I’ve been blogging since 2005. I’ve been writing for First Draft since 2009. I’ve almost never had writer’s block. If anything, I’ve been too prolific for my own good. I started slowing down with my major illness last year. I’m still capable of quality but quantity eludes me right now.

I opened with that paragraph hoping that it would knock the writer’s block out of me. Let’s try some random thoughts and see if confession helps. It’s supposedly good for the soul, let’s see if it’s good for my writing.

Team Trump is known for their pettiness and tackiness, but this takes the cake:

“A Venezuelan baseball team was denied visas into the United States and will miss this year’s Senior Baseball World Series, Little League International confirmed Friday.

The Cacique Mara team, from Maracaibo, Venezuela, was scheduled to participate in the tournament after winning the Latin American championship in Mexico.

“The Cacique Mara Little League team from Venezuela was unfortunately unable to obtain the appropriate visas to travel to the Senior League Baseball World Series,” Little League International said in a statement, adding that it is “extremely disappointing, especially to these young athletes.”

The tournament is for kids 13-16. Team Trump is convinced that all Venezuelans are gangbangers who support the Maduro dictatorship. That is, of course, bullshit but lying is what they do best.

Is this a prelude to ending political asylum for Venezuelans? Democrats and Republicans used to agree about the awfulness of the Chavez-Maduro regime. It’s another policy change that defies common sense, but sense is something MAGA is short on.

The Insult Comedian has taken his act to the United Kingdom. He was booed in Scotland and will be hosted by King Charles at a state dinner. The real King is worried that the wannabe King will make inflammatory remarks about immigration in his presence. Sometimes this title isn’t accurate:

I wish that people on my side of the fence wouldn’t exaggerate the awfulness of Trump Regime 2.0. The reality is bad enough that embellishment isn’t needed. Lies are best combatted with the truth, not hyperbole. Some insist that Los Angeles is under federal occupation. That was never true and it’s less true now. There are troops in a small patch of downtown LA. Life goes on as usual elsewhere. Enough with the bedwetting. Change the sheets and move on.

This song is dedicated to all the bedwetters out there:

I’m on a Rodney Crowell bender as the 20th Katrinaversary beckons. His next album comes out on 8/29 and is called Airline Highway: one of the main drags of Southeast Louisiana. That combination sent shivers up and down my spine because, as I’ve said many times before, Crowell’s 2005 album The Outsider was the soundtrack for my Katrina exile.

I’ve never seen Rodney live. That’s about to change in November. He’s playing one of the coolest and smallest venues in New Orleans: Chickie Wah-Wah. It has a listed capacity of 200 so perhaps I’ll get to tell Rodney how much The Outsider has meant to me over the last 20 years. This title says it all:

I’m dreading the 20th anniversary, but plans don’t seem as elaborate as they were for the 10th. That’s a relief. I don’t want to drink a fifth on that day. Hopefully, we won’t be hit a third time on what I call The Double Whammy Anniversary.

That was therapeutic. It’s not my best work but as I’ve told my writers, you can’t always hit a homer, sometimes a single will just have to do. It was the best I could do on this Blue Monday. I feel unstuck as opposed to unglued, a big improvement.

It’s time to throw y’all a curveball low and away. Titles cannot be copyrighted, so the Fats Domino classic isn’t the only song called Blue Monday. The last word goes to New Order: