"Black Dog"

To a remarkable degree, he coped successfully with "black dog," as he called his depressive spells. He sought flamboyant, stimulating, zestful company. 

In a profound sense, he himself always remained the underdog. All his life he suffered spells of depression, sinking into the brooding depths of melancholia, an emotional state which, though little understood, resembles the passing sadness of the normal man as a malignancy resembles a canker sore. The depressive knew what Dante knew: that Hell is an endless, hopeless conversation with oneself. Every day he chisels his way through time, praying for relief. The etiology of the disease is complex, but is thought to include family history, childhood influences, biological deficiencies, and -- particularly among those of aggressive temperament -- feelings of intense hostility which the victim, lacking other targets, turns inward upon himself. Having chosen to be macho, Churchill became the pugnacious, assertive fighter ready to cock a snook at anyone who got in his way.

William Manchester

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932 

North Country Blues

Come an' gather 'round friends
And I'll tell ya' a tale
Of when the red iron ore pits run a-plenty
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty

In the north end of town
My own children are grown
Well I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth
My mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother

The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines and the shovels they was a-hummin'
'Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him

Well a long winter's wait
From the winda' I watched
My friends they couldn'ta been kinder
And my school it was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner

Oh the years passed again
And the givin' was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason

Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin'

They complained in the East
They're payin' too high
They say that your ore ain't worth a-diggin'
That it's much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothin'

So the minin' gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinkin'
When the sad silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking

I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was buildin'
'Til one morning's wake
The bed it was bare
And I's left alone with three children

The summer is gone
The ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're a-foldin'
My children will go
As soon they grow
Well there ain't nothin' here now to hold them

Bob Dylan, "North Country Blues"

Kanye West is not Picasso

I am Picasso

Kanye West is not Edison

I am Edison

I am Tesla

Jay-Z is not the Dylan of Anything

I am the Dylan of anything

I am the Kanye West of Kanye West

The Kanye West

Of the great bogus shift of bullshit culture

From one boutique to another

I am Tesla

I am his coil

The coil that made electricity soft as a bed

I am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is

When he shoves your ass off the stage

I am the real Kanye West

I don’t get around much anymore

I never have

I only come alive after a war

And we have not had it yet

Leonard Cohen

"Kanye West is Not Picasso"

Dylan Black

"'We all called him 'Dylan Black' because of his hair. Once you saw him, you didn't forget him. It was like he was hot-combing it; it looked exactly like Dylan's.'"

- Ellen McIlwane

Jimi Hendrix turned twenty-four that November and it was the first birthday he celebrated as a rising star. Yet despite his growing fame, he still carried a wadded-up dollar bill in the sole of his boot, a remnant of his years of poverty. . . He told Kathy Etchingham, "When you've been penniless, you never forget it."

By November, press agent Tony Garland had begun writing Jimi's first official press bio and found himself incredulous when Jimi named off all the legendary R&B bands he'd played with. Garland recalled that at one point they were listening to a King Curtis record on the stereo and Garland asked Jimi if he knew who the guitar player was. "I played that, muthafucker," Jimi said with a big grin on his face. 

Charles Cross

Room Full of Mirrors: A Jimi Hendrix Biography

autumn leaves

Autumn colors and leaves, Marquette to Big Bay, Sun. Oct. 7, 2018: evergreen, juniper, fresh apricot, peach, cherry red, burnt orange, rust, olive green, maize, leather, mahogany, white birch bark -- long stretch of jack pines in rows, with rock and reindeer moss in the deep shadows of the underbrush, rust-black telephone poles dangling eternal telephone wires -- red-frayed corn yellow, with cinnamon specks, rock & rye red, more olive green birch leaves, frayed yellow-green around the edges, flamingo pink, salmon, green apple, a shiny red pickup parked alongside the tall grass near Saux Head Lake, tiny log cabin shacks indicating civilization near Wilson Creek and Yellow Dog River, just outside of Big Bay. Low, horizontal mountain clouds ala the Pacific Northwest suggest totem poles might be just around the bend in the lake. Big red barns of Big Bay Storage across the two-lane highway from a log cabin chalet, outside of which stands a life-sized, wood-carved black bear and bigfoot figure. A tunnel of yellow and cherry red leaves towards Thomas Rock Overlook, 43 degrees chilly.