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How Do You Try To Become Relevant Again?

You could try this.

It’s on a site called “Funny or Die”. I hope they don’t mean that literally, or Jim Carry might be in big trouble, ’cause this ain’t comedy gold, if you catch my drift.

From The “Reality Check, It Doesn’t Work” File

Abstinence Only sex education.

But of course, as you see from this article, instead of correcting and learning from their mistakes, they want to double down, using the “Planned Parenthood” dog whistle as the clarion call….

Sigh.

It’s like hitting you hand with a hammer for fifteen years, and finally realizing it hurts. But instead of realizing “Hey, we have to stop hitting ourselves with a hammer”, they double down and decide the solution is to get an even bigger hammer.

Back From The Dead?

Not me, of course.

When people talk about bringing an extinct species back to life through our ever expanding abilities to clone DNA, a-la Jurassic Park, everyone always turns to one of the largest, and maybe most popular extinct species, the wooly mammoth. And I will fully admit, bring them back from the dead would be very cool!

But< as a bird lover, there is another critter that has long been high on my list, and I just brought it up last week when the Sonic-Mate and I were listening to the Skeptics Guide To The Universe and talking about cloning…. The passenger pigeon! There are the most populous bird on the American continent. Yet, mostly through hunting, we literally wiped them from the face of the Earth by 1914.

Well, my prayers have been answered! A group of scientists are pursuing this very project! And this will be easier to pull of than the mammoth because the DNA samples are much newer, some samples are only a hundred years old verses the mammoths 4000 years or older DAN fragments.

It will be interesting to see how this all goes.

The Folly Of The Continued US Presence In Afghanistan And Iraq

Can’t be made any simpler. Just read it.

And yes, I did support both invasions. The retribution against the Bin Laden ally / co-conspirators the Taliban was, I still believe to be justified. But we should have been done there after a few years. You cannot reshape a brick into something useful. Put pressure on it, and it shatters.

Politicians and Evil Oil Companies! Why Is This Not Making News????

Remember how George W Bush was raked through the coals (pardon the pun) because he was a Friend of Ken Lay”/ And Dick Cheney is evil because of his ties to Halliburton?

Hello California state Senator Michael Rubio, friend of the San Joaquin Refining Company.

This has all the trappings of a wonderful example of the corrupt ties that Republicans have to the wretched oil industry. The Republican got a nice bit of financial aid from an oil company exec, not only to help finance his campaign, but he also got money from the company to help him buy a $651,000 five bedroom home with four fireplaces and a swimming pool! The company exec also bought Rubio’s Bakersfield home for $185,000, which was appraised and valued under $100,000 at the time of the sale. Here are some of the details concerning  the buying and selling of these homes.

 

Before resigning to head California governmental affairs for Chevron Corp., Democratic Sen. Michael Rubio participated in two real estate deals with a Kern County oil executive who has contributed to his campaign.

The Fair Political Practices Commission is deciding whether to open an investigation into the transactions, which involve Rubio’s current and former homes, to determine if they amounted to an improper gift to an elected official.

Rubio, contacted Wednesday night, said the dealings with an investment firm owned by Majid Mojibi, president of the San Joaquin Refining Co. Inc., were done by the book.

He said that Mojibi last year properly loaned him money to buy a $681,000 home in El Dorado Hills after a bank turned him down for a conventional mortgage. Two months later, still unable to get a conventional loan, he gave the house to Mojibi and is now renting it, he said.

DCM Assets Management, a company registered to Mojibi, also purchased the Bakersfield home Rubio had to put up for a short sale in 2011. The company paid $185,000 for the two-bedroom house, according to records.

The real estate website Zillow.com estimated that the Bakersfield house was worth less than $100,000 at the time of the sale. Rubio said the site undervalued the home based on a dispute over the updated square footage after renovations.

Rubio had to move from that home during his 2010 campaign, after it was discovered that the property was not in the 16th Senate District he was seeking to represent. Local election officials had mistakenly included the address in the wrong Senate district.

Rubio said the company purchased his former house for another Mojibi family member after the home, which he bought for $270,000 in 2004, was put on the market through a real estate agent.

“They didn’t get it for a dollar more or a dollar less,” he said. “It went through every normal process consistent with any normal real estate transaction that was approved by the lender we were doing the short sale on.”

After the short sale, Rubio was unable to get a loan for the five-bedroom home in El Dorado Hills. Rubio made $95,291 a year as a state senator and his wife, a dental hygienist, also made less than $100,000, according to a financial disclosure form filed last year.

He said he was anxious to move his wife, daughters and in-laws to the area so they could spend more time with him when he was in Sacramento for legislative work.

 

I’m stunned this isn’t all over the news as yet another example of the rampant corrupt ties between the oil companies and Republi….

Oh. My mistake. Michael Rubio is a Democrat. No wonder this hasn’t made national news. And I just did a search on MSNBC’s web portal. As of this moment… Nothing.

Mega Video Of The Day!

OK. When ever people complain about today’s youth and the future of this country….. THIS! Our future is in better hands than the ones currently holding the wheel! Jon Montanez is a man, period.

Marriage Equality. A Step Forward.

75 prominent (or somewhat prominent) Republicans today filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court rejecting Prop 8 and embracing the concept of gays being able to marry.

I sometimes have my differences with Andrew Sullivan, but today, his 24 plus years of same sex marriage advocacy makes him the go-to guy to comment on this stunning change of heart of some in the Conservative movement. Here is what he wrote on the news of the day.

Why is gay marriage so important to us? He gives but one example:

A friend recalled visiting a man dying of AIDS at the time. A former massive bodybuilder, he had shrunk to 90 pounds. ‘Do I look big?” he asked, with mordant humor. In the next bed, surrounded by curtains, my friend heard someone singing a pop song quietly to himself. My friend joked: “Well not everyone here is depressed!” Then this from his dying, now skeletal friend: “Oh, that’s not him. He died this morning. That’s his partner. That was their song, apparently. The family took the body away, threw that guy out of the apartment he shared with his partner, and barred him from the funeral. He’s stayed there all day, singing their song. I guess it’s the last place he’ll ever see where his partner actually was. His face is pressed against the pillow. The nurses don’t have the heart to tell him to leave.”

Major Kudos to those conservatives who have decided to stop basing their stance on fear, and instead support fairness.

On the quote above.

I didn’t have any experiences like that. In the 1980, when i was learning to accept the fact I am gay, I knew of people who were succumbing to the disease, but, seeing that I was still in the closet, I isolated myself from it by pretty much avoiding getting acquainted with anyone who was positive.

None-the-less, it still hit home. My ability to come to terms with the fact that I am gay was definitely delayed by the specter of AIDS, as I felt the shame that the world put onto gays – specifically, that being gay = having AIDS, something that just about made you a lepper in the eyes of the “normal” world. In the early 80’s I knew I was gay in high school, but never ever could have acted on it. Even in high school, there was talk of the “gay cancer” and there was no way I could have handled being associated with that. I was not very strong, and maybe would have offed myself if anyone found out I was a deviant. Even years later, I couldn’t even say the words “I am gay” until I was 27 or so. Even after that, on the few times I dated, if my date said they were positive, the date ended rather quickly.

In retrospect, I was kind of a dick. But it was a reaction of fear, and fear makes you do stupid things. I got better though. My Mate found out he was positive (thank you cheating ex) just when we started to get serious. Been together for 17 years. Best years of my life. And I owe that to him as much as anything else.

From The “Yeah, I Have The Same Reaction When I Hear This Song” Dept.

Welcome Fresno Bee Readers!

Life is busy today, so I probably won’t be able to post anything…. Which means I’ll end up writing a long thing like the last one!  🙂

Anyway, have a look around. Comment if the itch arises. I’ll respond when I can.

Mike.

 

Good Things Happen…. My First Gig As A Solo Artist!

You know how sometimes you go a fight, and a hockey game breaks out? Well, yesterday, I went to an Earthquake zone, and a solo gig broke out!

Here’s the background.

The Mate and a couple of friends went mountain biking yesterday. Their destination? A personal favorite, Parkfield, the self styled Earthquake Capital of the World! I go there hoping to be on ground zero when a decent sized quake breaks loose. Hey, a geology school drop-out can dream!

The town is just over 100 miles from Fresno. It’s very small.

It has one restaurant, and the food there is fantastic! The trip is well worth the drive just for that!

Greg and his cohorts drove 80-ish miles toward the desired destination and stopped at a spot just west of Coalinga, then rode their bikes the rest of the way. That last bit of their route is mountain terrain, and there is no way I could have made the ride without having a series of major coronaries. But, because of my background in geology / seismology, not to mention the fantastic food, I love going to Parkfield and wasn’t going to miss the opportunity on this occasion. So I decided to drive to the town and meet them at the restaurant.

Seeing that they would be riding part of the way, it was a forgone conclusion that their trip would be a longer one time-wise than mine, so I gave them a good two hour head start. They left at about 8 in the morning. I got in the car for the two hour trip at about 10:30. It was a total guess that it would take then a couple of hours longer to complete the Coalinga to Parkfield leg of their trip. I expected it would take them longer, but I had no idea really how long they would take. So, just for the heck of it, I decided to bring my guitar along with me. I figured I would get there before they did, would have some time to kill, so the plan was to sit on the bridge that spans the San Andreas fault, strum some guitar, and wait for either the guys to show up, or an Earthquake, whichever came first.

When I reached the destination of Parkfield at about 1 PM. As is typical, the tiny out-of-the-way town was just about empty. The only humans around were a couple of cowboy-ish type guys doing cowboy-ish type things, and myself. I headed straight to the planned rendezvous point, the Parkfield Cafe to see if the guys were there yet. I asked the barkeep Sandra if she had seen three cyclist come through. Turns out I did indeed get to the little town before they did. I sat and chatted with her for a bit, then just as I decided to go hang out at the bridge and play some guitar, the guys walked in.

The food was served and the beer did flow!

About the food and the establishment. The beef they use for the burgers are all grass fed. If you don’t know if there is a difference, you should really do a taste test. We had the Parkfield Shakin’ Burger, a chipotle confection, with fries. We also got their home made chili…. Absolutely wonderful foods! If you’re the type that likes to go on adventures and eat really good food, this place must be on your map. They also have a hotel if you decide to make a weekend of it. It is in a very remote area, but civilization in the form of Paso Robles is only about 30 miles away.

We ate and chatted for a while, but time was drawing short. The guys needed to get back on the road so they would get back to the car before it started getting dark. During the conversation, I mentioned that I was going to go down to the bridge that sits over the San Andreas fault, and play a song or two. Sandra asked if would bring the guitar inside and play a few songs. I figured “What the heck. No one is there anyway. How badly could I embarrass myself. As fate would have it, I would do just that in a moment. Before I brought the guitar into the cafe, we went down to bridge to straddle two continental plates.

On the way down, we passed the one school in town, and for some reason, there is a horse skeleton erected right by the children’s playground. Greg was fascinated by it. I thought it was a bit creepy.

OK. So we all hung out at the bridge for a bit, some of us made fools of ourselves….. OK. It was pretty much me making a fool of myself. That’s my “science” voice by the way.

And then they departed for the trip back over the mountain.

After the guys were well out of sight and on their trek, I was walking back to the cafe and I heard in the distance a low but easily recognizable rumble. No, unfortunately it wasn’t an earthquake. It was about 25 motorcycles heading up the road toward the formerly quite little deserted town.

Pretty much all the bikers had gone into the cafe before I walked back in. The place was pretty packed. I wanted to wave goodbye and thank Sandra and company for the hospitality. As soon as I caught her attention and started to say thanks and goodbye, she ask me where my guitar was. I said I thought it was too crowded to play. She said no no bring it and play! I shrugged my shoulders, sad OK, and went out to the car and got the guitar.

I came back in, set up at the table near the door, and started to strum a bit. Though it was loud in the cafe, I never the less played pretty quietly. I had not practiced much in the last couple of weeks on my solo stuff and was not prepared for any kind of show. Keep in mind that my experience playing guitar and being a solo act is at open mic, in front of friends. I figured I’d play a few things quietly and then slink off into the day before anyone even noticed I was there in the first place. The first song I played was Blackbird. I played a couple more, and that would be that. During one, I know I stopped once because I messed up. But, all in all, I was doing OK, though everyone was talking to friends and no one seemed to notice.

I was playing what I thought was going to be my last thing… Then, it happened. A couple were leaving, and as they passed my table, they left a tip!

It caught me completely off guard! In my mind, I was just hacking around and though my presence was oblivious to everyone there. I was just kind of practicing, but in a room full of complete strangers. I was wrong. I started treating it a little more serious. I still kept the volume of my singing low, but the guitaring was done with a little more confidence. I played the Paul Simon song “Me and Julio”, and also played Tim Finn’s “Parihaka” which has been giving me fits just lately. Got through it with only minor errors, things only I would notice. Because I really haven’t been practicing much on my solo stuff, I forgot what songs I even play!

Think Mike Think!

I did “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, but with the new strumming pattern i have been working on. Pulled that off pretty well. Was happy with that one! I played the first two songs I had tried to play on guitar during my very first open mic, “Fragile” by Sting, and another Tim Finn gem called “Persuasion”. It took me a couple of false starts on each as I just couldn’t remember how to play the songs, or what the lyrics were for a moment. But once I started to flow on the songs they came back to me. In retrospect, there are a few more songs I could have played, but I just could think of those songs at all in the spur of the moment… And one of the songs is my own original!

By the time I had gone through about 45 minutes of material, I had gotten a few more tips. They are at the moment sitting in my guitar case. I think I’m going to have to frame one of the dollars as a memento to my first gig as a solo artist.

 

NOTE:  Here is the map of the route Greg, Patrick, and Ben rode yesterday. As you can see, it was pretty intense.