Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), to a prematurely spring-like edition of Ye Olde Matador Playliste. Your Humble Narrator will do his best to forego any gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the latest outrages of Orange Goblinism (save to mention that the mind-boggling insanity continues apace, what with more wire-tapping hallucinations and the unveiling of the Goblin Budget which fulfills everyone's worst expectations of heartless philistinism) to focus instead upon the passing of one of the true founding fathers of rock and roll—the great Chuck Berry. Yes, the Brown-Eyed Handsome Man hisself has left the building this very day. He was 90 years old and many decades beyond his prime performing and recording years, but nothing will ever diminish the significance and the scope of his innovations and his indelible contributions to the development of rock and roll music. As a guitar player myself, he was more significant to me than Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and Little Richard all rolled into one.

Gentle Reader(s), I am returned. My mental and emotional constitution have been reeling from the loss of the incomparable Goofaman, but it's time to get back on the beam and return to the fray, such as it were. I find it hard to comprehend that the Goof isn't out there still ('there' meaning the physical world and its immediate environs) and that today or tomorrow I'll open my email to find one of his patented multi-page rants or another ethereal soundscape or video collage demanding my attention. It's a boggler, folks, so bear with me. I'll spend the remainder of my days thinking of that boy. I don’t expect his likes will never cross my path again.

Time passes. We get older. Every second, every heartbeat, we’re all getting there, one way or the other. Love, possessions, status, health, wealth—all of it comes and goes in a constant state of flux. The most precious thing that we possess—if we can be said to truly possess it—is time, a commodity of which there is a finite supply. None of us can know how much of it we have and there is no way to obtain any more of it. I once had a dream. This was many years ago, but it is one of a very small number of dreams that I’ve ever had which I both recalled when I woke and which has remained with me ever since. In my dream I was attending a lecture at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The lecture was by the late Australian writer and critic Robert Hughes. After the lecture I waited for Hughes to emerge from the hall. He had been in a near fatal automobile wreck and was walking with a severe limp, aided by a cane. Hughes and I walked over to a food vendor’s cart outside of the lecture hall and Hughes purchased some crackers spread with cat food (this was a dream, remember). I had some questions that I wanted to ask regarding the lecture.

All hell has broken loose at airports around this country as patriotic Americans have stepped up once again to protest the vile, vindictive and unlawful Orange Goblin order barring refugees and immigrants from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya from entering the United States.   Now that's an interesting list. I'm wondering if the Goblin or any of his evil cabal might possibly recall the countries of origin of the 9/11 hijackers? Let us refresh our collective memory: Of the 19 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia and the others were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. Perhaps it's just me, but doesn't it seem just a tiny bit odd that none of those four countries appear on the Goblin's list of prohibited nations? The most cursory bit of investigation reveals that the Goblin has business interests in at least three of the four countries from whence the 9/11 hijackers originated: Eight companies tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia; Two property development companies in Egypt; Two golf courses and a neighborhood of luxury villas in the United Arab Emirates. Any potential conflicts of interest there, d'ya think? Maybe? Just a little bit?? See that image at the top of the page? That's a giant billboard in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. That's the O.G. hisself on the left and Goblinette Ivanka on the right.

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s) to Ye Olde Matador playliste and Orange Goblin screed. The first week of the O.G. administration is drawing to a close and what a week it has been. The mendacity has piled up faster and higher than mere mortals could reasonably be expected to keep up with—the daily tally of mindbenders, head-scratchers, howlers, hair-tearers and garment-renders has been epic, to say the least. Where does one even start? The barrage of O.G. tweets, Sean Spicer press briefings/press scoldings and 'alternative fact' throw-downs have got the media scrambling to sort the lies from the untruths, the falsehoods from the fabrications, the unverifiables from the unsupportables and fantasy from reality. Is the Goblin horror-circus the real story or is it just a lot of smoke and mirrors orchestrated to distract us from the genuine damage going on behind the scenes of the Orangutang Reich? And then there's the other horrifying troll now sliming up 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.—Chief Goblin Strategist Steve Bannon. The Drumpf regime's very own Joe Goebbels made his mark in week one, informing the press corps that they should just 'shut their mouths' and listen to the swinish pearls of alternative wisdom dribbling from the bejowled maw of the Cheeto-In-Chief. Folks, we have a genuine Nazi whispering sweet alt-right nothings in to the shell-like ear of the O.G. A genuine Nazi.

Inspired by a sign that I saw during the Women’s March/Santa Fe this past Saturday, I have of recent adopted the nom de fascisme ‘Orange Goblin’ to refer to POTUS Drumpf. As it turns out, there is a metal band (stoner/punk/doom variant) from the U.K. by the name of Orange Goblin! Who knew? I certainly didn’t.   Anyways, they look like lovely chaps indeed and far be it from me to cast any aspersions upon their character, decency or degree of aesthetic accomplishment. I hope the O.G. lads will not take umbrage in my adoption of their moniker to mock and disparage the lout currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—it certainly should not reflect upon them. If any of you, Gentle Reader(s), should happen to be in the vicinity of Leiden, Eindhoven or Groningen in the Netherlands early next month, Orange Goblin will be performing in those towns on the 9th, 10th and 11th. Go give them a listen and please do extend my warmest regards.

Welcome back, Gentle Reader(s), from wherever you might be hiding. Perhaps you’ve just crawled out from under the bed, the hangover having finally worn off, or perhaps you’ve just finished booking that flight to Tierra del Fuego, or Iceland, or Montreal. As for myself, after an election night bout of absinthe-addled bewilderment and dimensional dislocation I have returned to the intrawebs to try and figure out how to reckon with the New World Odor that looms before us all. If I may be so bold to presume, I figger I'm trying to process all of this, much as you are. It's a tall order and I'm struggling, day by day, to comprehend what the future holds. (Please note: This post was composed over the course of a 2-plus month period.)   Since Orange Tuesday I have been swinging wildly back and forth between states of disbelief, dismay and despair interspersed with occasional twinges of irrational optimism ("Perhaps it won't be quite as horrifying as I thought!"). After nearly a month, utter despair ("It's going to be even more horrifying than I thought!") has emerged as the default. Yes folks, this has actually happened. This is my life, your life, our country, the planet, and together we will have to find some way through to a future that offers something other than despair.

It is 9:13 PM Central Time. I am sitting at my desk in New Orleans, Louisiana, and if I am to believe what I am seeing unfold in front of my very eyes, the world that I have known and believed in all my life is about to slip away. I have just run the numbers based upon the most recent projections on the New York Times website and it appears most likely that by the time the final tallies are counted on the West Coast and in Hawaii that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States.   Somewhere, deep down in the most rational recesses of my brain, I guess I always knew that this was a possibility but I never allowed myself to believe that it would actually happen. Now I am faced—we are all faced—with the reality that the American Dream is over. Dead and gone.

Today, Gentle Reader(s), is a truly beautiful day. It is a day the likes of which long-suffering fans of a certain Midwestern baseball club have not known for 108 years. It is with almost giddy incredulity that Your Humble Narrator reaffirms to himself that the Cubs have won the 2016 World Series. This is a day that I had longed hoped for but perhaps never quite allowed myself to fully believe would actually arrive. But last night, at exactly 10:47 PM Mountain Standard Time, in the bottom of a rain-delayed 10th inning, rookie Cleveland infielder Michael Martinez tapped a soft ground ball off of Cubs reliever Mike Montgomery to third baseman Kris Bryant who tossed the ball straight and true to Anthony Rizzo on first to seal the deal: Cubs win, 8-7. Just like that—over a century of angst, frustration, curses (imaginary or otherwise) and ‘woulda coulda shoulda’ second guessing, banished. This. Actually. Happened. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Gentle Reader(s), I have returned. No, I have not been languishing at Death's door (front or back), nor have I been abducted by Aliens, illegal or otherwise, or kidnapped by Bigfoot, Mr. or Mrs.. Nor have I fallen into an Arctic crevasse, Ant- or otherwise, or been afflicted by amnesia, appealing though that may, at times, seem. What can I say other than I just felt that I needed a break from pumping out Ye Olde Matador Playliste(s). The Inky travel has been coming fast and furious—nothing new there (the image above is from Your Humble Narrator's most recent trip to the Heartland to visit Inky Mum)—but throughout late summer YHN was suffering mightily from severe Election Season Fatigue. I was obsessing over the horror of Dumb Drumpf advancing in the polls while trying to maintain my increasingly fraying faith in the essential Common Sense and Decency of the American Body Politic. Now that the Drumpf seems to have offended mainstream American sensibilities sufficiently to start tanking I might be able to muster fortitude sufficient to the task of applying finger to keyboard and reestablishing the connection betwixt and between mind and matter.