Zero Women Bonds and a Tractor Driver

Saw Zero Woman – Red Handcuffs last night – strange bizarre and just damn odd violent Japanese film – featuring multiple rapes, beatings, bloody bloody deaths (the blood streaming out like it was shot out of a fire hose) and a man shot in the worst possible place. (yes right there – man is that the stuff of nightmares or what). Apparently the Zero Women series (this is the first I’ve seen feature stuff like this all the time).

I don’t know – while I like the Japanese Samurai films – The Lone Wolf and Cub films are from this era – there is a sort of low rent sleaziness to the more modern setting Japanese exploitation films like Zero Women that I can’t quite ignore – and really multiple rapes are not my cup of tea – gratuitous lesbian scenes yes by all means – rape not so much. The buckets (and I mean buckets – like lots) of blood that are spilled in these films (it’s a type of red paint by the way) are so fake and so excessive that at times they remind me of the Monty Python Sketch Sam Pekenpaw’s Salad Days were an Edwardian tea party becomes a bloody mess out of the Wild Bunch – in such utterly over the top fashion that once the shock wears off you’re laughing. But the rape stuff, well rape is real, women get raped all the time and hideously enough get a lot of grief over being raped as well – it’s one of the few crimes where people are going to hint that “maybe she was asking for it” – nobody asks mugging victims what the hell they were wearing – it’s assumed you have the right to move around without getting mugged but there is this sick idea in some circles that women if they should gasp – dress teh sexy – deserve assault. Which is just damn sick.

Seems like MLB rejected Barry Bonds new contract exactly why is not clear. One interesting provision if he is arrested for illegal steroid use the Giants can void the deal.

Barry is not going to a fun year – his body is breaking down, his trainers are not allowed in the clubhouse and his teammates hate him – especially since he tried to toss one of them under a bus when he tested positive for amphetimes – nice Barry. In some ways he is the perfect sports figure for this era, nothing is his fault, ever. Reminds you of the views of the President and vice president.

Speaking of Washington – Sen Obama just went way up in my book – he is introducing a bill in the Senate that is designed to bring the troops home by March 2008. The evil pigs in the senate combined with the wishy washy muffin heads won’t go for this but it’s the right thing to do – We’ve done all the damage we can and we need to get out. Bravo Sir.

.

Playing at the Waltz tonight – open mike – there are some new rules in effect so people won’t just noodle endlessly on stage or stage a mass walkout (although when the guy we don’t like plays I can understand).

Looks like we are the headliner and the only band playing at the 169 bar 2/4 – it’s super bowl Sunday – hell I expect most of the people there (if any) will be watching the game. I’m almost tempted to say something like “did they score a goal?” if I hear a noise from the bar.

W meantime during a photo op in a tractor started playfully driving it towards the assembled press who had to scramble to get out of the way – I mean yeah things are bad but even the Washington DC press corps might get upset if you run some of them over. The man has the Intellect of a turnip and the impulse control of a three year old on crack– and he has his finger on the button. Pleasant dreams

The Picture is of Ethelred the Unready. We have a song about him - well not really about him.

Peace love Tractors

Employee evaluations the other tortures of modern life and Barbaro.

Well it is employee evaluation days here at the job. I was spoiled in an earlier life – the first long term job I had didn’t have this yearly torture session. But here, as at most places, you need a paper trail for everything (is he any good, yes here is the form to prove it) so here we are.

It’s like living inside a Dilbert Strip – I have to say what my strengths are, where I can improve and why is it I can not bend steel with my mind. Well that last one isn’t right but hell it feels like.

I utterly hate this kind of stuff – of course my low self esteem makes me feel that I’m not doing anything right – which hasn’t been the case – well once in a while yes but even then my failures weren’t as bad as I wanted them to be (it’s one of the wonderful things about low self esteem – if things aren’t going bad enough – you just do things to make then bad – it’s a wonderful thing really.)

Just once I’d like to have the nerve to write something like “perfect in everyway – not a man but a god come down from high Olympus to do the filing”. Of course I would have to have the winning lottery ticket in my pocket when I did that.

Saw a relativity obscure Japanese monster Movie Gappa – one of the few not made by Toho or the Gammera people – but there isn’t much to say about it – it’s kinda dull really. The plot is lifted from Gorgo (which isn’t that much of a surprise there aren’t many things you can really do with a rubber monster so the plots get recycled all the time) where an expedition to a yet another south seas island finds the egg which then hatches and turns out to contain a young goofy looking monster. This they take with them to Japan. Later the parent monsters (mom and dad in this case) break out of their island cave and go off in search of their child (in the process killing most of the islanders).

The film has the standard evil (or in this case short sighted) rich guy who figures to make a fortune off of the beast, It has the usual annoying kid – actually this time – two annoying kids – one the daughter of the rich guy who wants a “new mommy” and keeps on talking about it which causes the rich guy a lot of discomfort – one assumes the wife is dead and there wasn’t a messy divorce of some kind – but we never find out and for all we know rich guy could be responsible in some way – car crash whatever. The other annoying brat is a native on the island, he like everybody else on the island warns the expedition (paid for by the rich guy to stock his new amusement park in Japan with tropical things) not to mess with the island god Gappa.

You know just once just once I’d like the leader of the expedition to actually say “you know we’d better leave well enough alone – last time we didn’t a monster ate all my men” when told about an angry Island god – Granted there is there is the problem of making a movie with that in it, and having the monsters smash up cities which is what we have come to see anyway but I’d like to see that someday. (Learned essay on what the heck the desire to watch monsters smash buildings means is for some other time).

In the end the parents are re-united with their offspring and all are happy – except for the thousands dead and dying in the rubble that is what’s left of a good part of Tokyo and the soldiers who died in a useless effort to kill the damn beasts. Somehow that is never brought up in one of these films. You think they might but nooo. Spoil the mood.

Speaking of mood spoilers W has issued a new order that says, in effect, every policy announced by government agencies (health, civil rights, safety, etc.) must be approved by a White house political appointee before it is released. You know they had a system like that in the Soviet Union where each bureau and government office had a political commissar a party member who made sure that the bureau toed the Soviet line of the moment. Considering how little contact this crew has with real life you have to worry.

“From now on all people under six feet tall are six feet tall”

And you have to worry about the continual saber rattling at Iran. The last thing we need now is a war with Iran, which means, in this foul day and age; it’s the first thing we are going to get.

I don’t know why the neo-cons are so gung ho on this – Iran is not Iraq which by the time we invaded was a vastly weakened country without a friend in the world, Iran has good relations with china (which wants its old) a fully functional air force and like real soldiers and just enough ship killing missiles to make the Persian gulf into a sea of flame – esp. if they hit a full tanker or two.

With so many uncertain results, the neo-cons lust for more explosions and their certainty about the results (considering their track record) has to give one pause.

Yesterday Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was put down after a long struggle with the broken leg he suffered at the preakness – I know my god-daughter who is very into horses these days (she’s 13) is upset. And I am too – I , like a lot of people, wanted him to pull through. Thoroughbreds, for all their size and strength have surprisingly delicate legs – which during the stress of a race can shatter – it happened to Ruffian many years ago – (In that case they put her down right on the track ) and there isn’t a lot of blood supply to the legs so they just don’t heal quickly from a break – if at all. If you keep the horse still (which you have to do to let the bones heal) the other legs can develop infections which is what happened to Barbaro (I’m taking what I can from the news – I’m not an expert on horses) and eventually the owners decided that he was going to be in too much pain to go on.

Some folks have commented on how, with the nightmare in Iraq killing not only our guys but men women and children, hunger and want in America making a strong comeback and all the other problems we face why, folks had such compassion for a horse raised by people who after all were using him to make money. It seems a bit hypocritical on our parts they say, we get weepy at the pets abandoned in New Orleans but spare few thoughts to the people.

Well guilty – but what grabs us is the innocence of animals, they didn’t make the choices that got them in the mess they are in. Animals just are and we respond to that, in a very deep way – it’s a reminder of our connections and at the same time distance from the rest of nature. Barbaro didn’t choose to be a race horse people made him one. And we feel for that as well. Overly sentimental probably but it’s human.

Peace, Love, and they’re off

Swine, Water heads, insane people and Blake.

More politics here than I care for but things need to be said.

This last week Senator Lieberman managed to get worse that I thought he could - which took some doing. During the debate on the Senate’s non-binding resolution on Iraq which says, in essence, “W this is a shitty idea and you shouldn’t do it” Lieberman said the following:

“I fear that while this resolution is non-binding and, therefore, will not affect the implementation of the plan, it will do two things that can be harmful, which is that it will discourage our troops, who we’re asking to carry out this new plan, and it will encourage the enemy, because as General Petraeus said to our committee, war is a test of wills, and you don’t want your enemy to be given any hope.”

God in heaven what a bastard – not only just completely without scruples (willing to let better men than him die to support the miserably failed policy) he is also an totally evil un-American creep in his desire to squelch any critics of der dear leaders latest plans.

Let’s look at this in a bit of detail

1) “our troops” – as the people being asked to do this are going in for their third and in some cases 4th tour of duty in Iraq – I can’t imagine them being that gung-ho about the damn thing in the first place – even in World War II push men enough and the their morale dropped – especially in the winter of 44-45 in Italy where it became one more river one mountain. They’ll try and do the job because that’s who they are but sweet lord – haven’t we asked enough of them? Already? Do they all have to get killed or wounded? And even if everything works the way W and his cronies (a dwindling number) imagine – is that going to end the civil war or the attacks on US troops? Not very likely.

2) War may be a test of wills but as Gen Custer could tell you, there are other factors as well. But the important thing is that this isn’t a fucking war – not a bit, this is an occupation – the war ended years ago. It’s their damn country – they aren’t going anywhere – no matter how many pronouncements of a test of will you make, the fact that they have nowhere else to go kind of trumps whatever will we can muster (and in light of miserable execution of a miserable idea you have to wonder how much we really can).

There is a larger issue here – the right wing noise machine is cracking up the idea that any criticism W and his plan is somehow well treasonous since we are at war.

If we are fighting a war (and let’s just let that go for a second) aren’t we fighting a war to protect America values? And isn’t’ one of them free speech? The right of an elected assembly to debate policy is at the heart of democracy - to suggest this is encourages the enemy is poison. And really how much more encouragement do they need – they already see that the commander is chief is a codpiece without a brain, the vice president is hostile and delusional and the folks in charge of this clusterfuck probably have to have their shoes tied for them.
I hope all of those Democratic heavy hitters The Clintons, Chris Dodd, the Senator from Louisiana, and the rest who either supported Lieberman during the Primary and then sat on their hands during the general election or worse yet supported him over the democratic party candidate in the general election (Dodd and the Senator from Louisiana – who Lieberman wasted no time knifing right in the back) are happy with themselves. One can only hope something – a change in parties by a sitting senator, a need for an election or something happens that means they don’t have to deal with this little creep anymore.

Well enough of that.

Meantime – W, in a weird moment, has defended his boss, sorry , the Vice President’s odd and hostile interview with Wolf Blitzer as saying Cheney is an optimist who sees the glass as half full – which I supposed is a polite way of saying a raving lunatic without even a nodding relationship with reality.

Meanwhile meanwhile – file under You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows – both Sen Biden and Sen Clinton have either come out against the war and in the case of Sen Clinton – admitted she had a part in making the disaster in the first place. To the both I say welcome to the real world.

Reading Blake a bit – one of the editions I have is The Portable Blake that includes an introduction by Alfred Kazin a very well respected critic – indeed the essay is in general laudatory of Blake with some strange bits however – one are the casual slaps at D.H. Lawrence, now while I suppose they were gratifying – I’m not quite sure just how relevant they are to the task at hand – there, in the early part of the essay is a celebration of Naturalism as a great and tragic way of looking at human existence. Every time I read this bit I keep thinking “what the hell is this? And what the hell does it have to do with Blake?” Very little I suspect. Kazin probably (I say that cause I don’t know for sure) found that view of life more commiserate with own views than Blake’s.

I’ve always thought that Naturalism as a world view has one great trap, the idea of impartiality – that we can stand outside and observe without either effecting or being affected by the events we observe. This deriving from the scientific method has some problems – one nobody is fucking objective, we all have baggage and hobby horses and limitations yes even me – two as we found out, and still haven’t quite come to terms with, in quantum mechanics the very act of observation changes what the hell is going on.

On bad days I suspect that there is a chaos deep at the heart of things that if we see it we will go mad. On other days not so much. And on good days I think the universe is goofy.

Tomorrow back with the silly essays on rubber monsters and music –

Peace, Love, Arrows of desire

Korean Monsters & Dyslexia for cure!

Looking at the problem we had last week about the gig – it was my fault, I’ll say that right up – we had the choice of the 19th and the 27th (a Saturday) and somehow via my – it’s kinda Dyslexia but not quite – it became we had a gig on the 26th. So Otto’s had us booked on the 19th but I blissed along with it being on the 26th. Again my fault totally. The reason it happened was my head’s a bit off on these things – but I should by now know enough to double check things – this time I didn’t and bang.

I don’t really know how or why – nobody does really – but sometimes my synapses just misfire – honestly I can almost feel them sputter from time to time. The principal effects I note are I tend to reverse letters in the middle of words (i.e. I will spell time as time – like a lot) and I will miss words in the middle of sentences. Also sometimes when I’m reading I won’t catch the right word and my brain will just put one in that kind of looks like it. (I also don’t pronounce words correctly if I’ve never heard them either – letters are just letters to me i.e. I can’t sound anything out) I remember one time near Easter I was walking to work and there was a church with big sign announcing its daily service. It brought up short cause when I looked it said

“Annoy the poor service 3 pm”

I was taken aback – it was an Anglican church but I didn’t think they would go in for this sort of thing – and what would an annoy the poor service look like and what poor person would go.

So knowing my head I looked again.

“Anoint the poor service 3 pm”

Which made a hell of a lot more sense.

Anyway we are on the web site at 169 bar as playing on the 4th at 10 pm so come on down, it looks like a bad game anyway.

File under “Oh shut up”

Turns out Toby Keith is now saying he was against the Iraqi war. Well if he was he kept it very very quiet during the build up and the opening days of the war – when he was having his feud with the Dixie chicks – apparently he would flash a picture of a cd featuring one of the chicks and Saddam together. But he wasn’t a supporter of the Iraqi war – cause he never said “I support the Iraqi war” – that kind of makes him a bit of weasel as well as being full of it.

Watching Korean Giant Monster movies this weekend – Korea when it started making cars used the Japanese model and when they started making monster movies did the same thing – Yongary – made in 1967 and looks a lot like the less expensive films made at the time in Japan – more like the Gammera films than Godzilla. It features just odd disjointed things – including an astronaut going into space on his honeymoon or something -- leading up to the appearance of the monster – who wanders around breaking stuff and then drinking oil and eating fire (al la Gammera). Why he showed up is never quite addressed or even asked – which actually may be more accurate – you have a 50 meter tall beast smashing up your home town the time for asking where did it come from is a bit later.

There is the standard annoying kid who has knows more than the adults – again I can never understand why they seemed to think this will help with the kids – even as a kid I couldn’t stand these kids and we were supposed to identify with them.

Anyway the kid in some measure bonds with the monster – watching kind of dancing late a night – it’s not the stupidest thing I’ve seen a man in monster suit do – there is that Godzilla’s victory dance in Monster Zero, his flying in Smog Monster and one film where Gammera worked what look like parallel bar – but it’s pretty damn close.

The other thing is that kid observes that Yongary after he smashes a tank near the oil refinery starts to react badly and to scratch himself – it’s some kind of ammonia concentrate that the scientist realizes will kill the monster. Listen all I have to say if you are going to kill the monster by having him scratch himself to death – you’ve got one lame ass monster there.

I’d write about Lieberman’s latest attempt to say critics of W emboldens the terrorists but shit – it’s Sunday I’m in a decent mood and I don’t feel like spoiling it. So I’ll do that Monday. I’ll be cranky anyway so I’ll do better.

Later me droogies – okay here’s a challenge – what is that a reference to? Come on you can do it.

Peace Love Monster Suits

Blogger hates pics again - later for the pic.

Cold and White Album

Utterly freezing this morning – Nine degrees (-12.8 C).

“Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine”

That bit of brain junk is from the White album my personal favorite of the boys output mostly because it is just so all over the lot and does foreshadow their solo careers – John, Politics, compassion, anger and searching, Paul silly love songs and well love songs and silly songs, George Cosmic ohm unto ohm (can I confess a liking for All Things Must Pass here? I can? Why thank you) and Ringo novelty songs and trophy wives. It makes it a very interesting listening. I don’t think it’s their best – I’ll give that to Revolver, followed by the Hard Day’s Night Soundtrack.

On a side note I’d like to say years ago I read an essay in I think Harper’s Magazine where a music teacher spoke about his experiences teaching music to high school students – the article was done in the 80’s I think, anyway the author was saying that the kids didn’t understand what the White Album was about since the Beatles were their Parent’s music, his point being the Beatles at that time were exhausted.

Thinking about this I’d have to say – exhausted artists do not make double alums of new material – granted maybe “why don’t we do it in the road” isn’t the strongest in the boy’s catalogue but hell it’s better than Flying on Magical Mystery Tour – so I can’t really buy the idea of the Beatles at a creative low point here – it was a pretty low point as far as them working inside of the band went – things were tense and not a lot of fun.

I’d lean towards Let It Be as when the Beatles hit the wall creatively and yet – listening to Let It Be Naked showed a lot of what I didn’t really like about the Album was the doing of Phil Spector not the lads or George Martin.

Actually Rock n’ Roll has been around long enough to see what people do when they feel that their fount of ideas is drying up – they do the dreaded album of covers – Dylan did two of these back in the 90’s, the Band did one, John Lennon did one; Paul did one (much later in his career and right after Linda died, it’s an odd album in some ways very very upbeat for a man who’s wife of many years had just died but that’s Paul – what goes on inside you don’t get to see, like ever.) and even Duran Duran did one – it’s what artists do when they feel that they have lost their way and decide to go back to the beginning – what got them going in the first place before the Humvees and the dancing girls and the brass section and the inflatable pig that seems to play lead guitar in the 3rd song while the lasers spell out names of the women who have dumped you – well you get the idea. Back to the roots – which was what Let it Be was going to be – before Phil got his hands on it. (I’ll write about Spector some other time – no time now)

To me the White Album illustrates the lad’s sense of confinement and frustration in being within the Beatles not a loss of creative force – again a band at loss for ideas doesn’t just tape a fragment of a song and use it as the opening for Revolution #9.

Well so much for Beatles talk for today.

Word out of the Libby trail is that when they wanted to get their point across Cheney would appear on Meet the Press as with Tim Russet they could control the message there. Much smarter folks than me (and folks who can stand it – which I can’t –really) have noticed that while GOP and Cheney get softball questions and no follow ups from Tim, Democratic and liberal minded guests are grilled like steaks. This bit coming from the trial explains why that was the case.

I suspect that Tim Russet’s integrity has taken a pretty big hit. He’s supposed to be a reporter and a skilled interviewer in service of the truth – and when the hell did he take over meet the press? Back in the day Meet the press was well, meeting the press – there would be a guest and several print reporters who showed up on a rotating basis – maybe they should go back to that format – it’ll beat having folks endure what is bound to be Russet’s self-serving and disenguous comments about all this.(he’s up to his neck in the Libby deal anyway – I think he got dragged into the grand jury at least one) – so they should either change the format or require Russert to have the world “sold” stamped on his forehead whenever he shows up on TV.

Speaking of TV – Reading the transcript of Cheney’s interview with Wolf Blitzer you get the sense of a man completely and utterly cut off from the world the rest of us live in:

Cheney: Iraq is wonderful – they are doing wonderful things
Wolf: But just this day
Cheney: Listen it’s wonderful – there are flowers blooming on every street corner
Wolf: So why is the president adding
Cheney: Those troops are for the victory parade.
Wolf: But in the state of the union address
Cheney: He said victory parade, it’s to show the press that Iraq is wonderful and it is
Wolf: But
Cheney: And all the children are riding ponies it’s wonderful to see. I don’t understand why you in the defeatist media don’t show the ponies more.
Wolf: Ah speaking of children, your daughter is
Cheney: She’s not my daughter
Wolf: Sir?
Cheney: She’s not my daughter, she’s a man.
Wolf: A man?
Cheney: she’s living with a woman so of course she’s a man. She’s not gay or anything
Wolf: But you keep saying she, if she is a man…
Cheney: and I’ll thank you to keep my family out of this discussion, we are very happy to hear we are going to have a new grandchild and you can just but out of my daughter’s life.
Wolf: Isn’t she a guy?
Cheney: she’s my daughter
Wolf: But she’s a man
Cheney: Yes.
Wolf: So how can she, I mean he –
Cheney: back off my daughter, she’s going to have a baby
Wolf: But you just said she was a man
Cheney: Yes
Wolf: And she’s going to have a baby
Cheney: For god’s sake that is common knowledge what the hell is wrong with you? Listen Blitzer one more crack about my family and I’m going to pop you one.
Wolf: So
Cheney slugs him.

I’d talk about it more but I don’t have the time but it’s absurd that the right wing is saying in essence that in order to defend American liberty and rights (including the right of free speech) that we need to obey and follow the president without question. Aside from the head exploding contradictions in such a position, it’s not like W has anything like a good streak going here. If it’s the 3rd quarter and he hasn’t completed a pass and keeps dropping the snap it’s time to pull the quarterback.

The Enemy Below has requested a review of the movie Phantoms – Ben Aflack is in it which does to sit well with me. Still he assures me it’s better than Crossroads.

Gig tonight at Otto’s – lord knows if anybody shows in this weather, if they do they are part polar bear. But if you come, once our teeth stop chattering we’ll give you a great show.

Peace Love Number 9

Pics and Cold as Hell

For your amusement some pics from rehersal

Cold as Hell

That is the official forecast for tomorrow – no I mean it – “and the national weather service says it’s going to be cold as hell”

Actually the forecast is for tonight to be about 24 degrees (-4C) and with the wind chill to feel like 10 (-12C) and for Friday night the forecast has the wind chill as worse the temp will be about 21 degrees (-6C) and with the wind chill it will feel like -7 (-14C).

This is cold – almost as cold as it was warm before – if that makes any sense. Now I’ve heard some people on the radio no less say since it was snowing like hell in Denver and well now this cold this can’t global warming.

Well actually it can – one of the side effects of global warming – in addition to all the ice cap melt off – is that weather patterns are going to be come more unpredictable and have huge swings as until they short themselves out. Historically for Denver Dec and Jan are the driest months so the storms that buried Denver in snow are not typical Denver winter weather.

Explosions in the green zone in Iraq. I guess you might consider this a reply to the State of the Union Address.

Meantime Dick Cheney is insisting that the real problem in Iraq is that we might somehow lose our nerve because of all the bad press. One he needs his meds rebalanced, two that’s like saying the real problem with the Titanic sinking were the spoilsports who pointed out the ship was taking on water. And this anger at the press seems a little ungrateful – after all just a short while ago they were comparing W with Prince Hal or Winston Churchill (remember those days – looking back it is to gag) and how smart Cheney was. That W is an small minded dullard who probably walks into doors because he forgot how to open them and that Cheney is so far gone into his paranoid power lust that not only has he lost touch with reality but not even e-mails from there get to him and that Iraq is a bloody appalling mess was always the truth – it’s just only recently have the press had the nerve to say so.

Strange feeling of foreboding today– a sense that something somewhere is not right. As if something rotten is lurching its way to my door – something that will affect me or mine badly.

It’s either that to too much starch.

Good time at the open mike – Sang Tired of being Insane – which is an almost serious song of ours – which oddly enough got laughs. During the our set it’s a change of pace song usually coming after something very loud and very odd so as quieter piece of music gets lost – this time it was able to shine. I’m not altogether happy with the song but The Enemy Below likes it and has told me I’m singing this as long as we have the band as an on going concern. And honestly – I’m not always the best judge of my own material so I’ll sing it.

Meantime at the mike – a young woman (Esther Ku) recited a bizarre monologue about smoking pot going from her first buy to smoking soo much pot that she forgot how to have sex . She did this while playing Mendelssohn on the piano – and the result was hysterical – but it is interesting – the monologue, while weird was not funny, the Mendelssohn was not funny, but link them together it was hysterical.

Spencer is fitting in quite nicely. He’s a great musician, quiet, modest, a genuinely nice person who must be wondering what deity he pissed off to be suddenly thrust into a den of madmen like us and to top it off burdened with the nickname the Fabulous Spencer.

Those are pics from out most Recent Rehersal.

Peace, Love, silly masks

Music Rant & the Union

A radio talk guy – whose name is not worth mentioning was jabbering on about the evils of rap or hip hop or some such and in the process made a comment about white music – in the blog that made a snarky comment on said radio talk guy some other nitwit wrote gibberish about white music citing Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin, the Clash as examples of “white music”. Along with Black Flag. Now I don’t always dig Henry Rollins but I know for damn sure he’d bitch slap anyone who said he was making ‘white music’.

Anyway what I want to say here is simple – music does not have a f-king color. People who happen to have different skin colors make music – but that doesn’t make it ‘black’ or ‘white’ – fast examples – the blues derives its pull (to quote Howlin’ Wolf) from the tension between its European 1-IV-V chord progression and the African originated blues scale (I forget the formal name it’s been a while since I took music theory and yes I did take a course in it once) – the actual notes played over the chords create the unique sound of the blues – but boys and girls that’s physics - air molecules in motion – robots could play it (and sometimes you think they are). Now where music lives is between the notes where your show up – the whole gestalt your heart and soul. (Okay I do tend to romanticize things – like music and pretty women so cut me some slack). It’s not white or black – it’s the result of two cultures and the music they make rubbing up against each other (which is a prototypical American southern event).

And let’s talk country – one of the founding fathers of country music the Jimmy Rodgers the singing brakeman routinely titled his songs “blues” (as did Hank Williams who did have a lot to be blue about – physical pain a turbulent relationship with his wife and the bottle guy was a mess). And Rodgers also recorded with Louis Armstrong (which is a pretty mind blowing mixture of genres but actually musicians don’t have time for that junk). And the Carter family freely songs they learned from African Americans. And then the songs mutated - let’s trace one - Worried man – which they did was mutated by several blues singers into Mystery Train – which Elvis did as his last single for Sun Records.

I could go on but I need to cut this short – work and all that. Cause there is so much more to this – but anyway I prefer to quote Duke Ellington who said there are only two types of music Good Music and Bad Music.

More on this as I think of it.

Playing tonight at Waltz last before the Friday gig – yeah it’ll be the coldest day yet but come on down anyway – It’ll be lots o fun.

Did not see the speech – why bother – same old junk. He’s pleading with congress to give his plan time to work. If the first place your plan is simply to stretch this out until you leave office and let somebody else fix it. What you’ve done your entire misbegotten life.

And two – why the hell should be trust you? You’re the reason we’re in the mess we are in the first place – this is like going back to the doctor who managed to damage your liver and remove a kidney when you needed a nose job and asking him to fix the damage. He grins and takes out the bone cutting saw and draws a dotted line on your right leg just above the knee.

“What the hell?” you say as the ether takes effect.
“Trust me” he says – “I have a plan.”

And three – sweet mother in heaven how much more time do we give him. He’s – to quote Keith Oberman – has had Three years already – time for someone who knows what the hell they are doing to be in charge before he does more damage.

The heath care idea is fortunately DOA. For one thing – if you don’t have a job your tax deduction isn’t going to do much yes? And – per people smarted than me about such things the way it is set up folks are going to be tempted to buy cheap doesn’t really cover anything health insurance, pocket the difference and get completely screwed when they end up in the hospital.

Meantime – Lieberman has proven himself to be such a poisonous little toad that I’m surprised that pages and some of the younger senators aren’t licking him to get high.

This is the Weekly Dina Rigg pic.

Peace Love Blue notes.

Bit o’ nostalgia and Brides of Blood

Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s in New York two local stations had Saturday night horror films shows – one was WNEW Channel Five’s Creature Features and the other was WPIX (Channel 11) Chiller Theater. Creature features tended to show the classic black and white universal monsters (the first time I saw Dracula was when it was on Creature Features – my mom got worried cause I spent the next three days trying to talk like Bela Lugosi – but I worried my mom a lot so this was no big deal) while Chiller tilted more towards the American International Style horror pictures – and the Toho Monster movies but I had usually already seen them in the theatre (kiddy matinee at the Sand’s point theatre – I’ll stop before I start talking about how we wore our onions).

Anyway there was one movie I saw a couple of times – there were a couple of elements that appealed to me – one was that the women in the movie were young pretty – exotic looking and wearing sarongs looking skirts and matching tops with no bras – hell I was young and the internet wasn’t around . The other was that the monster made this creepy sounding roar while it was wandering around.

That was what I remembered – but even with the vast resources of the internet it took me quite a while to find the damn film. It turns out it was one of series of films made in the Philippines that featured Blood in the title (Mad Doctor of Blood Island, The Blood Drinkers ect.) this one was Brides of Blood. Which is set on Blood Island – which is a bit much will the blood but it was the 60’s (67 to be exact) where evil things are happening.

The good bits of this film are – most of the people can act pretty well – the leads could speak their lines at least – unlike some films like Monster a-go-go where you just cringe and there are those young women in their island garb. The female lead is however the blonde one – she’s married to an older scientist. They have a pretty dysfunctional relationship – he still loves her despite her sleeping around and yet won’t sleep with her and so she, well you know. It’s pretty good portrait of a bad marriage where the two are still in it because they can’t really let the other go even though they don’t much like each other anymore.

The other leads are well okay – the young romantic lead is okay – not great but okay and the young female lead – Eva Darren (Alma – grand daughter of the village elder) is pretty and there is that braless thing. There a sexual undercurrent running throughout the whole film – which is either interesting or creepy depending on the moment.

When the Young romantic lead and the happy couple land on blood island and it turns out Blood island is staked by a monster who every night kills two women who have been staked (naked – up for him – the idea being he will kill them not the rest of the village. While dramatic it’s really hard to know how they figured out two was the right number – did they start with one and go on? Did they try three women and once and found that the monster left one? You wonder these things

As is if that wasn’t enough of a problem – it turns out the trees come alive at night and bugs turn into bigger bugs – (the special effects here are at the first season of Star Trek level or worse – you can see the string on the flying bugs) and there is a planter , Carlos, who has a plantation (well duh) on the other side of the island with a staff consisting of a bald bullet headed thug and dwarves – lots of dwarves.

I’m not sure why but every damn Philippine horror film I have even seen (and I’ve seen more than I care to admit) features dwarves running around. It’s very weird and more than a bit creepy – in a decadent kind of way. (Crazy European monarchs and princes would keep lots of dwarves in their courts – Prince Ludwig the Mad (well duh again) ‘collected’ them.)

It turns out the monster is not eating the women but raping them – in such a way they are ripped to pieces – the wife is one of the victims – Alma is picked to be sacrificed but rescued an the young romantic lead. The Scientist is killed by the thug – who is protecting Carlos – who turns out to be the monster (the effects of radiation – whatever) – which alas is pretty damn goofy – he looks a bit like the Michelin man would if you poured green paint all over him and gave him teeth and bits of hair here and there. The groaning while creepy at first – once the monster shows up gets a bit much.

Well it all ends happily – except for the folks that got killed that is – the monster is killed and the village celebrates by having what can only be described as a boffing festival – women dance and then men come up to them and if they both agree off into the woods they go – at the end Alma dances for the male lead who for reasons known only to him hesitates and looks over at the village elder who smiles and nods as if you to say “why yes of course have lots and lots of sex with my granddaughter.” I respect the wisdom of the elders as much as anybody but if a woman wanted me to go off with her – asking her grandfather would not be something that came to mind. But that’s me.

I note that in the opening statements in the trial - Libby has decided to toss Cheney and Rove under that bus everybody talks about saying they were responsible for the leak and wanted him to take the fall. This could be interesting. But hell there is no real loyalty among thieves anyway and these guys are thieves.

Senator Clinton has announced that she will not take public funds because that places limits to her spending. Expected if depressing – she has the most money she intends to use it. Still the only way we are going to clean up elections is take the money out of it. Or more exactly the effect of money. I suspect this will be the most expensive campaign for president in history since the others running will no doubt follow suit in order to not get buried by Clinton’s money.

In band news Otto’s Friday – 8 pm! 14th Street between Ave A & B.

Peace, Love, Sarongs

Post 150 and the Great Magnet

This is my 150th post – I remember saying when I started well I’ll do this every now and then – not be sooo obsessive. Well that worked didn’t it? And to anyone who has read all 149 prior posts – thank you but still it seems a sad thing to do with your time.

Gig Friday so I’m going to try and not do anything STUPID to my body until the gig at least. Right food, rest the whole nine yards – I felt myself fade a bit last gig – don’t want that to happen again – heck folks might show up this time.

Stupid purchase of the week – I was walking to the Subway yesterday on my way home from Philly (note – Temple needs better basketball players) and there a table on 34th street advertising $1.00 DVD’s – next to a table full of ties, and one of handbags. I didn’t mean to but I looked and the next thing I knew I had a copy of “White Comanche” in my hand and a dollar in the other that I handed to the woman at the table.

I still don’t know why I bought the silly film – I had already seen it – and written about it in the blog (8/29/06)– and it was horrible. I mean good awful – William Shanter was in it (making this film between Star Trek Seasons) and well Bill was Bill. I never wanted to see it again. So why buy it?

One thought is that I’m stupid – which I am drawn to from time to time as an explanation of why I do what I do. However this just seems to a berserk form of obsessive compulsive disorder - where I have to have copies of these awful movies. I have Fiend of Dope Island I have Brides of Blood and Mad Doctor of Blood Island for no rational reason whatsoever. Well at least I am not washing my hands twenty times a day – not yet as, I understand these things get worse with age. It’s cheery thoughts like that that keep me warm at night. I’ll know I have a real problem with I am mad with delight over getting a copy of “Exorcist II” in the original uncut version.

Actually I’ve just passed my problems over the great magnet – I can’t for the life of me know what to about my long term money troubles, long term Job prospects, long term romantic/dating/relationship problems/ and the like, so I’ve decided to let the great magnet that runs the universe handle those problems. Me I’ll make snarky comments on this blog and work on the band and the musical, do my work at my job, day by day stuff – those things I can handle – where I’m gonna be in a year or more – well too many things are not settled and that’s why I will leave it in the hands of the great magnet.

In a moment that shows Irony is dead – W has declared this (the anniversary or Roe vs. Wade) “National Sanctity of life day”. This is of course rich coming from someone who started the war in Iraq and who in a recent interview shrugged off the civilian casualties in that country with comment to the effect that the ones that are still alive are better now that Saddam is gone.

Tomorrow the twit goes in front of the combined House and Senate and tires to speak in whole sentences – the word is that he plans to concentrate on domestic issues like – well whatever his speechwriters can come up with. I’m wonder what the weird and bizarre tangent topic will be this year. Last year it was steroids, the year before human-animal Hybrids and the year before that it was the mission to mars (anybody remember that? We were going to mars! Yippie! Man did that die the death quickly.)

This can’t be an easy speech for him. (Like any is) but at least until this year he was able to pretend he was king of the world. Now he’s just a lame duck facing a congress controlled by the other party – who are not, in most cases, willing to go along with his gibberish. It could be grim as hell.

Hilary Clinton has formed an exploit committee to look into running for president.

You have to wonder just what the hell does this mean? Do they wear miner’s helmets? What? It’s a silly term.

I’m mixed about Hillary – I was fond of making various right wingers head spin and explode by saying “W’s enduring legacy will to be such a bad president that HiLlary gets elected president” You should hear the screams when I said that. But Hillary is not really one of my favorites, there is always a sense of calculation with her, a sense that she does not put a foot down in any direction until she checks the wind. I tend to respect politicians that do have issues they are willing to lose their seat over, and I don’t get that from Hillary. And this sudden warm coverage in the NY post after years of her being portrayed as a witch on skis gives me pause. I would never want the NY Post on my side for any political issue or campaign. If I did I would know I was doing something wrong.

And I have to say this about the other New York Senator – Chuck just shut the fuck up. You are, alas, completely out of your depth here. I’m not sure what his intention was writing his book but knowing the lead time for publishing – it was written before the election and under the assumption that the GOP would retain control of both houses – which was the ‘smart insider’ thinking some months ago. Right now this book – which the Post gleefully noted ‘came out against the special interest groups on the left” is as out dated as a manual on Stagecoach Repair would be for someone working the Subways. I don’t have that much against Schumer – he did beat Alfonse D’Amato who completely loathed but he’, if truth be told, not that bright and way too fond inside the Beltway culture and those lunches.


Rehersal tomrrow – and then open mike wendsday. Report later – Thinking of brides of blood for my next movie – Phillipine horror film – with all the high qualtiy that that implies.

Peace, Love, Iron Filings

Two legged Lizards and Fire Breath (Godzilla 1998)

Before I start I have to say that I hate this film. Hate as in utterly despise this putrid insulting mess of a film. This isn’t something like Plan Nine where Ed Woods technical and budget limitations helped create the mess that is Plan Nine or the awful Robot Monster. No this had a huge budget, a director of no little self confidence and all modern special effects toys – it was going to be the first of three films – a new beginning. And this sack of garbage is what you got. A loud and pointless insult to the intelligence – a film that treats its viewers with utter contempt. And whose viewers treated it in kind to the point where Sony had to shut down the comment section of their Official Movie Website.

The badness starts early – there is a scene where Matthew Broderick (who has to regret this even more than doing inspector Gadget) a scientist (here’s a casting problem Matt’s a good easy going guy – scientist type – no) an expert on atomic mutation (what else) is standing in a hole (a metaphor for the entire damn film) and asking the guy who dragged him there “what am supposed to be looking for?” then the camera moves back and ta-da we see they are standing in a foot print – a big one – the only trouble is there was not way they could get to this foot print without seeing that it was a foot print. Dumb lazy filmmaking along the lines of “hell it’s just a monster movie” (unlike your deeply serious work Independence Day Ronald? Jesus. Hell I didn’t mind ID4 it was really just a 1950’s sci fi film with 1990’s special effects – not much else but it didn’t need to be. )

There is some tooing and frowing – with fast editing to make us think that something is going to happen – and the Godzilla arrives in New York. And right away Houston we have a problem.

I read some where that when I am god incarnate Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin took over this project they tossed the original script and monster concepts and had their own design made up – they based their Godzilla on an Iguana.

You know – when I think about scary animals I have to say Iguana is not the first one that pops into mind – or even the 30th – at best you could say that Iguana’s are unsettling in that they have that blank lizard – is this thing really alive – stare that we being mammals find disconcerting – but that’s about it. Iguanas like most lizards – don’t do much – sit on rock, eat, stuff like that. They are pretty mellow guys.

And why Iguanas? Well Godzilla is supposed to have resulted from French H-bomb tests on islands with Iguanas – fair enough no dumber that most monster movie ideas. (The French thing is an excuse to have Jean Reno (who fled America after this) in the movie – he does and okay job – the only actor who does but you can tell his heart is not in it).

I don’t know who designed the creature – but god in heaven they did a damn piss poor job of it. The defining characteristic of their Godzilla is a huge jay Leno style lower jaw. Huh? I mean come on – that isn’t scary – that looks goofy – little Abner has a big lower jaw – comic characters have a big lower jaw – not fucking monsters. But there is was – (and that screaming of horror you heard were the businesses who had spent millions on licensing rights realizing that they had just lost their money) in all his goofy glory.

Per the IMDb one of the people who gets killed early in the film is a double for the editor of G-Fan Magazine who leaked details of the creature’s appearance and said it sucked. Emmerich and Devlin are very thin skinned for Hollywood people. They also have the Mayor of New York and his aide (who are played as idiots) look like Gene Siskel and his late partner Rodger Ebert who did not like ID4. I mean guys doing something like this makes you look even stupider. The only people I knew that could do something like that and get away with it were Bob and Ray who’s Broadway show got only one bad review - from Roger Simon – Bob and Ray soon introduced a character named somewhat like Roger who did nothing but eat sandwiches with the wax paper still on them.

That was funny. This is not.

So the monster wanders about New York – doing well – nothing really – and this is another problem – the filmmakers once they had gotten Godzilla to New York didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what to do with him (here’s a hint – have him knock down buildings jackass like you know – in the other 27 films? This isn’t rocket science folks) so he vanishes. He vanishes and then is lured out with what looks like a Godzilla sized kitty bowl full of fish. Then he runs away after the army starts shooting – he runs away a lot – Kenpachiro Satsoma who wore the G suit from 1985-94 walked out of a screening of this movie because the creature did not have “Godzilla’s spirit.” And vanishes again. This time hiding in a subway tunnel if memory serves – which makes you wonder how stupid the people looking for him are – even assuming he could fit in a subway station – one of the lazy bits of this movie is that the creatures size varies from scene to scene – he’s bound to leave a pretty big fucking hole going in yes? Granted it’s raining – it rains most of the movie the better to hide how lazy and unspecial the CGI imagery and the effects are – but guys there’s a monster loose in New York, that should pick your game up a notch or two. But no – the screen writer (or brain dead turtle I can’t tell) who wrote this mess needed the creature out of the way for a while – can’t have anything interesting going on screen can we. No.

Meantime Matt and Maria Pillito are filling up screen time with their pointless relationship. Maria plays a newswoman who works for a jerk –she-loves-matt-but-wanted-to-have-a-carreer-so-it-didn’t-work-out-but-she-still-loves-him ( the clichés in this film lumber along in huge slow herd like that of the brontosaurs in Jurassic park if they were walking waist deep in thick mud– this movie is a bit of twist on the snark “what is good is not original and what is original is not good” in this case it’s “what is original is not good, and what is not original is also not good” – and Matt tries to figure out why the creature is in New York (they were trying to be realistic – for example they eliminated the fire breath because that ‘wasn’t realistic” . A fifty meter tall two legged Iguana with a lateen jaw is realistic? Really when you got that having it breathe fire isn’t that much of a stretch.) And starts doing some tests.

Meantime (like I said I only saw the film once so the chronology may be a bit off and I would rather tear my own eyes out and eat them like grapes before I see this film again) the creature has an encounter with Three helicopters that it chases through the canyons of New York – this was intended to be one of the main sequences of the film – the one problem with the sequence is whoever wrote it forgot helicopters can go up – there was no reason for them to start flying around low enough for the creature to catch them and if it did start chasing them they would just go UP jackass. It’s the contempt for the audience that this sequence reveals “the little geeks will never notice” BS that is insulting as hell.

Anyway – Matt then finds out that Godzilla is ‘gasp’ pregnant – this was the moment I wanted to rip my chair in the theater off the floor and hurl it at the screen while screaming obscenities. Not quite as big stupid as the Bolero Ecstasy neon sign moment – it was pretty damn close. I mean sweet Jesus this is the best god damn thing you could come up with? Pregnant? If I could stand it – which I couldn’t – I would use this as an example of thinking-you’re-smarter-than-everybody-else and yet being dumber than a bag of hammers lazy ass screen writing. Pregnant . After my initial anger ebbed I found myself sinking into a grim and black despair – watching this film became an exercise in soul killing misery – I felt profoundly wronged by this film, my intelligence was insulted and high hopes I had had for this film dashed, and I was forced to watch a character that I had been a fan of most of my life have his name attached to shallow noisy fish eating mockery of a himself and made absurd by cats too cool for the room. (Did I mention that I hate this film?)

The last hour of the film – yes the last fucking hour of the film deals with a) the discovery that the creature has laid its eggs in Madison Square Garden – 1,000s of them – and then vanished – there is some nonsense with a submarine that the creature swims away form (well at least it is a variation on running away I’ll give them that). The eggs hatch instantly – fire breath is not realistic – eggs the size of a phone booth hatching instantly that’s realistic – good. Glad I’m clear on that. Matt, Maria, the French guy (Jean Reno who wisely stays in shadows during most of his shots, some French guys for the little creatures to eat and someone else spend most of the rest of the time running around Madison Square being menaced and eaten in some cases by the baby creatures.

The whole thing was a complete and boring rip off of the velocoraptors in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park II. Now Brian De Palma can do some really lazy hack work – and one of this trade marks is to pay homage (rip off) a sequence from another film in his films – in The Untouchables (that he tired his best to wreck) he has something like the famed Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin (1925) – Now I hated that but at least Brain had the taste to take a classic moment in film, and a film that was 60 years old – these fuckwits ripped off a film everybody had just seen. And badly at that. You didn’t care. No not quite true you wanted the little creatures to eat all of these annoying people and end the film.

That doesn’t happen – in a heroic moment Matt manages to get an air strike on the Garden (about the 12,343 time in cinema history a scientist does this – but fire breath well that’s not realistic) and blows up all the little creatures. At that point the momma creature returns and then tries to kill Matt and the rest – people where saying yes yes Kill kill! As the chase went on – none of us were happy. Eventually they mange to get the creature out in the open on the Brooklyn Bridge where two missiles kill it. Another chair ripping moment “that’s it? Sweet mother of pearl the creature of the black lagoon took more punishment than that. God can’t they do anything right? It was like killing jaws with a feather for fucks sake.

In the end the film was an odd kind of Viet nam allegory – a French problem (it was their Nukes) that if it wasn’t stopped would over run the world (the eggs in MSG the Domino theory) and in order to defeat it we need to lure it out in open where our air power can destroy it (the idea behind the US search and destroy patrols in nam were to draw fire and then call down the wrath of god upon the VC/ The creature like the VC spent a lot of time hiding underground – which isn’t really iguana behavior come to think of it – but fire breath isn’t realistic).

While the film made money – 375 million or something world wide – it was considering how much money had been spent on it and the millions on promotion it was a big disappointment for Sony – who when the clowns who made this film wanted to do a sequel were told sure as long you have a budget half of what you spent on this mess. They declined and went on to do that stupid movie about ice covering America (the day after tomorrow were in the new York city public library they burn the books for warmth but not the wooden tables which just may have burned longer – nice to see they are as hip to the real world as always.) Sony realizing they would be facing a hugely hostile audience of angry fan boys who would trash the living shit out the film every damn chance they got eventually canned the sequel. Hell Sony’s trying to make money here they decided it wasn’t worth a sequel.

Toho loathed the film so much that they re-launched their Godzilla series culminating in Godzilla final wars where – as shown in the pic - the creature from the American film (now offically called Zilla – not Godzilla) meets Godzilla in battle. Godzilla destroys it in 10 seconds – causing the alien who is commanding all the world’s monsters in battle against Godzilla to yell “I knew I couldn’t rely on that fish eating monster”

It was a huge FU from Toho to the people who made this film – of which there will never be a sequel (praise Jesus) as Sony’s rights to Godzilla have lapsed. And fitting place to end this.

Out of town for the weekend so no blog until Monday.

Peace, Love, Atomic breath.
.

Manners Swords Cheese and the Law

I find myself wishing sometimes that God would stop what ever he’s doing at the moment – running the universe or contemplating how awesome he is…

“I am awesome”
“Yes lord”
“Of course I am God, so I’d have to be awesome”
“Yes lord”
“How awesome do you think I am?”

Well before I end up going straight to hell – what I would like is for god or a delegate to end their silence for one day – not to cure the deep problems but to do little reminders that we are all in this life together:

“You”
“Yes lord”
“I want you to do something.”
“Anything lord tell me.”
“You’re standing right in front of the stairway and with the back pack you have on you’re blocking everybody – could you move a bit to the right? Thank you.”
“Go to hell lord – I’m waiting for a train here.”

Which is, alas, what I think would happen. People are who willing to pay any price or bear any burden provided it’s some big thing (“Go build and ark and get a lot of animals”) would rather tear their own ears off with pliers and feed them to the rats than act like an passing stranger deserves the slightest ounce of courtesy.

But that’s where most of us live most of our lives. A succession of little moments, little interactions and contacts that make up our days – surrounded by others doing the same thing. I’m not going to go all moralistic here but it would be a better place if we could keep in mind we’re not the only ones here. That and get out of the fucking way when you’re blocking the stairs.

I think I shocked the Enemy Below last night – He arrived at my apartment and before we went to play at the Waltz I had he watch a total berserk scene from Sex & Fury a deranged Yakuza (Japanese gangster) film. The female lead is taking a bath and is then attacked by gangsters (she’s a gambler) she the proceeds to slice and dice them in the Japanese style blood spurting everywhere limbs hacked off – while she’s starkers. In the end she stands there naked, covered in blood sword in hand. It’s a weird damn image and not arousing in the least, maybe to the director but not to me or the Enemy Below – who was a little disturbed – more so when I showed him the sequel to this film which featured some 40-50 naked women with swords attacking Gangsters. The Enemy Below watched through his fingers.

The films make no sense really they just prove the Japanese are when you boil down to it, crazier than anyone else on the face of the planet. These films have no real plot to speak of, no realistic characters, but oceans of blood (where Kill Bill learned how) and oh yes – naked women with swords or just women with swords. Really they make Lady Snowblood seem restrained.

Waltz went well except that I cracked up during Some one Else – There’s a place where the Enemy Below chimes and you’d think by now I would heard it enough that it wouldn’t get to me, but I think last night we had the Fabulous Spencer playing keyboards with us and it was like listening to a new song – or hearing a song come into it’s own at last. Spencer’s piano playing was the exact perfect topping of Velveeta cheese that the song needed. It put the eyebrows on the song to quote Frank Zappa.

We got there early so we got to play in front of a fairly large number of people who had not heard us before – and actually – except for the little troll with the beard who sat stone faced while we sang. Guess he doesn’t like us. We weep to think of this. We schedule a daily weeping season near my home and we think on it.

A woman and her husband who we had been talking to before we sang said what we did was “Interesting” which tends to be what people say when they aren’t sure what else to say. “Fearless” was the husband’s other comment – I get this and well okay I don’t think I’m being that fearless – I’m not pulling people out of burning buildings or what not – I’m singing odd songs. What I do is what feels right when I’m doing it. Still I have to say – the one thing that really I like is now I have two people playing with me - it's fantastic beyond my dreams.

Seems now that congress was making noise about investigating them, W and the White House have announced that suddenly they will be using the FISA courts to get warrants for wiretapping - they are bullies and cowards and sneaks the lot of them – little pressure and they fold. Still I suspect there is a lot of record destroying going on over at the NSA right now. Yet they will insist they did nothing wrong.

It’s utterly amazing for 18 months they insisted that FISA courts were too clumsy and slow for their purposes but now it’s fine? And they expect people to fall for it. Of curse people will fall for it but only the ones that want to fall for it.

You know they were and are still listening in on their political opponents – it’s the only logical reason why they didn’t go to the FISA court in the first place. They are saying there is a compromise but the way W and his folk view compromise is the say way they view Bi-partisan – do what we say and then say how good we are is about all the want so I’ll wait until I see it.

Tomorrow – the movie I completely loathe the 1998 US Godzilla. I’ve read that Sony is thinking about making a sequel of it I can only say “don’t” – last time at least you had all the big G fan boys the first weekend – you won’t get them this time if you make anything anywhere nearly as stupid loud and awful as the 1998 Godzilla.

Peace, Love, naked women with swords

Another Dina Rigg Pic - no reason really.

Cold weather and folly

Lord one cold day and people are acting like it’s the blessed ice age around here. I was walking home last night and one guy walking behind me was saying something about Florida. Lord have we become old ladies? (No insult to old ladies intended). I mean what if this current batch of New Yorkers ended up at Valley Forge.

“It’s too cold.”
“Let’s go to Miami”
“I wanna speak to the manger.”
“You call this a bagel?”

Started reading Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly – and had to put it down – she notes that unlike every other human endeavor the science and art of government hasn’t advanced much in 4,000 years. While we no longer have the divine right of kings we have people like Dick Cheney and the current Attorney General plugging something called “the Unitary executive” which makes the President an autocratic dictator while he is in office. So we haven’t gotten very far. And the tendency over and over and over again of Men in power to choose a destructive course and keep on that course even though it’s not working and ignoring the people that said it wouldn’t work and ending up undermining what every they were trying to strengthen. Look at us – Ignoring all to the contrary indeed demonizing their opponents, we invaded Iraq for shadowy and shifting reasons. Viewed objectively Iraq was no immediate threat to the United Sates, Saddam was contained and at 60 years of age all he wanted to do was to die in bed, there were inspectors on the ground looking for the illegal weapons but we would have none of that. We were going to establish a new American century and prove America’s place as the only superpower and as champions of liberty.

Years later – our army has been ground to a dull point, we are loathed, our image as beacons of liberty and champions of the Rule of law has been destroyed by Gitamo Bay and the torture in Iraq, we have overseas prisons were men and women are taken without charge al la Stalin, we have flabby discussions in the press about whether water boarding is really torture (Pol Pot seemed to think so). The Status of the US is in the dumpster, we are deeply in debt and china holds the notes. All of this was avoidable – every bit of it.

We haven’t seen all the fallout here but I suspect the next few Presidents’ freedom of action in foreign affairs is going to be rigidly limited – no more bombing just for the heck of it for example.

The ironic thing here is the damage to this country was caused by people who were absolutely convinced and indeed are still convinced that they are making America stronger and securing its position as a world super power. Had they been on the other side they couldn’t have done more harm.

Making this short - need to file things because I can’t find anything when I need it. Playing at the Waltz tonight – Spenser on the keyboards if he is comfortable man does this add to the songs – not all of them – but the dumb ballads oh my yes.

Okay – you’ve been good – Tomorrow report on the open mike – and for Thursday a review of the 1998 US Godzilla film – a movie I hate with the heat of the thousand suns.

American Idol starts soon – which I’ve never seen. I like trash but I do have limits.

Listening to Jill and the Clash and other scattered things

Yesterday I spent a nice evening out listening to my old vocal teacher Jill Walsh sing at the Rockwood (nice little red brick place down in the east village area 1st Ave and Allen street – even has a piano so we might want to use it someday) The scary thing was that the best I could remember I had last heard her sing maybe 8-9 years ago - at least. Maybe more. It’s becoming a scary part of my life that – thinking about things that happened ago and realizing with a bit of a start that they happened decades ago.

Like the release of London Calling – it came out in 1979 just as the punk wave was, in retrospect starting to crest and New Wave (punk with out the scary stuff) was slipping in there. That’s hindsight – what I remembered was when I got the album – a double which was pretty pricy in those days – and heard it, I though it was going to change everything. I mean it. I was blown away by the album – from the first cut to the very end – it gave me the sense of hope, of promise, of commitment of change for the better or how you could see how rotten things where for working stiffs and that should be better – Watergate had radicalized me – and I was ready for change. I got change but it was Reagan. Not quite what I expected. I’ve often thought the Regan Revolution was really not much more that a whole sale escape by American into Denial but I ‘m probably reading too much of my own family history into that.

Still the damn album just kicks – one silly note – while it was mistake – they recorded it after the cover and the labels were printed so “Train in Vain” was listed – and it just worked – this song rising up out of the album like the memory of a broken heart just as you’re dropping off to sleep – and it haunting sad and just perfect. Ahhhh. Seeing the song title takes a bit o the mystery away bit.

Anyway – in addition to getting to hear my old vocal teacher – I also got the privilege of hearing the Enemy Below’s “Robots took my Man” a song written specially for the musical – the first of a few. We need the opening song – (working title “just another Friday”) and one more (which I won’t say the title of cause it’s the joke you see). We want to hear a woman sing this but that might have to wait a bit – or maybe not maybe somebody at the Waltz will be foolish enough to barge in.

Once we get this whole song cycle set we’re going to do the book – or actually the Enemy Below’s going to do the book since he has the expericne and ability – I lose focus from time to time on – look shiny thing! – What was I talking about? At any rate he’s going to have the thankless task of taking our silly ideas and my suggestions for snarky comments and putting them into some kind of form that actors will be able to say.

The auditions could be interesting –
“So have you ever played a sheep before?”
“No but I did summer stock as Toad of Toad hall”
“Good enough”

I note that the more people say that we should not increase the number of troops in Iraq, the more desperately wedded to that course W and his minions become. It seems like some object lesson in human perversity where W took the least popular course and decides on that – almost because it is the most unpopular. Congress is talking about a non-biding resolution condemning the increase which while not nothing, is not something that will really influence these mad men. Their thinking is they are going to plant these extra troops in Iraq even if they don’t have the money to keep them there and then dare the House to cut off funds. We are not yet on the shores of the Rubicon but when the wind is right you can smell the river and hear the lapping of the water.

Watching more Godzilla movies this weekend – it was raining and damp what would you do – and I was continually struck by one constant – Godzilla, although immensely powerful and utterly fearless is simply not the sharpest knife in the drawer In movie after movie he delivers what looks like a near killing blow to his adversary and then he will stand there head moving from side to side – and sure as shooting the other monster will rise up and either clock Godzilla a good one, or will stab him or some other unpleasant for Godzilla result (fire ice explosions what have you). You would think that Godzilla might remember all those times before but nooooooo. There he stands low growl, sometimes picking a wound that he’d gotten earlier and bang.

The Insect Girl is reading about Jack the Ripper – oddly enough this does not make the Enemy Below nervous in any way.

Gonna get my hands on Barbara Tuchman’s The march of folly – cause if she were still alive – she’d be making notes to add Iraq to a new edition of the book.

Peace, Love, and Train in Vain
.

Humanity, Rubber Monsters and Gigs

I’m sitting at my desk and drinking coffee while Monster Zero plays on the TV (Bob do you ever watch anything without rubber monsters? Well there are the men in Gorilla suit films. Oh never mind).

I find the Humanity can present such a study in neck snapping contrasts. A few weeks ago a man fell onto the subway tracks as a train was coming into the station. Some guy jumped in after him and saved his life. He didn’t know the first man from Adam. He didn’t even really think about it, he just did it. And a week later two men in Harlem saw a child hanging from fire escape and ran over and caught the kid as it fell. Again the men didn’t know the child from Adam.

I’m thinking about those men and thinking about what the right wing blogs and pundits and talking heads are saying these days. Which boils down to this (apologies to the beach boys):

Bomb bomb bomb,
Bomb bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb
Bomb Bomb Iran
Bomb Bomb Bomb
Bomb Bomb Iran

Let’s bomb Iran
Because we can
Let’s bomb Iran
We are rockin’ and rollin’
We just dig explosions
Bomb Iran

We broke Iraq
We can’t fix it back
So what we want to do
Is Attack someone new
Let’s bomb Iran

(Repeat chorus again and again)

The deaths of more thousands don’t seem to faze them in the least, never mind the uncertainty of expanding the war with the decent chance of setting the Persian Gulf on fire. We are a complex thing.

Meantime the President who made his speech with a deer in the headlights expression and a posture that said “I am holding a Ritz cracker between my butt cheeks” is not saying his opponents don’t have a plan for ending the violence in Iraq. He doesn’t either except send in more troops and hope for the best, which isn’t a plan anyway – just a cover for the real plan which is have the next president fix it.

The one thing all this Iran talk has done has made the beltway TV pundits like Matthews and Russet wonder if he is really that crazy. I know they are late to the party on this, because he is that crazy. Flaming batshit man.

Meantime I find my happy place working on the killer sheep musical. One of the things we want to do is pop some old B Movies lines into the work – Like “You see your stupid minds, Stupid stupid stupid.” Plan 9 – “keep watching the skies” the 1950’s version of the Thing. And of course “they’re coming! They’re coming!” From Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

We also want the bar TV to be a character – every now and then it will pop in with things like “The Department of Homeland Security is urging all citizens to stay away from grass. In New York City people are urged to avoid at all costs the sheep meadow”

I live for junk like this. These days when work gets me down or other troubles haunt my sleep I imagine standing in the back of a small theater and watching as the overture starts and I just smile. Of course after that we will need to move on to other projects like say an Opera set on a Moon base in the 1950’s version of the future. (Kidding).


Watching Monster Zero – a late early Godzilla film if you were – coming right after Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster it has Godzilla as the hero, along with Rodan and mercifully does not feature whining little kids – it does feature aliens which have become a staple of Toho Monster films. It’s notable for a few things. One is the stupid Victory Jump Godzilla does at the end of the first fight he and Rodan have with Ghidrah. It also feature Nick Adams who was in Japan at the time – he was in this as well as The War of the Gargantuas – which has yet to make to DVD yet. Staring with Adams in Monster Zero and War of the Gargantuas was Kumi Muzuno – (pictured – in Monster Zero all the women of planet X look like her – hey you have your dreams I have mine – this will do until the Diana Rigg Planet is discovered).

Another nice moment in Monster Zero is a snarky comment the Controler of Planet X makes to Nick Adams after he asks why they haven’t gotten rid of Ghidrah who is attacking their planet.

“If you have an idea of how to do that, please share it with me” the Controler says, “I would be very greatful”.

One of the reasons I want to see War of the Gargantuas again is because of the scene were the Evil Gargantua (there are two and one is evil) eats a woman and then spits out her clothes like they were the shell of a pumpkin seed. I can still remember the wet slap as the clothes hit the ground and my conflicted reactions “Ugg Gross! Cool! Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s hysterical in a sick sick way” If memory serves later in the film the heroes find more piles of wet chewed clothing making additional happless victims of the Evil Gargantua.

BAND NOTES:

Gigs coming up – Jan 26th at Otto’s Shrunken Head (8 pm) and 169 Bar Feb 4th (10 pm). There is an $8.00 cover at the 169 bar. And we need 6 people to show up to play and then 10 to get a cut. It’s super bowl Sunday so it might not be a good night to do this but guys – there are no New York teams and it looks more like Chicago and San Diego or the Colts. Like who cares right? So see the first half then come on out and see us. We’ll be doing a new song at 169 bar and of course the challenge remains – 100 paying customers we smash a guitar.

Peace, Love, Page Bob Haircuts and alien suits.

Small Blog today

Sorry – it’s Friday and my mind is burnt.

Well – it’s the day after – and we haven’t bombed Iran yet which I guess is something. Still there is this depressing sense something rotten is about to happen in my heart that just won’t go away. Man I hope I’m wrong.

Still haven’t gotten MLK day in my system, it keeps coming up and surprises me that I have a day off? Really? Monday. Of course I know some companies deleted a holiday to keep the number of off days the same cause god forbid working people get too many paid holidays. That would lead to anarchy.

I notice every year that the news reports that more and more people are working longer hours and not taking vacation. What bugs me is the weird sense of pride this generates “Surveys prove once again Europeans take more days off” Now I know I’m supposed to look down my nose at them but hell it’s hard to do when I have two weeks vacation – and they take the month of August off. Like August 1-31st not at a work.

Actually it is almost like that here in New York. We’re not all off in August but what happens is that a decision will be delayed for weeks since one person or another who needs to make up their mind is out of the office or has to talk to someone who is out of the office and therefore will have to wait but I’m out of the office next week and – well by the time everybody’s back and on board – it is the middle of September. I think things would be better if we all just took off in August.

And god forbid trying to get anything done the Friday before a 3 day weekend – you can’t find anybody who can make a decision anytime after oh 3 pm Thursday.

I think we may actually be making some progress on the sheep musical – just for giggles I keep googling the phrase “killer sheep musical” and this blog is the only thing I come up with – some more songs need to be written to fit situations but the general arch is there and the size of the cast is coming and well – hell if this can actually show up on a stage someplace I will for 30-40 seconds actually feel like I have accomplished something in my life.

I notice that Sony Tri-star is thinking about doing a sequel to the American Godzilla film. Which unless they undo everything about that movie will tank just like that one did (of course tank is a relative term here - it did gross millions but with the money they poured into the damned thing – well they were expecting a home run, and sequels galore not just a half baked idea coming up in the silly season as they wonder what to do now that spider man is going bye bye (is three now the limit for film series? And when is the next batman film. That’s what I want to know.

They are doing an Iron man movie – I guess it was that or Ant man.

The woman is Kumi Mizuno who appeared in Godzila vs the Sea Monster and Monster Zero and then later in 2004's Godzilla final Wars. Another geek crush.

Peace Love Repulsor Rays

More war and soccer balls

When contemplating the latest news from Washington and Iraq – I just get sick to my stomach. I get this sense of momentum rolling down hill that can’t really be stopped – yes there are things that can be done – but I think were just fucked here. Congress might be willing to pull the plug on the cash flow but that is another Rubicon moment and the beltway culture reacts to Rubicon moments with expressions of sheer panic. It’s not what they signed up for – they signed up for nice lunches and pampered lives while maybe doing some fundraising or speeches or showing up on TV and passing the odd law. None of them are prepared to deal with something like this where The House, as masters of the purse attempt to cut off funds to prevent an action by the executive branch.

I’ve seen some stuff about this being a possible constitutional crisis but that’s not really the case – it would be a political crisis but it would be occurring within the bounds of the constitution itself. It was something the founders left deliberately vague. A constitutional crisis would be if W decided not to leave the White House after his term of office was over. That would be a crisis.

W: Mine! Mine! Mine! No go!
Aide: Sir, your term of office is over.
W: Declare martial law.
Adie: You have a reason to do that.
W: Terrorists
Aide: You’ll have to be more specific sir.
W: Bad terrorists.
Aide: That wasn’t quite what I had in mind sir. You’ll need an actual reason this time
W: Why? Never did before! I stay no go!
Aide: (to SS agent) get the dart gun and the net, and please apologize to Mr. Gore for this delay.
W: No Go!

Ah the horrible places my mind goes.

Meantime, it looks like we are trying to provoke a confrontation with Iran – as W was giving his speech US troops attacked an Iranian Consulate in the city of Abil. Now if memory serves this could be considered an act of war and at the very least this is a very big deal - consulates and embassies are held to be that countries sovereign territory. If I was a cynical person (and you know I am) I would be betting that the U.S. is trying to provoke Iran into reacting giving us a clear reason to bomb Iran. Wonderful.

File under nice work if you can get it. David Beckam, the most famous soccer player in the world (not the best just the most famous) will be playing here in America for the LA team in August at a salary of $50 million dollars a year (somewhere I hear A-Rod on the phone to his agent “but this big blonde goop is making more than me a year for kicking a ball. Do something about it.”) For those of you keeping track, this is effort number 132 in ‘making soccer a big sport in America’ and will probably have the same result as the others – not work. In the 70’s Pele was able to sell out giants stadium because he was Pele –but he was to soccer what Michael Jordan was to basketball utter magic with the ball. Beckam’s not in that league. Hell Beckam’s not even starting for his current team.

Nice time at the waltz last night – we did the porn song – which for some reason women aren’t as fond of as say “someone else” – I think it’s the “all girl three way” in the chorus that gets them. And we did the Legend of the Killer sheep with the Fabulous Spenser (god does he hate that nickname) on the piano and lord did the song just freaking TAKE OFF with that addition. When we play it out normally it only has The Enemy Below playing power chords – the piano did was add that extra bit of eyebrows (to quote Frank Zappa) that made the song a truly inspired piece of silliness. I mean to be able stand in front of people and sing Baa Baa Bobby with people singing along no less is a great highpoint of my life.

Have two gigs upcoming. One is at Otto’s on the 26th at 8 pm and the other is at the 169 Bar Feb 4th at 10 pm (which has an $8 cover) to make coming to the later one worth your while we’re gonna premier a new song there, but not at Otto’s. Heck it won’t even be on this album so make your plans accordingly.

More later.

That is not Daivd Beckam - that is Newcastle legend Alan Shearer. I'd spit blood before I post a picture of an Man United player - even an ex united player on my blog.

Peace, Love, Headers.

Sheep and Keyboards

Well today I don’t think life is an absurd farce, a meaningless existence where our stings are pulled by a cruel and capricious insane god who punishes and rewards at random for his own sick amusement. While I still feel that this is true, I accept there is a chance that I may be wrong.

I suspect my mood change is simply a manner of getting enough sleep.

Tonight W will be outlining his reasons for putting more troops into Iraq. I will be playing at the Waltz tonight – because I’d rather chew off one of my own limbs than listen to him speak. It’s not like it’s going to be that much of a speech anyway – the man can barely talk, except when talking about killing and death or money in those cases he may not be eloquent but he can make sentences otherwise nah. Stupid is one explanation but it could also be that he needs to remember all the things he can’t say like “We wanted the oil, Saddam wasn’t really a menace we needed a reason to invade, we’re doing this to make sure the war is still going on when we leave office, if they investigate Halliburton Cheney is just soo screwed” that he can’t form real sentences cause of all these words pounding in his head.

I notice the same people that were praising W and pointing out he great popularity in the polls (peaking 9/13/01 or so and declining ever since) are now praising W and pointing out that he isn’t being led by the polls. Well consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. They are also saying it’s time to stop the I told you so’s from people who were against the war and if they are so smart why don’t they come up with answers and that is so much easier to tear down than to build up.

While it is tempting to watch folk as they spin around in ever decreasing circles until they vanish up their own backsides, I think the point about being negative since they were trying to build something up needs to be answered. Earlier when it was being said that Donald Rumsfled was an incompetent bungler, the defenders of the administration replied by saying Rumsfeld was a patriot. Well that’s nice but not important. George McClellan and Ambrose Burnside were also patriots – that did not stop them from also being (in different degrees – Burnside being far worse) incompetent bunglers, the one has nothing to do with the other. This ‘but our hearts were pure’ defense is meaningless. Frankly if Donald was actually working for Al-Queida he couldn’t have done much worse – hell he’d might have done better to ward off suspicion. To borrow an example from elsewhere – an alcoholic may cry at the bar how much he loves his kids but is he with his kids? No. he’s sitting at a bar feeling sorry for himself while they have no idea where their dad is, when he will get home or what mood he’ll be in. The reality is that he’s helping to create a nightmare for the very people he says he loves. Again pure motivation unless you actually do something useful mean nothing. Working out plans for the new Iraqi stock market while people didn’t have fresh drinking water or power all day is a pretty typical example of what went on and why it’s a mess. (Aside from being a huge mistake in the first place).

These people are dangerous vain fools who are going to send brave men and women into danger simply so their egos won’t be bruised. They are cowards one and all and not even worth contempt or even spitting on. It the later case it would be a waste of good spit that could be used elsewhere.

Thinking a bit about quantum physics which is always a sign that I need to get out more. I don’t really have time but I think I’m clear in my head why the multiple universe hypothesis does not really answer the quantum measurement problem the way the proponents think it does. That will be a long post which I will save for the weekend when I can haul out my quantum books and do some more reading on the subject.

It’s funny I read mostly non-fiction these days despite my youthful ambition to write novels – the problem is that most novels are pretty simply plotted and you can see what’s coming from miles away and I get bored with that. I’m hoping the current one may be different.

Examples of song lines I don’t think I’ll use “She’s dead because I killed her.” Which might be very funny in the right place is still too creepy for me. Right now – tomorrow who really knows.

Playing at the coffee shop tonight – hopefully the number of self impressed jerks will be less than last time. We have a gig to promote. Also we hope the fabulous Spenser will be able to play with us on Killer sheep.

Peace, Love, wool

Gorillas in the movies and Halls of fame

Well I am feeling down sorry for myself – boring reasons – aren’t they always. I hate when this feeling comes down. I’m not much use to myself or anybody else under these circumstances and would just rather sit on the couch eating cold sesame noodles and watching movies with men in gorilla suits.

And just how does that differ from you’re everyday life? Not much I guess. I suppose it’s the mood and the cold sesame noodles that makes a difference if any. I don’t always watch men in gorilla suit movies that seems a recent if unnerving development. It could be they are really just god-awful that it helps me out. Yeah I fell like my life’s a mess and yeah things don’t look good right now and yeah I fell like fresh hell – but I could be the guy in the gorilla suit in Bride and the Beast – hell I could be the second gorilla in that film. Now that‘s worth being depressed over. My own problems are nothing to someone who studied acting and ends up wearing a ratty gorilla suit in a bad movie.

I remember in the publicity for Congo they went on and on at how the new suits were really state of the art and that they had the people who where going to wear them studying gorilla’s at zoos to be able to mimic their movements – didn’t help they still looked like people in gorilla suits.

One thing that is amazing is that the way gorilla’s are portrayed in the old films is pretty much Freud’s ID as viewed by the Superego or if you will Jung’s Shadow – Angry sex crazed primitive and violent. Not at all the rather placid fruit and plant eating, nest making ape that wanders the jungle in family groups and when they aren’t eating are grooming each other. It’s called projection. Another psychological term that is very useful these days.

In Baseball news – congratulations to Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn. Mark McGwire did not get enough votes in his first year – we’ll see what happens as the years pass. The hall of fame has always been subject to huge amounts of politics – I well remember the whole Phil Ruzzito should be in the hall of fame campaign that the Yankees mounted that probably kept him out of the hall of fame for years and years (nobody likes to be told what to do guys). And steroids are going be a huge bone of contention over the next few years as Sosa and finally Barry Bonds become eligible. Whoo boy the fights coming there.

I have to note that the sporting press is divided here. I think between the print press (which votes – it’s the baseball writers association that does the voting) and the other sporting media who see their job as selling whatever sport they are calling. The writers are the ones who have been working on the steroid story (two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle are the authors of the most recent book on Bond’s and other steroid usage) TV and radio however, especially TV have pretty much ignored the whole thing – except when they couldn’t and then only to spread the same kind of Bi-partisan mushiness we see in reporting in DC. “well we don’t know what the pitchers were doing” is something I’ve heard more than once – which considering how the average ERA went up during the steroid era if they were doing anything – it didn’t help. Hell ESPN was running (until it tanked in the ratings ) a reality show featuring Bonds and would cut away for a Bond’s at bat during the season as he chased Babe Ruth’s HR total. And when talking about Bonds they would say mush mouthed things like, considering the cloud he is under, like it was someone else’s fault he was in trouble, or no matter how you feel this is a remarkable achievement.

Oh for god’s sake – If he was using steroids (and it seems pretty damn likely he is – Baldness, zits, and weird infections that won’t go away are all symptoms of steroid use) he was cheating – pure and simple. That’s like a guy setting a strike out record by scuffing the ball they’d toss him and the record if he got caught. They don’t want to say Barry’s’ on roids cause ESPN and others have spend billions of dollars to broadcast this product – and don’t rock the boat is the word from on high. So until Barry is found passed out in the locker room with a needle in his arm – expect him to be treated with kid gloves by people who want to make money off of him.

Aggh.

Before I change subjects completely – I remember years ago I was at a Met game and they were playing the Padres – and this kid starts calling Gynn all sorts of ugly names. I just turned to him and “show some respect – that man is going to the hall of fame. You’ll be able to tell your kids you saw him play.”

I notice in the press that the Iraq government is going to offer sweetheart oilfield lease deals to American Oil companies. Tell me again that this wasn’t about oil.

A US Submarine has collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the Persian Gulf. How the heck do you manage to do that? Follow too close? Trying to use it as a hat?

While you’re opening my mail could you pay a bill or two while you’re at it? Thanks.

Peace Love, 3,141 hits and 2,632 consecutive games.