Jay Wrote

  2025 - Worst. Year. Ever. I will get the terrible out of the way. Karen has had multiple hospitalizations for congestive heart failure and she is very weak. She broke her foot. My knee hurts. My cousin Mary Lou died. A postal truck ran a stop sign in front of Matthew as he was driving home at 59 mph. Our tomato crop was measly. The speed on my turntable has turned wobbly. My friend and former partner in civil rights work, Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark, were assassinated. Tree experts had to cut down a lot of trees on our street. The traitorous, obscene, anti-constitutional, thieving cowards who run the federal government (all three branches at the moment) and everything they have tried to do.  On the other hand Karen remains positive and determined. Medical care is now more comprehensive and we’re getting some at home. Volunteers with Rebuild Together Minnesota built us a lovely ramp; ours was the Honeywell volunteers’ 89th ramp. My knee pain doesn’t stop my cycli...

Sunday afternoon in late June, it is hot. You come up the subway steps and head deeper into the Village.  Ahead, you spot the Vanguard awning stretching across the sidewalk to the curb. You duck in and down, hand a five to Max at the bottom of the stairs. The steps are steep, pipes assembled into handrails on each side. The walls are flaking red, like someone had dunked leaves into barn paint and pressed them onto the wall.  A waste pipe runs down and metal conduits up the east wall. The room is a wedge. The streetside east wall runs from the bottom of the stairs to the stage, not twenty five feet ahead.The stage forms the apex of the triangle, twenty inches high and no more than ten feet wide. There’s a curtain at the right side of the stage but there’s no room for anything other than a wall behind it. A fellow sits in front at the right side of the stage, fiddling with several pieces of equipment, including a large tape recorder. Three microphones. One angled over the piano ...