He had made up a double liner of gallon-sized zip seal bags and enclosed ten sheets of the blotter, one hundred doses each. Bleeding nearly all of the air, he compressed this package as flat as possible. By temporarily disconnecting the hinge assembly on the tackle box, he was then able to remove the insert in the bottom compartment. There was just enough space there to insert his zip sealed treasure of a thousand hits of acid, street valued between four to five thousand dollars at the time. It wasn't a huge treasure, but in Patrick's world it was not nothing.

Sadly, for Patrick, he had a cousin named Paul who thought it was an amount worth killing over. Paul, and his half-wit friend, Walter, were the ruffians who had accosted and drowned Patrick. Paul knew about Patrick's creekbank hidey hole. It had been used before. When Paul knew that Patrick was moving the stash he rang up his pal, Walter. They took Walter's car out to the road leading to the boat ramp, parking along the side of the road just past a farm situated along the south bank. Only about a half mile downstream from the ramp. Paul believed that there was a lot more in that box, and he knew that if it were to come up missing Patrick would certainly know it had been his doing. So, Paul decided he'd just kill his cousin and take the stash, be done with it all.

They chased that tackle box downstream, along the creekbank, until it drifted to a shallow spot, brought to a halt against a fallen tree. Paul grabbed up the box and then led the way back to the fenceline they had followed from the main road where they were parked. It seemed that the plan was going well, until they came to the edge of the field between the barn and the road. The car was visible, just a little over a hundred yards away from where they stood. Behind the car was a Sheriff's cruiser and a deputy was out there, examining the car. The farmer had called, said the car had been parked there for a while and seemed "suspicious".

Paul had to think quickly now, something he was not terribly good at. It did not help matters at all that, unbeknownst to Paul, his friend Walter had outstanding warrants. He considered for a moment going back to the hidey hole, dropping the box there and then heading back to the ramp to take Patrick's car. Then he remembered the dead body they had left floating back there. With the Sheriff's department nosing around the neighborhood that might not be a good move. They stayed crouched down at the edge of this field while Paul tried to work out some plan.

Watching the road still, he saw the deputy return to his cruiser. The cruiser remained. Paul figured that he must be on the radio. He would probably leave soon. Then the lights went on. That's when he got the impulse to go hide in the barn, try to wait things out. Walter was aware that he had outstanding warrants, but he still didn't see fit to share this with his partner in crime. He was also hoping that the deputy would just move along eventually. Maybe the worst to happen would be that his car would be towed away. They could sort that out later. He was easy to convince that the barn was their best bet for the time being.

It wasn't very far, a few hundred feet with enough cover to approach with stealth. It only took them a few minutes. Once into the barn Paul started searching the best angle from which to observe the road. He settled upon a spot behind the deck of a huge thresher. Well out of sight with a view to those flashing lights. Now he had more time to think. He knew they needed to get away from here, somehow. Even if that was on foot. But he could not risk getting caught with the tackle box. It was a hot potato. He began looking around in the barn, seeking some hiding spot where he might stow it and then return to retrieve later. It didn't take a long time before he found it. A low bed trailer with a heavy canvas tarp draped over. He found one end of the tarp and rolled it back to reveal stacks of dusty boxes and crates. Paul located a gap in roughly the size of the tackle box and placed it there, like filling a hole in a jigsaw puzzle. Then he rearranged another box of roughly the same size to set on top, completely obscuring the tackle box from view. It would do until he could come back.

Only Paul and Walter never would make it back to that barn. They had waited for nearly an hour, watching out toward the road, until yet another cruiser arrived. Then, a short time after that, a wrecker came and hooked up Walter's car to tow away. The two finally decided to head back to the creek and follow it in the other direction, until they found another road to take them away from the area. They were apprehended later that same day and eventually fingered for Patrick's murder. That tackle box remained there, in that stack on the trailer for the next forty-four years, until Lonnie Bishop's accidental discovery.

The people running that estate sale were wrapping up the day's business that Saturday evening, when they noticed a late model, red Toyota Camry still parked in the grass outside the barn. Nobody could say who it belonged to. The sale would continue the next day, so nothing more was thought about it. When they found the car still unmoved come Sunday evening, a note was made of it. On Monday morning it was reported and eventually the car was towed off to the Fulke County impound lot, where it still sits today.

The car was found locked with it's windows rolled up. There was nothing of any value visible in the car, only a dusty tackle box on the floor in front of the passenger seat. The registration was traced to a Lonnie Bishop of Sabine Falls, but every effort to contact or locate Mr. Bishop yielded nothing. He is still listed as missing today.

The multiverse is, as it's name implies, a multi-faceted thing. It exists simultaneously in multiple planes. It is mostly unknown, and little understood by any who do. There are tales of time travel, involving machines or portals, but the multiverse is not traversed by vehicles or doorways. Lonnie Bishop found out, and he wasn't even looking for it. Sometimes there are certain places or objects that serve as a slip, a small slash that punctures the fabric of time and space in ways we can not see or comprehend. If one is in the right place at the right time, it is possible to fall through one of these cracks. There have been stories reported from all around the world, of these mysterious time slip incidents. We have heard something of these because the parties involved were somehow able to return. In most of these incidents this does not occur. Once through, one never comes back. Whether by fate or by choice, this is not for us to know.

  

November spawned a monster

Elections are held in November, so, yes. Every November spawns a monster of some kind. This latest edition has spawned a monster in the shape of a child... a child of a film director and a Columbia University professor of anthropology. Unapologetically Muslim and socialist, who professes to be a populist. Well, it's New York City, so I'm sure everything will be fine. You'll have all five boroughs and eight million subjects to rule over. You will have that once in a lifetime opportunity, Mr. Mamdani, to finally show the world socialism done right. Or, the more likely outcome, you will do to New York what Saddiq Khan has done to London.

There are still a sizable faction in this country who might consider that the 2024 November election spawned a monster, in the person of Donald Trump. I'm not inclined to agree with that, but I'll keep an open mind. We are fast approaching the 62nd anniversary of the greatest November monster ever spawned. Many a November has followed, giving us still more monsters. 

This is from four years ago, and still rings true...

 “For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

Nixon was the true cold warrior. The Dulles brothers and their slack jawed sycophants were confident that Dick was just the right type of pliant weasel to inhabit the seat of American executive power. One has to suppose that the accursed progeny of Mrs. Dulles’ womb had not yet fully comprehended the power of the television camera. Dick Nixon, with his over large pores and deformed proboscis, was a face made for radio. I am loathe to contemplate that grinning meat puppet before today’s high-definition cameras. For whatever he lacked in luster Dick, more than made up for it in enthusiasm. Despite his known paranoia, he could be counted upon to be a team player, a willing errand boy to the post war’s burgeoning intelligence apparatus. They meant to deliver him, like Jesus, wrapped in the flag for swaddling clothes into the manger of the Oval Office in January of 1961. Only that didn’t happen…

JFK was not a god. He was no knight in shining armor. He was Ivy League, not working class Irish Catholic Boston. Jack Kennedy was cut more from the cloth of Lace Curtain Irish, and his old man was dirty as sin. There are other blemishes which, though discreetly suppressed in his era, would be politically fatal in today’s climate. We all know these things about the man. They can not be denied. Another truth that can not be denied is that the man was a change agent, coming at a critical crossroads in our history where a change agent was direly needed.

In the days before Ike puttered away in his golf cart to that final back nine, he warned America about the Military-Industrial Complex. Our post-war general staff was populated to a rather large degree by veterans of the big one, WWII. The sunset years of those careers began to collide with the dawn of the defense and intel gravy train. The underwriters of this enterprise preferred Dick Nixon in the executive office. Life was easier to have that seat occupied by a submissive toady, who could be relied upon to roll on his back and beg for their affection at the snap of their fingers. That would have been easier, but it wasn’t necessary. There’s always a work around.

If Ike was so bold as to make such public pronouncements in calling out the nature of this beast before the world, one has to wonder what private counsel he may have shared with Kennedy prior to passing the torch. If Kennedy did not enter the office with an innate distrust of the Pentagon and CIA, he certainly learned it fast. Though he may have been an unknown quantity to this establishment, he possessed a pedigree that conventional wisdom of the day suggested would make him malleable to their designs. They underestimated the man and only got one bite at that apple with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. By the time Kennedy’s first year in office drew to a close, CIA Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Director Charles Cabell had been removed from their posts. The battle lines were drawn. Kennedy was going to chart a new paradigm and the Pentagon and the CIA were both on notice. And there was J. Edgar, America’s own Lavrenty Beria, behind the scenes. Watching, listening, occasionally stirring the pot while drying his delicate panties, wearing a feather boa and modest pumps. God save the Queen.

Kennedy bucked the tide. He signaled that he was going to take out the CIA. He started at the top, but he had no idea how far he actually needed to go. He demonstrated he was serious with the public castration of Dulles. The old guard within the defense establishment could smell this ill wind and they weren’t going to suffer the same fate. The work around went into motion.

In 1963 it was still relatively easy to kill a man if he got in the way, even if that man was the President of these United States. It was easy to forge a false narrative; easy to co-opt an obedient, lap dog media to carry your water. No 24/7 news cycle, no alternative media, no internet. Complete control of practically every media outlet available to the general public. Why they could have staged one of Pat Nixon’s infamous cocktail parties, complete with the sacrificial goat, right there in the middle of Dealey Plaza, and still the media would have dutifully reported that there were three shots fired by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, from the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Period, end of story, and a pox on your house if you even attempt to say otherwise.

In 1964, in the months following the assassination, it was still possible to throw a twenty-six volume heap of hot steaming dung on the plate of the nation and declare it to be the gospel truth. The Warren Commission, like nearly all Washington commissions, was mere theater. It was not a credible investigative body; it was a blatant whitewash perpetrated by Allen Dulles, aided and abetted in varying degrees by the other commission members, and fully co-signed by that self loathing mouth breather over at the FBI. In America at that time no one dared challenge the orthodoxy of the Warren Report, including a number of Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses. The premature mortality rate of these people rivals that of former associates and colleagues of the Clintons. All opposition to the official narrative was to be silenced by any means necessary. Anyone who should wander too close to the truth would be visited by black suited thugs from the FBI to intimidate, or media outlets would openly conspire to discredit the offending party.

Some of you may recall these things. If you lived during those times you know that these things are true. And if you happen to be among the fortunate few in this category, then you must see that what has happened in this country over the past three years is a colorized re-run of 1961-1963. Now, in 2021 we are reliving the vile season that was 1964.

In 2016 the heirs of the security state were expecting their Nixon in the person of a candidate with much larger balls, Hillary Clinton. Instead they got an even larger set in the person of Donald Trump. In 2017 Donald Trump entered office with two strikes against him, the first of which was that he lacked the proper pedigree. This was a Caddyshack presidency, with Trump as Dangerfield’s Al Czervik crashing the staid, stick-up-their-ass Bushwood Country Club. The second was that, like Kennedy, he boldly proclaimed his intent to begin taking apart the system. “Drain the swamp” was the mantra for the voters. For the vermin that inhabit every corner of Washington this message was clear enough, if not in the same polished rhetoric as JFK’s. In 2017 they rebooted the work around.

They knew they’d never get that mulligan for the botched Kennedy assassination. They succeeded in killing the man, true enough, but the operation was botched. That’s why you had Jack Ruby walk unchallenged into a garage full of police officers that Sunday morning and shoot Oswald dead before a live television audience. The chances of successfully replicating this effort on Trump, in the glare of the 21st century lens was not feasible, so they went at another way. And another. And another… and despite the wailing jackal class constantly reminding us “Orange Man Bad!”, nothing worked. The man’s popular support only grew. Oh! What to do?

This assassination was committed not with bullets, but with ballots. Millions of them. False ballots, false machines, false local election officials. Everything about the 2020 election, and all that has followed, has been a falsehood. Just like the Warren Report. And just like the Warren Report nearly every living soul on the planet knows that it is all complete and utter bull shit. The networks still chatter on with the official narrative, convinced that anyone is actually still listening. They are no longer relevant in today’s landscape. Like Chairman Xi’s little bitch on a leash the legacy networks are dinosaurs; decrepit relics that still resemble something vaguely humanoid, but are empty, soulless husks. The real action is in social media. Paired together they make the two headed monster that is the state’s proxy, de facto Ministries of Propaganda and Censorship.

The security state is going global. This is not a new thing. This beast has remained, lurking in the shadows since that dark day in November 1963. It has been content to mostly drool in a stupor, intoxicated on drug money, oil and blood. Like a fat, bloated tick embedded on the ass of the nation they just keep on sucking. It is only when one treads too close, like Kennedy and Trump dared to do, that this beast bares it’s fangs. This beast can not survive if it is separated from it’s host. It knows it and so did Kennedy, and now so does the nation. What they did to Kennedy was a warning shot. What they have done to Trump is more. They have been flushed out and they’re not content with Trump’s scalp. Now they are coming for you.

Too many still refuse to acknowledge the truth, much less say it. This ends one of two ways. Either we meekly accept this jagged suppository being shoved up our ass, or we start dragging these mother fuckers out into the streets and lighting them on fire. Yes, we’d all like for this to be an orderly process, but we are not the ones who have perverted the process. They’ve thrown out the rule book and declared war upon the people. The legal process is dead. It will get you nowhere. This ends when you can hear and feel the crunch of your enemy’s crushed and charred bones beneath your feet.

Thanksgiving: A Host's Lament

Well, that day is upon us two weeks hence.  The annual ritual of parades, NFL football games, and gluttony.  Many have dealt with leaner tables in recent years, indeed there are those still. Whatever your tradition or station, we here at Midnight and other beasts extend our most sincere wish that you all enjoy your Thanksgiving celebration.

I enjoy a much more modest tradition, now in my later years. Thanksgiving Eve is kicked off with an airing of WKRP in Cincinnati's famed "Turkeys Away" episode. Almost fifty years later and it still reigns as one of the funniest moments in television. This is followed by the film, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes' Thanksgiving Opus.

The day of brings a traditional, but simple feast. A table setting for four only and football until I fall asleep, drooling upon myself with reckless abandon. It didn't used to be this way. For most of my adult life, Thanksgiving was an annual Hellscape, navigating the family factions of the moment and placating condescending in-laws. I know that for some this is the norm, and that many may actually embrace this experience. I, for one, do not miss this at all. 

I was prompted at one point to pen the following, expressing my deepest thoughts upon the subject. Even though it no longer expresses my own experience, I offer it now, in sympathy to those who still suffer thus...

The harvest feast over

and all the trash hauled away

except for the guests

who decided they'd stay

All the dishes are washed

and the leftovers stored

There's a crew on the couch

looking mightily bored

Well you were invited for dinner

not to be entertained

Some say I should join you

No thanks, I'll abstain

While sharing in misery

makes a fine pastime for some

I'll stay here in my kitchen

with this bottle of rum

I'll get quietly drunk

just sit here and grieve

until that blessed moment

when you all finally leave

We have returned...

 

Spent Sunday in Louisville, KY. Well, part of it. Went to see Bill Murray and his famous Blood Brothers band at the Palace. All this while my preferred NFL teams took a complete dump. I'm pretty certain the two events are related.

The show was fun, Bill was his usual quirky self. One expected that he might have reprised his role of the Lounge Lizard from the SNL heyday, but there was none of that. Never a man to be accused of anything approaching a vocal styling, he more than compensates with enthusiasm. Yet even the madcap presence of this master jester was not enough to stir the participation of the crowd. I was shocked that these people could not even be shamed into it. How can you not sing along to Like a Rolling Stone? Especially when being invited to do so. So what if you don't know all the words! I've seen Dylan twice in the past year and I don't think he even remembers them all. Come to think of it... Dylan did not perform the song at either of the shows I attended.

The greatest disappointment of this trip was in the choice of lodging. I had stayed at the Galt House when traveling to Louisville on business, many times and all of them were good stays. It had been sixteen years since I had last been there. The Galt House had provided many good memories, so I had looked forward to staying there for this show. The Palace is easy walking distance from the Galt. It seemed the perfect opportunity to revisit an old favorite.

I am not naive. I understand that things change. Everything changes. I've changed. It took me a couple of minutes to correctly recall the last year I had visited the Galt House, then at least another minute working out the math. Sixteen years did not seem like such a long time. How could it have changed so much in that time? The Galt House long had been an anchor of constancy in the Louisville downtown. No more.

The impressive staircase in the lobby of the west tower is still there, though it's splendor is now dulled. Gone is the bright red carpet, contrasted by deep, dark wood. The staircase still exists, but it is now relegated to dull, understated shades of brown. Warm lighting from brass sconces replaced by glaring LEDs. Once the path to the second-floor lounge, The English Room, it now leads to what is still called a lounge. Something horse themed, of course, but not The English Room. Also in shades of brown. As I wandered about what had once been familiar, I eventually noted a new plaque fixed upon a wall. The Galt House had been bought, now part of a larger hotel group.

As all this gradually soaked in, I started thinking more about the time that had lapsed. It had been sixteen years, but those were a very consequential sixteen years. For as disheartening as these changes may be, the changes to the Galt House in that span are insignificant in light of the broader changes in that time. It is not likely that I should be needing to visit Louisville again, so I will just remember the Galt House as it was.

I departed in the pre-dawn darkness and made for eastbound 64. This year the first frost and the first snowfall arrive on the same day. The calendar still says Autumn, but Winter arrives on a Monday. This called for a visit to some true constancy, a luncheon at Hall's on the River in Winchester. This place is still known as Holder's Tavern to most, where a tavern has been in continuous operation since 1781. Best Hot Brown in the Commonwealth, where one sits atop the Kentucky River, looking upon the site where Captain John Holder decided to set up a boatyard, a station and the tavern that would come to bear his name. 

I don't believe that Holder's will ever be sold to an international hotel group. If I'm still kicking around in six years, I fully hope to join in the celebration of their 250th anniversary, where the river and rock formations will remain unchanged. I doubt that I will be disappointed. I'll probably have the Hot Brown.

Join us later in the week, when we will be talking about monsters. Next week will bring a most peculiar tale, about a man, a tackle box, and time travel.

A New Face in Hell

 

At last an end to the long charade

Go now, cue up the kazoo parade

Open the gate and sound the knell,

for today there is a new face in Hell

For all the seeds of war he has sown,

the Devil now comes to reclaim his own

Regime change was his preferred milieu,

but sadly, now we bid adieu

No redemption nor mercy mild

for Haliburton's Golden Child 

No more contracts, no more wars to sell

when you're a war pig roasting in Hell

The game is over, time expires

as pig fat drips into the fires

He gave it all he had to give,

that fattest war pig to ever live

He'll double down, not change his tune

Knowing Lindsay Graham may join him soon

Open the gate and sound the knell

for today there is a new face in Hell

Take it away, Mark....