Well, what can I tell you, Gentle Reader(s)? I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later. Deny it though I tried, the swan song of sweat, beer and rock and roll emanating from beneath Galisteo Street has lured me back. For better or worse, DJ Inky lives once again.

They called it right on the money on Friday night. The panel of journalists appearing on the 7/19/24 edition of Washington Week on PBS laid it out thusly: The tide had turned decisively against Joe Biden and time was running out. If he didn’t make up his mind to step aside over the weekend a full-on insurrection would break out in the Democratic Party come Monday. Monday, as in… the day after tomorrow. Thankfully, Uncle Joe got the message. After weeks (Months? Years??) of fighting against the growing perception that he was too old and too infirm to be a viable candidate for a second term, he did the right thing—the necessary thing—and fell on his sword. I can hardly imagine how difficult and painful a decision this must have been and I believe that, late in the game though it is, President Joe Biden deserves a huge amount of credit for his brave decision. Credit, thanks and sympathy.

The Say Hey Kid has left the building. By the time I was born, in 1959, Willie Mays was already a superstar. By the time I started high school he was headed into retirement. I never got to see him play, in person or on television, but his name was known to me from infancy. Not only was he right up there with baseball’s all-time greats—Ruth, Robinson, Aaron, Mantle, Williams, DiMaggio, Clemente—he was more than that. The esteem he commanded was on a par with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR. He was an American hero of the sort we no longer see, perhaps of the sort we are no longer capable of producing.

I have been remiss, Gentle Reader(s). I have neglected these pages for way too long, having been distracted by a variety of other pursuits and Matters of Grave Import. I beg your forgiveness. As much as I'd like to pin responsibility for this grievous oversight on someone else, I must admit that I have no one to blame but myself. So, whoever you are, wherever you are—if you are—please accept my apologies.   Hello? Anyone out there??

Ahh, the good old days, Gentle Reader(s). Does anybody out there remember the good old days? Like… I dunno… last week, or five years ago, or 20 years ago? Back when we were allegedly ‘GREAT,’ whatever the fuck that means. How about the pre-cell phone era? The pre-smart phone era? The pre-social media era? Or—cranking up the Way-Wayback Machine—the pre-intrawebs era? Kinda hard to believe that such innocent times actually existed, but indeed they did.

Well, for better or worse, I remember those hoary days of yore. I remember them pretty well, actually, considering all the drugs I did in the ‘70s. Or perhaps it was the ‘80s? Or maybe it was last week? Hell, I don’t know…...

It is rare indeed, Gentle Reader(s), for Your Humble Narrator to weigh in on matters regarding Sport (or Sports, as we colonials tend to call it), but the FIFA World Cup is an exceptional phenomenon—a uniquely global quadrennial event with an international following like no other. Having become a fan of the English Premiere League over the past several years (Liverpool is my team—one guess as to the reason why) I have found myself swept up in the fervor, getting up early to watch 8:00 AM games and trying to figure out which teams I favor. 

Greetings once again, Gentle Reader(s), in this, the fall/winter of our discontent. Of my discontent at least. It doth boggle the brain most verily, but a cursory examination of the record indicates that it has been 5—count ‘em, FIVE years—since my last New Orleans Report. How is this possible? Is some sort of discombobulation betwixt and between Time and Space to blame? Or have I just been Goofing Off? Tough call. Well, whatever the explanation, I am here to rectify matters and provide the update that all of you… some of you?… one or two of you?… have been waiting for, lo these many years.   No need to thank me. Not yet, anyway.  

If you're like me (and, for your sake, I sincerely pray that you're not) you just cain't git yourself too much Kate. There is No Such Thing as too much Kate! And towards that end, I am passing along the link to an excellent hour-long documentary on my favorite BBC Channel, Radio Four. Hosted by NPR music critic Ann Powers, this feature is sort of a feminist bookend to my admittedly dude-ish perspective as a besotted Kate fan from the U.S. side of the Pond. I was very pleased to see that that post (July 26, of this year) got a lot of readership with folks clicking in from South Africa, Sweden, the U.K., Hong Kong, India and beyond. Your kind attentions are greatly appreciated, whoever and wherever you may be.

Some Thoughts on the Passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II   Well, first of all, I never met her. Never even came close, so far as I'm aware. If she was ever in line next to me at Whole Foods or if we were ever waiting for a flight in the same gate at the Albuquerque Sunport it managed to escape my notice. I detected no scrums of corgi dogs tearing about, no Gentlemen At Arms whispering into their lapels. She liked to keep things pretty low key, it is said, like not sporting the crown or waving a scepter about unless circumstance specifically called for it.    As has been pointed out in these pages on prior occasion(s), I am an unreconstructed and unrepentant Anglophile. I cannot say with any specificity quite how this came to be, but at some point—far, far back in my days as a wee lad in New Orleans—something about our cousins across the pond tweaked my fancy. The most likely scenario is that it began with the Beatles, of whom I became enamored while still in my grade school years.