#fear not I haven’t forgot about colossus

[wazzappp]

Fond thoughts overwhelming my brain

[mrneighbourlove]

Evil’s Bane: Ch 4. Dangerous Uncharted Territory

Once the portal was open, Black went through first to scout for any potential danger. After a few minutes, he gave the go ahead to come through. Oddly enough, the land was striking. It was full of life, unlike the opposite side of the mountains. There were trees and grass as far as the eye could see instead of a harsh and unforgiving desert or wasteland.

Hades was the next to go in, trotting about and keeping an eye out for danger. Finally, Leere walked in. The sun was bright, and the sky was blue. The air was more breathable than Omisha as well. She guessed they were still closer to the border than central Malus, because if she looked far enough, she could see mountains in the distance. The area they were in had many hills, with fields of grass and vibrant flowers around them. Taking a breath, she looked to Bonegrinder, honestly confused, but a little relieved. Finally, she settled on a little sarcasm. “Land of torment and lifeless death, eh?”

"Don't you start, you haven't seen the inner city." Bonegrinder poked her nose with his finger. "This old snake has a long time ago."

"The land has recovered in these areas, though I am skeptical of the areas closer to civilization." Black looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was adept at tracking and studying the lay of the earth since his job was to be as sneaky as possible. "It has remained untouched for quite some time."

“Well, let’s look around. Can’t find what we are looking for if we don’t start walking.”

"Don't wander off, stay close." Bonegrinder repeated to Leere. "You never know what could be watching. Or who could be watching."

Hades was on the lookout, when he suddenly heard a snap of the grass about 50ft away. In the distance, an insect creature ran out of the tall grass. Suddenly, a reptilian creature, a beast akin to a raptor, jumped on top of it. It tore the insect apart, using claws to tear off its shell, talons on its feet to hold it in place, and sharp teeth to tear into its flesh. As it was eating, it picked up on a sound Hades made repositioning himself. It appeared to have no eyes or nose, simply having two holes in the side of its head.

Leere was cautious, yet fascinated by the pale reptile. Still, she dared not move.

"Oh fucking hell, I forgot about those." Black whispered under his breath to the others. "Don't move. They hunt based off movement through the earth."

The Reptilmox looked around, focusing on the movement of Black speaking. When Black stopped talking, it slowly started to lose interest. Why put energy in finding more prey when it made a kill? Grabbing its meal, it dragged it back into the tall grass to devour.

Hades waited a little while, before feeling confident it was far enough away. “Everyone keep walking.”

"Watch your step." Black told the group as they slowly made their way through the tall grass.

"And your back." "If one of those saunters out again, we will do our best to avoid fighting it." Bonegrinder informed the others. "Draw less attention. However, if it detects you and comes at you... run."

As they walked through the tall grass, they found the first sign of civilization. It was a pointed road sign that read, “Go back to Heilogtum.”

Leere looked around their surroundings. The area still had beautiful grass lands, but was now mixing opening up into a valley pass.

"Now that... was put here recently. Look, the wood hasn't rotted a bit." Black looked at the sign. "It's obviously a warning... but for what?"

Hades looked around, and was the first to see the danger. A pack of the pale reptiles, all the size of him, were running around the valley corner. “Incoming! Hold your ground!”

Trouble was heading their way. If the group had to flee, Bonegrinder was not too worried about Hades. The Lynel was fast. Black could run for ages, yet, he could not surpass the speed of one of those damn reptiles. Leere was only human and there was no chance if the reptiles were too close. With a slight indication of his head, Bonegrinder motioned for Black to get on his coils. So the assassin grabbed Leere and held tight to the Anagari.

Leere was ready to fight if needed be, but being grabbed would be make it harder for her to help.

Splitting into pairs, the reptiles circled Bonegrinder and Hades respectively. Hades already started to run in the direction the sign pointed. As one of the reptiles jumped at him, he reared back, kicking it with the force of ten horses in the head. The creature was more disoriented then anything, fumbling about.

The pair chasing Bonegrinder made a jump at him, wanting to claw him and tiny figures apart.

Bonegrinder was trying to keep his magic use to a minimum. If the demons of Malus were anything like those he faced in the past, the fiends would sense it and try to find him. Though, just because he could use magic, didn't mean he could not use brute strength. He whacked one reptile in the head with his massive tail and coiled his body around the other's neck, snapping it.

The Reptilmox left fighting Bonegrinder hissed viscously. Opening its mouth, a thick tongue shot out to try and snare Black of Bonegrinder from a distance.

Black reacted rather swiftly, reaching into his belt and pulling out his blade. He sliced off the tongue and pushed Leere down to avoid the appendage.

Able to at least cast magic, Leere pointed a hand out, and a necrotic ball of shadow energy shot out. Hitting the creature, it screamed, the flesh on its face boiling off.

As two more were about to engage, there was a loud rumbling in the east. With a bark between them, they ran off, ignoring the prospect of food, fear taking its place.

Bonegrinder only uttered three words.

"Don't let go."

With that, he took off as fast as he could slither, Hades following behind him.

Leere did as she was told. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear the rumbling and feel the earth shake. In a mountainside, there was a cave with a sign pointing towards it. In the cave, a thick fog filled all its walls and area. When Hades approached it, he was the only one to feel a terrible effect on his body. He noticed one of the monsters veer away from the cave as well. It most likely would bring physical harm to monster kind. “Bonegrinder. You must flee here without me.”

"What?!" Bonegrinder was almost inside the cave when Hades' statement caught him off guard. He gestured for Black to stay with Leere while he slithered back to Hades. "This is the only place we have to hide right now. He cannot in good conscience leave you here alone!"

“I-I can’t explain it. I can’t enter.”

"Then he will stay with you to fight while Black guards Leere."

“No we-!!!”

“Oh dear god.” Leere muttered breathlessly.

Coming into view was a massive colossus. A construct of stone, earth, energy and a thick reek of flesh for a body. Turning a skull face with skin dangling from its mouth, it laid eyes on the group. Colossi Mata had the form of a massive tiger with the head of a dragon and the horns of a bull. Raising a hand slowly, it came down on an unfortunate Reptilmox, crushing it with the scale of an ant. Slowly, it turned its attention to the group. Despite looking like something that crawled out of hell, the Colossi was of balance and pure neutrality; it killed any creature it saw, be it monster, animal, human or demon so it might not escape Malus. Hades knew this was a flight situation, not fight. “No! Go through the cave! Now!” Without another word he started to run off. “I will find you later!”

"Kit, get back here!!!" Bonegrinder used the nickname he gave to the Lynel years ago, imploring him to move into the cave for safety. He tried to lunge at Hades, but the Lynel was too quick. He was off into the tall grass and the Anagari was forced to retreat into the cave.

The massive colossi turned its attention away from the group and onto the Lynel. The last Bonegrinder saw was a gigantic beam of light shoot from its horns and engulf all sight between the snake and Hades as it tried to eradicate the monster.

Leere held Bonegrinder’s hand as they ventured through the deep fog. She could feel the anguish almost radiate off Bonegrinder. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

"... he should be fine. He's been in worse situations than this." Bonegrinder tried to stay positive.

"It's funny to think that this old snake has known Hades since he was a small kitten."

"An angry cat, you mean." Black snorted.

“If you say he’ll be alright, I believe you.” Leere had no idea how deep they’d have to walk through this fog. Best they keep going with hopes high.

~

The heart of Malus was pumping hard as the Cults of Inferos double checked all their modifications on the Great Tower. For years now, a breakthrough was made that could harness untold cosmic and necrotic energies. If the tower could be modified, it could be used as a conductor for something truly horrific. The residents of Inferos were either horrified beyond belief of what was soon to come, or they ultimately resided to the future.

One man was checking symbols on an obelisk put in place, when a figure floated behind him.

“Are we certain preparations are working?”

The architect lowered his book, looking over his shoulder to look into the eyes of a being of shadow. The form flickered like static, glowing intense eyes not shy of radiating a deep sense of dread and evil. Even the most devoted cultists didn’t like to stare too long into those eyes. Looking back at the beacon, the architect answered. “All the Obelisks are set, and the engraving are set to the runes that have been instructed all down the tower.”

The architect then rubbed his brow, looking up at a sizzling worm hole not too far above his head. Ever since the Gods showed up, they gave gifts of sealed away knowledge. Most didn’t complain at first when they opened a gateway to a dimension of pure energy to siphon from, but then came all the undead that couldn’t be outright controlled… and all the visions that brought paranoia, madness, and anger to those who were ‘weak minded’. “I must ask, but why do we wait to use the tower? Is the energy source above us not enough?”

The shadow leaned closer, whispering from rotten lips into the Mortuus’ ears. “We need a summon forth an organism that would be powerful enough to be a connection between the dimension and the tower. And one that my master can trust.”

“Where is this organism?”

“Sealed away in the flesh and soul of a Mortuus woman.”

The architect once again wiped his brow, feeling sweat drip down his cheek. “Wait. That Mortuus?”

“Yes.”

“But she does not reside in Malus, let alone Inferos.”

“That is why your God has taken the time to bring about her long-awaited return to this monument to sin. Here, her purpose will at last be achieved.” The shadow growled happily into the man’s ear as a new sinister and deeper tone left its lips. “I have awaited a long, long time for this.”

________________________________________________________________

Previous Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/625816338129207296/evils-bane-ch-3-onward-and-forward

Next Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/626093697379008512/evils-bane-ch-5-belief-scattered

[terryblount]

Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review

Let me begin this review by saying the following: I play video games in order to be entertained (well…it’s also my job, but anyway). I don’t care about politics, agendas, races, sexes or whatever else that has nothing to do with gaming. Gaming is my hobby, and I am happy I can do this professionally. Having said that, my goal is to let you know whether a game is worth your hard-earned money or not. With this out of the way, let’s continue.

Discussing Wolfenstein Games

My last video review was on Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, back in 2015. While The New Order along with The Old Blood amused me, I wasn’t really a fan of The New Colossus. The game had very lengthy cutscenes, which felt unnecessary in a game where you should be shooting Nazis from start to finish. The New Colossus also wandered away from the more serious tone of the prior two games and tried to be funny but sometimes failed.

In case you don’t know, these rebooted Wolfenstein games have had rather serious tones, especially when compared to other FPS titles like DOOM, Serious Sam, or of course Duke Nukem. So with Youngblood they’ve greatly expanded the humor, which can be both bad and good. They’ve also went to great lengths to make this game feel almost completely different, which is also bad and good and makes me both happy and sad.

From the development side, it’s very noticeable that Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey) also worked on this game, along with MachineGames (the creators of the previous three Wolfenstein games). At first I thought the inclusion of a studio like Arkane could be awesome, but I became concerned when watching some gameplay videos. It turns out my fears were right. Maybe the two studios couldn’t mesh their different styles, or maybe something else happened, but Youngblood is a big mess.

I think the screenshot says it all.

Story Time & The ‘Terror Twins’

You play as one of the twin daughters of William Joseph (BJ) and Anya Oliwa Blazkowicz, named Jessie (Jes) and Zofia (Soph). It’s been twenty years since BJ killed Hitler and liberated the world from Nazis. Now, in the 1980s, for unknown reasons BJ has disappeared and the twins embark on an allegedly epic adventure to find ‘papa’ Blazkowicz, leading you to Nazi occupied Paris.

Jes and ‘papa’ Blazkowicz, enjoying a little bit of hunting.

The story mostly makes no sense and has little depth or sophistication. However, since this is a brainless first person shooter, I really don’t mind. It’s clear from the start the game is not trying to be serious, anyway.

I will confess I didn’t expect to like the new protagonists after playing so many times as BJ. For me, though, they are awesome. They’re fearless like papa but also funny, dorky, and sort of nuts. For instance, there’s an early cutscene where the twins attempt to kill a Nazi for the first time, which is hilarious and disgusting at the same time. Most of the dialogues between them are pretty funny, even if the writing is not that great overall, which is a plus for me.

First blood for the youngbloods!

“We were born to kill Nazis.” –Jes trying to convince the resistance leader to help them.

Now don’t get me wrong with my praise for the twins. I still love playing as BJ and I really like him, but he’s a very grim guy. So if I have to choose between serious or fun, I will always choose fun, even if I am not used to playing as female characters in first person games. I’m pretty sure that even the Doomguy agrees with me since we are talking about his “aunts.” At least these twins are way better than the Far Cry: New Dawn twins.

Soph and ‘mama’ Blazkowicz, enjoying a little bit of fighting/training.

Graphics, Performance, & Controls

Youngblood looks good, and the game engine (id Tech 6) works like a charm. The performance is remarkable, and I had basically zero problems with the game. I had some minor random stutters, but I am not completely sure it was the game’s fault. Either way it’s nothing to be concerned about. I only wish you could disable motion blur and weapons effects completely. I hate motion blur and some of the weapon effects fogged my vision. For more details on the subject you can read John’s performance analysis.

Half an hour into the game and I already don’t like these guys.

“We ain’t killed no Nazis .”

–Soph reminding her sister that they haven’t killed any Nazis.

The game controls just fine. I didn’t notice any kind of forced acceleration or smoothing. You can change the FOV (field of view), but unfortunately you cannot disable or even lower the atrocious head bobbing. I usually don’t mind it, but in this case it gave me headaches and the strong need of a good dose of Dramamine. The UI and menus are fine, even if the menus are totally designed for consoles.

Sound & Voice Acting

I love the short elevator cut-scenes and the 80’s music in the elevators. During gameplay the sounds are fine, but I couldn’t fall in love with the gun sounds. The voice acting is pretty good overall, with the twins voice acting being great. So the audio design is acceptable but nothing special.

Shooting Nazis In The Jugular

So let’s get down to business: gameplay. Sorry guys, but the game doesn’t play well. I know they tried to mix it up with new ideas, but they failed. After the introduction you reach the Paris catacombs, where the base of operations is located. From there you can restock ammunition, health, and armor.

“I only hunt Nazis Jes, not animals.” –Soph

Also in the base of operations you can talk to different NPCs (non player characters) and receive new side missions. Paris is divided into different areas you can fast travel to once you’ve unlocked the areas. Keep in mind that the game does not tell you which missions are main or side ones, which is weird.

More microtransactions?! Awesome, I love microtransactions, especially in single player games. Oh right, I almost forgot there is also co-op…

All areas are crawling with enemies, and you can engage them stealthily or go full-frontal. Of course you can also avoid them, though some areas are harder to sneak by unnoticed. Most obnoxiously, whether you clear out an area of enemies or not, all the enemies will respawn when you return, Far Cry 2 style. What a bullshit.

It’s especially terrible because you will be forced to return to many of the same areas in various missions, so you will have to redo everything from the beginning. Thankfully there are several different paths, which allow you to avoid most enemies. The world building is very familiar to Dishonored 2, likely because Arkane Studios was involved in the development.

“How the fuck should I know?” –Jes after being asked if they can make it, right before they jump without a parachute from an enemy zeppelin.

As for navigating the world using a map, the game doesn’t have a classic map. Instead you get an overview map just like in Dishonored 2, thus making path-finding really hard most of the time. The mini-map doesn’t really help either. Sometimes it took me five minutes to clear an area and twice that to find my way out. Thankfully you can fast travel from anywhere back to the base of operations, but everything will respawn, as noted already.

Weapons, Leveling Up & Some Other RPG Crap

Even though the shooting mechanics are pretty solid and most weapons feel unique with upgrades and attachments, I didn’t enjoy the weapons (even with all the upgrades and attachments). That’s probably because all enemies including the playable characters have levels. You read that right. Youngblood is yet another FPS to include RPG elements, just like Far Cry: New Dawn did recently.

Why is this leveling stuff in here? I really don’t get it, seriously. Making all human enemies bullet sponges only works in specific games. Even The Division 2 realized the problem with this type of design. I get they want to make the game lengthier and grindier, but it’s a god damn lazy and stupid game design.

How on earth did they manage to get these pictures? I will admit though, they look terrorific!

There are also two kinds of ammunition and some guns will do less damage to specific enemies. So you always have to check the enemy health bar to see what kind of ammunition is needed in order to achieve maximum damage. It feels like a chore, plain and simple. I find it completely unnecessary, particularly in a game where there are no limitations on how many guns you can carry.

“Just like daddy taught us.” –Jes after she and her sister wipe a whole enemy squad.

Since there is a level up system you also have skills available for purchase. None of these skills are anything original or even interesting. They even included lame skills like ‘extra health’ and ‘extra armor.’ Jesus… what the hell happened? You can unlock some melee skills that will make the game a joke. It’s way faster and easier to go and stab everyone in the face instead of shooting them, seriously.

Micro-transactions & Greed

To make things even worse, you can also buy stuff with real money. Yes, microtransactions are part of the game, with payable upgrades, skins, and boosters. Can you finish the game without paying for anything? Definitely, but that’s not the point. Even if these are “cosmetic” only, the whole practice is unethical, scummy and greedy as fuck. Screw microtransactions and shame on all publishers who push tactics as such. Also who cares for skins in a first person shooter?

Where the hell is all the blood? The gore is seriously messed up in this game.

Other Weird Game Issues

The game has weird blood effect logic relating to your armor suit. This is the same armor BJ used to wear, and it made sense when no bullets would penetrate it until the last shots, which then produced blood effects. In Youngblood when you get shot, you see blood squirts all the time, as if you’re armor suit doesn’t even work. It’s like some developer forgot to toggle off the effect.

“Yeah, that was a trip to creep city.” –Soph after being asked by Jes if she had “the talk” with their mom.

The dismemberment and gore system is also messed up, being almost completely random. Sometimes you can unload a whole clip into an enemy without damaging his body. Other times you shoot just once and open a hole in his chest. It really gets on my nerves when selling points of a game don’t work as intended, like RAGE 2 (another Bethesda-published game) having problems with blood and bullet decals. At least two months later they fixed it (in reality they fucked it even more). Thank you Bethesda…

Here the blood works as intended. What the hell?! Seriously, I have no idea what is going with Bethesda’s games lately.

AI & Stealth

The enemy AI is horrible, just awful. Enemies walk past you while you are in ‘cloak’ mode, but they can still tilt their heads and look straight at you while they keep on walking in a different direction. It’s hilarious and creepy, especially the first time you see it. Stealth is toned down compared to the previous games, even if you have the ‘cloak’ ability available from the beginning.

“Slick as a whistle, as daddy used to say.” –One of the twins right after they complete their mission objective.

The AI of your sister is actually not bad and she rarely blows your cover. Of course you will still do most of the killing, but she will assist when she can. One thing she doesn’t seem able to do is to use cover and melee. Actually, the cover system is awesome, ripped straight out of Medal of Honor (2010), where you can lean to every direction instead of being limited to left or right.

If the twins had a wish, it would be to bring him back to life, so they could kill him again.

Glorious Finishers?!

I used to enjoy finishers in the Wolfenstein games but not anymore. The animations are far too few and many don’t connect properly. They feel floaty. Sometimes the combat finishers don’t even work. When they do work and you manage to disarm the enemy, there is some fun to to be had with choosing to automatically play out the finisher or rapidly shoot to empty a whole magazine into an enemy. The later choice can be extremely satisfying, but it’s still not enough to make much of a difference in this disaster of a game, which brings us to our conclusion.

That’s what you get when you block other people’s shots.

R.I.P. Wolfenstein

Even if the game has some small parts that are actually good, the rest of it is just dreadful. This game might actually be the death of the series and no twin badass sisters can save it from doom. Honestly don’t even bother, especially if you are planning to play solo. Now if you like FPS games with RPG elements and you don’t care about the things I mentioned, then you will probably enjoy this game. I obviously didn’t.

“To capitaine Blazkowicz, cheers!”

-Juju, just Juju, enough said.

Ohhh. Come on, bucko. Don’t you want a… balloon?

I didn’t even finish the game because the last boss is actually SpongeBob himself. Seriously, the last fight lasts for ages, only because you have to shoot the boss a crap ton of times. If you don’t care about spoilers you can watch this video (FYI the video starts at the final phase), or any video as a matter of fact and see for yourselves. The amount of time you need to spend to take him down it’s absurd and plain dull, which can honestly summarize the whole game experience.

The Blazkowicz twins

Great performance

Cover System

Map design

Forgettable side characters

Absence of regular map

Bullet spongy enemies

Uninspired boss fights

Dull fetch side quests

Microtransactions

Enemy respawn

Boring skills

Terrible AI

No pause

DRM

Computer Specs: CPU: i5 4440, GPU: Palit 1660Ti OC 6GB, RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 16GB HDD: Crucial 275GB MX300, OS: Win7, 1080p

Playtime: 10+ hours total.

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[lettersfromleslie]

SNOWED IN ONCE AGAIN / HAIL TO THE CHEETO / SQUARING OFF WITH THE CRO-MAGNONS? / I SURE HOPE NAZIS FEAR COLLAGES

Good God, where to begin? What a laugh - what was I saying again over the summer? …Oh, hum, yes, ominous ripples in the zeitgeist, eh? Well boyo, those ripples ain’t gonna cut it no more for a metaphor - I’d say by now it’s something of a typhoon… Christ, I doubt if bigger water metaphors are even gonna cut it at a time like this… More like a banshee wail of the collective psyche, eh? And there are no signs of it letting up anytime soon. Jesus, strange times! Clearly some sort of reassessment is necessary - reassess what, dammit?!

“COME AFTER ME, YOU FASCIST LOOFAH-FACED SHIT-GIBBON!” tweets the state senator, tagging the president. Is this real life, or are we living in a Hunter S. Thompson story? The initial unreal feeling has been shifting to a feeling of a sustained bad dream - in which even the manic gasps of people reminding one another that nothing is normal become a part of the daily routine. It’s creepy as hell. Life chugs on, of course, for better or for worse, and superficially little changes for those as of yet unaffected. As for myself, I’ve been protesting, hysterically following the news, but the day-to-day is largely unchanged… The only outward difference you’d notice about me, passing by in the subway, is a little sign saying “TODAY: 10% of earnings donated to the ACLU!” I’ve had that one up for a week now and I’ll be wiring over the balance every couple weeks… Hell, but how much good does that really do the psyche? More abstractions… And look at me now, I’m talking like the years have laid dust over this shit, it’s been what - Three weeks! Mother of God! Has it only been three weeks?!

And another thing, goddamnit! I forgot how cold this fucking place of mine gets in the winter! Return of the goddam igloo! I thought I was through with this crap! Right now it’s late at night and there’s a last gasp of a blizzard on, my windows are filled with snow and frost, icicles drip, drip, the gale goes whomp, whomp, on the thin glass, rattling the panes. A few seconds after every whomp I can feel the cool air emanating across the room from the surface of the glass and the cracks around it. I’ve got me a bottle of red wine wine to keep me warm and keep me company - quiet times like these get precious when you’re feeling so goddam unbalanced about things.

I didn’t start writing this just to bitch about politics, mind, but it tends to sorta froth out once you start opening up… Hell, might as well say it, I don’t feel fuckin good this winter! Not one bloody bit. That “bloody” was a forced concession. I’ve started swearing like an American, have you noticed? Can’t help it, Americans seem to swear more... vigorously somehow. So yeah. You goddam swine. I mean, of course winter’s always a bummer… but man, both generally and personally the year thus far has been downright sinister - aside from the fascist apocalypse there’s been a severe lack of funds, depressing dead-end romances, an unusually desperate homeless situation at my favourite busking spot… And then throw in the further complication of a wild attempted escape to New Orleans that went pretty much to hell… I couldn’t afford it, for one, but sometimes you gotta - so I scraped the bottom of the barrel and said my prayers and bought the ticket. First impressions: hallelujah! Not a bad word to say about the place, as far as I can make out Nola is as good a city as they come. Never been anywhere so instantly lovable. In fact I found myself falling head over heels pretty much the minute I arrived, although even now I’m not sure if I was falling for the city - its humid, mossy, cracked wonkiness, its big brown river with the weird foreign-named boats and rotting industrial swampage, the public drinking, bums and tubas and tambourines, etc - or whether I was falling for the girl who’d invited me.

I mean, both, I suppose, but it didn’t work out too well with the girl - stillborn lil romance, that one turned out to be. She went off one morning on a boat! Sailed off at the crack of dawn. Suppose there’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s what I tell people and it ain’t a lie. Oh well. I give her points for style. Let’s be real, I used to be the same way when I was on the road. Anyway, as a result I wound up arriving back in New York unexpectedly alone, stony broke, on the very day the goddam fascist shit-gibbon - I mean, these people know how to swear, man - on the very day the shitgibbon in chief got inaugurated. So with that delightful ambience surrounding me, I had about ten days to raise a thousand bucks busking in the subway, or I’d be badly in the hole… And just to make absolutely sure I drove myself completely bonkers along the way I also set myself the task of giving all the mixes for Sunny Kindsa Lies a facelift. And for good measure I spent the nights flinging a total of about thirty thousand or so words of sentimental drivel at the old diary. Whenever I’d have time during the days I’d join the good people in protesting the escalating drama of mr. Cheeto Benito. What a life!

Ten days of that and I was able to enter February a perfect model of miserable discipline. Rent paid, work done, deeply stressed-out and entirely wracked with nerves. Recovered from my holiday, in other words… Ha. We’re a week into February now and the only thing that’s changed is I haven’t been working so goddam hard and to tell the truth I don’t feel a hell of a lot better as a result. Snap out of it, boyo! 

I know what the thing to do is, and that’s to write it all out and make things that are Good and Real and True and all that jazz. I mean, I’m trying, to an extent, but to my intense irritation all that seems to come out is the usual self-involved melancholia, which is just about the last thing I want to give into right now. How do you write a protest song, exactly? Anyone? It doesn’t seem to be just me - I’ve yet to see any good protest music come out of this thing just yet. (I hate Father John Misty, so don’t come at me with that rubbish.)

Then again, all this protesting… As much as the voice in my head hisses “privilege!”, I suppose there is - or at least I have - the option of reading things at a more cosmic scale. I’m not really American, after all… I don’t have to deal with this shit, necessarily. Take Henry Miller. World War II breaking out didn’t have at all the usual effect on him… In his words,

”The thought of war drives people frantic, makes them quite cuckoo, even when they are intelligent and far-seeing … And it has another bad effect - it makes young people feel guilty and conscience-stricken. In Corfu I had been studying the antics of a superbly healthy young Englishman, a lad of twenty or so, who had intended to be a Greek scholar. Now he was running around like a chicken with its head off begging to have someone put him in the frontline to blow him to smithereens…”

Who knows, maybe the kid did get blown to smithereens. A bunch of healthy young Englishmen did, and fuck knows I’m grateful - who knows what the hell kind of lives we’d be leading right now if they hadn’t. But Miller just took one look at it all and decided the world had gone fucking bananas... An extremely sordid bout of temporary insanity… An embarrassment, in short. Clearly he didn’t want to be killed; he didn’t want to kill anyone; better hole up somewhere in Greece a while till it all blew over a bit. I’m sure he got bawled out for it plenty, the usual charges, “coward,” “hypocrite,” “traitor”… But if you read his books it’s perfectly obvious that he never really considered himself to have any allegiance to his country anyway, or even his epoch - or any epoch, for that matter. I reckon he’d consider himself to have as much of an allegiance to America as he had an allegiance to the Babylonians, or the Romans, or the Cro-Magnons. There’s something to that, although I can’t square it, myself… I mean, I don’t think that’s me, I reckon I do have that headless-chicken empathy and tribal solidarity that we all value in a good healthy young citizen… But all the same, part of me feels Miller’s way is the right way. Once you take the cosmic view it does all get a bit daft. None of that would make for much of a protest song, though. You don’t write songs for those who have the luxury to leave when the flames get too hot. You write songs for the burning.

I was reading that book when I was in Greece, by the by, while I was writing you about those ominous ripples. The Colossus of Maroussi. Fantastic book - Miller’s best, in my opinion, or at any case his best-realised. Oh, God, I don’t know. I’ll be here, in New York I mean… I know I will, selling my booklets of collages and lyrics, singing my songs, scrambling at the rungs of that greasy ol ladder. What else is there? And spring’ll be soon and that’ll be a whole other thing. Etc, etc, etc.