Gear: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it! Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge has its share of Gear: A DVD/BluRay player, hundreds of movies, a rack full of amplifiers, crossovers and EQs, turntables, mixers, speakers, a sub-woofer, and cables—LOTS of cables. The Gear rack originally contained a professional dual CD player but I don’t think it was ever used and it went the way of the dodo bird years ago. Much of the Gear is covered in a thick layer of greasy bar dust and grime and I generally try not to touch any aspect of it that I don’t absolutely have to touch. Cesar set all the Gear up and all concerns and requests are best referred to him.

A brief hiatus, Gentle Reader(s), for Goth Night (every third Thursday) and a winter storm and Your Humble Narrator is back in the saddle at Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge for another inimitable evening of signature DJ Inky toonage. The second winter storm of the season—this one of intimidating strength and size—is bearing down on our little mountain town and Katia and I are hoping that the fevered anticipation of being snowed in for the weekend is inspiring folks to come out and lift a warming beverage before the fluffy stuff flies.

A bit late, perhaps, Gentle Reader(s), but here at last is Part Six of the TRC saga. I've been somewhat distracted of late, I will admit, by the distressing state of both world and national affairs and it requires some effort to restrain myself from spending half the day poring over the newspapers (I typically peruse five no less than five). Here, perhaps, is a bit of welcome distraction for both of us. Chapter Six steps aside, briefly, from the Cretins tour schedule for some philosophical musings on the road life and the penurious state of Ink's affairs at home in the Dook City. I hope you enjoy and please, don't just look at the damn Contact page (I can actually tell when you've been looking!) and use the damn thing to tell me that I am delusional and should hang up this misguided project forthwith. Or otherwise. I await with bated breath. Check back in a couple of weeks for Part Seven.

‘History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.’ - James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922

A New Year. A new beginning. A moment for reflection, a moment for change, a moment for—dare I say it?—optimism? Optimism—imagine that! A commodity in dangerously short supply in cynical times such as these in which we live. Be that as it may, DJ Inky returned to the Matador to kick off 2026 and—Praise Be On Most High—beloved Katia has returned as well! If that ain't a good thang then I don't know what is.