hear the click of the cartridge as it slides into its chamber

Explosive diarrhea is not the name of my next band. Since Hispanic migrant farm workers will be blamed for planting the microscopic parasite on the lettuce it only makes sense to pre-blame Taco Bell for the outbreak poisoning patriotic magamericans. I have never in my life eaten at Taco Bell and (assumed it didn't need a parasite to induce explosive diarrhea) was never going to regardless the parasites on lettuce that induce explosive diarrhea, which is not the name of my next band

Rest of the monologue and kicking the corpse of Lindsey Graham in the grid. Too, my free blogging platform's self-enshittification continues apace, now more than half the feeds on the blogrolls are sick or dead with the numbers growing. Too, there are people who still think there will be an election in November and that they won't be gunned down in the streets when they protest after there wasn't. Too, I'd unforgivably forgot Parts & Labor because I don't own a CD player though I own all their CDs but they have a new double album available (as well as all previous albums that I own as a CD) on bandcamp, it's worth the $10, please play it loud

We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
Roast in Boiling Piss, Lindsey Graham
Today's ➥ monologue	Marvel at how swiftly, at news of Lindsey Graham's death, Trump goons sealed Graham's office in the Capitol, his townhouse on Capitol Hill, his residence in South Carolina, and that they are searching them unto destroying the residence for anything that could harm but more importantly help Trump and more importantly his Shitlord bosses. It's like they knew Graham's ticker would tock, yes? Don't need a Lindsey Epstein, yo, and think what juice he has on Trump, Trump's enemies, but more importantly Trump's allies, which is what Trump wants most
Today's ➥ monologue	On the tee of One at Woodsboro Disc Golf Course this past Sunday Dr Z and I debated who ordered Graham's "heart attack," Dr Z asserting Putin, me insisting Trump, then added Think of the fierce competition in the Republican ranks to replace Graham as Trump Toady Number One on the Sunday morning Meet the Presses and daily on Fox and other cracker cable channels, imagine how much Trump will enjoy the debasement candidates will show him
➥	"every dead senator gets a thoughtful obituary lauding their “courage” and then if you look it up the courage was filibustering the Give Medicine to Cancer Kids act"
➥	The Dead Cannot Rest If They Are Still Useful
➥	Hours after the death of Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump said of Graham’s potential replacement, “I have somebody that I think would be great.”
➥	Lindsey Graham: Opportunist or Fascist?
➥	Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism
➥	I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
➥	We are governed by serial killers
Maine Democrats tell Chuck Schumer to fuck the fuck off
Don't Take Advice From Your Enemies
The Mechanisms of Enshittification
A guide to racism in the criminal justice system
How The Guardian Sells Imperialism To Progressives
What Is Capitalist Exploitation, and Why Is It Wrong?
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
This is, quite literally, a protection racket
A professor of religious studies asks why everyone wants an exorcism
Israel Continues to Shoot Children in the Head During the Gaza Ceasefire
When fascists come for the news outlets that enabled them
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
Trapped in this doom-loop of impotence
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
How the PayPal Mafia Reanimated Apartheid
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
Hysteria as a Moving Cultural Framework
20 things your phone knows about you that you never told it
The most corrupt, polluted tournament in the tournament’s 96-year history
Awaiting the Crash				The four biggest lies they tell about US history
Maggie		New study finds that sometimes cats groom each other specifically to be annoying			{ feuilleton }
PEN America Sells out. Again.
➥	What Dinaw Mengestu said, yes
Because of ticks and the diseases they carry I not only deet the hell out of my legs and arms, if I yank a disc into truly deep rough, fuck it, I can replace the disc for $9, I just bought three DX Beasts for the one I left at Rockburn in the weed jungle right of fairway on 16
Monsterpieces: William Vollmann's Volumes
Hockney As He Was, Or Seems To Be
Parts & Labor give a track-by-track breakdown of new album Set of All Sets, their first in 15 years
☟	Parts & Labor Return to Forever						☟

IN A ROW

Stephen Dobyns

The mailman handing me a letter,

he paid a little. My daughter’s

third grade teacher, the electrician

putting a light over my back door:

they paid as well. The woman at the bank

who cashes my check. She paid a part of it.

The typist in my office, the janitor

sweeping the floor—they paid some too.

The movie star paid for it. The nurse,

the nun, the saint, they all paid for it—

a photograph from Central America,

six children lying neatly in a row.

One day I was teaching or I sold

a book review or I gave a lecture

and some of the money came to me

and some rolled off into the world,

but it was still my money, the result

of my labor, each coin still had my name

printed across it, and I went on living,

passing my days in a box with a tight lid.

But elsewhere, skulking through tall grass,

a dozen men approached a village. It was hot;

the men made no noise. See that one’s cap,

see the button on that other man’s shirt,

* * *

hear the click of the cartridge as it slides

into its chamber, see the handkerchief

which that man uses to wipe his brow—

I paid for that one, that one belongs to me.

Ana Ng and I Are Getting Old and We Still Haven't Walked in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

This year's edition of the traditional post, odometer honest:

Sixty-six today, this guy. When we met in 5th grade fifty-six years ago neither of us predicted the weirdest year of our lives would be 2026.

Always this: thirty-three years ago Landru was the first human not L or me or a doctor/nurse to hold C

   

 That's Magnetic Fields *Andrew in Drag,* someone, between last July 13th and today, bitched about the trans-content and youtube, the assholes, killed the embed, click to listen, please, the fuckers

   

And especially

Thirty-Eight

The Cyclone Fence of Buts Surrounds the Soccer Field of What If

Deadest Blog Days of Summer, the days surrounding July 4th, so I am compelled to post (and to post ahead of this coming Thursday when I post one of two posts a year not tagged My Complicity) to see if this can be the least read post of the calendar year (which can't be determined until I post over Thanksgiving Weekend in November, the closest competition). Also too, this *has* to be typed today: I hope Belgium beats the USMNT 10 to fucking 0 tonight



Did anyone think Dump wouldn't taint the World Cup? I sat in the conference room on the top floor of the library I work in that overlooks the Potomac above Key Bridge last Saturday afternoon and for fifteen minutes watched Dump's vanity show of military flyovers that squandered tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and thought to myself, how strange he hasn't caused a sensationally embarrassing scandal at the World Cup as yet, et viola, the Dumpiest, most United States of Assholes fine metaphors abounding scandal. Ten to fucking Nothing tonight, please please please my Lord Diablo Etcheverry


One of those is me in a good mood, the other me in a bad mood, I don't know which is which. Pochettino must know the hell that awaits Balogun (a birthright citizen (who's playing for the USMNT solely because he stood no chance of making his preferred England squad), did Dump know?) in every European stadium he plays in and in the European football press the rest of his career if Balogun plays tonight regardless whether Belgium wins 10-0, please Lord Diablo Etcheverry, and imagine how much worse it will be if he scores the determining goal. Imagine Pochettino doing the honorable thing and benching Balogun the entire game and Belgium wins 10-0, please Lord Diablo Etcheverry, and Dump's shitfit, laugh. Not holding my breath on Pochettino doing the honorable thing, mind, would like to be wrong (I bet Balogun won't start but will be brought in as a second half sub when the USMNT is already down 7-0,  Lord Diablo Etcheverry willing). Lord Diablo, I was X-bingeing yesterday, the world's a mess it's in my kiss

I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
"Look if you think it’s fine for Trump to corruptly get a red card revoked (or “suspended”) bc FIFA is already corrupt, maybe you understand the MAGA mindset better than you think. “All politicians are corrupt so it’s ok for Trump to be corrupt” is a very common maga rationalization"
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
America the Violent				The Unremitting Fire
"I would venture to suggest that the same apathy would have greeted this event even under the leadership of the nice lady from the HR training video, whose double-dipping “historic firsts” would fit snugly into a narrative of progress that no one other than elected Democrats believes in, and that somehow no one can believe they believe in"
Our Revolutionary Birthright					Mamdani's speech
On the Economic Crisis of Capitalism			Independence Day Drag
250 Years Of Lies, 500 Years Of Uprising
America is a Way to See:The photography of Robert Frank
Google is the patron saint of enshittification, Jeff types into his chromebook
80% of VPNs Make False Claims About Anonymity, Tracking and Security
On the Production and Dissemination of Knowledge in the AI Era
This Week in Palestine: 1,000 Days of Genocide, as Israel Continues to Kill Kids
We are ruled by motherfucking sociopaths
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
Prediction Markets Offer Bets on Wildfires
Transit systems across the country are collecting information about the movement of riders via a company doing business with ICE contractor Palantir
I. HATE. MOTHERFUCKING. DEMOCRATS.
Maggie		Think, Pig!		Can't smell		Why It Looks Like Americans Don't Care
The Pacific Ocean is running a fever
{ feuilleton }			Liza Lim		Life w/o narrator
The difference between accuracy and music…
Alex Ross retiring			☞	"A superb writer, a brilliant thinker, and – as importantly to those of us who have been in the trade – a kind, generous colleague. Alex Ross has been the best of us for decades. And we will not see his like again—not because there are no longer any writers of vision, but because the craft is no longer deemed worthy of a comfortable, contemplative life by those who make such decisions"
☟	Lambchop's released a second song off the new album out late August, more gorgeous choiring!						☟

I AM BUT A TRAVELER IN THIS LAND & KNOW LITTLE OF ITS WAYS

Dean Young

Is everything a field of energy caused

by human projection? From the crib bars

hang the teething tools. Above the finger-drummed   

desk, a bit lip. The cyclone fence of buts

surrounds the soccer field of what if.

Sometimes it seems like a world where no one   

knows what he or she is doing, eight lanes   

both directions. How about a polymer

that contracts in response to electrical

charge? A swimming pool on the 18th floor?   

King Lear done by sock puppets? Anyone

who has traveled here knows the discrepancies

between idea and fact. The idea is the worm   

in the tequila and the next day is the fact.   

In between may be the sacred—real blood   

from the wooden virgin’s eyes, and the hoax—

landing sites in cornfields. Maybe ideas

are best sprung from actions like the children   

of Zeus. One gives us elastic and the omelette,   

another nightmares and SUVs. There’s considerable

wobble in the system, and the fan belt screams,   

waking the baby. Swaying in the darkened   

nursery, kissing the baby-smelling head:   

good idea! But also sadness looking at the sea.

The stranded whale, guided out of the cove   

by tugboats, turns and swims back in.   

The violinist will not let go her violin   

which is 200 years old and still on the train

thus she is dragged down the track. By what

manner is the soul joined to the body?   

Answer: an arm connecting a violin

to a violinist. According to Freud,

there are no accidents. Astrologists

and Presbyterians agree for different reasons.   

You fall down the stairs with a birthday cake.   

You try to fit a blunderbuss into a laptop.

Human consciousness: is it the projector

or the screen? They come in orange jumpsuits   

and spray the grass so everything dies

but the grass. It is too late to ask Kafka

what he thinks. Sometimes they give you   

a box of ash, a handshake, and the rest   

is your problem. In one version,

the beggar turns out to be a king and grants

the poor couple a castle and a moat and two   

silver horses said to be sired by the wind.

That was before dentistry, which might have been   

a better gift. You did not want to get sick   

in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th centuries.

So too the 19th and 20th were to be avoided

but the doctor coming to bleed you is the master   

of the short story. After the kiss from whom   

he will never know, the lieutenant, going home,

touches a bush in which birds are singing.