11/01/2024

I know, I know. I said that the more frequently I do these playlists the easier and faster it becomes to get the YouTube videos all lined up and posted, etc etc, and now it’s been weeks—several weeks—since my last Matador set list went online! That’s, like, the equivalent of at least a year in intrawebby/election year/news cycle time! Shameful, I admit, but there are reasons for that. Let’s call them excuses.
09/17/2024

With Santa Fe Fiestas and its attendant mayhem now safely in the rear view mirror, it was back to bidness at Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge. Bartender Katia was back from the DL, none the worse for her unfortunate close encounter of the arachnid kind, and Big Dom kept his steady eye on everything from the door. This is the traditional Matador format—a tight three-person crew running the show, keeping a positive vibe in effect, backing one another up. Case in point: Around mid-evening a diminutive young lady entered the bar decked out in notably unseasonable attire. Though it was still 70-ish outside she wore a heavy winter coat, a knit hat, dark glasses and a black turtle neck sweater pulled up to completely cover the lower part of her face. She ordered a draft beer from Katia and then began to wander around in the nether regions of the bar, eventually disappearing into one of the bathrooms. Noting this from my DJ post, I began to get a bit curious when, after 15 minutes, she was still in there. I alerted Katia that something odd was afoot, she alerted Dom, Dom went to investigate and, after cueing up several songs, I went to cover the door. Dom got everything sorted and the mysterious diminutive individual emerged from the bathroom, finished her beer and disappeared into the streets of a Thursday night. Interesting.  No harm/no foul.
06/15/2020

What a couple of weeks it has been, Gentle Reader(s), since the last DJ Inky playlist. In Santa Fe and in cities and towns all over the world the people—and I mean EVERY kind of people we got—have taken to the streets and they continue to do so on a daily basis, keeping the momentum going and the outrage over the killing of George Floyd alive. There has been a lot of speculation in the press regarding the extraordinary energy of this movement, about what has made the response to this tragedy different from the many that have preceded it. It's hard to know with certainty, but my take is that we have arrived at a crossroads of a sort, precipitated by a unique combination of circumstances. The pressure built up from months of coronavirus quarantine (and the Orange Goblin's disastrously bungled response to the pandemic), the heightened political environment of a momentously significant election year, the cumulative rage from yet another brutal video of a black man dying senselessly on the street, and the Orange Goblin administration's relentless assault on democracy and decency have all come together at this moment. Maybe, just maybe, enough is finally enough.
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?’