This morning there was a filming notice on the front door of the hotel. One or more helicopters will be flying around and landing nearby today between 2 and 10 p.m. I think it was. A while ago they landed a couple on the roof of the hotel here, first having evacuated us all to a portable building a couple blocks away where they fed us the worst pizza I ever had. There's often filming going on around L.A., and on weekends there are different projects going on all over the place. It was much the same up in San Francisco when I was living up there. I don't stop and look for famous people every time I see a film shoot like some tourist, but I've caught sight of a few familiar faces over the years. When I first got back to L.A. to get legal in 2003, I was staying down by USC for a while. Just up the street and around the corner I'd for the longest time see a major production in progress with like-new 1950s cars and fancy clothes from the times. I had no idea what they were doing in there. Then like way later I saw S. Epatha Merkerson win an Emmy for the role she played in an HBO movie called Lackawanna Blues. When I spotted that DVD at the library I decided to check it out. I recognized the old unpainted house they'd been filming in that I'd passed by so many times. Now I look at the house as a kind of shrine, that movie is so special. (I was by there last week and it's still the same.) (On Adams just west of Hoover.)
This morning while I was having my first cup of coffee and checking my e-mails, a story came on the radio news about all the formerly middle-class folks up in Santa Barbara who, because either they or their landlords were foreclosed upon, are now living in their cars. California law says that nobody can sleep in a vehicle parked on the street, so the city has opened special parking lots to overnight sleeping. Then the commercial comes on with a guy saying he loves his big gas guzzler "dripping with chrome" so much that if it had a bathroom, he'd live in it.
Another story was about a climate report the White House has been refusing to release since it was completed in 2004. A court finally ordered it be made public. Though it paints a bleak future, the corporate folks really running the show are putting as many zeros on their bank balances as they can before the general public takes its collective heads out of the sand and finally admits what's happening and decides to seriously do something about it. Many folks figure it's already too late, but at least the multi-billionaires' kids and grandkids are all gonna fry just like the progeny of us regular folks. But men and women who've felt it necessary to accumulate that much wealth don't think past the next quarter, so there's really no stopping them I'm afraid.
Today I also heard a neat phrase. "Consensual crimes." Where people are doing something they want to, not involving or hurting anyone else, but other folks have decided that this whatever-it-is shouldn't be allowed. The arrogance of making such rules for others should be the crime. "No, I don't want anybody doing THAT! Who do they think they are!" Only vicious, despicable, self-righteous folks think like that if you ask me, but there are hundreds of thousands of their victims in prisons, like it or not. (Don't get me started.)
Wow, talk about kicking the hive . . . now they're going to evict gang members AND THEIR FAMILIES out of their houses and apartments here in Los Angeles. THAT should certainly put an end to the violence, kick some heavily-armed criminal's mother and little sister out of their home. (Where do they FIND these mental giants who come up with these ideas?) I look at the gangs out there now just like the ones back in the 1920s. Imagine the chaos if they'd started putting Al Capone's and Dutch Schlutz's men's families out of their homes in an attempt to get them to stop shooting at each other over the illicit profits from the alcohol prohibition. I predict they're biting off more than they can chew in their quest to get the entire population to live like family hour on TV. The only thing that stopped the shooting in the '20s was legalizing beer again. They know that. (Remember the words of Brigham Young I recently quoted? Without his constant watch, his people started PLAYING CHECKERS! and PLAYING CARDS! Ol' Jehovah musta been shittin' his drawers when He saw that! People actually enjoying themselves! Sinners all. No wonder they lock people up for oral sex and making hash brownies!) (Or I guess the other way around.)
Teach people how to relax and enjoy, smoke a little weed and make love, go swimming, everybody work three days a week and share vehicles and appliances. We might stand a chance if nobody now running gets to be President and "gets the economy rolling again", which will only fry us all that much faster. Jeesh.
Well, it's now Saturday morning--where does the time go? I'm almost afraid to turn on the radio again.
Good luck to us all.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Nostalgia Isn't What It Used To Be
This young guy was telling us a story as we kicked back by the river. One time he'd been hitchhiking in Santa Barbara before the freeway passed through town, back when 101 hit the city streets for about ten blocks or so, traffic lights and all. He, a couple heading up to San Luis Obispo, an old hitchhiker, and a Navy guy going back to San Francisco, all got picked up in a big American car by a guy in his forties. Soon as he had the car full and they were on their way north, the driver asked for gas money. Up the road a ways when they were away from civilization, the guy pulled a pistol from under the seat and started waving it around, not pointing it at anybody and making no threats, but it freaked everybody out. I asked what the old road dog did then, and the storyteller said that oh, he'd asked to get out right when the guy asked for gas money. In my over twenty years on the road, whenever anybody asked for money for gas, if I had any cash I'd give it to them, but then I'd get out of the car. Or if I couldn't spare any cash, I'd still get out. I had lots of jobs on the road, but paying for the gas wasn't one of them. Drivers didn't get gas money AND my company. They hadn't stopped for me because they wanted to be alone. I've several times had drivers tell me of times they had to sit by an on-ramp until a hitchhiker with money for gas showed up because they were out and broke. That I can understand, I know it takes a lot of money to drag a car around with you every place you go. But unless it's prearranged that a passenger share the expenses--which I have done a time or two, and I'm sure there's a lot of that going on these days especially--the idea is the drivers were going where they're going anyway, and they have their own reasons for stopping for somebody standing along the way. And right now I'm thinking the higher gas prices go, the better. It'll mean less exhaust being released into the air, and the sooner alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel will be found. Necessity is the mother(s) of invention. (Who said that? Somebody said that, right?)
It's not easy being a rebel anymore when grandmothers sport tattoos and ten-year-old boys have long hair and a pierced ear or two. And really, there's not much new to do to test yourself. I heard on the radio yesterday that there were 75 people on the top of Mount Everest at that time; might as well be at Wally World. You can hack your way up the Amazon for a week, then get a cell phone call from your mother or a helicopter can drop in with pizza and beer. But they did just land on Mars, now THAT's something nobody's gonna do again anytime soon. (I remember seeing President Nixon talking on the phone to the first men on the moon--Imagine, on the MOON!--and there he was reading a prepared statement to them. How pathetic was that?) For laughs, there's still the presidential campaign. Multi-millionaires running around acting like they're one of us is amusing enough--just folks--but now their preachers are talking in public. How embarrassing for the candidates. It's a fine line to walk: "My preacher makes his living representing invisible people in the sky, but I always thought he was totally sane. Honest. I don't know how I could have been fooled all these years. Honest. And yes, I myself talk to invisible people in the sky every night, but only in the most rational and sensible way, not all crazy like him. Nothing for you to be concerned about when you go to vote. We all do it." (Hey, I could be a preacher. "All the tornadoes and the high gas prices are because God is punishing this country for its war on drugs. Repent!") (Eat your heart out, Jerry.)
I really like those new TV commercials that have strong, confident women walking along talking following a moving camera. Good stuff. The phone one is the hottest. Then the one telling us how her oil company is the solution to global warming. And I do like the car one, too, but we only get a couple flashes of her. I sure hope they do more.
Talking about the war on drugs, have you been hearing about all the shooting going on--yeah, right here in L.A., too--but down on the Mexican border? Just like the Twenties with beer and whiskey! Hot times. Innocent folks get blown away in the crossfire, just like then, and the heavily-armed gangs, and all the justifiable reasons for the police to go around kicking in doors. It's great. And people die from bad drugs, just like they did from bathtub gin and abortions when they were illegal. And just like there's less opposition having a war without the draft, not near as many people squawk about drugs as they did alcohol, so it's way better. Cigarettes would have been great to outlaw if the drugs slowed down, but folks are just stopping that with public opinion so they're out now as a potential controlled product, but hey, how about coffee--no, too much like alcohol, everybody does it--but how about . . . skateboards!! By golly, talk about job security for the criminal justice system! And nobody likes them punks anyway, and they'll keep it up no matter what the penalty is. I'm a genius.
Today as I type is Memorial Day. Many have died to keep us free to openly write blogs like this, and I don't take that lightly; I hear about all the places in the world where it's not allowed. We're free to move and travel and read and pretty much say what we want. But we're not so free if you like to smoke a little weed, or are gay and want a legal relationship, or would rather simply pay for sex than get married, or want a President who doesn't answer to invisible people in the sky.
It's not easy being a rebel anymore when grandmothers sport tattoos and ten-year-old boys have long hair and a pierced ear or two. And really, there's not much new to do to test yourself. I heard on the radio yesterday that there were 75 people on the top of Mount Everest at that time; might as well be at Wally World. You can hack your way up the Amazon for a week, then get a cell phone call from your mother or a helicopter can drop in with pizza and beer. But they did just land on Mars, now THAT's something nobody's gonna do again anytime soon. (I remember seeing President Nixon talking on the phone to the first men on the moon--Imagine, on the MOON!--and there he was reading a prepared statement to them. How pathetic was that?) For laughs, there's still the presidential campaign. Multi-millionaires running around acting like they're one of us is amusing enough--just folks--but now their preachers are talking in public. How embarrassing for the candidates. It's a fine line to walk: "My preacher makes his living representing invisible people in the sky, but I always thought he was totally sane. Honest. I don't know how I could have been fooled all these years. Honest. And yes, I myself talk to invisible people in the sky every night, but only in the most rational and sensible way, not all crazy like him. Nothing for you to be concerned about when you go to vote. We all do it." (Hey, I could be a preacher. "All the tornadoes and the high gas prices are because God is punishing this country for its war on drugs. Repent!") (Eat your heart out, Jerry.)
I really like those new TV commercials that have strong, confident women walking along talking following a moving camera. Good stuff. The phone one is the hottest. Then the one telling us how her oil company is the solution to global warming. And I do like the car one, too, but we only get a couple flashes of her. I sure hope they do more.
Talking about the war on drugs, have you been hearing about all the shooting going on--yeah, right here in L.A., too--but down on the Mexican border? Just like the Twenties with beer and whiskey! Hot times. Innocent folks get blown away in the crossfire, just like then, and the heavily-armed gangs, and all the justifiable reasons for the police to go around kicking in doors. It's great. And people die from bad drugs, just like they did from bathtub gin and abortions when they were illegal. And just like there's less opposition having a war without the draft, not near as many people squawk about drugs as they did alcohol, so it's way better. Cigarettes would have been great to outlaw if the drugs slowed down, but folks are just stopping that with public opinion so they're out now as a potential controlled product, but hey, how about coffee--no, too much like alcohol, everybody does it--but how about . . . skateboards!! By golly, talk about job security for the criminal justice system! And nobody likes them punks anyway, and they'll keep it up no matter what the penalty is. I'm a genius.
Today as I type is Memorial Day. Many have died to keep us free to openly write blogs like this, and I don't take that lightly; I hear about all the places in the world where it's not allowed. We're free to move and travel and read and pretty much say what we want. But we're not so free if you like to smoke a little weed, or are gay and want a legal relationship, or would rather simply pay for sex than get married, or want a President who doesn't answer to invisible people in the sky.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
If You Get Stung By A Bee, You Don't Go Kick The Hive
Well, he did it again today. The oldest judge on TV has a big problem with people of different ages being friends. Especially women with a guy a couple years younger. "Robbing the cradle" he always accuses, sex involved or not. Today she was 33 and the guy 29, only neighbors and friends, yet he went on and on about them hanging out. One time I remember the woman was really irate, saying how she's only three years older than her boyfriend, but his honor just ignored her, giving a sermon against their relationship right over her incredulous reactions to his tirade. This from an old man who every day has his court packed with young could-be Victoria's Secret models. I've never seen a woman in his court even close to half his age. I think it's maybe like those politicians and preachers who lead campaigns against homosexuals, then get caught themselves having sex with other men. Why else would it be such a big deal to him? I sure don't give a darn how old two other people together are; it's their business. People used to freak about couples from different races, different religions, different countries, even different heights. Yet you still hear, "Wow, he's old enough to be her father!" and, "Look, she's got a boy toy." (I even saw it happen with two women once at a resort. Showing up at the dining area, one of the staff asked, "Oh, is this your daughter?" One look at their reactions and it was obvious that wasn't the case.) Hmmm . . . which would be easier, get everybody in the world to think totally alike about what's a proper couple, or encourage folks to cut each other some slack?
Last night Leno said that Prince Charles gives us Earthlings eighteen months to change our ways if we're going to stop global warming in time to save life on the planet. Of course The Powers That Be would totally agree, if darn it, it wouldn't be so bad for the economy. Death before lower profits. Our "Last Day Of Life On The Planet" Sale. Doors open at 7. Ya gotta love it. (Unless, of course, you have your whole life ahead of you. Then it might be a bit of a drag.)
I don't know how it is everywhere else, but here in California, there's "registered sex offenders" hysteria. Every newscast has a story or two, often followed by reports of some prostitution sting. We could use the same brilliant logic for teenage drivers. Let's make driving lessons illegal for anybody too young to drive. Anybody under the driving age can't even legally watch somebody else drive a car or truck, not even a video or pictures of somebody driving. There's a driver in a movie, it gets an "R" rating. Anybody caught showing minors how to drive would be subject to arrest for contributing. Then when each young person turns fourteen, they're automatically given a drivers license and a car. Any one of them that has an accident or hits something will be ruled totally at fault and be labeled a "registered driving offender" forced to wear an ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives, and they can never again live within a thousand yards of a freeway on-ramp or four-way stop. Yeah, that makes about as much sense. Pity the poor women and children who have to pay the price for the religious lobby and their propaganda that prevents any and all sex education, and sex itself for anyone of any age not meeting their personal requirements. (A license, just like for driving.) God's will, they say. Jeesh, I say. (Sex education and prostitution should be legalized until God Himself says "no" to it OUT LOUD, not just inside some zealot's head.) Meanwhile, women get raped and kids get molested by guys who'd been forbidden any training or understanding about the powerful natural feelings that they experienced at a young age but were taught to feel only guilt and shame about. THAT's what's sick.
If I had my druthers, I'd rather be writing about livelier things, like the joys of skinny-dipping and the health benefits of chocolate chip cookies and beer. But forgive me, with the end of all life on Earth looming, and all we hear from the presidential candidates, congress, and on "the news" is about lowering gas prices and getting the economy going--the very causes of our peril--I'm kinda terrified. Silly me. People working to get along better, wind and solar energy, electric cars, stopping the clear-cutting of forests, having more fun while using less, was all a big thrust of the continually-discredited hippie movement. The planet was doing okay for millions of years, until the industrial revolution. Forty years wasted in reversing the damage could have done the trick. Now, well, I'm afraid we'll just have to see. But I'm sure glad I'm old and my body is worn out and I just partied my life away. All those pretty girls and dancing to live music and psychedelic softball and swimming in rivers and one-way travel and drunk volleyball and sleeping outside and shooting pool and concerts big and small and just working jobs I could see the end of, all with no student loans to repay. Shame on me.
But heck, there's lots of other planets . . . we got to THIS one, didn't we?
50% Off everything. Go shop.
Amen.
Last night Leno said that Prince Charles gives us Earthlings eighteen months to change our ways if we're going to stop global warming in time to save life on the planet. Of course The Powers That Be would totally agree, if darn it, it wouldn't be so bad for the economy. Death before lower profits. Our "Last Day Of Life On The Planet" Sale. Doors open at 7. Ya gotta love it. (Unless, of course, you have your whole life ahead of you. Then it might be a bit of a drag.)
I don't know how it is everywhere else, but here in California, there's "registered sex offenders" hysteria. Every newscast has a story or two, often followed by reports of some prostitution sting. We could use the same brilliant logic for teenage drivers. Let's make driving lessons illegal for anybody too young to drive. Anybody under the driving age can't even legally watch somebody else drive a car or truck, not even a video or pictures of somebody driving. There's a driver in a movie, it gets an "R" rating. Anybody caught showing minors how to drive would be subject to arrest for contributing. Then when each young person turns fourteen, they're automatically given a drivers license and a car. Any one of them that has an accident or hits something will be ruled totally at fault and be labeled a "registered driving offender" forced to wear an ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives, and they can never again live within a thousand yards of a freeway on-ramp or four-way stop. Yeah, that makes about as much sense. Pity the poor women and children who have to pay the price for the religious lobby and their propaganda that prevents any and all sex education, and sex itself for anyone of any age not meeting their personal requirements. (A license, just like for driving.) God's will, they say. Jeesh, I say. (Sex education and prostitution should be legalized until God Himself says "no" to it OUT LOUD, not just inside some zealot's head.) Meanwhile, women get raped and kids get molested by guys who'd been forbidden any training or understanding about the powerful natural feelings that they experienced at a young age but were taught to feel only guilt and shame about. THAT's what's sick.
If I had my druthers, I'd rather be writing about livelier things, like the joys of skinny-dipping and the health benefits of chocolate chip cookies and beer. But forgive me, with the end of all life on Earth looming, and all we hear from the presidential candidates, congress, and on "the news" is about lowering gas prices and getting the economy going--the very causes of our peril--I'm kinda terrified. Silly me. People working to get along better, wind and solar energy, electric cars, stopping the clear-cutting of forests, having more fun while using less, was all a big thrust of the continually-discredited hippie movement. The planet was doing okay for millions of years, until the industrial revolution. Forty years wasted in reversing the damage could have done the trick. Now, well, I'm afraid we'll just have to see. But I'm sure glad I'm old and my body is worn out and I just partied my life away. All those pretty girls and dancing to live music and psychedelic softball and swimming in rivers and one-way travel and drunk volleyball and sleeping outside and shooting pool and concerts big and small and just working jobs I could see the end of, all with no student loans to repay. Shame on me.
But heck, there's lots of other planets . . . we got to THIS one, didn't we?
50% Off everything. Go shop.
Amen.
Monday, May 19, 2008
"When Ya Ain't Got Nothin', Ya Got Nothin' To Lose"
The Academy of Country Music Awards were on CBS last night from Las Vegas. I like awards shows, showcasing folks who ignored all that good advice from well-meaning family and friends back home and just went for it anyway. Besides 18-year-old Taylor Swift's breathtaking wet and wild number, after which, when they cut to Brooks and Dunn to go on with the show, poor Ronnie Dunn was so dazed that he looked like he probably couldn't recall his own name there for a bit, fourth-time Entertainer of the Year winner Kenny Chesney immediately criticized the new system of Internet voting for his award, saying it devalues the prize and was like a sweepstakes gimmick. Good for him. I was living in downtown Nashville in the early 1990s during the transition from a real town with character to an extension of Disneyland, a squeaky-clean tourist trap, as I've seen happen to so many other formerly-interesting places. (Big Sur, the Haight Ashbury, downtown Portland, Oregon, Santa Cruz, etc.) (Hollywood it's okay.) Corporate Rule has its price. It's refreshing to see somebody at that big-time of a level speak out against the sanitizing and watered-down bottom-line-above-all-else marketing of our world.
The grasshopper and the ant. (Come winter, they both froze to death.) On top of failed savings institutions, embezzled pension funds, huge credit card debt, a catastrophic disease that wipes out savings, fire or natural disaster, or simply an early death, now prospective retirees are additionally facing a floundering economy (a growth-based economy on a finite planet, who could have foreseen it ever reaching limits?) with energy prices shooting up, diminished investment returns, and sinking real estate values. I'm 62, and if I'd worked my whole life up until now, I'd be pissed. Many of those no-good bums (grasshoppers) may be just as broke and unprepared for retirement and living on the same over-exploited planet as the good folks who worked for the man their whole lives, but they've got no debts, and have traveled and partied and had lots of great guilt-free sex. (Undercover hippies. They managed to quietly stay out of debt and have a great time on way less income without incurring the punishing wrath of Corporate America like happened when people tried to share the secret with the world back in the Sixties.) And lots of folks did make a satisfactory living by doing things they enjoy, while still managing to keep their time mostly their own. Imagine.
Our only hope is to get in the head space that we're all Earthlings. Period. Everybody. Nothing else matters. We've got a shot at bypassing official channels and getting the word out over the Internet, and what THINKING person could argue with the concept? Of course there'll always be politicians and religious leaders standing in the way of everybody getting along--heck, we wouldn't need THEM anymore--but when folks start looking at our precarious situation and then look at their kids . . . I don't know, anybody got any better ideas?
Illegal immigration. Like so many other issues of the day, I pretty much agree 100%, with both sides. The only real problem I have with illegals is I've wasted a lot of extremely witty remarks on people who don't understand English. I'd like to see folks in poorer countries be helped, but then again, if people come here to pick lettuce and strawberries and not take good-paying jobs away by working for lower wages, why do they wait to get hired outside paint stores? I'd hate to see the U.S. become as prosperous and well run as a third-world country from all the illegals flooding public services, but I sure don't like the idea of building a wall. I was an illegal immigrant in Canada for over three years, so I can't squawk. It's like abortion, gun control, the death penalty, just a lot of angles and points of view to consider. I think there's plenty enough of the basics to go around, if only it was allowed to go around. ("Let them eat cake!")
Hey, what if Mexican, Central American, and even U.S. farmers were allowed to plant fast-growing hemp for fiber for clothing, building materials, paper, and such. We could stop cutting down all the slow-growing trees, help filter the lousy air much faster, and give employment. It's not like our standard of living is sustainable for much longer as it's going anyway, much less being spread to "developing countries", too. Maybe if the Earth was the size of Jupiter, but our little planet is like a small pony carrying a 400-pound man. Either the guy has got to get off RIGHT NOW, or the pony will collapse any minute. We need drastic. And smart. And unbiased. And immediate. Cheaper gas will kill us that much faster. We need some new way to get around. (No driving allowed. Everybody should have to hitchhike.) Don't like it? Then come up with a better idea.
People learning how to have a good time while using less can save us. A strong economy will finish us off. All the presidential candidates seemed hell bent on doing us in, and proud of it. Crazy.
The grasshopper and the ant. (Come winter, they both froze to death.) On top of failed savings institutions, embezzled pension funds, huge credit card debt, a catastrophic disease that wipes out savings, fire or natural disaster, or simply an early death, now prospective retirees are additionally facing a floundering economy (a growth-based economy on a finite planet, who could have foreseen it ever reaching limits?) with energy prices shooting up, diminished investment returns, and sinking real estate values. I'm 62, and if I'd worked my whole life up until now, I'd be pissed. Many of those no-good bums (grasshoppers) may be just as broke and unprepared for retirement and living on the same over-exploited planet as the good folks who worked for the man their whole lives, but they've got no debts, and have traveled and partied and had lots of great guilt-free sex. (Undercover hippies. They managed to quietly stay out of debt and have a great time on way less income without incurring the punishing wrath of Corporate America like happened when people tried to share the secret with the world back in the Sixties.) And lots of folks did make a satisfactory living by doing things they enjoy, while still managing to keep their time mostly their own. Imagine.
Our only hope is to get in the head space that we're all Earthlings. Period. Everybody. Nothing else matters. We've got a shot at bypassing official channels and getting the word out over the Internet, and what THINKING person could argue with the concept? Of course there'll always be politicians and religious leaders standing in the way of everybody getting along--heck, we wouldn't need THEM anymore--but when folks start looking at our precarious situation and then look at their kids . . . I don't know, anybody got any better ideas?
Illegal immigration. Like so many other issues of the day, I pretty much agree 100%, with both sides. The only real problem I have with illegals is I've wasted a lot of extremely witty remarks on people who don't understand English. I'd like to see folks in poorer countries be helped, but then again, if people come here to pick lettuce and strawberries and not take good-paying jobs away by working for lower wages, why do they wait to get hired outside paint stores? I'd hate to see the U.S. become as prosperous and well run as a third-world country from all the illegals flooding public services, but I sure don't like the idea of building a wall. I was an illegal immigrant in Canada for over three years, so I can't squawk. It's like abortion, gun control, the death penalty, just a lot of angles and points of view to consider. I think there's plenty enough of the basics to go around, if only it was allowed to go around. ("Let them eat cake!")
Hey, what if Mexican, Central American, and even U.S. farmers were allowed to plant fast-growing hemp for fiber for clothing, building materials, paper, and such. We could stop cutting down all the slow-growing trees, help filter the lousy air much faster, and give employment. It's not like our standard of living is sustainable for much longer as it's going anyway, much less being spread to "developing countries", too. Maybe if the Earth was the size of Jupiter, but our little planet is like a small pony carrying a 400-pound man. Either the guy has got to get off RIGHT NOW, or the pony will collapse any minute. We need drastic. And smart. And unbiased. And immediate. Cheaper gas will kill us that much faster. We need some new way to get around. (No driving allowed. Everybody should have to hitchhike.) Don't like it? Then come up with a better idea.
People learning how to have a good time while using less can save us. A strong economy will finish us off. All the presidential candidates seemed hell bent on doing us in, and proud of it. Crazy.
Friday, May 16, 2008
"It's Okay, I'm Not Like The Others"
Poor Nick and Phyllis, started a business (a fashion magazine) with partners, Jack and Sharon. The thought makes me shudder. I started a business (indoor archery lanes) when I was nineteen, with two partners, both in their thirties. It was hell being the kid in the deal. The couples' trip is just daytime TV, but it still brings back the horrors of my experiences. For peace of mind, I suggest sink or swim on your own.
Finally, I got my hot little hands on the new Brigitte Bardot 5-movie boxed set. Last night I watched the first one, "Naughty Girl" (1956). It was hokey and low budget, but the big fight scene at the end had me roaring. Can't wait to watch the rest of them. (Back in those dreary days of the 1950s, Ike and Dick and all that dull energy, I fully credit Brigitte Bardot and [the early] Elvis Presley with awakening my young soul. They'd both be pretty tame these days, but it was a whole different world back then, until they started shaking things up.)
Wow, it just came on the news as I type here on May 15th, the California Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. I think the former ban will soon look as silly as not allowing interracial marriages, oral sex being totally illegal, and the entire war on sex that's been raging since the first insecure control freak looked up at the night sky, invented God, and then needed the concept of sin to justify his new career. Some folks are still vowing to fight today's ruling and make everybody live just like them by law, because they know how God wants us all to live. Holy folks love to torture other people to death for doing sex wrong, thereby gaining brownie points with the Lord. "Stone them sinners! Hallelujah!"
There's been a big uproar since yesterday when Mr. President made a statement in Israel about talking to the enemy. I made a comment about it last night on a MySpace bulletin, but it's gotten way bigger today than I thought it would. I wrote a piece on the subject over a year ago called "Ed Deline's Pillow" and posted it on my MySpace blog on February 23, 2007. It's also with my Helium.com articles and essays. Being a marijuana fugitive for over thirty years, I had to learn to settle squabbles and challenges without the law getting called. Violence, win or lose, just wasn't an option. I'd sure like to see some of that philosophy used in international politics instead of the little-kids-in-a-sandbox policies we've had up to now. "It all started when he hit me back."
The less you're happy with, the more fun you have.
Drink. Play. Dance.
Finally, I got my hot little hands on the new Brigitte Bardot 5-movie boxed set. Last night I watched the first one, "Naughty Girl" (1956). It was hokey and low budget, but the big fight scene at the end had me roaring. Can't wait to watch the rest of them. (Back in those dreary days of the 1950s, Ike and Dick and all that dull energy, I fully credit Brigitte Bardot and [the early] Elvis Presley with awakening my young soul. They'd both be pretty tame these days, but it was a whole different world back then, until they started shaking things up.)
Wow, it just came on the news as I type here on May 15th, the California Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. I think the former ban will soon look as silly as not allowing interracial marriages, oral sex being totally illegal, and the entire war on sex that's been raging since the first insecure control freak looked up at the night sky, invented God, and then needed the concept of sin to justify his new career. Some folks are still vowing to fight today's ruling and make everybody live just like them by law, because they know how God wants us all to live. Holy folks love to torture other people to death for doing sex wrong, thereby gaining brownie points with the Lord. "Stone them sinners! Hallelujah!"
There's been a big uproar since yesterday when Mr. President made a statement in Israel about talking to the enemy. I made a comment about it last night on a MySpace bulletin, but it's gotten way bigger today than I thought it would. I wrote a piece on the subject over a year ago called "Ed Deline's Pillow" and posted it on my MySpace blog on February 23, 2007. It's also with my Helium.com articles and essays. Being a marijuana fugitive for over thirty years, I had to learn to settle squabbles and challenges without the law getting called. Violence, win or lose, just wasn't an option. I'd sure like to see some of that philosophy used in international politics instead of the little-kids-in-a-sandbox policies we've had up to now. "It all started when he hit me back."
The less you're happy with, the more fun you have.
Drink. Play. Dance.
Monday, May 12, 2008
"The Truth Isn't Always Kind"
Background checks for ice-cream-truck drivers now. Driving a yellow and white striped ice cream van was the first job I did after I gave up twenty-two years of hitchhiking and bought a one-way bus ticket from San Francisco to Nashville in 1992. Best job I ever had: women and children running at me all day, waving money. You'd think it would drive a body nuts, but I swear, I grew to love that jingle playing out over the speakers all day. I decided if I ever won the lottery, I'd buy an ice cream truck and drive it around summers. I'd also used the van to explore, get to know my new area some, so my route was always totally random. It felt good when I'd turn down a street and see some little kid standing at the curb start bouncing with joy as I came into sight, but knowing I'd just picked the turn at the last second, I wondered what if I'd turned the other way at the intersection. I remember when Fonzi tried doing an ice cream gig supposed to be back in the 1950s on Happy Days. He told how he'd just get the rig rolling good, and then there'd be some kid holding up a lousy dime and he'd have to stop. I remember one house I stopped at four times. Out would come six or eight kids, the oldest one a girl about 11, holding an infant. The next youngest was another girl about 9, also carrying a baby, and then three or four more really little kids with them. The first two times the oldest one took charge and made sure everybody got what they wanted, all top of the line selections, and then, juggling the baby in her arms, she'd count out my money from a wad of bills. I was never sure how I got to that house and a few other spots on my rounds, just suddenly there I'd be again. So after a couple days of missing it, as if by magic I found myself there again, turned down the cul-de-sac and coming back out the kids were there waiting for me on the corner in front of their house like before. Except this time the oldest girl wasn't with the group, and the eight or nine year old was in charge. Also taking care of everybody and herself, she held out a bowl full of quarters, ones and fives. "Is this enough?" I took what I had coming and went on my way, feeling really good about dealing with such confident, polite, happy kids. The next time I was there was on a Saturday and a man came out of the house with them. Barking orders at the kids, watching me like a hawk, double-checking the money the girl gave me and the change I gave her back. What a different experience. (A guy like that would never in a million years pull over to give me a ride hitchhiking, so by being out there on the road the previous decades, my life had been spared having to deal with clowns like him.) Another time I was out in the country exploring, didn't have the music playing, there were no houses around. I was driving up a dirt road when I came to an abrupt dead end. Half-way through a back and forth 18-point turn to get back around, being like the top of a T in the middle of the narrow road, I looked up just as a scruffy guy in his thirties with a full beard stepped out of the trees carrying a shotgun. I'm thinking, "Tennessee". I can't go front or back more than a couple inches at that point, when he comes up and asks for an ice cream. As I'm counting out his change, he says, "Looks like somebody needs a drink this morning." I looked down. My hands were shaking like crazy. I grinned like that was it. Another time I was pulled over by three police cars for being by the lake at some National Park. "Can I see your federal vendor's permit?" "Say what?" "I warn you guys every year about slipping in here." I was still selling ice cream out the side window as they were running their check on me. Back at the place I asked the boss why he hadn't warned me about going by the lake. He said, "Well, you just played dumb, didn't you?" But for the most part, I only dealt with smiling people all day long. So anyway, now they want all the ice cream sellers to get checked out and probably pee in a bottle on a regular basis. The frenzy continues to build.
Tom ("We'll leave the light on for you.") Bodett has a video series out, "America's Historic Trails". On the one, "The Mormon Trail", he reads a quote Brigham Young gave his followers on their way to their promised land in Utah. "I have let the brethren dance and fiddle night after night to see what they will do. Well, they will play cards. They will play checkers. And if they could get whiskey they'd be drunk half the time. Do you suppose that we're going to look for a home for the saints, a place of peace where they can build up the kingdom with a low, mean wicked spirit dwelling in our bosoms?" And I say, "So what's your point?" Can't be having folks enjoying themselves and feeling good. Then they wouldn't need YOU, Mr. Young. You're just another one of those Guilt Pushers, selling your poison. All that born-in-sin crap. I say, "Let my people play."
Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi. The Silistra Series by Janet E. Morris. The High Couch of Silistra. The Golden Sword. Wind From The Abyss. The Carnelian Throne. (Then she rewrote the first one and called it Returning Creation.) Check 'em out. Brutal but really cool.
Summer is here again and I do miss rolling up my sleeping bag and sticking my thumb out over fabled Highway 101. April through October, just bouncing up and down the West Coast, partying. 1970-1992. Then every winter I'd do something different. Some winters I failed to run into anything to do and just continued to bounce. But during daylight savings was the best. Go anywhere, find a bush to sleep behind at night, people on vacation and locals and truck drivers keeping me amused and moving. April until October. For twenty-two years. (All one needs is a sleeping bag . . . you're going to get tired, and a flashlight . . . it's going to get dark. Most everything else just appears as needed.) "It's not like it used to be." Actually, it never was.
I wrote the above last night. Today, Monday, I woke up and the first thing I hear on the radio is a new plan for getting rid of prostitution on a popular street corner here in L.A. The joys of life have been brutally punished by religious people for thousands of years. Who first decided that God doesn't like a good time? They stone people to death and burn them at the stake for having sex. Many religions claim music, dancing, card playing, even laughter are all sins. It's okay to lock yourself up in a bare room for life for God, beat yourself bloody, or slowly torture others to death for not living like you and God think is right . . . but just don't have any fun. Where's the sense? Now the big evil is "registered sex offenders". Today we have thousands of little Joe McCarthys running around chasing commies again. Deny any sex education, pile on the guilt and shame for natural sexual urges, then vilify porn and strip clubs, outlaw massage parlors and prostitution, then come down with the wrath of the Lord of Lords on anybody who seeks a way to have sex. Now even teens are getting ankle bracelets and being registered for life for consensual sex because they're under the age the law has decreed is the age when the young people themselves have any control over their own bodies. Who are the sickos here? Tax money is being spent to fight the pleasure of sex and drugs for the Lord. Where's the separation? Who is this guy God anyway? Has He ever spoken to anyone who is sane? I think He was just created by guys who couldn't get it up and needed a good excuse for not having to try anymore. "Oh, sex is a SIN! I'm just being holy."
Give me a break.
Tom ("We'll leave the light on for you.") Bodett has a video series out, "America's Historic Trails". On the one, "The Mormon Trail", he reads a quote Brigham Young gave his followers on their way to their promised land in Utah. "I have let the brethren dance and fiddle night after night to see what they will do. Well, they will play cards. They will play checkers. And if they could get whiskey they'd be drunk half the time. Do you suppose that we're going to look for a home for the saints, a place of peace where they can build up the kingdom with a low, mean wicked spirit dwelling in our bosoms?" And I say, "So what's your point?" Can't be having folks enjoying themselves and feeling good. Then they wouldn't need YOU, Mr. Young. You're just another one of those Guilt Pushers, selling your poison. All that born-in-sin crap. I say, "Let my people play."
Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi. The Silistra Series by Janet E. Morris. The High Couch of Silistra. The Golden Sword. Wind From The Abyss. The Carnelian Throne. (Then she rewrote the first one and called it Returning Creation.) Check 'em out. Brutal but really cool.
Summer is here again and I do miss rolling up my sleeping bag and sticking my thumb out over fabled Highway 101. April through October, just bouncing up and down the West Coast, partying. 1970-1992. Then every winter I'd do something different. Some winters I failed to run into anything to do and just continued to bounce. But during daylight savings was the best. Go anywhere, find a bush to sleep behind at night, people on vacation and locals and truck drivers keeping me amused and moving. April until October. For twenty-two years. (All one needs is a sleeping bag . . . you're going to get tired, and a flashlight . . . it's going to get dark. Most everything else just appears as needed.) "It's not like it used to be." Actually, it never was.
I wrote the above last night. Today, Monday, I woke up and the first thing I hear on the radio is a new plan for getting rid of prostitution on a popular street corner here in L.A. The joys of life have been brutally punished by religious people for thousands of years. Who first decided that God doesn't like a good time? They stone people to death and burn them at the stake for having sex. Many religions claim music, dancing, card playing, even laughter are all sins. It's okay to lock yourself up in a bare room for life for God, beat yourself bloody, or slowly torture others to death for not living like you and God think is right . . . but just don't have any fun. Where's the sense? Now the big evil is "registered sex offenders". Today we have thousands of little Joe McCarthys running around chasing commies again. Deny any sex education, pile on the guilt and shame for natural sexual urges, then vilify porn and strip clubs, outlaw massage parlors and prostitution, then come down with the wrath of the Lord of Lords on anybody who seeks a way to have sex. Now even teens are getting ankle bracelets and being registered for life for consensual sex because they're under the age the law has decreed is the age when the young people themselves have any control over their own bodies. Who are the sickos here? Tax money is being spent to fight the pleasure of sex and drugs for the Lord. Where's the separation? Who is this guy God anyway? Has He ever spoken to anyone who is sane? I think He was just created by guys who couldn't get it up and needed a good excuse for not having to try anymore. "Oh, sex is a SIN! I'm just being holy."
Give me a break.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Rear-Wheel Drive
Thieves are stealing man-hole covers, copper piping and wires from construction sites and rental units, and catalytic converters from cars for the value of the metal. (The platinum from the smog devices goes for $2500.oo an ounce.) Gas is being taken from cars in rental and sales lots, as well as private vehicles, and fill-up-and-take-off-without-paying is becoming worth the risk. How long before there are rushes by groups of people on the meat, produce, and liquor departments of grocery stores? Time to arm those security guards at your friendly neighborhood market? Just when the super rich thought they owned it all and had cleverly shipped all the jobs they could to Latin America and Asia, totally not needing the average folks anymore. With the jails all full and way more desperate people than there are cops, the homeless are getting restless and starting to wander. Wow, and what's gonna happen when the police themselves can't afford to feed their families? Let "the haves and the have mores" beat back the masses with their stocks and bonds I guess. Stun gun and pepper spray skirmishes at ATMs, stopped-at-red-light smash and grab attacks, waylaid cars and trucks on lonely stretches of freeway, churches sacked for their riches, more home invasions. Darn disenfranchised folks want to eat, too. Not very nice of them.
Who doesn't know that smoking marijuana stimulates the appetite? People getting chemo therapy and who have AIDS suffer from a loss of appetite. Yet medicinal marijuana "needs more study". The self-righteous religious freaks think more of a made-up guy in the sky than their fellow man. Everybody knows that the prohibition exists only because somebody might get some fun out of a toke and that's why relief is denied to suffering people. God hates pleasure. Everybody should suffer like Jesus. We're all born in sin, and have to pay for that sin. What despicable creatures. Sex and drugs are bad. Let those sick people suffer, it's God's will.
I love how it's been a year since the tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas--the Prez even gave a talk there the other day--but everybody seems to have forgotten how all nine churches in the town got leveled by the storm and the only bar was untouched. Imagine the "message from God" if the bar had been wrecked and the churches spared, but the way it actually happened is conveniently ignored now.
Did you see the Philly cops kicking the shit out of those three guys? Yet another isolated incident that just happened to occur when a camera was rolling. Amazing coincidence.
A new TV show is scheduled to premier next month. "Swingtown" on CBS. Thursdays at 9 p.m. starting June 5th. I was there in the '70s when that swinging lifestyle was happening, but I'm afraid the show might bum me out. Like watching the movie "Woodstock" brings tears to my eyes, how a bunch of folks had actually tried to make a better world, but through misinformation and brutality, the movement was stopped cold. Now folks are having to embrace the hippie-type lifestyle out of necessity, forty years later. All that time of caring for the environment and learning to get by on less has been wasted. And swinging certainly isn't the same these days with AIDS in the world now. But back then in the mid-1970s, a guy couldn't walk around the block without meeting some young woman eager to celebrate her newfound liberation. Nowadays I don't want to use a condom, but I don't want to not use a condom either. I'm suggesting group marriages to solve that sexual conundrum.
Jeesh, what a world. Huh?
Who doesn't know that smoking marijuana stimulates the appetite? People getting chemo therapy and who have AIDS suffer from a loss of appetite. Yet medicinal marijuana "needs more study". The self-righteous religious freaks think more of a made-up guy in the sky than their fellow man. Everybody knows that the prohibition exists only because somebody might get some fun out of a toke and that's why relief is denied to suffering people. God hates pleasure. Everybody should suffer like Jesus. We're all born in sin, and have to pay for that sin. What despicable creatures. Sex and drugs are bad. Let those sick people suffer, it's God's will.
I love how it's been a year since the tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas--the Prez even gave a talk there the other day--but everybody seems to have forgotten how all nine churches in the town got leveled by the storm and the only bar was untouched. Imagine the "message from God" if the bar had been wrecked and the churches spared, but the way it actually happened is conveniently ignored now.
Did you see the Philly cops kicking the shit out of those three guys? Yet another isolated incident that just happened to occur when a camera was rolling. Amazing coincidence.
A new TV show is scheduled to premier next month. "Swingtown" on CBS. Thursdays at 9 p.m. starting June 5th. I was there in the '70s when that swinging lifestyle was happening, but I'm afraid the show might bum me out. Like watching the movie "Woodstock" brings tears to my eyes, how a bunch of folks had actually tried to make a better world, but through misinformation and brutality, the movement was stopped cold. Now folks are having to embrace the hippie-type lifestyle out of necessity, forty years later. All that time of caring for the environment and learning to get by on less has been wasted. And swinging certainly isn't the same these days with AIDS in the world now. But back then in the mid-1970s, a guy couldn't walk around the block without meeting some young woman eager to celebrate her newfound liberation. Nowadays I don't want to use a condom, but I don't want to not use a condom either. I'm suggesting group marriages to solve that sexual conundrum.
Jeesh, what a world. Huh?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Dirty Old Man (It's okay, I'm a professional.)
The Presidential Campaign is the magician's hand that shows.
Yesterday at the store 18 Budweisers cost a dollar less than 12 Budweisers. God did that.
I've had a babe jones since my uncle played high school football and I saw my first cheerleader. Today at the grocery store I saw the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life. It never stops.
I hate that singing-puppy commercial so much, every time it comes on I kick my dog.
Planet Earth has survived plagues, floods, dictators, wars, religious rule, the ice age, disco, asteroids, and volcanoes, but it's being done in now by that mindless Wall Street Bottom Line. Let's lower gas prices, get the economy rolling, and save the planet is backwards. I feel so old-hippie talking like this, but everything I think of comes back to we're killing ourselves for nothing. And even the thought of joining a band of merry bandits roaming the countryside eating the rich doesn't sound any good if there's no water to drink anywhere or air to breathe. So I continue to sound the fool, because I can't really think of anything else that matters.
People take an average of forty seconds longer to leave a parking space if somebody else is waiting for it.
That picture of Hannah Montana's back continues to be displayed every time I turn on the TV. The dust still hasn't completely settled from Janet Jackson's oft-replayed one second nipple shot. Light-weight scandals these days. Back in livelier times we had Traci Lords. Now there was a worthy scandal. None of that lame TV sitcom nonsense or the soft porn of some of those reality shows. Traci did it. Actually did it. Just like in real life. Imagine.
"I lied last night. I'm not really eighteen."
"Damn. I'm sure glad I'm not a rich and famous sports star or something. Or your teacher."
"Was that somebody knocking on your door? Just kidding."
Katrina has hit Burma, one of those "repressive regimes". But we Americans still hold the record for the most citizens behind bars. We're #1! U-S-A! U-S-A!
" . . . and it's happening a lot faster than scientists had predicted."
So it goes.
Yesterday at the store 18 Budweisers cost a dollar less than 12 Budweisers. God did that.
I've had a babe jones since my uncle played high school football and I saw my first cheerleader. Today at the grocery store I saw the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life. It never stops.
I hate that singing-puppy commercial so much, every time it comes on I kick my dog.
Planet Earth has survived plagues, floods, dictators, wars, religious rule, the ice age, disco, asteroids, and volcanoes, but it's being done in now by that mindless Wall Street Bottom Line. Let's lower gas prices, get the economy rolling, and save the planet is backwards. I feel so old-hippie talking like this, but everything I think of comes back to we're killing ourselves for nothing. And even the thought of joining a band of merry bandits roaming the countryside eating the rich doesn't sound any good if there's no water to drink anywhere or air to breathe. So I continue to sound the fool, because I can't really think of anything else that matters.
People take an average of forty seconds longer to leave a parking space if somebody else is waiting for it.
That picture of Hannah Montana's back continues to be displayed every time I turn on the TV. The dust still hasn't completely settled from Janet Jackson's oft-replayed one second nipple shot. Light-weight scandals these days. Back in livelier times we had Traci Lords. Now there was a worthy scandal. None of that lame TV sitcom nonsense or the soft porn of some of those reality shows. Traci did it. Actually did it. Just like in real life. Imagine.
"I lied last night. I'm not really eighteen."
"Damn. I'm sure glad I'm not a rich and famous sports star or something. Or your teacher."
"Was that somebody knocking on your door? Just kidding."
Katrina has hit Burma, one of those "repressive regimes". But we Americans still hold the record for the most citizens behind bars. We're #1! U-S-A! U-S-A!
" . . . and it's happening a lot faster than scientists had predicted."
So it goes.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
"Who ARE Those Guys?"
Wasn't it the movie "Mr. Roberts", where the World War II U.S. Navy guys were at anchor somewhere, bored and frustrated, when they realized that a newly-constructed building on shore had just started housing nurses? And they could see the new arrivals taking showers through uncovered windows. A woman Naval Officer came aboard and spotted the exposed women and took off for shore to have curtains installed. Jack Lemmon, the ship's officer who had brought the woman aboard, said to the disheartened men, "Well you can still look until she gets back there." The men said it just wasn't the same, knowing their enjoyment was going to come to an end. Yesterday I heard someone on the radio say that the population of the U.S. would triple by the end of this century. Yeah, but . . . Next story was about food riots beginning to break out in different places. Next story was about all the inventive new ways desperate people are coming up with to steal gas. Next story was about our crappy air. Next was a computer-generated picture of all the space junk floating above us. Next story told of a second U.S. aircraft carrier moving into the Persian Gulf. Next story reported that somebody at the U.N. called bio-fuel a crime against humanity. Next story told of the resurgence of terrorist groups along the Pakistani border. Next story told us that CEO salaries in 1980 were about 40 times the average worker's pay, and now they are many hundreds of times more. Next story let us know about the increase in home-invasion robberies. Next story told of a new ban on salmon fishing to try to save the vanishing fish population. Next story was that many Americans are outraged by the picture of Hannah Montana's uncovered back. Well it's good to know people can still get outraged about something.
Three times more people than there are now. Good luck with that.
I've been watching "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" on DVD from the library. I remember first hand. And I remember how blown away I was the first time I heard two songs actually say something unrelated to boy/girl love. "Positively 4th Street" and "Eve of Destruction". I hadn't realized it was even possible for songs to make you think above the waist. (Well, I was young.) And when it happened with the Beatles, I hadn't realized that it was Bob Dylan flat-out telling John Lennon that Beatles music was lame (or however he put it), and that had been when the Fab Four passed on the bubble-gum tunes for more pertinent lyrics. Social and political comment was the thing in music for a while there, and a few TV shows went for it (one of them actually ordered off the air by then President Nixon), and even a couple politicians and public figures tried, (but they got shot).
Heh, I spoke too soon. I shut off the monitor to watch Criminal Minds just as I finished the last paragraph, and lo and behold, the show was about a gay guy so filled with self-hate and guilt by his real religious prison-guard father that he went off the deep end. A hint of rational thought in prime time; who'd'a thunk? And an added kicker at the end, the arresting officer was, and the guy getting handcuffed is, from the cast of the Young and the Restless. (Not that I watch it.) (Well okay, I watch it, but I could quit any time.) (I do miss Bobby and Britney, the only outlaws I've seen on the show.) (Oh sure, they've had plenty of criminals, but darn few outlaws.) (Maybe Carmen if she'd lived longer.) So anyway, kudos to Criminal Minds for risking the wrath of the pious.
Two upcoming topics on one of those entertainment shows. "Celebrity Virgins" and "Greensburg Rising". That's that small town where the tornado hit, leveling all nine churches, and leaving the town's only bar untouched. For once we were spared giving God credit for something on the news.
She was such a rebel, she didn't even have a tattoo.
The DC Madame hung herself today they're saying. You have to admit that the world is a better place since her arrest, knowing that her sin-obsessed clients can't have sex anymore just anytime they want. But I wonder what they'll do now.
I started this on Wednesday and now it's Saturday. I've been having major computer problems, the First of the Month hit and I had a bunch of business to take care of, and it's been warm temperatures here in Southern California which makes it great for walking around checking out the eye candy. Yowzers. I'll be heading up to the library to post this in a while.
Two worthy movies if you haven't seen . . . "Lackawanna Blues" and "Dangerous Beauty".
Peace.
Three times more people than there are now. Good luck with that.
I've been watching "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" on DVD from the library. I remember first hand. And I remember how blown away I was the first time I heard two songs actually say something unrelated to boy/girl love. "Positively 4th Street" and "Eve of Destruction". I hadn't realized it was even possible for songs to make you think above the waist. (Well, I was young.) And when it happened with the Beatles, I hadn't realized that it was Bob Dylan flat-out telling John Lennon that Beatles music was lame (or however he put it), and that had been when the Fab Four passed on the bubble-gum tunes for more pertinent lyrics. Social and political comment was the thing in music for a while there, and a few TV shows went for it (one of them actually ordered off the air by then President Nixon), and even a couple politicians and public figures tried, (but they got shot).
Heh, I spoke too soon. I shut off the monitor to watch Criminal Minds just as I finished the last paragraph, and lo and behold, the show was about a gay guy so filled with self-hate and guilt by his real religious prison-guard father that he went off the deep end. A hint of rational thought in prime time; who'd'a thunk? And an added kicker at the end, the arresting officer was, and the guy getting handcuffed is, from the cast of the Young and the Restless. (Not that I watch it.) (Well okay, I watch it, but I could quit any time.) (I do miss Bobby and Britney, the only outlaws I've seen on the show.) (Oh sure, they've had plenty of criminals, but darn few outlaws.) (Maybe Carmen if she'd lived longer.) So anyway, kudos to Criminal Minds for risking the wrath of the pious.
Two upcoming topics on one of those entertainment shows. "Celebrity Virgins" and "Greensburg Rising". That's that small town where the tornado hit, leveling all nine churches, and leaving the town's only bar untouched. For once we were spared giving God credit for something on the news.
She was such a rebel, she didn't even have a tattoo.
The DC Madame hung herself today they're saying. You have to admit that the world is a better place since her arrest, knowing that her sin-obsessed clients can't have sex anymore just anytime they want. But I wonder what they'll do now.
I started this on Wednesday and now it's Saturday. I've been having major computer problems, the First of the Month hit and I had a bunch of business to take care of, and it's been warm temperatures here in Southern California which makes it great for walking around checking out the eye candy. Yowzers. I'll be heading up to the library to post this in a while.
Two worthy movies if you haven't seen . . . "Lackawanna Blues" and "Dangerous Beauty".
Peace.
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