My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/31/20 "Can I Be With You"

"Can we walk around in the wonderland of the new place that we found/All flowers are in bloom/The placid river scintillates/Can I be with you/This time we have/All the people are around/Buildings and streetcars/We can be amongst it all/In the world that we share." America is on fire. Cops are rioting all over the country because one of their own has been arrested for murder. Cops are arriving at peaceful protests in riot gear and proceeding to cause fires, vandalism, and looting. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are both under curfew as are no doubt many other cities. But if police openly rioting after murdering someone on camera isn't enough of a threat to keep people from coming out to protest, how can they possibly enforce a curfew? The threats no longer work. And this is partly due to COVID. 25% unemployment means people have plenty of time to take to the streets and protests don't cost a penny. -5/31/20. "Can I Be With You" from Portland Thursday (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/30/20 "Silent Wander"

"The sought after was not to be found/The contemplation was scattered/Ravaged and torn at the seams/The country lanes were far away." I remember the county roads in Indiana, the place I think of myself as being from even though I tell people I'm from Philly, Pittsburgh, Iowa, Houston, Detroit. The seams of asphalt running forever to an unmarked horizon taking my friends and I to the no-place of Midwest living, every destination an excuse for the sense of movement, the feeling that we were destined for other places. We weren't trying to find a new world to inhabit, we were looking for a world that had room for us, a space we could occupy and live. Instead, a new world with the worst echoes of the old world engulfed us, all spaces of possibility sealed off. We've been squeezed out of the old world and now find ourselves stuck still, aching for that sense of movement toward nothing. -5/30/20. "Silent Wander" from Not Hunting for Meaning (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/29/20 "Sleeping in the Dream"

(instrumental for piano and harp) Police continue to riot in Minneapolis--breaking windows, setting fires, attacking anyone documenting it, and then whining about mourners and violence. The murderers who laughed on video while murdering a man are still free and the cops are still outraged that they were held to any kind of account for murder. All this in the midst of the pandemic. Poor timing on the cops' part: it seems face masks block facial recognition. The cops can't identify the activists and mourners saying "stop." No doubt that's doubly infuriating to the paid protesters of the reopen riots: by protecting their neighbors' health through wearing masks, the Minneapolis mourners and activists are able to take action to defend the lives of their community. As with every step of this pandemic, every assertion of a right-to-life must be met with violence. The President is threatening to deploy the military. -5/29/20. "Sleeping in the Dream" from Helsinki Saturday (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/28/20 "The Places You Left Me: Part One"

"When I tried to get out, you pushed me down/Hit me and kicked me/Left me hurt so bad/Well, I tried to tell you how it really was/You didn't care to listen/You just walked away." In Minneapolis, the police riot has expanded to include cops from nearby cities like St. Paul coming to riot and insist on their right to murder people. Police show their hands a bit when they say they can't do their jobs unless they're allowed to murder people. What do they imagine their job is? At the same time, police have escalated the violence against mourners to the point where looting has broken out: if the government won't tell cops to stop murdering, you move to the next level of power to make your demand--the corporations. The cops want to see looting because they imagine it legitimizes their presence and violence. "Only cops can stop this looting sparked by police violence." -5/28/20. "The Places You Left Me: Part One" from Hasselt Saturday (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/27/20 "I Know My Name"

"You brought me so low today I'm happy to curse you world/Get the hints from me/and don't put me in no black suit." America passed 100,000 deaths and in the pursuit of returning to normal, police in Minneapolis murdered a black man on camera. The officers choked him to death by kneeling on his neck and laughing at him. The mayor fired the four officers involved in the murder which sparked the expected response: a police riot all night with officers raging through the city, attacking mourners and terrorizing communities as the opportunity arose. The core of the coronavirus response, I've said, rests in white supremacy. 100,000 deaths isn't being treated as a tragedy requiring massive change because of who's dying. Every day, every step of the way through this pandemic, the US response has been we'll kill you if you insist on your right to life. -5/27/20. "I Know My Name" from Skirting the Edge (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/26/20 "No Mind Was a Good Mind: Part Three"

"There's no way to go back/The innocence is lost/The king took a vacation/Left all the subjects to their own." This is the third time I've written about a song from this album and those older posts remind me of what's already been forgotten: the administration withholding aid from insufficiently fawning governors. It's a threat he returned to as some states sent out applications for mail-in ballots. Again, the degree to which you're allowed to live tracks with your degree of fealty: only the righteous shall receive salvation. So all states are open to some degree, those that want continued economic aid will fudge their numbers, and we'll hear how not crossing 100,000 deaths over Memorial Day Weekend is evidence of success. Instead we'll cross 100,000 this week. The President went golfing. It's not like there was something important going on. -5/26/20. "No Mind Was a Good Mind: Part Three" from London Tuesday (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)

My Jandek Plague Journal: 5/25/20 "The Grassy Knoll"

"But at some time, it seemed to me, the thoughts were filled with falsity/It was a plan to enslave us, to bring us to their world to stay/Damaged by their perverse thinking, losing our minds and souls to them/I quickly knew I couldn’t be there, but also I knew I had to stay." Outrage in the UK as it's revealed a senior Tory ignored isolation orders because he wanted to. He said he had to and people all relate more desperate situations where they didn't. But lockdown, for conservatives, is not about protecting the populace, it's about protecting the powerful. When politicians are at risk of contracting the disease, lockdown goes into effect. When their stock portfolios are at risk, it gets lifted. The politicians will continue to self-isolate, maintain social distancing, but will starve you if you choose your life over your job. They get to. Their only philosophy is power equals permission. -5/25/20. "The Grassy Knoll" from Glasgow Sunday 2005 (lyrics) (one week earlier) (one week later)