About those Jams

There was playing last night.  "Rockin' the Free World" can work on a looper but I don't know if I'll do it.  That seems like heresy to me.  There's only one person who ever rocked the free world solo and it's a bit presumptuous to try for the title.

That didn't make a groove happen so I turned off all the distortion and set up a little three chord loop from maj7 to minor to major up a third.  Very simple and at first I thought that's just a lump of nothing.

I started fiddling about and, sure, there's a groove in this ... better yet, there's a melody.  A riff is good to find but a melody is better, maybe.  There are no definitions or generalizations as what says something is a riff or a melody.  For me the latter is longer and has the potential to vary somewhat without being wrecked.  A riff usually needs to stay constant and maybe you move it 1-4-5 to get some twelve-bar.  It's all good ... but it ain't a melody.

Last night this melody was dancing around in there as you can play your lead and one note suggests another.  This is all mathematical, cosmical, and / or psychophenomenological (that one was for the Cadillac Man) and that's all good too ... but it ain't melody.

(Ed:  melody is what that is not?)

That's kind of the case here, Sergeant.

You'll know it when you hear it and I was getting little tears in my eyes as this is why I play.  I want to hear something I never heard before and I want it to sound the way I want it to sound.  When that starts coming, it's like the lover running to you out of the rain.  You found her!  You take damn good care of her as she's cold and wet and it's probably your asshole fault she was out in the rain anyway.

This sounds like it went on longer than it did as I'm guessing 20-25 minutes.  It starts to pay off and some strength comes.  Something kicked my ass real good but that was just a freebie so things settle back to regular level of suckness.  That's ok as that won't stop playing.  I didn't even show you a fraction of the devastation when I couldn't physically do the gig for Zaphod.   I don't want to talk about it now ... I just want to play ... and I fookin' will.

FBI Carnivore Meets CircleJerk

CARNIVORE was an FBI spider that went out through servers, looking up skirts or whatever else those pervs like to do.  I don't know if they still use it as they have so many varieties of this creeping variety.  Who needs a legal court order.  We're the fuckin' FBI.  We don't need court orders.

So it makes me wonder how well would CARNIVORE or any of its spawn would handle CIRCLEJERK.  I want a cartoon like a Robert Downey movie.  (Sorry, Bob.  Your early stuff was great but these cartoons are shit.)

The object in a circle jerk is to teach the FBI about Heisenberg.  A Web site knows when it is being observed and this act of observation should trigger CIRCLEJERK to create dynamic links, thus the act of observation changes that which is being observed.  To make it a circle jerk, the first entity needs to link to entityB which links to entityC ... and so on for as long as it amuses you to create them.  Let the FBI chase them as they will just go in a spiral.  Think DNA only the spiral loops back to the top.  A Möbius strip is another view of it.  Chase it forever and go nowhere.

By now they can probably detect this kind of thing on an individual server but then I think, hmmm, what happens if you use multiple servers and each is triggering the others.  Now you have a circle of circle jerks and they are all inter-related because the links bounce between the servers although each drives a separate circle ... or as many as you like.  It's your dime, fuck with them all you like.

I just discovered I've got over ten credits for free Web sites.  So then I think ... hmm ... I have no particular application for them and will never renew them so let's screw with them.  (It's not legal to sell them.  Won't happen over or under the table.  They'll send the helicopters for that stuff.)

Keep in mind that I have some distinct advantages:  I'm old, sick, and don't give a fuck.  I'm so pitiful they won't arrest me.  They'll just shoot me and leave my dead ass in the street (laughs).

Freedom is not freedom where there is surveillance.  They do that in jails.


There is nothing illegal in what I suggest.  I'm not the one breaking the law.  They are.

Where Else Can You Sell Your Art

Yah, we know it's a sucky world that spends more on blowing stuff up than it does on art but going on about that will just mean you keep starving.  How do you sell your stuff.

The first thing is obvious in promotion.  You've got to let people know about it or how can they buy it.  This subject goes volumes on its own and it's not my purpose just now.

Think how else you can push your stuff.

T-shirts

Think this through.  For a painter, every t-shirt is an advertising so long as you make sure your name is on the shirt in some cool way.

So, CafePress makes it very easy to put your images on t-shirts but they take a big slice in the sale. Selling them yourself really sucks so maybe it's worth it.  Yes, they take a big slice but every shirt is taking your art and your name out somewhere you couldn't take it yourself.  Maybe that slice isn't so big after all.

CafePress is kind of cool as you can put your images on ashtrays, coffee cups, any crazy thing you like and the media quality is quite good, meaning the stuff will last and keep advertising for you.

What I tell you is no secret but only motivated individuals will do something about it.

So You Think You'll Survive a Nuclear War

The first wave of missiles comes from submarines along each of the coasts.  The geniuses in the Pentagon count up the number of Russian submarines, compute the number of missiles that could be launched at one time, and then determine they will build enough anti-missile missiles to shoot down a hundred times more missiles than that.

Even if it worked which it probably wouldn't, the Russian missiles would arm before they launch as the Russian naval commanders know they're dead anyway.  Whether these missiles reach target or they don't, there will be a gigantic radioactive cloud all the way up and down both coasts ... and that's the best outcome.  If any of them reach a target, you will see civilian carnage such as the world has never imagined in its worst nightmare.  These bombs make the one for Hiroshima look like a powder puff.

They go on and on about the missile defense but do you remember them testing.  Ah, good.  Now do you remember it working.  Right.

Tip on that missile defense:  it's a defense against ICBMs (the highest-flying nuclear missiles)
Tip on those submarines:  they do not launch ICBMs (because they're much closer to target there is no need for them to go so high)

They tell you the same missile defense will stop all of them.  Right.  Comforting, isn't it.

Right now the bankers dance with the idea of whether they can get away with it.  Nothing makes bigger bucks for a bank than a war.  The US was golden for decades after WWII.  Back then it wasn't a bad thing as they didn't cause the problem.  This time they did and it was deliberate.  You can see all around the world where America is blowing stuff up and accomplishing absolutely nothing by it ... except keeping an arms industry live.

Now some generals say a limited nuclear war is feasible.  They toy with powers beyond their brutally-limited imagination.

How Can One Be a Radical for Peace

How is this even possible.  It seems to me that radical is anything that would disturb peace as all anyone in the world wants to do anywhere is kick back in his chair, smoke his ganja, and watch sports on television.  This is humankind's destiny and this is what we like to do.  I submit anything that prevents us from doing this is specifically radical, whether it's your wife making the insane demand of taking out the trash during the fourth quarter or it's some government crank telling you to go off to kill someone.  These are all varying degrees of radical.

So where does anyone get off calling me a crackpot.  I don't want to build submarines, aircraft carriers, or any of this looney crap.  It looks cool in war movies but my preference is not to make any more war movies and anything that means there will be more is necessarily radical thinking.

I smoke my ganja while people die in millions from cigarettes and for this I'm radical.  I fail to see that as the only way to get cancer from ganja is to stay so stoned and goofed up that people would start calling you McConnell.   Uhhhhhhhh .... yuuuhhhhhh ...... heelllloooooo therrrrreeeeeee.

I think people should be free and people call me radical for this all the time.  I see the point, naturally, as it's our nature to have numbers, be watched, monitored, and all the things that let the spirit rise and sing like a fucking nightingale, huh.

The photographer takes a picture of a robin on a stack of coal and they all go, ooh ah, what a marvelous contrast.  How do you do it.  Fuck the contrast.  The picture is of an open-pit coal mine.  It's a nightmare.  This makes me radical too.  Of course.

Jews and Arabs have lived together for thousands of years but people tell me it is impossible now.  I don't believe this and, yep, that's too radical again.  Don't send in the United Nations, we want to kill some more people ... and then we'll send in the United Nations.

I'm not just radical, I'm untouchable.  Seriously.  I find it amusing as the GOP regards me as H. vulgaris and I should be in a cage and fed on bananas, assuming I'm fed at all.

So that makes me a dangerous radical if they won't look at it.  The same thing happened with Russia Today and that one has been constant amusement.  I can see how Abby Martin would just scare the living hell out of anyone.

And you say I'm crazy.   Right.  Got that, buddy.

Well, yes.  I am crazy but crazy isn't stupid.

How Do I Escape Facebook with My Art

The first part of solving this problem is never give your art to Facebook as they own everything on their servers.  Is your art somewhere you can touch it, control it, manage it?  If not then why did you put it there.  Never do this.

You can set up your own Web site a variety of ways.  The easiest is to go to various sites that will build one for you using easy-to-follow, sometimes graphic instructions.  There is some strength in this for relatively low-level applications as maybe you want to pump up your kid's Little League team or some such.  The biggest drawback to such sites is that they will load you and your friends down with trackers (i.e. cookies that can be used to discover what you do).

Note:  Facebook loads you with trackers also, at least half a dozen.  They do it because they're moneymakers and many other unscrupulous Web sites do this as well.

Setting up your Web site from scratch has the huge advantage of flexibility and one aspect of that is no cookies go out to anyone unless you send them.  There are legitimate reasons for using cookies in your code, tracking people is not one of them.  You have control of this as you write the code.  It's your site, do whatever you want with it.

The way most people learn programming is to read stuff other people have written and then change it just a little bit to see what happens.  That mechanism has carried me for, oh, a huge part of forty years.  It's a bitch but it works.  Eventually you learn how to program.

So, yes.  The answer is to find a friend to help you build it.  Tell your friend specifically not to try to impress you as eventually you will have to take care of it yourself.  Maybe your friend goes to Vegas, gets drunk and marries a hooker.  Things happen and the person who wrote the code is long gone.

Most of all, think what you want.  Look at Web sites, standalone Web sites and not Mickey Mouse imitations in social networks, and look what they do.  From this think of what you want your own site to do.  All you need is the idea.  There is someone who can make it happen.  Sometimes that costs some jingle and sometimes it doesn't but that's a different problem.

Yes, you are one among billions on the open Internet and there is some comfort in being all warm and chummy with your friends in a social network ... but ... there is no identity in it.  Be somebody, even if it's one in a billion.   Be the one.

For basics, I'm paying $120 US a year for unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage.  The ISP has generally been exceptionally reliable with fast response and excellent availability.  Their current rate for new accounts is $180 US a year for the same thing.  My rate is because I've been with them so long.  I won't name them so it's clear to you I'm not selling anything.

Showing your Art and Why Facebook Won't Work

Before selecting Facebook as a business platform, it's important to understand what people do when they use it and typically they chat, amuse each other, or play mildly-challenging arcade games.  The games mustn't be too difficult as the purpose is to addict before anything else, it's exactly the same mechanism as television.

A second important aspect is accessibility as you want every person on the planet to see your deathless work or hear it or whatever so what best place will serve that.  The first consideration of the motivation of the people in the audience makes you raise an eyebrow at Facebook but the accessibility aspect is the destroyer.

Facebook is a closed system.  In other words, you can put stuff into it but nothing comes back out.  For example, you could load your cool cat video into Facebook and tell your friends.  They can give a link to it so other friends can see it ... but ... they will have to get a Facebook account to do it.  This is the same process spiders use to catch bugs.  Facebook is trying to create the illusion that it is the Internet but it's only a part of it and it's not at all the best one, it's just easy.

Facebook is a censored system.  If you show a nipple, you're going to burn (seriously).  Even Queen Victoria was more hip than this.  You are an artist.  Why would you tolerate this kind of puerile restriction.  Personally, I can't think of a reason.

The World Wide Web is, by definition, an open system.  Restricting yourself in any way goes opposite to its function so you need one excellent reason.  It's all very nice that your friends, homies, posse, or whatever are on Facebook but there's one fundamental problem with marketing to your friends:  if they were going to buy your stuff, they would already have done it.

This is the specific reason I am building Valerie Fraser, Artist in Oil on the open Internet.  An alternative would have been to create an Artist page on Facebook but that would be somewhat lower than useless as who will see it.  Ask yourself this very carefully and as objectively as you possibly can.  Who will see it?  Your friends?  Nice.  Who else?  Anyone?

Would you put your artist's portfolio on Instagram.  Who would see it there but teenagers and pedophiles.  Treat your work with the respect it deserves and it sure as hell deserves better than that.

The above applies to all of the social networks as their specific purpose is to enclose.  The only way you can be sure you do not become enclosed is to stay outside them and thus remain accessible to any of them.  Your objective is to be the type of resource they view from within the social network to go ooh ah.  You've seen how they do.  Be that thing.

The way I see it, you can be a resource or you can be a blob.  Your call.  That to anyone.  It's your move.  Stand up ... but do it outside Facebook where someone can see it!


Update:

Here's a case study.  Every single day people friend me on Google+, I'm up near a couple of thousand of them now.  I'd say at least half of them are fronting some company.  What do I care ... I'm not buying anything.  They waste their time.  Instead of spam email now you get spam friends.  Don't do this.

Chicagosax Brings Coffee, Tea or Blues to Cat's Art MusikCircus

Chicagosax (George Buetow) has been playing blues in Chicago since the last 50's so that makes he and I two of the old goobers of Second Life but there is coolness in this as we survived it and both of us are still playing, albeit with a bit of whingy crap from me about my own circumstance.

He brings his sax ... or his flute ... or his guitar ... or his Hammond B3 and, I believe you get it already ... he plays whatever he likes.  He covers standards as you want he should learn to cover Justin Bieber.  He plays standards because people know them.  What he does with them is the trip.

In a lot of lead work it's all the same.  Trill, trill, trill, move, trill, trill, trill, blah, blah.  Do this in front of a jazz guy and he will laugh silently at you.  Do it in front of a blues guy and he will laugh out loud.  (That's because the blues guy has been shooting down Jack Daniels all night)

Lead guitar is leading the band and it's also playing that splashy lead with all that trill, trill, trill out where the girls can see you.

But that isn't what George does.  (He doesn't have to as the sax guy always gets the girl anyway!)

When George plays a lead line, it's not something he memorized but rather he is taking the steps, each one leading to another but not necessarily leading to the same other as the last time.  This is the jazz in which, to some extent, the music makes itself as you are tuned right to it as you are with the people around you making it.  George will use tracks to back himself but you'll notice he knows everyone in them.  It's not just some guy playing a guitar, George knows him and has played with him.

You can just relax and let George's blues carry you away if you like, he doesn't make an aggressive sound, it's not like that.  You can also come in close and listen to that lead line, go on all the pathways with him and let him surprise you.

At a certain point, you realize that the mind will complete things.  If a word is missing then your mind will put there.  The same thing happens with music and a musician can play to this in creating musical expectations ... and then doing something else, all during the course of a single lead.  I'm not going to go at length on this as you'll need to play for yourself to see what I mean.  I know this much:  George already knows.

This music is why Cat's Art MusikCircus exists and is why I do not try to alter in any small way Cat Boucher's musical design goals.  I could try to teach her this or that but there's something else where I know this much:  Cat already knows too.  Cat is as much of a musician as one can be without actually putting your fingers to the keys.

(Cat will protest that's flattery.  It's not.  Anyone else who plays there can tell you this.  Cat knows music.)


(Ed:  don't tease me with coffee and then fail to deliver it)

Right you are!

There will be "Coffee with Chicago" coming up soon and he will open a mike to talk to people rather than to play.  People will be invited to come to ask questions about Chicago blues.  Think about it as Chicagosax is a walking, talking, and definitely jamming Chicago blues encyclopedia.  This man has opened for the Stones.  Do believe he has some stories.

More coolness comes from this as he suggested last night he would bring some guests to talk also.  It's your guess who he means but the man has been around.  I'd make a point of attending one of his coffee sessions as I've no doubt it would be fascinating, mesmerizing, in fact.

The Wal-Mart Dilemma

The moral mandate is to boycott Wal-Mart and that's probably not so hard if you've got the big bucks but it's difficult if you don't.

BUT

Yevette says this is bullshit.  Saving money at Wal-Mart is, overall, an illusion.  I'm pretty good at playing "The Price is Right" so long as we're guessing the price of food rather than sofas or televisions but she surprised me so both of us will look at this some more.

When it makes no sense that way, I have to turn it the other way around.  What has Wal-Mart got that nowhere else has.  Other than that French bread, I can't think of a thing.

If you want to break Wal-Mart, you can't wait for some I'm-not-gay-no-really militia, space aliens, or Rick Perry's Band of Freeedom-Fighting Rednecks.  It's on you, pal.

The purpose is not to restore neighborhood markets as they were in "Leave it to Beaver" days as this has nothing to do with the past.  What it has to do is with a neighborhood model that works.  The market provides a nucleus for the neighborhood.  There's no big sociology in it.  There's the same principle in the corner bar.  It'll be the same in 2060 as it was in 1960, people want the corner bar as, if they will embarrass themselves, they want to do it with friends.  We need a place where we can meet but just for mingling and letting the neighborhood news flow about, you know ... all the stuff that people do and all the stuff that Wal-Mart can never provide.

There's no way I can know how important this is to you but among poor bums, this is an extremely high priority.  We don't have much power but we do have that one.  If we change our thinking a little bit to go to the Hispanic supermarket not so far from here and maybe get some different stuff, different sizes ... wtf ... adapt.  I have no reason to believe it costs more but even if it does the money goes to real people rather than the Waltons.

Motorcycle Ruffian Story for the Chicken Man

Most of my motorcycle stories end with an ambulance.  This is not one of those stories.

A certain measure of discretion is necessary, you see, as the motorcycle in this story did not belong to me.  In fact, it was a Yamaha FJ1200 that belonged to Lotho and it was unbelievably blazing fast except it wasn't as fast as his FZR1000.  Lotho is an exceptionally dangerous individual!

This ride started out sanely.  I was tooling down the Interstate in the fast lane, pacing the traffic, running maybe seventy mph, giving myself lots of headroom, arm room, leg room, toe room, prevention of being squished room, just riding the vibe and .... dayum .... feeling like my junk has twelve thousand horsepower, mama!  But you stay cool and just dig on that ride, cowboy.

Until you notice some asshole approaching and then tailgating you.

By definition, anyone who tailgates a motorcycle is an asshole.  If anything at all goes wrong, the bike goes down, the rider gets squished, and the asshole in the cage will just bitch about the blood on his paint.  Definite asshole.

I have the room, I know I'm clear, so I light it up a bit and settle in at 130 mph.  I figure, ok, goodbye asshole and I settle back in around 70 mph with the rest of the flow.  Everything is copacetic, yes.

No way.  After a while, the asshole finally catches up and he's climbing my ass again.  OK, now he's not just an asshole but an asshole with an attitude.  It is definitely time to immediately vacate this asshole situation.

I repeat my previous and light it up.  Time to get fast for a while.  Run it up 130 mph and hang with it.  The road is open and the quality is good.  You are now entering the Asshole-Free Zone.

Um, no.

After some while he finally catches up again and this time I'm fed-up.  I slow so he can come alongside while ready to hammer it if he so much as burps.  As he pulls up beside me, I can see him waving his badge at me.  It's an off-duty cop wanting to pull me over and he is one angry son of a bitch!  He's all sputtering like he's shouting at me and he's waving his arm around.  Dude, try Valium or reefer or, here's a wild tip:  some other job.

Of course I did what any citizen would:  I introduced his extreme assholeness to Mister Bird and left the vicinity at a high rate of speed that I'm sure did no end of good for his sex life that evening.


You do know Mister Bird, yes?  If you have driven very far on any American road, you have almost certainly met him too.

Playing Again

Last night was massively-emotional and there's no reason to recount things I already wrote as you can see the track of it in previous articles if you like.

Like Paul Delph, Bob McCabe becomes an inspiration in my life.

There hadn't been any playing at all since things got unusual.  Yesterday I was thinking and thinking about Bob McCabe as he was the first guy I know who was killed in Vietnam.  I kept thinking of all the things he never got, even if they sucked they would have been better than what he did get.  "Rockin' in the Free World" was and is very big in this and I couldn't just listen to it.  If you can't get off your dead ass for yourself, do it for this kid who never even got a damn chance.

Yevette was very cool about it all as I had it extremely loud.  I left it that way as you need to get on top of this.  There is no starting out with ponies.  Ride the stallion or walk away.

I didn't last all that long but even fifteen minutes feels highly excellent.  The fingers ain't dead yet.


Play this song, everybody.  You say it's a Free World?  Well make it one.  Put down the guns.

Start it out in E or F, Neil Young doesn't seem to mind which.  Pick a key and go for it.  And play it very damn loud.  Rock the Free World!

Em - D - C x 4 (intro)
Em - D - C x 8 (vocal)
G - D - C - Em x 4 (chorus)
A x 4

Repeat as many as you like


I don't have much use for covers but this song feels massively good to play.

Why Twitter is Good for Your Web Page / Blog

Twitter is live and your Web page is, well, not.  Typically your Web site will be a static entity, maybe lots of stuff to find and see, all very nice, very nice ... but boring like mowing a golf course.

Presumably you update your Twitter session with your deathless Tweets at least once or day or at least more often than you update your Web site so this is liveness that you can carry over.

This is also a fast way to communicate whatever you like as in information,  links, or so to your audience, clientele, whomever is likely to visit your site.  This gives them additional reasons to return and that's the big deal on the Web.  How do you get them to come back.  So.  Give them a reason.

To integrate this with Facebook, authorize the access on both sides.  Thereafter, anything you Tweet will be propagated to Facebook.  Note that the process in Facebook is slow and is buggy so only a portion of your Tweets will get through if you write a lot of them.  Nevertheless, it will work fairly well if your activity is not so high.

In use, you might go to Twitter to send a message out to your Web audience but you return to Facebook because, I don't know, you like pictures of cats.  This will work just fine as there are no hurt feelings if you drop off conversations in Twitter.


To get the HTML for embedding a Twitter stream in your Web site, click the gear icon on the upper right side of the Twitter window.  From there click Widgets and select the session for which you wish the widget (probably only one).  Set up the widget using Twitter's controls for light / dark, etc and then COPY the HTML it makes.  Paste that into your Web page HTML and, presto, now it knows Twitter.

This has been very useful to me for information that doesn't warrant a new Web page or a blog article.  Some call that microblogging.  I call that a stupid invention of a word.  It's a Tweet and it's short / fast.  Sometimes that's useful.

Phony Service Dog Certification

There are multiple Web sites that provide certification for service dogs (i.e. assistants for those with disabilities) and I saw one site listing the service for only $49 US with no hassles, they say.  (CH6:  Pets Being Passed Off As Service Animals A Growing Problem In Oklahoma)

There will be no links in this article to the sites providing this 'service' but you can find the validation for yourself with a search on 'service animal certification' in Google.

The reason for getting such certification is that it permits one to take a pet anywhere and the store, venue, or whatever cannot refuse you as all certification appears the same and has equivalent legality.

How this can be viewed as anything but stealing from the handicapped is a mystery as any threat to access to anyplace for service dogs is immediately a threat to the handicapped who need it.

Hopefully there will be immediate restriction on where one can obtain such certification such that this important privilege is available only to those who truly need and deserve it.

For Bob McCabe

Maybe some of you knew him. I didn't know him very well but I can tell you he went to Aiken High School in Cincinnati. A lot of people liked him. I can't tell you why this comes to me so much now but I feel his spirit enormously.

I mention his name not because he was my friend - I hardly knew him - but someone should remember and not only his family because we all sent him, we are all responsible.

He was killed by small arms fire not so long after he arrived in-country.

Robert McCabe, USMC, is on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC

Alan Stewart Fraser There was nothing else for it and this didn't stop the waves of emotion coming behind this but I cranked Neil Young "Rockin' the Free World" way up, got the guitar and cranked that way up. ROCK that fuckin' free world and keep rockin' it until this fucking killing stops. I didn't fall over so ok. Now I can kick back to salute a lost Marine. I have tried to do my duty and I am a pussy if I do not continue to try to do it. Rock the Free World because this is exactly what you would want if you could do it yourself. All any soldier wants is to make the killing stop. There are no bad soldiers, there are just many, many bad and greedy leaders.
27 minutes ago · Like · 1

Alan Stewart Fraser GOP says they respect them but it's bullshit because they keep fucking sending them. And they keep ignoring them when they come back. It's a lie. Every fucking word. Every one of them.

26 minutes ago · Like · 1



Alan Stewart Fraser You understand why I smoke ganja yet?  I believe I shall do that now.

25 minutes ago · Like · 1

Alan Stewart Fraser A friend of mine said 'brother' to me earlier and may not know how much that means to me. Very few really get what happened back there. Obviously or it wouldn't keep happening.

23 minutes ago · Like · 1




I see it as my duty to pick the guitar back up as it's important to live every possible moment as every one of them would have been such a treasure to him.  It's my duty to say what I believe he would have said if only he could.  It's my duty to do every damn thing I possibly can to make sure that no-one else gets sent away like he was.

He was just a kid and it's so easy to bullshit kids.

Criticize me as you will ... but don't look for respect while the killing continues.

So You Want the Political Stuff

It's not really clear why you want the political stuff as it's ninety-nine percent bullshit but maybe that's why you come here as I don't give a fuck whether you believe me or you don't.  I don't make any money on it, nobody will give me a shiny new Chevrolet, etc.

People want me to think Ukraine is about something more than just hustling for the gas line into the EU from Russia before the other one goes live.

It isn't but they want me to think that.  Nice job that Biden's kid got a cushy job out of it, huh.  (They made him a high-level suit in the gas company representing EU)

How do you like US foreign policy so far.


I've reviewed multiple times all the dipshit conflicts since WWII that the US said it won but any damn fool can see it lost.  What point.  The only conflict that actually accomplished anything was in Haiti.

But we need to keep Rachel Maddow employed as, cripes, what else would she do.  Atta girl, Rachel, you keep on being controversial or whatever you call it.

Fucking shills bore the hell out of me.

(Ed:  you can't talk bad about her.  She's a lesbian.)

Watch me.

I have no particular campaign on her as she's just one more vacuous TV zomboid with pretend controversies and just enough boob shots to tease the cowboys.

Maybe I need to go to the Daily Star to find which American TV newscasters have had boob jobs.  How's that for some controversy.  I bet it could be amusing as it would be interesting to see your boob job to career success coefficient works out in the news.  It might be worth a few minutes as there are, oh, only a billion or so boob puns in it.

So there is your Pressing Political Pose of the Day:   does a good boob job help your career in being a talking head on the news.

"Fuckin' Shoot Me Then"

You can only kill me once
so shoot or go your way.
That you need a gun
shows you've nothing to say.

Pull the fucking trigger
if you've got the balls you claim
but I don't think you have,
you don't even know your name.

They did nothing about the dealers
but shoot those kids on the tracks.
They're small and they're weak,
and children don't shoot back.

But you put that gun away
and they look back at your gate,
to see a loudmouth fool
who just can't get a date.

"Rockin' in the Free World" (lyrics)

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign
on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

The War of the Naked Old People

There is a force on the Earth that is impossible to resist and cannot possibly be stopped.  The force inspires terror in all who encounter it and their only thoughts are immediately, make it go awayyyyyyyy!

It is the March ... or, at least, the Shuffle of the Naked Old People.

Our wrinkles slide together and this makes a noise somewhat like crickets.  Our parts flop about aimlessly without suspension but we don't care, we are used to it ... because ... we are the Naked Old People.  Sometimes we fall over and writhe around on the ground for a while, something like Mormons under a Full Moon ... but we are used to that too.

We are the perfect instrument of civil disobedience as what would the police do.  What cop would turn a water cannon on your unarmed, defenseless, butt nekkid granny.  Even the NYPD wouldn't do that.

Now imagine a thousand just like her ... marching or shuffling ... onward ... ever onward.

We can stop war ... just by showing up.  We don't care if you kill us as we're half-dead anyway and, think it through, then you would have to carry our naked dead asses away.  Fear us.

Perhaps the cops will try to put us in paddy wagons to take us to the hoosegow to spare the fair citizens any further sight of this hideosity.  Imagine, if you will, hundreds of Naked Old People being booked for being old or naked or something but, at the same time, a number of prostitutes are brought to the station as well.  Consider the conversation.

Don't fuck with us.  We can stop any conversation, stop any fight, stop any war ... just by taking off our shirts.  If you continue your belligerence, the rest goes.  You have been warned.

Your grandparents are very annoyed at your behavior with all this mayhem and killing.  Straighten up ... or face full-frontal grandparental nudity.

Valerie Fraser, Artist in Oil

Valerie Fraser is an emerging artist in oil in the Knoxville, TN, area.  She took her degree at the University of Tennessee and is now expanding her portfolio, some of which can be reviewed on her Web site, Valerie Fraser, Artist in Oil.

Ms Fraser has a strong view of the circumstance of the world and only abstraction has the power to express her feelings of the many things she sees.  Her paintings are often strong and aggressive but with an unusual beauty.

From her site you can review her work and then follow-up with her on Facebook should you wish to make any arrangements.

That One World Order

The One World Order needs a bit of ganja for reflection as all the looneys love OWO.  The Looney Left says the Ripshit Right has one, the Wrongway Republicans say the Loopy Left has one.  But no-one has ever seen a One World Order, it appears to be the Bigfoot of Economics.

But today we will try to find him, Bigfoot.  We know he's out there.  He smells horrible, disgusting, like a teenager who found and used a whole bottle of Hai Karate aftershave.  It's awful.

One big favorite is the Jewish One World Order and it's run by the Rothschilds.  Since most Jewish people don't benefit, if I were a Jewish guy, I'd be asking, "So what kind of One World Order is this.  Am I chopped liver for your One World Order or what?"

Maybe it's the White Power people who think they can make a One World Order but that won't happen as what these low-brainweight morons don't realize is they are crawling amateurs in racism next to Orientals.  And, here's a tip, Grand Wizard, any Oriental on average will test higher on an IQ test than a Caucasian.  So, get your honkey ass back to work:  wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.

My personal favorite for a One World Order is the conspiracy among the ultra-rich to prevent the economy from changing much such that their ivory towers stay pristine and everyone else stays fucked.  That one seems to work quite effectively and you can see this through the installation of puppet conservative governors in multiple countries.  Tony Abbott in Australia is an exceptional example of someone who would not be capable of feeding himself without an attendant so, of course, elect him.  Cameron of England says he does God's work and maybe that has to do with the bedroom tax and the CCTV cameras, we don't know.  Governments crawl with these second-raters.  It won't be quite so good after people start chopping off their heads but, for now, it goes ok.

Well, kids, it looks like we are striking out today in our search for a One World Order but we will keep looking.  We do think if we ever find one that it will be Sheldon Cooper running it.  If that is true then it would probably be a wise idea to expect some changes.

United Nations Now

The United Nations force needs to go into Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, and wherever the hell else this insane shooting is happening.  This needs to happen without any debate from CNN, Fox News, and/or Huckleberry Hound.

Are you going to fuck around with these endless military adventures that don't even work or do you want to solve the problem, save a whole lot of lives, save a shitload of money, and maybe even make the world a halfway decent and safe place to live.

People keep going on about a One World Order as if there is any monkey on the planet with a coherent enough plan to even devise such a thing.  But then you've got to get ultra-creepy with the Star Chamber that runs the world and we are all powerless.  Or maybe it's the Mole People under the ground who control our thoughts.

Could we have just a wee bit of reality.  Empowering the United Nations does nothing more than show a united demand for peace.  The United Nations doesn't own anything, it has no reason to wage a war of its own.

The United Nations forces have not failed in any assignment that has been tasked to them whereas every other military in the world gets into one inane misadventure after the other, none big enough to kick off another global war, just big enough to keep people stupidly pissed-off all the time.

The United Nations doesn't start wars, it stops them.  Why would you settle for anything less.

"Alone Is Not Forever" - Poyzer, Fluff and Farrell (video)

One way to bring you a review of lefty Unplugged's show is to tell you about it.  This is the other way:

Left to right:  Kevin Farrell, Darren Poyzer, Fluff

Don't be thinking these guys are some old rummies who scrabble about for a gig here or there.  They are playing all over the place and having one hell of a fine time.  They're in the Manchester / Liverpool area and I'm sure you already know how much music has originated there already.  Maybe Druids cast a spell as quite a few of them lived around there at one time (until the Romans wasted them).

It was my privilege to hear them play when I went to visit with lefty and there are many more videos on YouTube featuring them but this one is specifically recommended by lefty from his show last night.


Kevin Farrell is lefty Unplugged in his online form but he looks about the same, albeit with a Joe Satriani look in his sunglasses, quite bad-ass.  lefty ain't going out for the fussball team anymore but he has had his days, don't you worry about that.

Tip:  anyone who is bad-ass to race a motorcycle in pink leather ... don't screw with him!

So, kick off the tune and you can wonder for yourself just how pink racing leathers, Pidge the Lonesome, and acoustic music fit together.

To My Family

Well, I always said I'd croak first!  Annette gave a damn scary run at it but I think I've got her on the stretch.  I keep saying she should flash her boobs at the surfers as what good is surviving if you don't get to fuck with people but so far she hasn't gone for it ... as far as I know.  Of course I know she has the same blood and suggesting crazy things to any of us is not typically a good idea.

So that was the chipper intro but it's really not fake.  It may seem excessive to have reefer when there's not enough to eat but I would have put a bullet in my head already otherwise.  It's been hard enough through my life not to do it anyway.  Lots of people don't believe this and that's fine ... I'm still breathing, albeit with some difficulty.

I have not rolled over dead but there's a price to be paid for my abuses.  I don't have to like that but I do have to accept it.  I will not go quietly, I'll go with every fucking knob on ten because I'm damned if I'm croaking out of this joint before I play something that doesn't suck.  You all reach for God in your way and that's how I do it in mine.  It's the only way I know to show respect as I don't care about a God who wants me on my knees.  A scene that will get me every single time is Salieri's soliloquy in "Amadeus" as I know every note of that one.  Salieri was a pussy, tho.  He should have played harder.

I'm probably not croaked immediately but in a way that's a problem as I won't do oxygen tanks.  At that point I'm just meat in a chair and I've spent too much time being meat in a wheelchair already.  That ain't livin'.  I haven't forgotten how Gordon carted me around in the back of a truck because I didn't have anything that worked and he even waited for me at the hospital.  He didn't just dump me there and get on with his busy day.  I don't want to put people through this again and I don't want to go through it again.

Many of you are frosted that I won't go to the state for benefits.  Even with Yevette's help, the runaround in trying to get medical cover with JPS in Fort Worth was ridiculous.  It's not that it needs to be so easy but it should at least be feasible.  Besides, they execute people just down the road from here.  I will have no truck with people who do that.  I have two things left:  my guitar and whatever remains of my principles.  Neither will ever go to the state.

As to seeing anyone, I don't know if I can handle it and I really don't think it will do you any good to see the situation.  I have no animosity toward anyone real (as opposed to politicians, etc) but I fear an emotional blowout that they say is so important on Psychology Today or whatever but I think is probably just an emotional blowout that makes your eyes sting.  You're welcome to come if you like but it's worse than you think.  This is real live in-your-face poverty.  Because of a lot of twisted stuff in my own head I feel like I deserve that and I have a lot of trouble sorting that through.

(Deserving it has nothing to do with Bibi.  She is one walking/stalking Fatal Attraction psychopath.)



P.S.  The recent situation was some other illness.  I thought perhaps it was stress but it wasn't as, please forgive the detail, I've been coughing up some really heavy stuff ... but ... it tapers off now so it was something different from everything else.  I've been very weak so hopefully that means I get some strength back as right now playing is too hard, largely because of the weight of the guitar but there is no other guitar I would ever want to play.  I still don't have an answer for why the blood pressure swings start and I do panic some behind that as you all know right up-front what stroke means.


I've written a lot on this and mostly because I don't want there to be any doubt with anyone that I do not wish to be kept alive if I'm just a lump in a bed somewhere.  What anyone else does is their own business but I don't want that.  In fact, that terrifies me more than dying, much more.

I hope this helps or at least gets things somewhat clear.

Ted Nugent Says Viagra Helps Him Rock Hard

Ted Nugent was canceled for a concert in a casino and that's unfortunate as we haven't heard of him playing anywhere else in quite some time.  The basis for the cancelation was, well, being an asshole.  He's also a certifiable moron to be spouting racist crap before trying to play at a casino owned by native Americans.

The cancelation of the concert has created a substantial cash flow problem and now Fox News has a helpful solution:  Ted Nugent Viagra Infomercials

Nugent has been playing the same guitar lick from "Stranglehold" for the last forty years and he tells you it's the greatest guitar lick there ever was.  From his standpoint that's true as apparently it's the only one he knows.

But Nugent wasn't strangling anything recently, particularly chickens, as he found his rock had turned to schlock.  Everywhere he went people laughed ... but at Fox News they gave him a home.  They gave him love.  They gave him Viagra.

You can tune in to watch the Ted Nugent Viagra Infomercial at 2:00 a.m. EDT US and you can listen in limitless fascination as Ted discusses his penis for sixty full, pulsating, throbbing minutes.

There are big plans for this infomercial as Ted Nugent hopes to invite friends to join him, friends like Wayne Bobbitt, Ted Cruz, and Sarah Palin, all of whom can talk about their penises all night long.

Feel some of Ted's Viagra Love now:

You ran the night that you left me
You put me in my place
I got you in a stranglehold, baby
That night I crushed your face

Ted, oh, Ted.  Do me, Doggy Daddy!

Pope Francis and American Catholicism #RevChuckCurrie

Everybody loves Pope Francis as he seems closer to the walking embodiment of Jesus of any Pope the Vatican ever saw.  So, naturally, American Catholics want a schism.

(Ed: Say what?)

He's a socialist and his teachings conflict with the blind greed of Wall Street.  If there's any question of keeping the money or the church, well, Frankie ... buddy ... you've got to go.

Any questions on the depth of American Catholicism?

There was an article in Time about how Americans love Pope Francis and I'm sure a great many do as, really, how could you not.  He's like the grandfather everyone wishes they had, the benefactor every orphanage has ever dreamed, and a man who can make even the most hardened atheist smile.  Plus he doesn't jerk with children.  The last one who did almost nothing about priests jerking children is now a saint.  American Catholics had no problem with that.

But Pope Francis is a socialist and a threat to the American Way.  Get rid of him.

I'm not going to quote Limbaugh.  You know the filth he spews.  It does no service to anyone to quote it.  Throw him some Oxy and tell him to shut the fuck up.

Something amusing to me was that Reverend Chuck Currie is the one who told me how much American Catholics love Pope Francis.  I've talked to them too, Chuck, and that's not what they said to me.  (The link is to Rev Chuck's Twitter feed.  I don't know if he's a good rev or a bad one but it's only fair to link back to him.)

I've also heard American Catholics say the only way to solve the problem with Muslims is to exterminate them.  (That is verbatim.)

So, Reverend Chuck, I've read the article and I balance that against what I've been told personally by Catholics I know to be deeply-devout.  I don't have enough of a sample size to determine what happens here but perhaps you will agree that something is severely disturbed in their ranks when there is this much disparity.

People have called me a heathen for decades and it amuses me as it's a great vantage point from which to observe.  How religions treat people they don't like tells me a whole lot more than how they treat the ones they do want to keep around.

The Secret Project

The project wouldn't be secret if I told you what it was but what I can tell you is that I wasn't sure if it would fill a need or, if it did, would it be a suitable way to do it.  The prototype has passed both of those tests so you can fairly deduce it's not for me but that's all that needs to be out there for now.

If you also want to deduce the project includes ricin, space aliens, and trained terror llamas, you could do that too.  I doubt you will as I severely hope I don't know any government freakshows.

This won't be a long tease.  I hope to have something to show before the evening is out.

What Do Republicans Build Besides Weapons

The question is reasonable as FDR built lots of stuff so who else did the same.  Typically I get slashed for being a troll but that shows only that people don't know the material.

It's not clear who sponsored the idea for the Texas Super Collider that would have been bigger than the one CERN built but the thinking was taking place during the Reagan administration.  Jim Wright (D) of Texas was a huge supporter but there's no way to know if he did that because it was pork for Texas or he understood the value of the science.

The Texas Super Collider was canceled by Congress in 1993, perhaps you recall all the good things they say Newt Gingrich did.  Clinton made a half-hearted effort to defend the project but it got nowhere and the project was killed after a great deal of construction and the expenditure of over two billion dollars.  That's peanuts next to any military project but Congress wanted to be 'responsible.'

One of the reasons cited as the reason for the cancelation is that 'the United States did not feel the need any longer to establish scientific dominance over Russia.'  Pure science never had such an application since its inception so this kind of thinking was quite novel to behold.  (I have not done any research to determine if that's just hype and there's some real reason.)

The question has been quite simple:  what Presidents have built anything that created some substantive and lasting value for America (e.g. Interstate system).  What thing is there at which Americans can view and say, yep, we got our money's worth on that one.  It's a very short list.  These days they don't even fix the bridges.

Reverend Charles Worley Dreams of Kissing a Man (video)

'Preacher' Charles Worley is another of the Men of the Lord who want to Kill the Queers for Christ.  Obviously that's not funny ... but ... there's a funny part.

Wait for 1:50 when he asks, "Can you imagine kissing a man?"

Watch him get all dreamy as he thinks about it.  Enjoy your li'l whisker fantasy, Chuck.

Going to the Y-M-C-A
I'm going to the Y-M-C-A

"The War of the Rich Man" (poem)

They went to war in tuxedos,
with grenades and silver spoons,
and every day the combat
would take a break at noon.

Servers brought their rations
prepared just so, as they wished.
The fact of global combat
should not compromise their dish.

They'd hurl their vilest insults
and then sit a while to rest.
War is hell for a rich man
it demands his very best.

In time they came to protest,
this war is much too hard.
We've used so many insults
but they never went that far.

We need to find more power,
we need an engine for the win.
They beseeched their loving Lord
and he gave them just one pin.

God said he who is worthy of conquest
can climb through the head of that pin
but all of you are rich men,
and none of you are thin.

They cried, how can we win this battle.
The Lord said, you lost it when you came.
They wept with their piles of money
but their lucre never felt the same.

Reverend Silas T Sasquatch At Your Service

Yes, kids ... I am ordained and have been for at least twenty years.  If I get a license with the city then I can bury people but why the fuck would I want to do that.  There are too many deaders saved up already.  I could also marry them but they'll just get divorced so screw that too.

Here at the Ministry of the Internet and the Orange Chicken Hat, we present reefer as only necessary evidence of the generous heart of the Lord as if that isn't enough to convince you then you're just being way the hell too stiff about it.

Here at the Ministry, we do not fear the Lord.  Why the fuck would you be afraid of someone who gives you reefer.

So ...

Did Man make reefer? Noooooooo

Did space aliens come to Earth make reefer? Noooooooo    (Well, maybe.  We can talk about it.)

Did reefer appear in a blinding flash for no fucking reason whatsoever? Nooooooo

Did reefer evolve from monkeys? Noooooooo

OK, so how did it get there.

Praise be.

Reverend Silas T Sasquatch, saving souls one dollar at a time.

Help Useless Republicans Feel Needed

Republicans aren't completely useless as they can serve some purpose as consultants in a non-veto role in your project team. They are almost useless for designing anything and you can review that in Republican history, they hardly ever build anything. Eisenhower did a good thing with the Interstate but he still stole the idea from Hitler and the Autobahn, it was hardly innovation. Hitler was a vicious genocidal megalomaniac ... but he did have a few good ideas.

However, Republicans can be useful for spotting points of excessive risk. You need a few around to keep things a little bit in check as otherwise liberals will be building dirigibles out of party balloons. If you give Republicans control then the dirigible will never be built. Much better to use them only for consulting and then let the world continue to evolve without them trying to stop it.  Witness the US Congress which has done nothing for almost eight years.

However, never put your final trust in a Republican's risk assessment. They're the same people who used a faulty risk analysis model for estimating the strength of options / derivatives, etc and they knew it was flawed but they used it anyway due to the profits that came from it.  This was based on a Nobel Prize in 1997 for 'a new way to calculate derivatives,' most likely the shadiest aspect of financial corruption.  The risk model was used by analysts around the world and ten years later it all collapsed with vast amounts of money disappearing in ways we will never know.  As you may have noticed, the Republicans didn't lose anything, the rich are even richer than they ever were.

So, keep them away from any control of the money or they will steal it and don't give them a veto of the process or they will stop it.  Given those controls, they can provide value, so long as they aren't rabid Limbaugh listeners but even those can only be used for cleaning bowling alleys, etc.  For the few Republicans who do manifest some social skills and can be employed in your project, chuck them out on a golf course when you don't need them as then no-one has to listen to their speeches.  If any liberal wants to play golf with them, this shows a crooked nature as the only reason for golf is to make insider deals out there.  Send these liberals ... well ... just get rid of them (e.g. Clintons, et al).


(Ed:  Lotho is a highly-creative Republican!)

Yes, he is also highly mixed-up (laughs).  He doesn't want drone bombs any more than I.

Reverend Bert Farias with the Gospel of the Gay Pig Fart Demons

Did you step on a duck is American slang for did you fart

Holy Fire Ministries is real and Bert Farias really is the preacher.  Here's the beauty part:  he thinks demon farts or something make people gay and make pigs commit suicide.  I have not studied the matter sufficiently at present to determine how a pig could commit suicide although I'm sure Reverend Farias has got some extraordinary and scientifically-revolutionary ideas.

I love this guy.  He's an encouragement to the world.  Hey, y'all, don't worry about the nuclear weapons.  There's no-one over here smart enough to figure out how to use them.

This kind of crazy fuck is what makes America interesting.  I'd love to know his theories on other things like how do guys in submarines hold their breaths for so long or what does he think about space aliens.

Art Bell would be all over this guy.  If you don't know who he was then it's a shame as no-one was better at finding looneys.  He even got them visiting him from the Future.  Art Bell was the best.

"The Signal" - Has No Message (movie)

Anything with Laurence Fishburne has got to be cool as he hasn't missed yet.  I hadn't seen a current movie in some while so I figured, ok, let's steal it and see what goes.  (There is a spoiler.  You may want to bail now.)

At first there was lots of hacker stuff and I was about to give up on it.  I don't really need to see endless edits of screens showing IP addresses, obsolete IBM tape drives, or somebody typing.  That didn't last so long as NOMAD started contacting them.  Since they're (cough) hackers, what else should they do.  Despite the pleas of an annoyed girlfriend, the three three of them go off to find NOMAD.

Weird shit ensues.  Lots of it.  Fishburne is leading us so presumably it goes somewhere cool but it's a lot of weird shit.

That would be ok as lots of movies get by on weird shit.  Monty Python made millions on speech impediments.

The end is what thumped it.  Bail now if you don't like spoilers.

When it becomes clear that Fishburne is a machine too you'll be kind of pissed that the whole movie comes down to an obvious punchline.

But then there's more weird shit.

There's some inexplicable multidimensional shift and now there are machine creatures all over the place in some twisted surreal machine world where Fishburne, presumably, is the Machine God.

Fade to black.

Pfft.  That ending was like a soda jerk putting some whipped cream on it as an afterthought.

Review: C - Interesting enough but wouldn't watch it again

Do You Sing With a Band

There was a bit of luck and Yevette and I got to go out for a Kincaid's cheeseburger, the finest cheeseburger anywhere in the world.  This is Cowtown, where else would you go.

A young lady was sweeping around the place and, when she came by where we were sitting, said, "I hope it's a great Saturday for you.  It is Saturday, isn't it??"

I said, "It's a fine Saturday and all the better with you in it."

She smiled and I followed, "There isn't much that's good about being old but being able to say nice things to pretty girls is really good because they know you aren't trying to hit on them."

Big smile.


We finished our sandwiches and the girl kept sweeping but she was singing while she worked.  I couldn't make out the song but she was obviously caught up in the song much more than whatever she was sweeping.

As we walked out I asked her, "Do you sing with a band?"

She just laughed.

I said, "Don't laugh.  Try it.  You may very well surprise yourself."


I have no idea what will come.  If a seed was planted then I did ok.

Paul Ryan, Fratboy

Miami University is the party school up the road from Cincinnati a few miles.  Not surprisingly, Paul Ryan was a Delta Tau fratboy up there as almost all of them are fratboys at Miami.  Some good stuff comes out of Miami in spite of the fraternities but it's been quite a few years and Ryan hasn't changed that.

Let's see if he showed enough respect for the Greek system to learn to how to pronounce the letters correctly.  What's your bet on what he actually learned there.

Based on his performance, I don't see much evidence of anything except two-column accounting.  Not bad for four years, huh.


By the way, Paulie, your double degree doesn't impress me, mine was a triple (Biology, Anthropology, Psychology).  You're still a fookin' amateur.


But I did see one cool thing:  Garrison Keillor is the only one I ever in my life saw using 'transmogrify' in a sentence.  Unlike Ryan, he really did get an education.


If you know what 'transmogrify' means then you will know how it applies to what Paul Ryan is trying to do to America.

One of the Reasons I Absolutely Loathe Paul Ryan

No help will come from the state.  When food comes from eating things with an expiration date of July 2013, it's a safe bet this is not a movie, the cavalry is not coming, there will be no hordes of liberals with flowers in their hair to sing "Aquarius."

The only help one can get is by groveling to family.  I won't see anyone as the first thought in my mind is that the first thought in theirs is that I need money.  It isn't necessarily what anyone thinks but rather what I expect them to think.  Easy peasy:  don't see anyone.  (If you really do think it's easy, try it yourself.)

The only thing left is a small measure of self-respect ... and Ryan wants to destroy it.  And why not, his own didn't mean much to him.

If Ryan drowns in the ocean, I dearly hope I can watch.  That greedy superficial piece of shit probably wouldn't even sink.

Veterans Administration Will Not Prescribe Assisted Suicide Pill

Tell me again about the separation of church and state when it is not possible to get a legal medication from an organisation legally authorized to dispense it.

Q: Who can give a patient a prescription under the Act?

A: Patients who meet certain criteria can request a prescription for lethal medication from a licensed Oregon physician. The physician must be a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) or Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.) licensed to practice medicine by the Board of Medical Examiners for the State of Oregon. The physician must also be willing to participate in the Act. Physicians are not required to provide prescriptions to patients and participation is voluntary. Additionally, some health care systems (for example, a Catholic hospital or the Veterans Administration) have prohibitions against practicing the Act that physicians must abide by as terms of their employment.

Obviously Catholics won't support it as no-one gets off on agony like they do unless it's the freakshows in Iran who hit themselves with chains.  That the VA doesn't support it is nothing less than a cowardly disgrace.  They deny the practice of medicine to the troops for fear of backlash from the church.

Oregon Death with Dignity Act

Death with Dignity is the idea of a doctor easing a transition through a time that has no good outcome.  It's fundamental to the Hippocratic Oath that a doctor will 'do no harm' and yet they do immense harm in going to extreme measures to keep people alive even when they will obviously die anyway.  The doctors are forced into this situation as they will be prosecuted for malpractice or murder if they don't.  The Death with Dignity Act is a legal measure in Oregon to get the church out of it and permit doctors to practice medicine as they normally would.

I know with absolutely no question the most important thing to my ol' Mother was her dignity just as it probably is with you.

Q: Who can participate in the Act?

A: The law states that, in order to participate, a patient must be: 1) 18 years of age or older, 2) a resident of Oregon, 3) capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him/herself, and 4) diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six (6) months. It is up to the attending physician to determine whether these criteria have been met.


Q: Can someone who doesn't live in Oregon participate in the Act?

A: No. Only patients who establish that they are residents of Oregon can participate if they meet certain criteria.


Q: How does a patient demonstrate residency?

A: A patient must provide adequate documentation to the attending physician to verify that s/he is a current resident of Oregon. Factors demonstrating residency include, but are not limited to: an Oregon Driver License, a lease agreement or property ownership document showing that the patient rents or owns property in Oregon, an Oregon voter registration, a recent Oregon tax return, etc. It is up to the attending physician to determine whether or not the patient has adequately established residency.

"Freakshow" - Silas (video)

"Freakshow" got me into trouble with more people than anything else I ever did so it's a personal favorite.  It's strongly antiwar and it was so soon after the Iraq fiasco started that I was getting death threats over it.  Oh, I guess you supported 9/11 did you.  Kee-rist.  These people don't have enough brain to run an ant farm.

The reason this comes back to my thinking is that I hear every so often of Neil Young's antiwar song list as this song was listed on it fairly early or at least when I heard of it ... but ... I didn't see it on there when someone else mentioned other things on it.  I lost interest in it as there were thousands of Johnny Come Lately antiwar songs but they aren't so much without death threats so I got bored with them.

There's a special mention on this one as this was Annalia's first and last recording.  Listen closely for her as her bit goes by quickly.  Fame is fleeting ... but not forgotten!

People Keep Telling You They Are the Real Americans

Meet Woody Guthrie

And here's more:

If the rich are such patriots, let them show it.  Give them the guns this time.

I'm Not Overlooking Guitar Depression Twisting Things

After taking some solid shots at getting going with the guitar this last week or so and failing at things I know I can do, this is some disheartening stuff.

It has to be absolutely clear that I can't do it and depression must not be permitted to cloud that view.

Right now it's too damn heavy and it wears me out quickly.  I'm going after the hardest, most hammering tune I've got as I figure what difference does it make if I play "Greensleeves" or some such (an electric version might almost be cool ... another time).

If you're thinking I am just setting myself up for a fall by doing the hardest thing possible then we are in sync as maybe that is what happens and I really do have to back off for a while.

I can't play sitting down, I never could.  Nothing balances right, nothing's where it's supposed to be, etc, etc.  It's unnatural, I tell you.

It may seem strange but I'm not suicidal.  My preference would be to skip all of this crap.  However, it lands on us and so it goes.

"Going to Die in Oregon" (story)

Hiram Jackspur heard about the legalization of assisted suicide in Oregon and decided that was the best way to deal with his terminal medical problem.  He was tired of hearing people saying everything would be alright and he was ok with his decision, he just didn't know a good way to do it. After he heard about Oregon, he decided this would be the best way.

Hiram had very little money but it didn't matter as he had very few things to carry.  He didn't think he would need them as, what the hell, he wasn't coming back.

It didn't go as well as he anticipated as he went to see Stella Hugeboobs at a doctor's office and told her of his needs but she said the doctor could not assist unless he had been a resident of Oregon for a year.  Hiram told her that the disease would kill him in a year but she said she was sorry, the law is the law.

And Mercy is expendable.

Hiram didn't abandon the effort as he thought maybe he could get some phony ID to show he was a resident and then maybe he could get some help.  He was already quite weak from his illness so this was going slowly but he did run into one guy on a street corner who seemed like he might be able to get him some papers.

The guy told Hiram to come with him as he thought they could make a deal.  Hiram moved too quickly as he stepped off the sidewalk and tripped, falling in front of a car.

So Hiram got his assisted suicide in Oregon.

I Want Off

When a city is in-flight, it was only necessary to say to John Amalfi, "I want off."

You would be set free on the next port of call for the city.

I don't care if you don't know what I mean.  One of the reasons I want off is no-one reads and the vast majority of people online are as boring as zoo animals.  If they were stupid then we could probably get along but instead they're deliberately ignorant.  Much of the stuff I read wasn't even that esoteric.

The guitar playing is not coming back.  There isn't enough stuff in me to give her what she needs and she deserves the best I have.

Existence is nothing without music.

A long boring slide is one hell of a bad way to end this.


For anyone seeking information on keeping busybodies out of your life so you can manage your own, see The Hemlock Society.  Expect open war from religious groups.  Perhaps you'll recall how they treated Doctor Kavorkian.  As always, they didn't like what he said so they destroyed him.  It is specifically because of the way people treated him that I know to stay as far away from those self-serving savages as possible.

There is no immediate move.  I'm researching what needs to be done.  I'd do anything to talk to Doctor Kavorkian just now but, of course, they killed him.

What Does This Have to Do with Music

In fact it has everything as we find overwhelming belief that war and killing are the nature of mankind.  In this context, music is only an amusing aside to the savagery.  If music is, as I believe, a guide to what mankind can truly be then it has a reason and musicians have purpose beyond that of geeks to bite off the head of a chicken.  If that is not true then it would be just as valid to set up a stand for the crowd to guess the weight of the fat lady at a circus.

The problem here is I'm not getting stoned enough.

Yep, that's yer problem.  I'm taking everything so fucking seriously and some stuff needs that but nowhere near as much as people usually think.  I do think the opening paragraph is interesting, I even think it's important ... but it would still be as exciting to read as early Russian history.

The only thing that matters is what happens when I play.  I know I pushed it too hard so what happens if I don't connect to anywhere and just go with it for a bit.

In fact, no-one is asleep now so that must mean crank it.

I have notified Yevette.  She is go for raucous.  (I've been like this all my life.  I don't care what time I play!)


Update:

That didn't work out.  I did get going at first and thought, hmm, record and show 'em you did something.  There wasn't enough juice to do it.  This isn't a dark depression as I remember not so long ago when there were times playing that I was holding nothing on the guitar but the twang bar and this gives me some amusement.  (It's insane what happens when you do that but it is controllable ... sort of.)

If I give up then I never play again so I will push and I'll keep doing it.  You only think it's hard when you're a kid (laughs).  If it ain't rock hard then what the hell do you expect her to do with it.  "Mayhem" is definitely that and even has one of my better synth lead lines in it.

What Other Weapon Does a Citizen Have

Maybe I should get guns
and go shooting people.
But who would I ever want to shoot.

Maybe I should make bombs
and blow bridges into little pieces.
And so what.

Make a hole in a pipeline
and let it leak all over the land
to the show the poisons of drilling.

or just break things
break anything
fuck things up.

We don't even know what we want to fuck up.
We just know it's fucked up
and
we
don't
know
who
did
it

We have a pretty good idea
as they give speeches
all the time they give speeches
talking and talking about nothing
I have proof of the proven proof
you see
it's clear.
Proof.

And the little babies don't even
say they're hungry anymore
it doesn't make any difference.

How the Republicans Caused World War II

Warren Harding is the President who collapsed the tax rate on the highest earners in about 1920.  That took the course we've seen it always does and the stock market collapsed into the Great Depression.  This took down economies around the world such that there was not much hope of employment anywhere.  Right-wing dictatorships sprang up all over and twenty-nine were created between 1929 and 1939.

Roosevelt restored the tax rate when he took office in the early 30's and he began spending Federal dollars on the public works programs but it wasn't enough to get the American economy really running again.  It was World War II that caused that level of spending, as it did around the world, and you can trace it all back to Warren Harding's flagrant and sophomoric abuse of the tax tables.

In the post-Depression environment, countries were trying to recover but not doing such a job of it.  This is when the United States called in its German loans.  German industry collapsed and the stage was set for Hitler with massive numbers of disgruntled employees, always the finest garden bed for growing a revolution.

In analysis of the Great Depression, the Washingtonians start spouting Keynesian economics and all manner of incredibly sophisticated things ... but they never say much about the contribution of malfeasance.  In any case, none of that blather was enough to stop it from happening again so it seems patently obvious they had no idea and the words were nothing more than a smokescreen.  Refer back to the aspect of malfeasance.

What really changed the market was IBM.  Stock market transaction processing speed went to outer space and there's no way you can play unless you own a machine.   Fortunately, conservatives and their banks own lots of them.

I Won't Kill Paul Ryan - You Can Watch As He Kills Me

Some of you have offered to help and I dearly appreciate it but I have refused each time.  There is hardly ever that much to eat here and the only one who can do much to help can't get much of a job to  do it.  Food is a huge part of the problem but there's nothing much anyone can do about it.  There is no chance Yevette or I can work.  Zero.

None of us ask for food stamps and now Paul Ryan even wants to make people beg for those.  There are no possible words to contain the arrogance of someone who would spend over a trillion dollars on an F-35 fighter project and then have the unmitigated gall to turn around to ask you how much you last spent on a sandwich.

Paul Ryan isn't just an enemy of America, he's an enemy of anyone on the planet with a conscience or a soul.  He would cut off food to the weakest and most vulnerable people in the country.

Here's my answer, Paulie.  Fuck yourself.  You sit back and count your bribes from the PACs and I will sit back and count the days until I kick out of this cesspool you have made out of America.  Unlike you with your ham sandwich, if I get one it won't come from a bribe.  You make a show of being honest but any damn fool can see where you get your money (i.e. mostly insurance company PACs).

It is not just better to die than take a hand-out from Paul Ryan, it is MUCH better.  I've worked harder than that arrogant pup could even dream and I will take nothing from him.

But, Paulie, you got twenty-four million in campaign funds.  Um, brother, can you spare a dime?

Good Night, Lieutenant Calley

The US Army always needs a scapegoat and Lieutenant William Calley of My Lai was one of them for Vietnam.

William Calley wasn't competent as an officer, he wasn't competent at much of anything and this was easily shown from his pre-Army records which, presumably, the recruiting officer ignored and which subsequent testing failed to reveal.

Before going out into the field, Calley was given this order (as understood by him):

I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women and children. They were all classified as the same, and that's the classification that we dealt with over there, just as the enemy. I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the order that I was given and I do not feel wrong in doing so.

He has no conception of the wrongness of what he has just said and this is what the US Army did to him.  This is the crime for which the US Army is absolutely unrepentant.


That's what the US Army does to every single person who has the misfortune to endure that horrible presence.  They emerge from the training / indoctrination thinking the above makes sense and they believe it so much that they will put over a hundred civilians in a ditch to murder them.  You've seen this kind of barbarism all the way up to recent times in Abu Ghraib and always the Army has an excuse.  This soldier failed or that one did ... but no, no, it will never happen again.

William Calley never got out of bed during his school days and thought, man, when I grow up I'm going to herd a bunch of innocent people together and I'm going to waste those motherfuckers.  That idea was planted in his head which had a mind too weak to resist it.

This is yet another world view of the Milgram Experiment in which people will be obedient to just about anything but the military is infinitely clever in ensuring the soldiers never have any other basis for comparison to determine if the obedience is warranted.

This doesn't forgive Calley, although Nixon did, as he was weak and he killed a lot of people.  However, for the Army to absolve itself of what it did to him that he could become such a monster is an ongoing disgrace and modern events show it has not been addressed in any way.  If anything, it's worse.

Where's the Funny Stuff

Well, I tell you ... it hasn't been all that funny but it hasn't been a mausoleum either.

When I finally got out to a store, it had been some days and I didn't take a bath first.  There are always cops hanging around in the QuickTrip as those stores dangerous.  Why sometimes someone might drop a soda or something.

The cop sniffed as I walked by and said, "You stink."

I replied, "Yes but you're a cop.  I win."

Naturally, he shot me.


So that's why I'm not writing anything funny ... I ain't funny (laughs).


I was thinking of a scenario featuring the hedgehogs invading from Canada because they want the reefer that's growing in all the pastures in Kentucky, has been for decades.  The DEA created some genetically-modified marijuana-eating rabbits in Tennessee but some escaped and they established a breeding colony in Kentucky thereby creating a clear and present threat to the ongoing success of Kentucky's largest cash crop (tobacco isn't the biggest and hasn't been for years).

What I envision is the Hedgehogs engaging in the GMO Rabbit Wars for Reefer Supremacy in Kentucky.   Naturally, with the DEA behind or at least somewhere around the GMO Rabbits, they have access to all the mutated weapons in Washington and they don't care so much about reefer anymore, they just want to kill hedgehogs.  You know how those little terrorists bastards can be.  First thing with a hedgehog it's being all cute in our palm.  Next thing you know, it steals your reefer and takes it back to its socialist cell in the forest.  There's only one answer for terrorist hedgehogs.  Destroy them.  All of them.  Make sure the hedgehog scourge never rises again.