Off to see Der Volk and other Musings
The Federal Government is making noise about needing identity cards or passports or something to board a plane or even go to into a federal park or Federal Buildings – it has something to do with the Patriot act or the something called the real identity act or some states have balked at requiring everybody to carry some kind of official ID. So if you’re from those states you’ll need a pass port to get into Yosemite I guess.
Land of the free and home of the brave yeah right.
For some reason I have flashed on something I read about 100 years ago in the National Lampoon Magazine – they used to have fake letters to the editor and one was from Bulgaria complaining that their secret police were spying on people in their country. The letter insisted that they did not have a secret police, what they had as a secret fire department which would break into your house and hose you down if you were under suspicion. It was stupid and funny at the same time, a trade mark of the Lampoon in those days.
We can’t be that far from a secret fire department ourselves.
News has come in that three mine workers have been killed and six injured trying to get to the six miners trapped back on August 6th. This probably means the end of rescue efforts there.
We’ve had a series of mine disasters over the last few years brought on by yes – you guessed it, lax enforcement of mine safety laws. Coal mining is dangerous enough but you start gutting the enforcement of safety violations by Mines you are asking for kind of thing. And the appointee to head the Federal Mine and safety board was so horrible that not even the GOP controlled Senate would sign off on his nomination (W made a recess appointment – he was fond of those whenever he got stymied)
Off to the Philadelphia folk Fest this weekend – just one day for me (it’s a three day festival but well one day is enough – lot of music – not all of it indeed most of it isn’t the kind of folk that makes me want to kill myself – you know the long meandering songs that go on and on and on and on with verses that have little to do with each other or even the point of the song which you don’t get to for 5 minutes anyway – and when you finally do get to the point of the song you start wondering “if the is about his lady friend why all the verses about driving in his car and ordering take out on his cell phone?”
There’s that or the covers of folk songs from a 150 years ago ( I do like this but a little goes a long way) that have everybody dying in a flood, famine and a fire all at the same time sung as slow as you can with someone playing the dulcimer.
What the fest likes to do is feature music out side the mainstream – and that covers a lot of ground these days. And it’s a very mellow crowd – it’s like 3rd generation hippy by now. Which for a New Yorker is a cool get away from the late summer tension vibe that is here I must say.
And they have this thing called funnel cake – it’s some kind of dough (pancake or waffle maybe) that they push out through a funnel (hence the name) into boiling hot cooking oil, then after it’s cooked it’s covered with white confectioners sugar and you eat it. As appalling as it sounds it is actually – when you’re there outdoors – it’s quite good. Better than you’d think for sure.
Trying to line up gigs for the band for the fall – we have one with Otto’s 9/7 then with luck we’ll have one in October at the Luna Lounge then maybe one out on the island. We’re kind of hoping maybe we can get a Philly gig at some point as well – originally when it was just the Enemy Below, Insect Girl and myself we’d figured we crash at my sister’s but well not with the traveling circus we have now. Hell I don’t know if we could all fit in a single van for that matter.
Anyway must dash things to do – probably no hideous bad film until later but with the 1 year of blogging coming up I think it’s time to climb the mountain of utter awfulness that is Manos – the hands of fate.
Peace Love
Land of the free and home of the brave yeah right.
For some reason I have flashed on something I read about 100 years ago in the National Lampoon Magazine – they used to have fake letters to the editor and one was from Bulgaria complaining that their secret police were spying on people in their country. The letter insisted that they did not have a secret police, what they had as a secret fire department which would break into your house and hose you down if you were under suspicion. It was stupid and funny at the same time, a trade mark of the Lampoon in those days.
We can’t be that far from a secret fire department ourselves.
News has come in that three mine workers have been killed and six injured trying to get to the six miners trapped back on August 6th. This probably means the end of rescue efforts there.
We’ve had a series of mine disasters over the last few years brought on by yes – you guessed it, lax enforcement of mine safety laws. Coal mining is dangerous enough but you start gutting the enforcement of safety violations by Mines you are asking for kind of thing. And the appointee to head the Federal Mine and safety board was so horrible that not even the GOP controlled Senate would sign off on his nomination (W made a recess appointment – he was fond of those whenever he got stymied)
Off to the Philadelphia folk Fest this weekend – just one day for me (it’s a three day festival but well one day is enough – lot of music – not all of it indeed most of it isn’t the kind of folk that makes me want to kill myself – you know the long meandering songs that go on and on and on and on with verses that have little to do with each other or even the point of the song which you don’t get to for 5 minutes anyway – and when you finally do get to the point of the song you start wondering “if the is about his lady friend why all the verses about driving in his car and ordering take out on his cell phone?”
There’s that or the covers of folk songs from a 150 years ago ( I do like this but a little goes a long way) that have everybody dying in a flood, famine and a fire all at the same time sung as slow as you can with someone playing the dulcimer.
What the fest likes to do is feature music out side the mainstream – and that covers a lot of ground these days. And it’s a very mellow crowd – it’s like 3rd generation hippy by now. Which for a New Yorker is a cool get away from the late summer tension vibe that is here I must say.
And they have this thing called funnel cake – it’s some kind of dough (pancake or waffle maybe) that they push out through a funnel (hence the name) into boiling hot cooking oil, then after it’s cooked it’s covered with white confectioners sugar and you eat it. As appalling as it sounds it is actually – when you’re there outdoors – it’s quite good. Better than you’d think for sure.
Trying to line up gigs for the band for the fall – we have one with Otto’s 9/7 then with luck we’ll have one in October at the Luna Lounge then maybe one out on the island. We’re kind of hoping maybe we can get a Philly gig at some point as well – originally when it was just the Enemy Below, Insect Girl and myself we’d figured we crash at my sister’s but well not with the traveling circus we have now. Hell I don’t know if we could all fit in a single van for that matter.
Anyway must dash things to do – probably no hideous bad film until later but with the 1 year of blogging coming up I think it’s time to climb the mountain of utter awfulness that is Manos – the hands of fate.
Peace Love
posted by Unknown at 11:29 AM
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