Radio, Radio

Short Blog I actually have to work (gasp)

Well the band will be on the radio – an internet radio but a broadcast of some sort nonetheless – the show is called “Live from Waltz Astoria” and will be on Gothamradio.org – they will be broadcasting part of their open mike on Wednesdays starting June 6th – actually they will be taping the live bit doing some interviews and then after some editing broadcasting the whole magilla that Friday. More exact details as we get them.

After or before we play I’m to be asked some questions – and well dear lord the temptation for an utter freak-out is pretty damn strong – I hope I’ll be able to resist the temptation to do things like

Interviewer: So where did the idea for that song come from?
Me: Glad you asked that – I was just walking one day and (voice changes to high hysterics) THE SKULL THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN (and back) it occurred to me that OH MY GOD! SHE’S MAKING BREAKFAST WITH HER MIND would be kind of funny. YOU SEE, YOU SEE, ALL OF YOU ON EARTH ARE IDIOTS.
Interviewer: I ah see, anyway do have any long term plans for the band?
Me: Only what the voices tell me.

And so on.

I’ve never been interviewed before so I’m kind of looking forward to it.

Played alone at the open mike – it’s been a while - still managed to do Tangled Up In Blue by Dylan without messing up too damn much - show them my serious side – such as it is. My problem is I have just start playing faster and can overwhelm my ability move my fingers.

Which is not a problem with the other song I did – Rat Dog – which has a stupid chorus (yip yip yip at anything that movies) and b) 3 chords no waiting song structure.

Listening last night I was struck again that I just don’t write stuff like other folks I’m not looking for one big love to solve my problems (at least I’m not going to sing that) nor am I really that into heart break stuff; madness, monster movies, emotional dislocation and bizarre pop culture trends yeah – true love, not so much.

Random Neural Firings.

A Cattle rancher wants to test all his cattle – not just the one percent mandated by law – for mad cow disease – this is opposed by the FDA because it would be ‘unfair’ and costly for the meat packers (who by a staggering coincidence are heavy GOP contributors) . Us, well we can eat meat and die as pions turn our brains into mush but god forbid meat packers have to spend fucking money prove their meat is safer than a small firm (which is willing to spend the money).

A sign we need to rethink this ethanol thing:

Farmers in Mexico are plowing over Agave Cactus (used to make tequila) to plant corn to make ethanol. This is really too much – May 5th no cheap tequila. The horror.

W has said his long term vision of Iraq is like that of Korea – I guess we’ll step down when they step up was just one more lie.

This is insane and nobody is calling him on it – except the blogs – it’s just more crazy talk from a crazy person – there is no way in god’s green earth this country can accept or even damn deal with a 50 year occupation of a hostile population. The army would break down (like it is starting to already) and we’d end up broker than Russia was at the end of their campaign in Afghanistan.

Reading The Guns of August on and off and I keep being impressed by the weird echoes it is bringing up – The German army used ‘terror’ to keep the Belgium population down – with the predictable results meantime war supporters here, frustrated over the course of the action, are urging the US army to ‘take the gloves off” which is pretty creepy sounding. They are also very full of the same weird sense of outrage that the Germans had in Belgium in 1914 about the Belgians fighting back, it’s all very depressing.

I read that W surprised some friends visiting recently by banging his chest and saying “I am the president” in a loud voice. He was either having an episode brought on by a momentary realization of his complete failure or he simply forgot and needed to remind himself who he was.

A-rod has managed to take attention away from the Yankees on filed woes by dating a stripper. Way to take on for the team Alex. Of course people are coming to Alex’s defense (you make 26 million a year you’ll get defenders to) one of whom was quoted as saying “Alex is a big boy” that I can understand but I’m sure the Yankees are thinking they would like him to act like a grown man.

Still what a player does off the field is really his business – but in this age of Panty Sniffing journalism it pays to be a little discreet yes?

Lieberman – managing to look worse than John McCain in flack jacket and armed guard has gone to Iraq and bought sunglasses – I’m sure he got a bargain – someone comes to my kiosk accompanied by heavily armed men I’m going to steeply discount my merchandise to.

Per news reports he asked for questions from the troops and the number one question was “when are we going home?”

Off to see some folks play tonight – one thing the website for the place seems rather well smug in a ‘share and enjoy” Sirius Cybernetics company way (Hitchhiker Guide reference).

Peace Love, be careful when you date strippers.

Narcissism

Usually I don’t talk much about Baseball and my Mets obsession cause I could just go on and on and well I’m a fan that boring for non-fans. And I usually don’t write much about at all about the Yankees for several reasons – one my folks came from Brooklyn and to quote a movie somewhere – the Yankees are the enemies of my blood – which I like to say to be dramatic but it means nothing really. I can’t really say that I hate the Yankees – frankly I’m just tired as hell of George, Joe, the whole 27 or 39 or whatever championships how good Derek Jeter is and who he’s dating and well I’m just bored to death with it and so pay as little attention as possible.

However sometimes something comes over transom that just shocks the shit out of me and pisses me the hell off at the same god damn time.

Yesterday – as the Yankees lost – after a team meeting - to the Blue jays the daily news published one of the biggest loads of tripe I have ever seen in my life – the piece modestly entitled “City’s in Funk as Bombers Bombing” was written by two people listed as staff writers – Noah Fowle and Dave Goldiner (I mean credit where credit is due folks).

Now there is one thing that I can’t utterly stand about certain Yankee fans (not all Yankee fans but enough of them to make it truly annoying) is their combination of smug self congratulation over being shrewd enough to root for the winningest team in baseball, a heavy dose of narcissism, and a tendency to really really whine a lot. There is also a sense of angry brittleness that comes out from time to time – Last year about the time the Mets picked up El Duque from Phoenix I was walking to my local deli wearing my Mets cap – and out of the blue this guy (in a Yankee cap) yells “he’s finished Duque’s gonna suck”.

Now mind you I had not said one word, not one – zippo to the guy – I was getting a soda – but the very presence of a Mets cap seemed to have upset him. I think many Yankee fans have huge lacks in their life that they compensate for by rooting for the Yankees and as long as the Yankees are the monolith and the evil empire they are okay they are Darth Vader and they think everybody’s jealous of them – it’s when the Yankees don’t win that things get ugly – and the panic – the panic that maybe they are still losers that has been lurking there all the time comes out and they start yelling gibberish at strangers.

Now one of the elements of Yankee narcissism is their sense that the Yankees represent the true New York – I remember in 1986 a very very odd New York Times Article written by a guy in which he said he wasn’t going to watch the Mets that year, he was going to watch the Yankees (which didn’t work out too well for him but that’s not the point). The thing I remember most is that his wife yelled at him for not watching the Yankees by saying “don’t you like New York”. It was this linking of the city to the team that struck me as being frankly fucking crazy -

Anyway on to the article – which links the fortunes of the city to the Yankees – I’m going to quote a bit from it to give you a sense of the flavor of it – if I violate fair use I’ll delete some but this garbage needs to be taken down and down hard.

And so it starts:

“The Yankees are in free fall, and they are taking the fortunes of many New Yorkers with them.
As the Los Angeles Angels finished their three-game sweep of the Bronx Bombers on Sunday, grim-faced fans streamed past rows of unsold Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter souvenir shirts.
Bars - normally filled with exuberant fans after a home win - were half empty.
Blue patches of empty seats stand out during supposedly sold-out games, a sign that fans are voting with their feet even if they bought tickets.”

Fair enough so far still there is something in the tone here that bugs one.

“But the damage stretches far beyond the emerald green outfield grass to the shops near Yankee Stadium, and even sends an economic ripple across the city.”

Uh-huh – like what?

"A lot of my regulars are disgusted," said Joe Bastone, 48, of the Bronx, owner of the Yankee Tavern. "They don't want to come if the team is losing. It's just not the hot ticket in town."

Well you know something spunky – if you name your bar after a team and the team does badly it’s going to affect business. Just sayin’

“Instead of scalping tickets for double or triple their price, season-ticket holders flood craigslist with offers to unload Yankees tickets at or below face value.”

Okay – I’m going to start cursing now – cry me a fucking river jagovs I’m so pissing sorry you weren’t able to screw your fellow fans out of the large green this year. Jesus.

"If they keep losing, I'll sell my tickets or give them away," said season-ticket holder Galo Delgado, 30, of Manhattan. "It's worse to come up here than to watch it on TV."

And after all those stories I read about the loyalty of Yankee fans the special bond they had with the team, I guess that was, what is the word? Oh yes – bullshit.

Name of god what a bunch of front running whiners – one bad year (not even a full god damn year it's not even June yet!) after making the playoffs 12 years in a fucking row and now their god dam world is ending. Jesus try rooting for a team like the Devil Rays sometime – you’ll learn a thing or two about appreciating good times. Jagovs.

Alright so far while the article has been kind of stupid it hasn’t gone into la la land – which it then does:

“And the Yanks' good runs in the late 1970s and their current postseason run - they've made the playoffs for the past 12 years in a row - seem to coincide with the city's resurgence.
Then there are times like now.”

Sweet babbling what the hell is all that about – I remember the late 70’s – Remember Ford to New York Drop dead – the son of Sam, the Bronx on fire, the blackout, – lots a crime too – that hardly counts as an up tick. I mean these guys have just gotta stop sniffing glue before they write.

“When the Yankees stumble, the whole city takes it on the chin, in one way or another. Fewer tourists splurge in sporting goods stores. Electronics giants sell fewer big-screen TVs.”

And yet somehow life goes on – there were 47,940 people at Shea last night – they seemed to be dealing with the terrible malaise that is sweeping the city quite well. Granted they might be just putting a brave face on it but they seemed pretty happy. Oh yes the Mets won last night and seem to be in first place.

Jesus what a couple of wankers.

Back to the normal Random Neural firings tomorrow.

Peace Love Lets’ go Mets.

Allergies, Science and Hitchhiking

Well the grass is having sex and that is making my head hurt my nose stuffed and my breathing wheeze and I just feel like boiled hell. So this will be even less coherent than usual. And the stuff I took can make one a bit lightheaded so garbbale braokso warfen to my typing abilities (joke).

Speaking of Jokes – well it looks like the creation museum opened which teaches – if you can abuse the word 'teaching' like that - that that earth is only 6,000 years old. As per the rather elaborate computations of Bishop Ussher in the early 1600’s

To be fair to Bishop Ussher, well he was working with the best information he had when he tired to calculate the earth’s age. Geology hell science of any sort was still getting underway – Geology with its very distressing strata where not well understood then and wouldn’t be for a while yet – Lydell’s book with founds modern Geology was published in 1833 –

Lydell to slide even further from the point I was trying to make established the idea that the world we see has been created by the natural processes we see working to day, water wears down a stream bed bit by bit, the heating and cooling of rocks by the sun reduces them to dust and pebbles, the idea came be know as gradualism. The then current idea was that several catastrophic floods (the biblical flood being the last one) created the geological features of the earth. – Which by the 17th century they realized didn’t quite go along with the biblical record so they invented multiple floods to explain the strata and the fossils and such.

Anyway – where was I – like I said light headed today and not at my sharpest – so whoa shiny things – as a total side note to the above side note – speaking of the bible as history - there has been recently raised the idea that the Hyskos – foreign rulers of Egypt during the 15th dynasty (long time ago trust me) fled Egypt after their fall and their descendants became eventually the Hebrews. It, like a lot of other stuff about the bible and history is an interesting idea – but well that’s all it really is. And that ends the side side note.

Back to geology – can you hear me in the back – the idea is that even before Darwin if fact a long time before Darwin the idea that earth was almost immeasurably old was taking root in western science. Catastrophism was actually a pretty decent guess at the cause – you have whole worlds of unknown animals suddenly dying out and being replaced by others – you have a tradition of a huge flood – why not make it more than one? Yeah it’s not perfect but it’s not a bad first try dealing with the evidence.

So – anyway – back to the creation museum which seems to feel that teaching that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old directly leads to surfing for porn on the web – postulates that men and dinosaurs lived together, if not in harmony. Now in order for this to be true we’d have to toss most of what we know about Geology, Physics (radio carbon dating and radioactive decay and that we can see stars and galaxies and the like – those billions of light years - not to mention that pesky microwave background radiation stuff – at 6,000 years old we should be able to see – exactly none of all this.

And the history of life is not just dinosaurs – there are an entire world of what are called Mammal like reptiles (Synapsids – some of whom had that big fin on their back) that lived on the land long before the dinosaurs (320 Million years and then there is age of the mammals – if they are proposing – and they are – the man was contemporaneous with both T-Rex, the saber tooth tiger, woolly mammoths, Diplodocus, Dimetrodon, and everything frcking else – included dragonflies with a wingspan of a yard - I’d really like to see somehow try and explain how that ecosystem was supposed to work.

Saw Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy yesterday on the enemy below’s new television set – it’s a plasma or led or some such 42 inches long and doesn’t burn in when you play video games – an important consideration if you play video games. And the picture is just amazing – really.

Enjoyed the film - it was the second time I saw it – there were changes yes but a movie is not a book and not a radio or TV series so you have to make some changes. It had all the right stuff – including Marvin and added some nice new things like a visit to the home world of the vogons.

The screenplay was in development hell for about 20 years before the film got made – so things were bound to change. I suspect that some of the more Hollywood bits – like Arthur’s speech at the end about the only question that he wanted the answer to was ‘is she the one’ and that answer wasn’t 42 but yes were added later. Maybe Adams changed how he felt about things as the years went by, but the universe of the Hitchhiker’s Guide is pretty sardonic about, well, everything – so sentimental gibberish about ‘is she the one’ rings a very false note in the film especially when such thinking is not punished by some absurd but deadly way but rewarded.

Full disclosure – I don’t think there is ‘the one’ out there. That comes from personal experience – the times I thought that well – suffice to say it’s why I view romance with the same unabashed enthusiasm that I save for things like allergy season, GOP Politics and sticking your hand in a stump grinder and then turning it on.

Other than that –it was pretty good.

Peace love 42

Memorial Dazed

Memorial Day

Parades, flags, muffled drums, sales of electronic equipment, presidential speeches at Arlington and much pious talk about troops and such.

All has the feel of unreal theater, a sense I’ve had trouble not feeling these days when the vice president of the United States talks to cadets graduating from West point in sneering tones about the protections granted by the Constitution of the United States and the Geneva conventions. This for me pretty disturbing. Cheney’s position is one that comes from the Constitution of the United States, and the young men and women he made his comments to will, when they become officers of the United States Army will take an oath to preserve protect and defend the that selfsame constitution of the United States - not whatever strange and demented tribal vision of the country that Cheney has.

We were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the President of the Untied States at a press conference saying that if his policies were not followed terrorist would come and kill our children – then a bird shit on him.

We got to watch the minority leader of the house break into tears about 9-11 without somehow managing to make the connection between 9-11 and Iraq. Mostly cause there isn’t one.

The things are going great in Iraq story or e-mail is floating around again – at least we are spared the “it was just like this in Germany in 1945 after the war” nonsense because even the average man on the street knows we weren’t putting more troops into Germany and bombing Berlin in 1950 (I’m not sure about some Pundits however – I think they know the menus of the best restaurants the rest they kind of make up as they go along). Still I remember that there was a big big to do maid about the number of Cell Phones being sold in Iraq. (There was also one of the earlier signs of mendacity and utter incompetence of the US that shut down the Cell phone network the Iraqis had set up in favor of one that had paid a lot of money to the Occupation forces for the right) I forget the actual number but it’s a pretty big one.

One of the problems with that is that the insurgents use cell phones – like a lot. So this is not an alloyed piece of good news.

I’m not a big fan of Hillary (she seems too too much one of those with a finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and listens far to much to big money) and yet a) she knows her stuff like better than anybody else and b) having her, the symbol of evil feminist women for the right wing take the oath of office would be worth it to hear the heads explode on the right.

“I” Slpunk
“I”
“Hillary Rodan Clinton”
“Hillary Rodham Clinton” (there is a muffled thud as Sean Hannity’s head splits and a small melon falls out of his skull)
“Do hereby solemnly swear”
“Do hereby solemnly swear” (gurgling sound as Tucker Carlson strangles himself with his own bow tie)
“To preserve protect and defend” (Paul Wolfowitz kills himself with his comb – blaming it on the media)
“The Constitution of the United States”
“The Constitution of the United States” (at this point W has to be physically restrained from attacking Cheney – meantime Newt Gignrich and Rudy Guillian’s heads vanish in a puff of foul smelling green smoke.

By the by the phrase “so help me god’ is not in the oath of office in the Constitution (You can look it up).

Just heard a commercial about brain injuries – made my head hurt the classical radio station around here has a lot of commercials for heart hospitals, funeral parlors and the like. I guess the demographics are bit old for this station.

I had been listening to a public radio station but they decided to go with ‘let’s talk about stuff and maybe play a song or two’ formant – which bores the hell out of me.

I never got talk radio – yeah maybe a specific show about something but just having someone jabber what ever the hell came to their brains or lack of them for 4 hours – I never got Howard Stern (I listened for 4 months and laughed exactly once so I stopped) and Rush - well I don’t want to break the radio.

Sure I blog but that’s not talking and if I ever had a radio show I’d be a lot more interested in talking about music and playing than in listening to the sound of my voice.

Anyway on to music – I was watching No Direction Home the Bob Dylan film by Martin Scorsese and I was struck by a lot of things – one is that as much as I have heard Dylan sing I have rarely heard him talk so that his flat northern Midwestern accent always comes a surprise to me – the other deal was that the folk scene was as sanctimonious and as full of themselves then as they are now (with less reason now) and I’m not surprised Dylan just left them behind.

The other thing is that there is a scene in the film during Dylan’s England tour that the press is interviewing some kids who have walked out on the Bob’s show – and are talking to the eager press outside about how bad his new stuff is. Which as I am watching it am thinking – your have to feel like the biggest dorks in the world – that was Dylan and the band at full out white hot brilliance making some of the most amazing music you ever heard in your life and because bob is playing an electric guitar it sucks? God what closed minded twits.


Peace, Love. Hallowed Ground

Beer, Dylan, Silence

Happy Beer Season

Well okay it’s the Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer but for Budweiser and Miller and Sam Adams and those guys – this the start of beer season where consumption of the more or less hoppy depending on the flavor and recipe brew spikes upwards. Somebody did a post a while back defending Budweiser from its critics in the beer world – the defense seemed to consist of a) say Budweiser didn’t completely suck and b) Sam Adams isn’t a micro brew. Which seems to be fairly faint praise indeed.

The only place I drink bud is at Shea because that’s what they sell – I don’t now what they put in Bud or what happens but if I drink Budweiser I get a headache right away every time. The one good thing about that is that it cuts down my been consumption at the game and at 6.25 or whatever they charge these days that’s not a bad thing no?

I like Sam Adams – first time I drank it I thought – well this is good and I haven’t changed my mind. It’s a little heavy for the summer but I can deal. Or I’ll drink Carona, I think that’s just I like putting a Lime wedge in my beer – ah the foibles of human beings.

I remember reading somewhere that poetry original started as prayers and magic incantations that are if they have a structure and form (and sometimes a rhyme) are easier to remember. I also remember reading somewhere that writing started because the king wanted to be able to see how many sheep he had without having to go out into the field and count the blessed things. Also the vague corners of my head remember something about how writing was also first used to preserve recipes like the recipe for beer (which the ancient Egyptians made – more like a wheat beer they didn’t have any hops that came later).

It might have started something like this:

“Man this is great.”
“Yeah”
“I mean really great, it makes all that growing stuff worth while.”
“Yeah. Another?”
“Hell yeah.” Pause “one thing worries me.”
“What?”
“Well you know how to make this stuff.”
"Beer”
“Yeah Beer, but what happens if you get called away for pyramid duty and I’m stuck here.”
“Yeah, hadn’t thought of that.”
“If there was only some way of, I don’t know drawing on paper how you do it so we don’t have to worry.”
“Brilliant!”
“What?”

And off it went.

It’s also Bob Dylan’s Birthday – who if anything has gotten odder as he’s gotten older but I have to say Chronicles the book he wrote a few years ago was terrific and in the sad and chaotic days after 9/11 he was one of the only voices that I could listen to (that and Mott/Ian Hunter) the rest sounded too lightweight to deal with the madness and nightmare we had been presented.

I don’t have time to talk about Dylan’s influence on me – it’s huge - when I started writing songs he was the template I stole (I freely admit that) from. And that he a) wrote about anything and b) was butt ugly to boot (One book said, trying to put it nicely as possible said he lacked sex appeal, okay fine whatever) – which with my issues about my looks made him another hero.

Going to go home and drink Sam Adams and listen to bringing it all back home – maybe Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks even. Combine the two deals.

More when I have time – it’s a standard Friday with the added pressure that we are all off Monday and we are supposed to be leaving early – so all the gibberish of a Friday is now served in concentrated form. Yetch.

While scanning the web the other day came across the Poem by Lord Bryon “When We Two Parted” which took me back to the days of my first serious relationship. This was one of her favorite poems – I remember her face as she read it to me, it kind of glowed. I remember a lot about her but I’m not going to go into boring details suffice to say it was very intense, doomed from the start, and ended very very badly – we haven’t said a word to each other now for about 20 years. Which is why the poem hit me when I saw it yesterday. The Poem’s about a break up and it’s the last few lines that hit home.

If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

It’s sad to realize that now, if we met, there would be nothing to say. Nothing at all. To go from what we were to being nothing. Indeed something more distant than strangers. There is some potential with strangers.

Life eh?

Gotta go – work to do, beer to drink, music to listen to.

Peace, Love, it’s alright Ma I’m only bleeding

bad mood, congress, poems, and X files

Anxious for some reason – the sense of things not completed or being left hanging is nagging at me – maybe I just want this week to be over – maybe I just want to see if I can get a new gig someplace other than Otto’s – maybe I’m just in a mood. I don’t quite trust my judgment right now – there is a strong wish to push things that don’t need to be pushed, just to get them settled (badly but settled) – almost an urge to blow things up that well don’t have to be blown up.

So I’m snappish and irritable and will probably spend tonight with a violent video game – or one where I can chose the dark side instead of being a nice guy. And maybe that’s the problem, I keep on being a nice guy and not really allowing myself to get pissed cause well ‘nice guys don’t to that’. Anyway there are things in my life (no details folks cause they are boring) that I want settled – now – and it’s my bitter experience that when I am in this kind of mood , the very very very (and I mean the very) last thing I should be doing is trying to deal with any sort of interpersonal problem cause I’ll just a) assume things that aren’t true cause I’m in a mood (when I am like this my favorite exercise is jumping to conclusions) and b) get even more upset when I find out these things aren’t true. So it’s best I go home eat some comfort food and watch Godzilla movies until the mood passes, then when I’m a bit calmer and I don’t want to see things break and have some perspective then I can deal with it when I am more fit for human company.

As far as public things go – the cave in by congress to the wretched boy kings demands that he do exactly what he wants is deeply depressing to someone like me who despite by outward cynicism is really a very passionate believer in our system of government – but when men and women who should know better decide to sign over funds with no strings attached after they have been given a clear mandate from the voters that they want this madness to end and end as soon as possible.

We didn’t get that – we get mush mouthed platitudes about how the president has gotten a message or some such rot – let me clue you in spunky – he has not gotten a message other than you are worried that people are going to say bad things about you. You know I’d feel a little better if some of our dear leaders and congressmen were god damn willing to be talked about badly by the president and the other guys – I don’t know what the hell the world looks like from inside the beltway but I can tell you that out here in the world you guys look like spineless clowns caving into the fit tossed by a man who is intimated by the queen of England. I mean come the fuck on people grow a damn spine. You have traded human lives so your fucking contributions will keep flowing. How evil is that? I rather people think ill of me than let someone suffer or get killed for nothing but I guess that means I’m not congressional material.

Jesus – makes you want to break things. Or as per the picture above storm the palace or some such thing.

Meantime we have put a bunch of ships into the Persian Gulf to try and urge the Iranians to shoot at them (we call it maneuvers) so we can start a war by saying see, they shot first. I’m not sure what is going to happen over the next few days since Iran has its version of fact free reasoning neo-cons who would welcome the prospect of war with the US as a way to secure their dominance of the region. To do that, they really wouldn’t have to win per say, just survive – we don’t have the troops to occupy and nobody’s bombed anybody into surrendering yet – and also any attack on Iran would attract the attention of both China and a country we haven’t given much thought to lately but may need to is Russia who Putin is rapidly turning back into a one party state. I think it would be the height of the Karmic penalties of W’s hubris that he manages to not only cause chaos in the Middle East but start the cold war up again. Trouble is of course its other folks that would suffer for his pride.

War with Iran is just a stupid idea a blunder that any sane person should know will come back to bite us on the ass repeatedly with large teeth until it starts chewing the bone.

Only a complete lunatic would even contemplate the idea.

Well – that thought makes me nervous. And combine all this saber rattling at Iran combined with the recently singed executive order granting the president the powers of a Caesar under the conditions of a national emergency like say war with Iran, a war that starts to go badly and ends up disrupting oil supplies from the region – that would count as a pretty big emergency. Call me paranoid if you wish, but these are the guys who were trying to pin 9-11 on Saddam before the rubble finished falling and turning it to their political advantage and you have a nice little nightmare there.

Just flashed to the old Yeats poem the second coming – the part about where “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity” and there the lines from T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Penny for old guy? Not likely old sport, money is very important here to important to just share.

Watched a couple more x-files the other night – coming away impressed by the huge body count in the show – there are usually at least three deaths an episode and they are usually pretty horrible no clean bullet wounds here.

“I’m Special Agent Mulder this is Special Agent Scully”
“Oh god I’m dead – I’m going to be eaten by the octopus”
Scully: Sir we’re in the middle of the desert and in any even Octopi are shy and…
Huge Tentacle emerges from the desert sands and drags victim under the sand.
Scully: That’s impossible –
Mulder: There have been several reports of aliens modify sea creatures to live in dry land conditions; there is an x-file from the early 1970’s detailing several attacks in which the victims all looked like they had been attacked by a shark in the middle of New York.
Scully: Mulder the land shark was a Saturday Night live skit
Mulder: But where did they get the idea yes?
Scully: from smoking dope maybe? The movie Jaws?

And so on.

Peace, love, Remember Remember the fifth of November.

Allergies, Jethro Tull and Liverpool

Well the grass has decided it’s time to insure that there will be more grass – and my head hurts and my throat hurts as well.

I don’t usually like to talk about allergies since anyone who bitches about pollen counts and the like is pretty much considered to be a self absorbed hypochondriac and probably flaky to boot. While I’ll cheerfully confess to being flaky and self absorbed, I’m not a hypochondriac – at least not a lot – and damn my throat bugs me, it’s sore my voice is raspy and it hurts to swallow.

This may be why I was so beat the last couple of days – allergic reactions set off responses in the immune system that can take a lot out of you – and that’s all for the trials and tribulations of my allergies.

And the less said of it the better.

Congress is going to pass some kind of spending bill for W that looks like he gets all he wants without any penalties – well why should this be any different than anything else he’s run – and he’s released some kind of intelligence to wit that the Iraq head of Al Queda (which as one must always remember didn’t exist until after we invaded) was told by Osama Ben ladden to prepare other attacks including those outside Iraq


Swell we go from not paying any attention to Osama to making it the reason we attacked Iraq – and ABC has said we are conducting covert operations against Iran in the effort to destabilize them (read goad into attacking us) . it’s things like this that make me just want to pop my Ed Wood Films into the DVD players and just beat my brain into submission so I don’t care so much about the stupid utter useless waste of human life the Iraq mess has been. Nobody else seems to get depressed about this – you look at the news and the papers and television it’s Paris Hilton and somebody’s hair. You wonder if this was what it was like in the last days of Rome or pre-revolutionary Russia or France just before the damn broke – The stupid and utterly self satisfied in positions of power and others acting as enablers because while yes what is happening is not good – to point it out would be bad form and might risk your position. Yes the barbarians will be flooding the city but until then you are well fed. The steak sir? Right away.

Listening to Tull for some reason – Jethro Tull to be exact – they are pretty much on the oldies circuit these days but they were big time once. And Ian Anderson’s snarky comments about war and religion seem to sadly enough have more relevance today than they did back in the 60’s and 70’s when he made them. At least here where being religious has gone from being religious to being very very concerned that somebody isn’t doing what you think they should be doing and attempting to get the state to enforce that.

It’s sad to think that these folks are considered religious rather than run out of town on a
rail.

Back to Tull for a second – they are probably infamous for winning the first ever heavy metal Emmy (issued some 15 years after the gene emerged) beating out Metallica. For me they are a guilty pleasure, very English – even with all their stylistic changes – prog rock to English folk stuff – and I like Anderson’s voice and flute playing.

On interesting thing is that W is such a bad politician that he actually has managed to piss off the only people who still support him – the Nativist, no-nothing hate brown people wing of the party with his work on the immigration bill, which isn’t a lot is far far more than the “Deport or shoot everybody” policy the nativists want – I mean it’s weird just how many times this clown can screw things up. He had an 80-90% approval rate at one point – you have to be a total screw up of cosmic proportions piss that away – Oh he is. Well carry on.

Will be watching Liverpool and AC Milan tonight for the WEFA Cup – I’ll be pulling for Liverpool but I expect AC to win – no I don’t like the idea but there you are. Not even that much of a Liverpool fan but as a fan of the English Premier league I’ll have pull for them. (Note – that I would not do if it was Manchester United or these days Chelsea – there are limits don’t you know).

People are waving papers time to go.

Peace Love, Aqualung, you’ll never walk alone.

Feeling Lazy and Men in Skirts fighting Killer puppets

Pics are up on earlier posts.

Tired today – I don’t quite know why – maybe I’m finally getting spring fever – there is a urge to do naught but snooze and such – watch the world go by – drift for a bit – drink beer in the beer garden – eat fatty foods gain weight – die of a heart attack - wait that’s not the plan. At least I don’t think so. Anyway - lets just say lazy is how I am feeling.

Things are slow at work – it’s a combination of the upcoming weekend, and there is a technical conference going on somewhere in the world, Vegas I think.

I’ve never gotten Vegas – not really, I don’t like to gamble and clubs and strip bars are not places I like to go – hell I’ve never been to strip club in my life – and at this point I don’t think I will end up in one – doesn’t appeal, not really. (Of course this means I’ll be living in one by the end of this year - it’s the way things work).

The Enemy Below and The Insect Girl are moving Saturday – I’ll be pitching in – after they last moved I suggested they didn’t get an apartment on the 2nd floor or a 2 story walk up. They didn’t – they have a new apartment on the 4th floor of a 4 story walk up. Even thinking about it makes my legs hurt – but it’s a very lovely place and they are well worth the hassle, so I’ll be schlepping on Saturday and popping aspirin and limping to the deli for more aspirin on Sunday.

Watched the end of Goliath and the Dragon last night – and that might account for the way I’m feeling – my brain is bruised and tired from being punched by this stupid movie that all it wants to go is go to sleep – like right now.

So of course the world being the world and the great magnet being the great magnet (we are all naught but iron filings in the field of the Great Magnet) suddenly I’m busy – so suffice to say don’t watch Goliath and the Dragon (which was a cut and paste job of an Italian film ) cause you have much better things to do with your life – like sort socks or just drift down stream on a sunny day or listen to music or birds or watch clouds go by or hit yourself on the head with a brick until the blood floods your eyes and ears and you can’t see or hear.

What you take away most from the movie is (aside from everybody is badly dubbed, the Men wear very short skirts, and people plot a lot by standing stock still and talking – this is a movie yes? So MOVE!) the silliness of the monsters – Goliath (actually it was Hercules but with someone else owning the movie rights to that name they couldn’t call him that) fights a dumb looking three headed dog like thing that dies pretty easy, what looks like a 6 foot tall flying cat/bat (he's actually kind of cute) a man in a bear costume (while not as fake as some of the gorilla costumes I have seen was pretty bad – I wouldn’t even use it as rug) and finally the titular Dragon – which looks more like something out of a kid’s show –
Announcer: Hey boys and girls let’s call Danny the Dragon! Hey Danny !

Danny: (in a modified goofy from Disney voice) Hey boys and girls great to see you again. Hey what’s that man with the knife gonna do to AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Announcer: Oh no boys’ and girls the man just stabbed Danny in the eye. Well let’s go to the magic Blackboard then.
Danny: AHHHHH I CAN’T SEE! I CAN”T SEE. NO DON’T PLEASE AHHHHHH!!!!!!

While Mark Forrest (who played Goliath/Hercules in this farce) was pinged for the woodenness of his acting, that self same woodenness served him in good stead as he tried to convince viewers that he was in a life and death struggle with a puppet. It didn’t work but he did try gamely.

No time to go into a few things 1) W thinks Al has done nothing wrong. How could he? All Al did was say yes all the time. 2) There is an executive order floating around that says, in case of emergency, the executive (i.e. W and Dick) would assume all the roles of the government until further notice. It’s just a little frightening to think about – for one W isn’t really at his best in emergencies – witness his aimless wanderings on 9/11 and his slow reaction to Katrina – so putting all the power in the hands of a guy like this is a very risky idea and then of course the idea of putting all the power into anybody’s hands – even during an emergency is so un-American I can’t even being to describe it. What this is talking about is setting up a mechanism for someone in the US to seize absolute power – that this isn’t making people more nervous, is making me nervous.

Peace Love Puppets

other pics from the gig

The Enemy Below - crooning away - Emily in the backround on Accordian

The big band left to right: Spencer (keyboards), The Enemy Below (good vocals and guitar), Emily (vocals, accordian), Insect Girl (vocals), Eamon (drums), Me (ugly vocals and ugly shirt), and Gillain (bass. ) Again thanks to all.

An ugly shirt and a mask and I'm a happy guy.

singing away just before they pulled the plug

The shirt - it burns! it Burns!

Pics from the Gig (I)

here we are scaring the lady in white


What red eye?

Not many punk bands with an accordion - i have to say.

Fun Stuff

If you didn’t come you missed it. And you should regret that. A lot. Damn that was fun as hell. Yeah things were a little ragged and not everything worked perfectly but it was wonderful. I got to wear the ugliest shirt in the world, got to sing and play with some wonderful musicians and I got to sing our stuff with said wonderful musicians, which just blows me away.

Many many thanks to everybody – you helped make that one of the better nights of my life guys – it is the kind of thing you think playing in a band should be like – no egos, no divas (well maybe me – the shirt and such) and man it just sounded great – the drums and the bass, the accordion and the back up singers just well.

I find myself a little humbled here. When I first started to sing and then to write my own stuff, a lot of it was standard ‘I’m a sensitive guy in pain’ kind of thing – albeit with a bit of an attempt at a Robyn Hitchcock edge (Robyn once called romance ‘a little kiss of skulls’ – things like that I admire a lot from him). And then other stuff started to come out that was just flat out bizarre. But nobody and I mean nobody wanted to do that stuff. I’m not sure why – maybe because nobody was doing it, maybe it was just too strange, maybe I was looking in the wrong places (like the NY Folk scene – we still have to get kicked out of the bitter end) but anyway for the moment we got something.

Really, I’m so used to bad things, to not getting something to things not working out that I’ve developed an entire world view to cope with that. When something good happens, well I’m a bit stuck for words. But hey – I can learn can’t I?

The bigger band really helped the two newer songs – I want to get laid (damnit) just rocked with the steady bass drum pushing the song forward – and Kill Things Purple finally got to a place were I like singing it – it’s a weird song it starts off with me on the harmonica – the jumps to a ramones style straight ahead punk and them veers off into a bit of Flying Purple People Eater – then back to the punk then an acoustic fade out with the harp having the last word. The reaction of the people who were listening when The Enemy Below went into Purple People Eater was just perfect.

This band now has so much potential that I get a little nervous thinking about it – Jesus with a little more polish we could be opening for people – or maybe not because they might not like us case we might be too good. I’m told the politics of opening acts can be pretty weird.

At any rate we’re going to try and get a bigger venue someplace in June and then take some time off from performing to get the musical into shape – mainly the book – and the one and a quarter songs that need to be written.

Random Neural firings

Still waiting on the film were evil bisexual women warriors try and take over the earth or some such – it has great promise I think. And until proven wrong I refuse to believe the bisexual women warriors are evil – they are just misunderstood. I also think I am going to get a lot of hits for using the words bisexual warrior woman more than once. Sorry porn surfers.

Found copy of Goliath vs. the dragon a badly dubbed sword and sandal film featuring some well oiled muscleman (‘Johnny do you like Gladiator movies?”) And this times a dubbed Broderick Crawford – and why the hell would dub that voice but they did. It’s weird and looks to get weirder. So I’m set for this evening (Need a night in tonight – rest of the week looks busy as heck).

All sorts of lose talk about Alberto Gonzales and just how much longer he has as the Attorurney General. The Senate is going to pass some kind of statement of no confidence in Al and the vist to the intensive care ward story has hit everybody’s thug button. I think when they take him out he’s going to leave scratch marks on the floor and walls as he keeps trying to cling to his office. Although W is going to be loath to drop him since he loves the little weasel (cause all he does is kiss W ass and tell him yes sir) and once they toss Al out of the sled, if that doesn’t satisfy the wolves, that really only leave W and Dick and I’m not sure if Dick is really ready to toss W over the side (I mean really if it came down to those two you’d have to figure Dick would be the one left standing.

I see that Paris Hilton had her sentence reduced for good behavior. I suspect that is one of the very few times the name Paris Hilton and the words “good behavior have appeared in the same sentence.

As the day wends on my head feels more and more sluggish so I’ll just stop for the day like right here.

Pic is of a probation protest in the 30’s. It’s the kind of March you wish you could have seen.

Pics of the gig later today – promise.

Peace love, bisexual warrior women.

Kicking and Screaming

Well Wolfman is out at the world bank – after getting his “well you broke the rules in good faith” addendum to the report saying he broke bank rules. I think the low moment in this farce came when Wolfowitz, tying to hang onto his phony baloney job as head of the World Bank – went and blamed his lady friend for his troubles. Lottsa class there I gotta tell you.

His last day is June 30th I’m not sure why I guess they decided that that was a decent interval – I think he may not show up a lot – other wise their might be a line in the hall of people waiting for their trun to laugh in his face or slap him.

Meantime – well the whole Alberto Gonzales thing keeps getting more and crazier. In light of the weird and bizarre story Comey told of Gonzales and Andy Card coming to the hospital to try and get Ashcroft to sign off on the domestic spying program.

The really weird thing that comes out about that is, that since before going to the hospital, Ashcroft had signed over power of attorney to Comey – even if Al and Card had gotten a signature – it wouldn’t have been valid. But such niceties of the law are not the kind of thing that enters the minds of people who think storming into the hospital intensive care ward with papers they want signed is a good idea.

The dead elephant in the living room of this story is who called Mrs. Ashcroft (who had ordered that her husband get no calls) and convinced her to allow Al and Mr. Card entrance. Honestly there was only one person that could have called and had gotten that response– the president. She would have blown off anybody else but not him. Now he simply ducked the question when it was asked but if he hadn’t been the one calling even he is smart enough to say “I did not make that call” (leaving aside the question of who did for some other time). But no he didn’t do that.

And you have to wonder just what did the program involve that was so bad that John Ashcroft not want to sign off on it. I mean he was no friend of the bill of rights so for him to say No I can’t do this to something the president wanted it had to be god awful – like allowing the killing of suspects or some such. It would be nice to know what his objections were but I don’t think we will find out.

Waiting on the gig – I’m always a twitch before I go on – I get this over whelming sense of “let’s get on with it” before the set starts so I’m a flesh bag full of adrenaline when I finally get going – thank god we don’t do a slow song first.

Had to dash to Sam ash to get a bass drum pedal since the venue doesn’t’ have one – spent entirely too much time tying to wend my way around tourists – really if you all must walk side by side can you at least pick up the pace a bit? Some of us actually are on a time table here you know? I find myself saying all sorts of unkind things like “Please act as if your life had a point.” While trying to maneuver around people who really walk like they have given up and are just waiting for their existence to come to an end.

Away full gig report this weekend – promise – maybe pics too – and then Dracula AD 1972 and other movie horrors. One movie is Called The Girl from Rio. And is discribe thus by Netflix – “When the stunning but evil, Sumitra arrives in Rio de Janeiro, she has only one thing on her mind: enslaving all men to bend to the will of her force of bisexual, warrior women!” First I’d like to say I’m not sure how this is evil exactly, and two things like that don’t happen to me, at the most I get people sticking chinese food take out menus in my mailbox.

Peace Love Bisexual warrior women

Strange Days

Really things are bloody weird these days – you just can’t keep up.

I don’t mean weird in a good way – I mean weird as if everybody is having a mental break down at the same time.

There was the presidential GOP debate the other night were where just about everybody was saying “Torture!Torture! Kill! Kill!” to the vast approval of the audience watching. The one fellow who said “you know they are attacking us for a reason” was then jumped on with both feet by Rudy Giuliani in his full stamp out ferret’s mode – his riposte has gotten huge coverage and yet it’s not getting him the traction everybody expected it to. I suppose the reason could be that Rudy really looks like warmed over death – he doesn’t look like a well man at all (he isn’t he has prostate cancer – which while treatable isn’t much of a walk in the park). More like a skull with just enough skill to go over it.

Meantime Mitt Romney was jabbering something about doubling the size of our prison camp in Cuba to wild applause – guys a lot of the folks in there who were fucking goat herders who were sold up the river by chieftains in Afghanistan – an Australian citizen held there was recently released after three years and well he’s a free man in Australia – it seems his only crimes were being a foreign national in Afghanistan at the worst possible time. Lord knows how many other folks are in thee locked up because this clown car of a government is scared of admitting error in anything.

We have a war Czar. To me this says that W has simply given up. I’m told that Reagan spent the last two years of his presidency watching movies – we can only hope W decides to indulge in a similarly harmless occupation. True it means that Dick Cheney is in charge but how is that different than the last 6 ½ years?

Paul Wolfowitiz twists slowly in the wind, word is that he will be leaving the World Bank soon – he is insisting that he be cleared of any wrong doing but I’m not sure that will happen the board, smelling blood, is not interested in talking and W doesn’t have enough clout to do anything about it.

The thing about Woflowitz here is that he’s just the kind of creep who, if the bank did clear him of wrong doing wouldn’t resign because the bank had decided he’d done nothing wrong. And guys he has to go – you can’t go into a country and lecture them about corruption when the president of the bank is arranging a sweetheart job for his lady friend. You see why that doesn’t work?

Alberto Gonzales has been asked by the Senate if he wants to change the bullshit answer he gave to the Senate just a few weeks about how there were no Department of Justice concerns over the White House wiretap program – in light of the testimony from yesterday. I hear they want to haul his ass up there again. At some point, soon, if he does not resign, impeachment is the next step.

Practice tonight – stops and starts and what nots – and then gig tomorrow – I hope somebody shows up – people have put some hard work into this.

Day by day things look worse in Iraq surge, or no surge, war Czar or no war czar – the green zone is being shelled on a regular basis by mortar shells – I suspect that in a few weeks or even sooner they will have to deal with regular rocket barrages. Only a matter of time really.

I noticed that this is being called the worst season of American Idol ever – personally I have to wonder how the hell they can tell but no matter. These kinds of show just run out of steam, some faster than other others (dancing with stars has hit the wall very quickly)

I ‘ve seen a lot of stories saying that the impact of the housing slump won’t affect the economy – but they don’t know that, they are just saying that and hoping it is true.

Keep meaning to watch the last 2/3rds of King Dinosaur but well life is getting in the way – I need to watch few good movies over the weekend so I can grid my loins up for things like Dracula AD 1972 and the like – King Dinosaur just looks like it is going to hurt given the first part – it has lizards with things stuck on them as dinosaurs something that always is the mark of quality.

Finished Behind the Mirror a book about the Physics of alternate dimensions and string theory – the authors point – I think he was some what circumspect and well string theory makes my head hurt anyway is that the only thing string theory has given us as of now is a better understanding of string theory works – which isn’t much looking at it. A lot of folks are hooked into string Theory because of it’s mathematical beauty (I’ll trust the author on this) which isn’t always the best bet in science.

I meant to write a bit at least about the doors and other musical stuff but it’ll have to wait until tomrrow.

Peace Love Strings

Feelings and drums

Just to show you how my head works – most of the folks who would come to the gig on Friday won’t be there cause it’s the first game of the weekend Mets/Yankees series – which means it’s very likely that there are going to be more people on the stage than in the audience.

So what is my mood? Me I’m fine. Really. Disaster, bad stuff I can handle – good news and I go all to pieces – I remember the first time a woman told me I love you – couldn’t handle it went into a complete funk and half way convinced myself that she was just saying that to well I don’t really remember exactly what – since my head didn’t work really well in those days – the upshot was I was suspicious and pretty damn insulting because I knew she couldn’t be telling me the truth. I was a jerk – I’m less so but there is still enough jerkiness inside me that I have to watch myself. Lord knows what I’ll feel if we get the musical off the ground and god help me if it’s a hit. I’ll be in a funk for weeks waiting for something bad to happen.

As I write this I realize (to my chagrin) that more a few of my problems with my relationships have been – if nothing’s going wrong – I make something go wrong – either by doing or not doing something. It’s pretty twisted and this line of thinking is making my head hurt.

Last minute rehearsal with the drummer tomorrow – and then the gig – for some reason the Beastie Boy’s No Sleep till Brooklyn is starting to play in the jukebox of my subconscious

We have decided to call our music Lucha Libre folk – which makes no sense which is why we picked it boyos.

Saw this on a blog comment have to pass it along .

“Studies show that depressives are better than anyone else at correctly assessing the odds -- of being hit by a car, being mugged, winning the lottery, etc. Everybody else exaggerates the probability of the unlikely event, whether good or bad. (i.e. they overstate the probabilities of being mugged and of winning the lottery).

So, depressives are people who know what's going on. No wonder they're depressed.”

Snarf – let’s hear it for the power of positive pessimists.

It looks like Wofowitz is trying to cop a plea before he quits the World Bank. I’d rather they tossed him out on his ear but that’s not the way things are done with inside the beltway hacks – he seems to be concerned that what the world bank said “you are a lying weasel” will negatively affect him in later life or some such – like he’s going to let within a 100 miles of the levers of power once this administration goes the way of all things. The little (and man do something with your hair – or just shave it off and wear a hat) bastard is lucky he doesn’t end up in front of the Hague for war crimes along with the rest of hubris filled jackasses who thought they knew everything.
But that is not to be – frankly if the worst thing Wolfowitz gets is a slap on the wrists – fine as long as he’s not going to in charge of the World Bank anymore.

A mister Comey testified in front of the Senate that W had his bud Alberto Gonzales and some other thug in a suit go to the hospital to visit Ashcroft who was in the hospital in the intensive care ward, just let me write this again, in the intensive care ward - to try and get him to sign off on the wiretapping by the NSA that the Department of Justice had already decided was illegal and should be halted.

The insanity of going to somebody in intensive care and trying to bully them should obvious the anyone with the brain activity of a gnat – that said the gop folks are falling all over themselves trying to justify this insane behavior – the worst being Tony Snow who said to the affect “just because he’s sick his brain doesn’t work” which actually he is correct – Ashcroft refused to sign off on the wiretapping and indicated that he would resign if they tried to force him. Meantime the head of the FBI had called Ashcroft’s security detail and told them not to allow Comey to be removed from the room under any circumstances.

They don’t have a lot of beds in the intensive care wards in any hospital so if you are in one of those beds you are there for a pretty good reason even if you’re a big wig like Ashcroft.

It boggles my little mind this Victorian level melodrama gibberish going on in a hospital. I have nothing but contempt for Ashcroft but at least he knew illegal when he saw it. The kicker here is that the White House, despite Ashcroft’s refusal to sign off on the program – went ahead with it.

Now the thing that bugs me about all the talk about the wiretapping is this – nobody comes out and says that stands to reason the damn white house has been using these taps to spy on domestic political opponents. Why else hide the damn program? They easily accuse their opponents of being in league with the terrorists so it’s not a big leap to imagine they would talk themselves into thinking it is true and start to look for proof.

Jerry Falwell died yesterday. What I remember most – of all the hideous things he said over the years - was his urging during the last years of Apartided in South Africa that his flock buy kurggerands to prop up the failing regime because they were a bulwark against communism when the boycott of South Africa was taking off and the pressure to free Nelson Mandela was growing. He was as pure a lodestone for evil as Dick Cheney – and to give Darth Cheney his due at least he doesn’t claim to be speaking for god.

Yes Diana Rigg. Again.

Peace, love, it needs more cowbell.

Sleepy, Vibrations, Vice, Coffins and Crooks

Time to crash

Well today is the day I go home and crawl into bed - I’ll be busy the rest of the week so tonight it’s sleepy bobo time (I hope).

Just realized that our gig will be going on the same time as the Yankees-Mets game. You know if it isn’t super bowls, 10 degree weather, it’s baseball. You have to wonder sometimes.

Some Intriguing headlines crossed the transom today

Alabama shop owner challenges sex toy ban – an adult store owner is trying to get the Supreme court to over turn a state ban on selling (but not owning – one assumes so there aren’t any embarrassing moments where a member of the state legislature is found in possession of shall we say certain devices while dressed up as a milkmaid).

Side note – and this is an absolutely bizarre one, one that speaks very deeply to my impression that there is something very very wrong with each and every one of us, no more so when thing we are being completely ration – is that one of the more common sex toys the vibarator was originally designed for a doctor’s use.

That’s right doctors. About the turn of the century or a bit later (I am not going back to check the details for bear with me about that) a mental condition known as hysteria was a major problem with middle and upper class women – and somehow, bless me if I know how, it was decided that part of the treatment was for doctors to - for all intents and purposes to give a hand job to these ladies – manually stimulating them until they climaxed. I don’t know much it helped with the Hysteria but if nothing else it had to be a morale booster for the women and brighten up an otherwise drab day for them.

Still there was a problem – for some women it was easier than others – remember these women were raised in the very height of Victorian/puritan upper/middle class thinking of sex as something evil and filthy that they as good women only did because their husbands wanted it (“lie still and think of the empire” was one British Mother’s advice to her daughter on her wedding night) so sometimes it took a while – a long time. To quote Frank Zappa “I poked and stroked till my wrist got numb but I still didn’t hear no Dynamo Hum”

So what to do? Enter technology, with electricity being used to generate the vibrating effect, the first being those weird ass things that you see sometimes at barber shops that would slip over the doctor’s hand so he didn’t have to work so hard to get the desired result. Then came the more typical shape and well after that the sky was the limit.

One more interesting point was that as the use by doctors faded (with the advent of Freud and well just changing times) virbrators were sold by mail order – they got around the Comstock law (which was passed in the 1870’s and is still on the books preventing the mailing of obscene material – which included contraceptive – they had no idea anything like the internet would ever show up) by never quite mentioning what the device was supposed to do exactly ‘restore tired muscles and soothe nerves’ was typical advertising copy

End side note.

Saw At Midnight I’ll take your Soul – the first of the Brazilian Coffin Joe films – which feature the director in the role of the anti-hero Coffin Joe. In this film Joe is an undertaker in a small town – he’s also a out and out Atheist who dresses in his black garb to spook the towns people – and it is an interesting concept, what would be more disturbing in religious community than a man who loudly proclaims his lack of a belief in God and the Devil and yet is not hit by lighting bolts or has the ground open up under his feet.

Totally amoral he goes about killing folks (in gruesome for 1964 manners and with a lot of enthusiasm – you have to admire someone who loves his work so) who get in his way of getting a son to carry on his blood line (his obsession) – the only time he is nice to anyone in the film other than himself is when he stops a man from abusing his son. It’s a pretty compelling character and rather unexpected as well – especially Joe’s direct confrontation with religion.

He of course comes to a bad end but the director is clever enough to make it not quite clear if the sprits that Joe sees are real or in his own mind – for a budget of about 11 cents it’s well done and spooky.

The last few twists and turns of the Wolfowitz at the world bank disaster are coming to a head – he is scheduled to appear before the board of directors of the world bank to discuss the findings of the world bank investigation that said – minus the corporate bafflegab – he was a scum sucking bastard who broke the rules to get his lady friend a sweet job at the bank and should be tossed out on his ass.

Dick Cheney ever the lodestone of evil said that Wolfowitz should stay. If you are ever faced with any moral dilemma ranging from “should I invade a country that is no threat to mine to gain domestic political advantage?” to “I’m still hungry - should I just take pieces of steak off of my wife’s plate without asking her?” figure out what Dick would do and then do the exact opposite. Works every time.

Another high official of the Department of Justice has quit leaving Albert pretty much alone in the department – meantime Albert is now blaming the Attorney General firings on the departed officer. The class of these guys never ceases to amaze.

Peace, love, that’s all for this week Mrs Feldmore

Rehearsal, Bagpipes, and the Ugliest Shirt in the world

Well we got the rehearsal in – at least with most of us – the facility was nice actually – I’ve been in studios that looked like they needed steam cleaning, bleach and then decontamination before you would touch everything. The only real problem was there was no AC for the first half of the session (they were trying to fix it and managed to do so about 9 pm) At one point when we took a break I looked down and there was a puddle right at my feet – I haven’t see the pictures but I have to have looked like a heat stroke victim by then.

We managed to get a lot done despite the head and the herding cats phenomena that continues to plague getting everything together – we couldn’t all be there at the same time – so when we take the stage on Friday – not only will it be the first time we’ve played in front of people together it will be the first time we’ve played all together on the same stage at the same time. (and such a small stage I’m not quite sure where we are going to be able to fit everybody but as long we don’t mind being close it’ll work.

Managed to get a decent version of Kill things purple – which despite liking the song doesn’t want to come out and play so I’m not sure how long it will stay in the set list. (It’s kind of like our song Gillian is dead which 3 weeks after Bob Denver died we had to explain the song to people).

Saw our drummer at the Bitter End last night (we are working on getting thrown out of there – which the way the universe and the great magnet work means we’ll end up as headliners but no matter that isn’t what I wanted to talk about) he was good and then listened to a few others – and I have to say (not about our drummer) but about the others – Bob Dylan has a lot to answer for.

Now don’t get me wrong – I think that Dylan is the one of the best and most revolutionary song writers of the post war era – the trouble is that what works with him (because he’s very very good ) doesn’t work for others. Dylan wrote some very long songs but he didn’t start doing things like Desolation Row and the like until album #3 or 4 by which time the audience was willing to go along with him on the trip (and being Dylan it was typically an interesting voyage.) you’re doing a singer song writer showcase at the bitter end on Sunday you don’t have that yet.

Briefly what I’m saying is for god’s sake EDIT PEOPLE and get to the bloody point of the song. I swear the songs just meander about like somebody wasting time in shopping mall waiting for a friend to show up – and when you get to the chorus you find you’re not sure just what these words have to do with the words that came before them.

And to be sure I don’t really find broken hearts – even my own to be that fascinating and I really have better things to do with my time okay?

One lady did a whole set with a ukulele – she had a very nice singing voice, if her songs did that wandering in the mall thing but alas a small about of uke goes a very very long way - it has per our drummer “a very bright sound’ which is a nice way of saying – after five minutes it’s intensely annoying and is well on its way to giving one a blinding headache. Still that’s only my observation. I also have bagpipe music on my i-pod – which I was informed means I am a total geek (this from someone who plays the accordion) well so be it – I was raised on the stuff – hell I even know that Irish Bagpipes have only two drones as opposed to the three on the Scottish version (kill me now please) so while to most people it sounds like cats in a bag fighting, I like the stuff – as do the dropkick Murphys a punk band that utilizes the bagpipes ability to make ear splitting noise on their records.

Anyway we also when looking for ugly clothes for the gig – my outfit is pretty set but you have to be open to new things. At the Salvation army Spencer found some god-awful stuff from the 80’s that’s he’s going to wear and I found a jacket that I’ll use as a back up to my regular one – it’s blue and purple and just totally tasteless.

However I did not find anything that was just right until we walked by Modell’s. There they were having a sale on what has to be the ugliest shirt in the history of the world – I don’t have a picture yet but it’s multi-colored skulls (purple yellow red black blue) and the over all effect is just hideous – it makes your head hurt to look at it, it does. Well I made a few whimpering noises before I went in to the store and then had to get the attention of an attendant because they were up to high for me to reach. I swear I was like a damn five year old jumping up to try and garb the shirt making strange gurgling noises in the back of my throat like the ape men in the beginning of 2001. The lady who got the pole thing they use to take the shirt off the wall looked at me funny. I understand I just couldn’t help myself.

It’s like my life has a to do list and one item on the list was “find ugliest shirt ever made” and now that item can be checked off. I still have to find “the worst movie ever made” and there are other things to do before my mortal coil can be shuffled off (songs, musicals, wild sex with beautiful eager women) – but at least one personal goal has been reached.

No picture yet maybe tomorrow.

Peace Love Scotland Forever

The Whole Megillah, Bad Dinosaurs, and the Demoiselles

Well today we rehearse with the whole megillah – real drums bass player accordion – back up singing the works – and I must admit I’m a bit nervous mostly because I don’t want it to suck. Because this could sound like a train wreck – the bass player (who is very very good) has to learn the songs and then play them (granted they are all three cords no waiting but still).

As a side note the whole Megillah is an English version of the Yiddish expression gantse Megillah – (Megillah means scroll) and comes from the reading of the entire book of Esther on Purim. (One source said it’s read twice which has to be a slog no matter how fast you read) – Which has come to mean the whole thing of something large. End Side note.

Anyway we’re going to see how it sounds. It should be good – everybody’s like amazingly talented but again you never know. Still I wonder what an old friend of mine is going to think – he hates drums – and how does one hate drums? Well bad drumming I can dislike but to hate what made have been the first instrument after the human voice strikes me as a bit odd. But well he’s not much for this rock n’ roll stuff either. I remember his complementing me after one gig on not using a drummer. Well this time sorry mate.

Was going to watch stuff last night but sleep and reading about sting theory became the order of the day – I did watch about 10 minutes of Kind Dinosaur – a Bert I Gordon pain fest – the plot of the film is that a new planet (Called Nova – which is after all Latin for new so that makes some sense) not much else does. After a long long stretch of stock footage (including some device that the narrator says is an atomic powered battery that has to be monitored or it will blow up – foreshadowing doesn’t get much worse than that - it’s like “hey why did you buy the gun Steve?” After the crew is named they fly off in stock footage to the planet (Bert was so cheap that we don’t even see them inside of the space ship during the trip) and they land in a forest – the first two down (man and woman – the there is another couple making for a total of 4) wear absurd looking space suits while standing in a clearing full of high grass – it looks more like two people with very very bad allergies decided to take no chances on ragweed pollen. They examine the outside (using giger counters – god what a useful prop that is) and in an utterly absurd scene the lady chemist looks through a microscope wearing her huge bubble helmet.

Once they decide that the air is safe – and thank god cause those were really awful space suits really the ones on Cat women of the Moon looked better – and they take off their suits and the women are wearing skirts – like 1950’s you can’t see higher than mid calf skirts (which never really came back oddly enough, almost everything else did but those 50’s clunkers – never) Now while I assume that since this was the 50’s and proper respect for traditional gender roles and style of dress (as reaction to the chaos of the 40’s) were important I have to say I think skirts, especially when worn under a space suit are a wee bit impractical. But no matter – off they go – they collect rocks – just rocks sitting on the ground and put them in a bag for the lady geologist – who announces that this planet is very young

“How young”

“Prehistoric” she says and the rest of the crew start to worry.

Now if my aged memory serves prehistoric means before history – written history, meaning records, which means the prehistoric era of this planet came to an end when you guys landed a while ago. As an actual measure of chronology – it’s useless.

And they see an island – about which they comment no less than 3 damn times “what a mysterious looking Island” (and ever less subtle variants).

Then it gets late and they get lost going back to the ship – apparently in putting together the crew they didn’t think to send somebody who was good in the woods and could use a compass – and well since it is science fiction how about a radio beacon from the ship? Nah. Well at least they don’t have the idiot comic relief guy from Brooklyn, thank heaven for small favors. So instead they make a lean too of some sort to camp for the night – 100 million miles through space and you don’t pack a tent – well I guess the budget didn’t allow for it.

At this point I decided to stop since my brain was leaking out my ears and I was having trouble keeping awake – not much happens in a Bert I Gordon film anyway. I assume the Dinosaur (Lizard with stuff glued on it) shows up later.

Random Neural firings:

Reading a book about string theory – which a few years ago was going to be the ticket to the theory of everything unifying the strong Force, the weak Force, electromagnetism and gravity – it hasn’t and seems to have other than produced some interesting ideas and elegant mathematics (so I’m told – beyond Algebra and Plane Geometry I’m an idiot) but didn’t or hasn’t produced much in the way of testable predictions which while great for politics or economics is not good in physics. I’m not sure what to make of the book – string theory always made my head hurt and this is not different. It all boils down to scientists unease with the randomness buried in the heart of quantum mechanics (it doesn’t bother me seeing as how a universe that is result of completely random actions matches my experience a lot more closely than the clockwork universe of Isaac Newton.)

I notice per an ad from MOMA that Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is 100 years old now. Odd – we forget just how old ‘modern’ is now. Still the painting still challenges viewers – on the left you see a woman looking like an Etruscan statue, two more conventional looking and then one woman done in cubist style and one wearing what looks like an African mask. It’s disturbing and unique and there are many learned commentaries about it – I do like to go look at once a year or so just to see what my reactions to it are now ( an advantage of living in New York.) as opposed to the last time I saw it.

Peace Love Demoiselles

Stupid e-mails and other notes

Okay this is some junk mail I got on my ‘personal’ my space site. And sweet Jesus does this kind of garbage treacle make me angry.

IT'S 7TH GRADE...I stared at the girl next to me...She was my so called "best friend"... I stared at her... Long, silky hair... And I wished she was mine... But she didn't notice me like that... I knew it... After class she walked up to me and asked me for the notes she had missed the day before... And I handed them to her... She said "thanks"... And gave me a kiss on the cheek... I wanted to tell her... I want her to know that I don't want to be "just friends"... I love her but I'm too shy to tell her... And I don't know why...

I’ll tell you why – cause you’re in jr. high school and it’s 7th god damn grade – nobody is “mine’ in 7th grade – I unlike the damn author of this gibberish remember 7th grade – I was god damned 12 years old. So you’re 12-13 years old – puberty is just kicking in, especially for boys, and frankly what you are most worried about is your face looks like a pizza and all you do is hang out (I didn’t but my personal experience is not average – most of my peers hung out)

And let’s just say you managed to what you felt to the young lady – and she reciprocated (personal note – the first girl I ever had a crush on thought I was an idiot, personally I should have taken that as a warning but that’s hindsight for you) what are the damn chances that it would last 6 months never mind until:

IT'S JUNIOR YEAR...My phone rang... On the other end it was her... She was in tears... Mumbling on and on about how her love had broken her heart... She asked me to come over because she didn't want to be alone... So I did... As I sat next to her on the sofa... I stared at her soft eyes... Wishing she was mine... After 2 hours... A Drew Barrymore movie... And 3 bags of chips... She decided to go to sleep... She looked at me.. Said "thanks" and gave me a kiss on the cheek... I wanted to tell her... I want her to know... That I don't want to be "just friends"... I love her but I'm too shy to tell her... And I don't know why...

Because for one thing - is it really the fucking time to put the move on somebody when their heart is broken? Sweet Jesus on a stick what kind of manipulative bastard would take advantage of someone in that vulnerable a position? And okay, it’s junior year – like 11th grade – so this is happening 4 years after the first entry – bunky did you spend the last 4 years mooning? Jesus

And you’ll notice that all this is about this person looks – I don’t have the slightest idea who this person is.

IT'S SENIOR YEAR...The day before prom... She walked to my locker... "My date is sick" she said... He's not going to go... Well... I didn't have a date and in 7th grade... We made a promise that if neither of us had dates... We'd go together just as "best friends"... And so we did...

IT'S PROM NIGHT...After everything was over with... I was standing at her front door step... I stared at her ... She smiled at me... I wanted her to be mine... But she doesn't think of me like that... And I know it... Then she said "I had the best time... Thanks!"... And she gave me a kiss on the cheek... I wanted to tell her... I wanted her to know that I don't want to be "just friends"... I love her but I'm just too shy... And I don't know why...

Man I got nothing here, this is insulting dumbness that overcomes the electromagnetic fields of the electrons and crushes all into a black hole of stupid. Just a few notes: a) she sounds like she’s gotten over the heartbreak of 11th grade and has moved on b) nobody in the world does this shit – a day before the prom like you’re going to find a tux in your size without paying through the nose? And sweet mother what the hell are you doing with your life did you have any plans at all? (Personal note I did not go to my high school prom – and I’ve never regretted that – like ever) and boyo – there was plenty of damn time to make your move when, I hope, you were dancing with the girl – come on that is the stuff of a million clichés there – a slow dance and you suddenly realize (birds violins what have you) that he/she is the one. Unless all you did was some kind of insane chicken Jerry Lewis ‘oh lady oh lady’ dance every time you hit the floor.

IT'S GRADUATION DAY...A day passed... And then a week... And then a month... Before I could blink... It was graduation day... I watched her... Perfect body... Floated like an angel up on stage to get her diploma... I wanted her to be mine... But she doesn't think of me that way... And I know it... Before everyone went home... She came to me in her smock and hat... And cried as I hugged her... Then she lifted her head from my shoulders and said "you're my best friend"... "Thanks!"... And gave me a kiss on the cheek... I wanted to tell her.. I wanted her to know that I wanted to be more than "just friends"... I love her but I'm too shy... And I don't know why...

Because you are a schmuck. A huge one.

IT'S A FEW YEARS LATER...
Now I sit in the pews of the church... A church that she is getting married in now... I watched her say "I do" an drive off to her new life... Married to another man... I wanted her to be mine... But she didn't see me like that... And I knew it... But before she drove away... She came to me and said "You came!... Thanks!"... And she kissed me on the cheek... I wanted to tell her... I wanted her to know that I didn't want to be "just friends"... I love her but I'm just too shy... And I don't know why...

Okay now this clown is just feeling sorry for his pathetic ass – I can only assume this is after college. Which means she has moved on with her life, left teenage years behind and has entered, unlike wuss head here, into fucking adulthood, and in getting married is committing to build a life with someone else (another adult). Which also implies, per convention, that she loves the guy she’s marrying. Now I’ve always understood part of loving someone as wanting what is best for them and wanting them to be happy – this shithead is so wrapped up in his own feelings that he can’t even join the reception line to wish her well, doesn’t bother to answer the invitation to the wedding (and come one she had to have invited him, how else did he know about it) and just shows up and expects her – on her damn wedding day to make a big fuss? Shit he’s lucky she was so gracious as to do and say what she said.

Again because you are self pitying schmuck.

YEARS PASSED...I looked down at the coffin of a girl who used to be my "best friend"... At the service they read a diary entry she had wrote in her high school years... This is what it said... "I stare at him... Wishing he was mine... But he doesn't notice me like that... And I know it... I wanted to tell him... I wanted him to know... That I don't want to be "just friends"... I love him but I'm just too shy... And I don't know why... I wish he would tell me he loved me"... I wish I did too... I thought to myself and I cried...

Okay we don’t know how many years we are talking here – but one thing – I think the proper term here is “woman” not girl - And I’m not sure why they would read that in church but at least she managed to move on and have a fucking life which is more than I can say for the clown looking down and the coffin and feeling sorry for himself again.

Jesus -

REPOST THIS IN THE NEXT 20 MINUTES ANDSOMEONE WILL TELL YOU THEYLOVE YOUAND WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU... FOR GIRLS POST THIS AS "Why cant he tell me!!!"FOR GUYZ POST THIS AS "I WANNA TELL HER SOOO BAD!!"

I’d rather cut my ears off with a dull pair of scissors thank you.


Random Neural Firings

Plan on watching X Files tonight. While I like the show one thing that is amusing a grim way is that almost everybody Mulder and Scully come in contact with dies – it’s almost as bad as Krik’s Security details.

“Hello I’m Agent Mulder and this is Special Agent Scully”
“Oh shit I’m dead”
“No we just want to ask you..”
“I’m going to be eating my a mutant slug aren’t I”
“No we just”
“Aliens Aliens are going scoop my brain out and use it to run a machine of theirs”
“No, we just”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” screaming man runs into middle of street and is hit by tractor trailer truck.
“Mulder?”
“Well maybe someone else knows where the hotel is.”

So Dick Cheney visits Iraq and says – over a year after he said the insurgency was in the last throes that it’s now game on – and that it’s going to be a long hard slog. Dick it’s way way too late to deliver the Blood Toil Tears and Sweat speech. Churchill did it the first day he took office. 4 years after promising a short war isn’t going to cut it. It says to people “I was lying before and maybe I’m lying now.”

Aint’ gonna work.

Also a group of GOP congressmen went to see W and tell him that the American people want out of Iraq and that (more importantly) his policies are hurting their chances of holding onto to their phony baloney jobs. Expect W, who was told bluntly that people don’t believe him anymore, to ignore this. After all he’s the decider and he’s not running for re-election next year, and since, as with everything it’s all about W, (even visiting those poor people in Kansas all he talked about were his feelings) he’s not going to change squat. Ever.

Tony Blair is going to step down as PM – while he has come to be known as ‘the poodle’ for his dog like following of W (much to the disgust of the UK) he also bears a load of guilt for Iraq himself. Without Blair who can actually talk in full sentences and make sense about policy, would anyone outside of the GOP worship chorus take W’s bluster about Iraq seriously? Look at what has happened with Iran, the same war drums have been beaten but without Tony’s backing they are falling on deaf ears.

Gonzales is now lying to the House today. Jesus what the hell does it take to get these clowns out? A crowbar?

One of my fav Diana Rigg pics.

Peace, love, Crowbars