It’s the never-ending cycle, Gentle Reader(s): New Orleans, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, New Orleans—it keeps me on my toes and it helps keep Southwest Airlines in the black. It’s all routine by now but Southwest does throw me the occasional curveball, just for yuks. The routing on my last trip to see Inky Mum was from Albuturkey to Milwaukee by way of Baltimore—a slight 800-mile diversion—and the return trip was to Albuturkey by way of Phoenix. But who am I to second guess Southwest? My most recent trip was back to New Orleans, where I was last on an extended driving trip in late April/early May. The balmy spring weather was a distant memory as late July was hammering down with the full-court press of mid-summer heat and humidity but I did not let it dissuade me from my duly appointed rounds upon the InkCycle. I took to two wheels once again, meandering through Uptown and then north and west on the levee trail as far as my stamina would take me. As in my last bit of reportage, I have indulged in a bit of informal architortural documentation, the fruits of which labors are below offered.

As you may well have ascertained by now, Gentle Reader(s), while spending the majority of his time in La Ciudad Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis Your Humble Narrator regularly travels to Ink South in New Orleans and, alternatively, to Ink North in Wisconsin to see Inky Mum and to commune with nature of the northern woodlands variety. Ink North is located just outside of the lovely town of Sheboygan, which is about 50 miles north of Milwaukee on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The paleface history of Sheboygan dates back to the 1780s and the town was incorporated in 1846, probably to the chagrin of the Potawatomi, Menominee, Chippewa and other native tribes that originally called the region home. It currently has a population of about 50,000 souls and just south of the city limits is the town of Wilson wherein there is to be found a lovely, densely wooded neighborhood known as Black River.

I am returned, Gentle Reader(s), from a self-imposed late spring/early summer hiatus from this page. Why, whence and wherefore you might well wonder. Well you might, although I’m quite sure that no one actually is wondering. I certainly wasn’t. Wondering, that is. The whys, whences and wherefores are simply that I found myself lacking sufficient motivation to slave over a hot MacBook day in and day out with little to report other than another Thursday evening’s inventory of Matador toonage. But do not be deceived into thinking that the lack of posts upon this page are indicative of a general lack of industry upon my part. In actuality I have been applying myself with a fair amount of diligence to other undertakings, variously of verbal, musical and visual natures, both hither and yon and betwixt and between. I don't have anything much (other than some additions to the Digital and Analog photo pages) to show for it just yet. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Your Humble Narrator is returned, Gentle Reader(s), from a prolonged visitation to the town of his birth, New Orleans. It was a generally productive and quite enjoyable foray as it encompassed (largely coincidentally) both weekends of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, referred to locally as ‘JazzFest,’ or simply ‘the Fest.’ The weather at this time of year can be highly variable in the Crescent City and I was treated to deluges of biblical proportions (accompanied by the inevitable minor flooding) as well as sunny, cool weather with minimal humidity. In New Orleans days such as the latter are to be savored and having such weather fall on the second weekend of JazzFest was a blessing in the double. Either way, I tried to make certain that my time was put to good use, indoor or out. Some of my outdoor time was spent reading the complete short stories of Truman Capote in the back yard of Inky South, next to the lovely elephant ear arrangement pictured above. A friendly lizard was resident amidst and amongst the foliage and he would watch me read and occasionally sing a lovely chirping lizardly song in the late afternoons. Quite blissful it was indeed.

Thank you for joining me once again, Gentle Reader(s), for another episode of Ye Olde Matador Playlist. It has been a very quiet winter and early spring indeed on Galisteo Street but we—DJ Inky, bartender Gus and doorman extraordinaire Lawrence—soldier on regardless. This last Thursday was on its way to being no exception to that trend and by the time 10 PM rolled around there were maybe a dozen people in the bar, give or take. One of those in attendance was T.C., whose birthday had apparently been the previous day. T.C. was still in a celebratory frame of mind and he requested some '80s/'90s vintage music of the danceable variety. I was happy to comply.

...that the 45th president of these here United States of America is a Lying Sack of Shit? I haven't?   I beg your pardon for the oversight. To wit: The President of the United States is a Lying Sack of Shit.   Thank you.   ...

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.