Will you be respectable down at the spectacle once the event has begun? When do you plan to have fun? How long does a show like that run? Will you be elegant at the extravagance after the champagne is gone? What will be left to build on?

This is a test to see exactly how much I can actually say in a designed to be brief and punchy newsworthy if not deliciously quotable sound-byte, i.e., social media post, and if not particularly meaningful, at least captures the attention for a little minute, while you try to figure out exactly why.

One nice thing about having very eclectic musical taste is that you never know what kind of random playlist you're gonna get. Of course, the journey through is what the end is all about, right?

Today's groove is brought to you via another undersung bass hero, #FelixPappalardi. More power to you. youtu.be/pu57gQVW7P8?...

If there such a silly thing as #greatestElectricBluesAlbum of all time, this would be in the running. The whole album rocks. Otis dares us to imagine a groove he cannot turn out. He wins. But we don’t lose either.

Theme for all future elections: youtu.be/2erGm5LQeoA?...

I will never play this song again without hearing this groove on it. You may not either. youtu.be/yZ0mcwMiPvc?...

That it's a great song doesn't hurt. But compare Richie's original youtu.be/Uhu4v7qxfEY?... to the much harder grooving Yes cover youtu.be/A_NrBG0FUWA?... and see if you don't find yourself drawn to the much simpler and less bombastic original.

One of the smoothest, most restrained, and yet hard grooves ever recorded. And of course, Harvey Brooks on bass. What could go wrong? youtu.be/N_BGEn7-PJ0?...

When a war breaks out, people say: “It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.” But though a war may well be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. - Albert Camus, The Plague

The world is whispering about overhearing someone fighting about the overbearing necessity of ineffective morality, and its impact on the real bottom line. What matters is getting your signature there. Right?

You are not expected to believe. What you believe doesn’t mean jack. What’s important is that you obey. And think about yourself. And keep drinking whatever flavor of Kool-Aid your own personal invisible or visible friends are handing out. Don’t worry, be happy. Ain’t that some shit?

No kings. No lords. No nobility by blood. Limited generational wealth. No visible or invisible powerful friends. Trickle up for a change. Did I miss anything? LOL.

It feels like not that many years ago there was an interest, almost a "movement" if you will, to seek out and embrace our "authenticity", to "get real" with ourselves and our world, and cut through all the game-playing to get back to the essentials of human living.

I have 2 much of my grandfather Leroy in me. I just do NOT get our fascination w royalty. The King of Pop, Queen of Soul, King & Queen mates, princess daughters. The King of Kings. Etc. We won wars to get past that. No more kings for ANY reason. We don't need rulers. We need to grow up.

From my early teens 8-track collection. youtu.be/tgC8iz_ALik?...

Is this REALLY a thing? I know a LOT of drummers. And I'm not a hugger by nature. Can we just exchange little nods? LOL. You know who you are. I love drummers, but honestly.

Don't want u to take the wrong way, but how did we get so many stupid people in the world? Why so MANY on social media? Honestly. The law of averages dictates at least 1/2 of them could manage to keep > 2 synapses sparking. I'm REALLY not an intellectual snob, but maybe this world is just too dumb.

All these memes and horrible news reposts. What is anyone actually doing other than complaining and hating on their "enemies"? So much for the high road. And the Democratic party doesn't seem to even have a vehicle, let alone enough gas to keep its engine running. Where are the original ideas?

How does this thing work, living without much thinking outside your own box? What a little world that makes the whole of your life, with just your own mess. How does that make sense, with so much beauty outside, just past your front door? #Poetry #BlueSkyPoets #PoetSky #Sedoka

Any day now I expect to be watching a Bette Davis movie with a young person, who will say something like, “Wow, she really has Bette Davis eyes!” The gods are like that. It could happen. Even in YOUR neighborhood.

As my grandfather might have said, it makes no difference which clod you need to hop, it always feels good to take your clodhoppers off.

What will it take for you to stop being the supporting role in the story of your own life? How many performances do you really get? When the curtain comes down on the performance, for real, what matters is not written in your reviews.

Sometimes you need to hear a song that reminds you that you’re human. Right now, it’s this. youtu.be/dscfeQOMuGw?...

To see where the whole of it is going, the world’s passions, addictions, mindsets, religions and philosophies, to see the end, and know your life had little or no impact, made no difference at all. That is a lot to process, isn’t it? But that’s the contract you got with this body, ain’t it?

Mabon radicaldruid.com/blog/2011/09...

You always treasure those beautiful 15 or 20 minute timeslots in your ongoing agenda that happen only so often, when you seriously have absolutely nothing to do, and can be present enough to enjoy it!!!

My ideal world doesn’t exclude you. It includes you, too. Even you. It’s a barter system or a very simple board game with only a single player and no moves. Everyone goes home with something more than they brought. Or something like that. Maybe. There’s music, certainly, but it changes every night.

Us people with no friends ought to stick together. It’ll be like an anarchist union meeting. Good times, if you handle the lack of agenda.

Who is or isn’t lying and why: a workable definition of politics

Why does it matter whether democrat or republican says this: “To the people asking, “Are you willing to lose friends over politics?" No, but I'm willing to lose friends over morals. HUGE difference.” Which is lying? Why? That’s the secret of politics.

The continuity and stability of the family isn’t in religion or relationship or even hetero normative behavior. It’s history. If your parents together have a story of their journey (personally and as a couple) and you don’t know what it is, by the time they die, then your family diminishes.

It isn't what you think it is at all. There is no solid substance underneath. Just one small push will make the whole thing fall, and patching it together, to be brief, is just a pointless exercise. #PoetSky #BlueSkyPoets #Poetry

We find by growing. We grow by finding.

Democrat v Republican. Us v Them. Gay v Straight. Friend v Stranger. Good v Evil. Man v Woman. So many ways 2 slice up reality, see the 2 ends of the stick as different, independent. As if either end could exist without the other. Who profits from us being enemies? That is our real enemy.

If child support were mandatory and collected from all responsible men, birth control and abortion would be a sacred and protected privilege.

You’re only immortal if someone remembers you.

The absolutely required groove for right this minute. LOL. youtu.be/Wo4fgAOiq9M?...

Is it a lie when you have no relationship with the truth, you don’t know it, wouldn’t recognize it in the wild, couldn’t wildcraft it, certainly couldn’t taste it, & have never repeated it? What if your natural state seems to just exclude it? Y’all have at least one family member like that too :)

Congress needs to act DIFFERENTLY to keep our kids (and country) safe. Right now, most of our elected officials seem to be in either the fool or tool camp.

After seeing a #FrancisBacon exhibit in Los Angeles (early 1990s) I got obsessed with #EadweardMuybridge and his pioneering photos of figures in motion. Still fascinating to see where the line between still life and moving pictures intersects.

So many porn bots, obviously fake accounts, profiles thrown up to snare the unsuspecting. No bio, fake pics. Honestly, @bsky.app who can keep up? Are we so desperate for "followers" we accept such high levels of fraud? Who has the time to create all this non-content? What good is not being real?

Does anybody really know or care about things going on in the world outside sports, politics, and entertainment? Read any good books lately? Heard any new music that works? Had any uplifting conversations or encounters? How are we figuring out how to get along with other? Or are we not?

If every day you can say something new, to keep your content fresh and sparkling clean, it won't much matter what else you may do, so long as you don't say just what you mean. See, no one wants to dig in all that deep. #BlueSkyPoets #Poetry #PoetSky

How can so many millions of people on the entirety of social media have so little to say? In mean, in their own words. With their own soundtrack. Of course.

We’re not the guitar. Nor the strings, or the finger that plucks them. No, we are the sound. That vibration. A wave. Here today. Not the only sound either. Part of the choir. In the band. The song the universe hums in the shower.