06/03/2020

Gentle Reader(s), I greet you once again from Lockdown atop Chango Hill in La Ciudad Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis. Greetings & peace.   It's a bit hard to comprehend the degree to which an already fraught and anxious situation has become exponentially more so over the course of just one week. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has once again pushed the inequities and violence of America against people of color to the forefront of the national conversation (if there actually is anything resembling a 'national conversation' these days) and protestors have once again taken to the streets to exercise their civic right—their civic duty—to stand up and speak out. In the unprecedented context of a global pandemic, months of quarantine, a starkly divided country, and an election year the murder of yet another unarmed black man in plain view of the world might just prove to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. The murder of George Floyd comes hard on the heels of the revelations regarding the vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbrey in Brunswick, Georgia, back in February and it seems that across the country, and across the world, people in ever greater numbers are turning out to make it clear that enough is enough is enough. Again.
05/08/2020

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), to my ongoing offerings of plague-themed playlists, scientifically attuned to the anxious tenor of the times (and if you've ever spent time with any anxious tenors, you know what I mean).   As of this writing we ('we' being those of us lucky enough to be quarantined in the Land of Entrapment) have been in Lockdown since approximately mid-March—over a month and a half of social distancing, carry-out dining and grocery store corona-dancing and dodging. Out on the byways of the City Indifferent most folks are being pretty assiduous regarding distancing, although encounters on the narrow sidewalks of the east side typically require one party (most often Your Humble Narrator) to step out into the not-so-tender mercies of the carriageway to allow for the prescribed six-foot exclusion zone. Face masks are not presently required for outdoor activities but I'd estimate that at least 50% of those on the streets are employing them. In the stores it's more like 75% or 80%. When heading out for my daily constitutional I typically carry a mask (just in case) as well as a precious small bottle of hand sanitizer should it happen that I come into manual contact with anything other than my own personage and possessions. Otherwise, spring is springing in all of its characteristic blustery glory and the diminished vehicular traffic seems to have rendered the typically untainted Santa Fe air even more pristine.
04/20/2020

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), to yet another offering of tuneful temperings calculated to swing a bit of distractive sanity your way in these trying times. Over a month into the New Normal and things are getting a bit weird Out There, and In Here as well. There's no end of fine lines to be walked between getting out and staying in, keeping informed and getting overwhelmed, staying chill and devolving into a blob, remaining productive and becoming obsessive, safety and paranoia, etc etc. Is there any end in sight? Hard to tell. Depends on who you decide to believe. And it truly is a decision. Anyone who tells you they're absolutely right is almost certainly absolutely wrong. As far as what the future holds, nobody knows anything to a certainty—of that you can be sure.
04/07/2020

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), to your fave rave online resource for... for whatever it is we offer to you here. Like arty stuff and such like. But let's forget about the arty farty stuff for a moment and get down to brass tacks: We remain in the throes of Lockdown and enforced solitude is quite likely beginning to weigh a bit heavily upon many of us. While I don't have any ready solutions to offer for our current state of Heavy Manners I can extend to you DJ Inky's Social Distance Dance Party, Part the Deux—tried and trusted toons from the expansive dancefloor of Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge. With any luck it might provide a bit of welcome distraction from the myriad woes and worries of the day. I find getting up and moving about to be an essential tonic—it can do nothing but good for you & yours as well, just don't trip over the pets or the furniture or your fellow inmates.
03/30/2020

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s). I trust that you are all keeping the protocols and keeping the faith. My 'Shelter In Place' playlist has elicited a positive response from across the intrawebs—thank you one and all for the positive feedback—so I've decided to dip into the DJ Inky archive and put together some toons gauged to get you up and out of that chair, on your feet, and onto the floor. It could be the living room floor, the kitchen floor, the bedroom floor or whatever—just get UP, get on the Good Foot, and move around!
03/26/2020

Welcome, Gentle Reader(s), to DJ Inky's exclusive Shelter In Place playlist. Your Humble Narrator has been ruminating over this selection for several days now, adding and subtracting, refining the vibe as it were, for optimal effect. And what effect might that be, you might ask. Well you might. The effect that I'm aiming for is somewhat multifaceted, encompassing acknowledgement of the unprecedented parameters of the current situation, the sober realities of isolation, expressions of the desire for human connection, and hope for the future.
03/20/2020

This is it, Gentle Reader(s)—the last full DJ Inky set list to see the light of day (figuratively speaking) before the Lockdown took effect. There was an abbreviated set on the evening of March 12, but with scant attendance and concerns of pandemonia hovering ominously about the town, Your Humble Narrator decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and repair back home to the Inky Aerie shortly after the stroke of midnight. Amongst the sparse attendees on 3/12 were three short, boisterous women, one of whom was insistent in loudly proclaiming to all and sundry ‘We’re from Texas! We’re from TEXAS!!!’ My response was, ‘Do I come to you with my problems?’
03/11/2020

You'd think it would be, wouldn't you? Enough, that is? Well, hardly. Banish the thought. I owe you PLAYLISTS, Gentle Reader(s)! I know you've been thirsting for them, dreaming of them, lusting after them! Well, so have I. I made my triumphant (if scarcely noted) return to the Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge just shy of a year ago, unsure of whether or not I still had the stuffe required to reclaim and retain my prior position of glory in the deluxe DJ booth. Well, I did, or so it seems. No one has complained, or perhaps they just haven't gotten around to it yet. After 12 years of service I still love Ye Olde Matador and I love bringing a bit of musical enjoyment into the lives of our esteemed clientele. It's been good to be back and, with a bit of luck, I'll stick around for a while longer.   So there!  
03/11/2020

…For the Return of Your Humble Narrator to these Hallowed Pages after a year and a half of blogular silence. Wherefore and Whence? you might inquire, and well you might. It has been a strange and terrible saga, Gentle Reader(s), but all not-so-good things must come to an end (just in time for other not-so-good things to arise in their place, so it would seem).   Where to begin? At the beginning, I should think, and so think I shall. I give you:   The Story of a Lump
09/01/2018

I have been refraining from blabbering about political matters for a while now. The time for making fun of the revolting buffoon currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is well past: The Drumpf regime is no laughing matter and hasn’t been in quite a long time (if ever it was). I find myself struggling daily to comprehend the horrifying depths to which this pathetic excuse for a human being will sink, aided and encouraged by the shameless complicity of his spellbound cabal. Watching clips of Drumpf’s never-ending campaign rallies I despair of the possibility that we can ever find common ground again in any of the core values that this flawed union was founded upon. The hate and divisiveness seem overwhelming and appeals to reason and decency fall on deaf ears.   The passing of Senator John McCain, however, provides an exceptional opportunity for reflection. I long found John McCain to be a frustrating presence in the national political debate—frustrating because I considered him a thoughtful, honorable and decent individual whose hawkish tendencies I strongly disagreed with. In the waning days of the second Obama administration, when the nuclear treaty with Iran was being hammered out, I was dismayed to hear McCain insist that we should not be negotiating with the Iranians—his approach was more along the lines of ‘Bomb now, talk later.’ Of course, I was adamantly opposed to his presidential ambitions and his fateful decision to hitch his star to the likes of Sarah Palin for the 2008 campaign was ill advised in the extreme, not only in terms of how it diminished McCain’s own stature but in that it conferred a certain degree of legitimacy on the nascent Tea Party movement. Those now seem like innocent and idealistic times.