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YouTube Banter! It’s Broken.

Just This:

That chameleon was broken. I could? see him the whole time.

Climate Crisis – A New One!

Well….  Someone has done it now!

They’ve leaked the IPCC AR5 onto the interwebs!

The IPCC is SHOCKED and saddened this kind of thing could possibly happen!

I would post the statement they released concerning this matter, but, as a writer, one of my talents I’m told is my ability to make long drawn out explanations more concise. Thus, here is what the IPCC actually is saying, without so many unnecessary words getting in the way:

“You IDIOTS! You interfered with THE PROCESS!!!!!!!!!”

The Political Question – Why Am I Who I Am Politically? Part 1

A couple of people on my Facebook page have wondered why my politics are what they are – libertarian with a dash of conservative. I started to write what I thought was going to be a short answer, but realized there is no short answer, and it was going to be longish, so I moved it over here.

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I’ve always been a non-conformist…. A non-conforming non-conformist actually! 🙂 I’ve never felt connected to things the way others have… Have always found myself standing outside of things even if I’m right there in the room… Oh… that probably sounds like crazy talk… maybe it is!!!! 🙂 Perhaps because of that, I’ve never felt at home in either party. I hope that short statement will make more sense after I’m done writing this post.

Chapter One – The 70’s:

Where to start? Nixon? Read more »

Guitar… So Far.

Just a quick update. Played with a bunch of musicians up at Bill Hunter’s Auberry mountain hide-a-way. What a fantastic bunch of musicians we have in this area.

It’s late and I’m on my Kindle… Typing iz a bear on this thing. Will write more and post a couple of pics tomorrow.

Death Of The Tea Party. UPDATE.

A number of their rising stars from two years ago lost their re-election bids in November….  Republican House Majority leader John Boehner has seemed to stop catering to them (and crying for them)…  Senator Jim DeMint is quitting….  No one pays much attention to the uttering of Sarah Palin anymore…

Liberals rejoice. The Tea Party movement, at least in the halls of Congress, is dying.

I was on board with the Tea Party, for about two minutes anyway. The base instinct of the movement was, and remains, relevant – our Federal government is spending and wasting way too much of our tax dollars. I abandoned them as soon as it became clear that, what ever it was that sparked the populist uprising,  the Republican party had co-opted the movement. It lost all credibility with me.  Instead of focusing on Government spending, it quickly focus on the spending supposedly being perpetrated by the current President, Barrack Obama. Here is a chart that was circulation a few weeks ago to show how horrible the current president is:

Yes, the federal outlays did jump at the beginning of 2009 when Mr. Obama was sworn into office. Some of that was due to TARP and the stimulus, but does anybody think that if John McCain would have won in November of 2008 instead of Obama, that, given the hell that was the near depression the economy was falling into, McCain would have done anything different? And when you look at the chart showing the outlays before being adjusted for inflation, you see the Obama Presidency’s rate of spending increase is THE SAME as his predecessor!

No, I’m not going into Obama “Blame Bush” mode. Though it is true that the former Republican President grew government by about a trillion dollars, I chastised the current President for overplaying that card. It was almost as if his contribution to the spending increases never existed. But the same behavior is true with the Tea Party; it was almost as if the spending under Bush never happened. Where was the call to undo any of the things that were put in place by G W? Medicare – D? The unnecessary Department of Homeland Security? (a few changes in the intel sharing rules would have been just fine thank you) The failure that is “No Child Left Behind”? And don’t get me started on the cost of the unwinnable Global War On Terror, which is 4 trllion dollars and rising, and for which much of the tab is off the books.

The Tea Party was completely silent on those Bush spending enterprises, which, of course, made the whole thing a dishonest enterprise. That might not have been the case had it not got absorbed by the Rush / Hannity / Levin led wing of the GOP, who’s main mantra for the last two years has been “Compromise Is Evil / Moderates Are Evil!”. But it did. And now we are seeing the consequences. Blind ideology is no substitute for smart politics. And smart politics are going to need to be practiced in order to even start to get us out of this mes that has been caused by BOTH parties.

UPDATE. 

I might be premature to say this and assign failure to the Tea Party movement, but i don’t think so. To anyone standing on the outside looking in, I think it’s pretty obvious the movement, such as it is, has run out of steam.

But why did the movement fail?

In my opinion, it’s the same reason why a CEO would fail as a President, and why you can never run a democratic / republican government as a business. In both those cases,  a CEO and by that regard, a business, has total control over the direction of the company – the direction is set from the top down, something like a dictatorship.  That doesn’t mean that the head honcho SHOULD act as a dictator, but  the decision making process starts at the top and works its way down.  This isn’t true of our government.  Even though they sometimes seem weak, and the President sometimes seems to have so much power, the core of decision making power in our government still lies with the congress. Unless your party not only has a majority in both houses AND has the Presidency AND has a specific ideological unity that is very rare, there will still need to be compromise in order to get things done. Generally, only shocking events such as the 9/11 attacks or JFK’s assassination ever got Congress to act…  Well…  In congress!  Even Lincolns Republicans were not all on board with his proposed plans to end slavery. The Tea Party never got this. They always viewed things monolithically, with a business plan overlayed on a government chart. It’s like trying to put a large square peg into a small round whole. It was destined to fail.

Compromise is not a dirty word. A government such as ours can’t operate without it.  The Tea Party died because it looked at that word as if it were a four letter one. This, to me, is odd. They claim to be the true historians concerning the Constitution, yet there was always this huge blind spot – the Constitution of the United States is a document born of great compromise. Compromise led to the bicameral Congress,  to its adoption and ratification by several of the southern Colonies, and even to the eventual inclusion of the Bill Of Rights.

Happy Thanksgiving Day Everyone!!!

Sea Of Sound – Criavia. The Album Review.

Well, I haven’t done an album review in a very long time, so I’m overdue. And since I haven’t recorded anything in a year, but these guys have, I figure this is as good a place to resume the act of trying to be a music critic.

Criavia is the self produced debut album by the Fresno based  trio Sea Of Sound. The music is, what us older eared people would classify as modern pop / rock. To some, that might be the excuse to skip listening to this album. But there is more underneath the hood with these guys than one has come to expect from this genre. There is some real song writing and musicianship here.

The first track “Rogue” lets the listener that they are going to have a happy upbeat experience. The mixing and production choices reminds me a little of the 80’s band “The Church”, except, well, much more up beat! We are introduced to the drumming skills of Seth Jordan and tasteful expressions of Warren Whitehurst on guitar. Zach Schuh provides a strong voice that matches the strength of the lyric and song writing. His delivery is sure and deliberate, and he avoids the trap of push his voice too hard. His ability to shift from regular voice to falsetto and back again is impressive.

“Dear Lavender Skies” is again upbeat. The chorus is an interesting confection, not what you would expect in a typical pop song.

“Blush” shows the band in a Dave Mathewsish contemplative mood.

The fourth track, to me, is the standout. “Blue In A Red Room” is pure soundtrack material. So may dismiss this as critical, but seeing that I had a one time in my life wanted to compose soundtracks and even wrote my senior thesis on contemporary TV and film composers, this is a high compliment. The song has a wonderful build to it. Warrens performance during his guitar solos are note-for-note perfect.

“Lost Boys” is a Seth Jordan showcase on drums. It’s reminiscent of some of the work by Oasis, with a touch of U2 guitarist Edge thrown in.

“Fire And Dust” is the most acoustic affair on the album. This is a very nice song, and provides a nice change of pace you don’t always find with a band as young and new as this. One thing I really like here is they avoid the temptation to take a pause in the middle of the song and then come back in with a huge instrumental avalanche, a la Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars”. Nothing wrong with doing this, but it’s refreshing they refrained from doing it.

The final song “Stardust“, in the short time I’ve lived with the album, is my favorite on the lyrics side of the music ledger. It’s another acoustic guitar based song.

I’ve poured my soul
into this Earth,
And as the dust swirled around
I wonder what a man is truly worth

That is a nice piece of contemplation put into song! I’m a song writer, and I can say that this is as good as anything I’ve ever written, if not better.

On the production side of the ledger, the only thing I’d change is to bring up the drums just a hair in the first couple of tracks. Other than that, this is a very well done album on all sides of the glass, especially when you consider it was produce in a garage converted to a make-shift studio.

Well done guys. Looking forward to the sophomore effort. (and find yourselves a permanent bass player before I threaten to join the band!  🙂  )

Here’s the CD Baby link if you feel the urge to buy the album.

YouTube Banter…. 2112… Or Not.

As is often the case, the comment has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the video.

The comment:

“Sodomize yourself with a cactus. ”

The video:

Don’t ask why. Just marvel at the disconnect!

Is The Reagan Era Coming To An End?

In the history of the Presidency, there have been Presidents who have left a huge mark on the office for decades after their tenure ended. The third President of the U.S., Thomas Jefferson, was succeeded acolytes James Madison and James Monroe, both of whom served for two terms. Though John Quincy Adams was a member of the same party as his predecessors, seeing that his dad was John Adams, the guy who preceded Jefferson, he probably would not be considered a Jeffersonite. That said, there is no reason that a Jeffersonian couldn’t have risen to the highest office in the land… Save one.

The seventh President of the United States, General Andrew Jackson.

Jackson’s two term Presidency would leave a new mark on the office, and also leave a long shadow. Jackson was succeeded by his own acolyte Martin Van Buren. Due to a drawn out economic depression during his tenure in office (a consequence of monetary policies undertaken by his predecessor) the “Little Magician” was voted out after one term. Thought the new Whig party did capture the White House a couple of times between 1841 and 1843, the Jackson stamp on the Democrat party reigned supreme, as Democrat Presidents Polk and Pierce fit to some degree in the Jacksonian mold. By the time James Buchanan was elected in 1856, Andrew Jackson’s long enduring influence on the party had faded.

The next President to leave such an extended mark on the way candidates ran for President would be Mr. Republican, Ronald Reagan. George Herbert Walker Bush, being the Vice President under Reagan, of course ran on and won based on Reagan’s legacy. He did lose four years later, but his competitor was the superior politician by the name of Bill Clinton. And even though the next election saw the defeat of the next-in-line Republican Bob Dole, the Reagan imprint on the Presidency was far from dead. Dole lost because he was not a very good spokesman or candidate, but also because Clinton had positioned himself as a Democrat heir to Reagan. George W Bush ran as a Reaganesque type guy, a likeable fiscal Conservative.

The next Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, had two obstacles. One would be dislike engendered from his own party based on his former status as “The Maverick”. A great many within the Republican party did not trust him based on his former willingness to cross the isle and bash fellow Republicans when the opportunity arose. The other obstacle was the feel good juggernaut that was candidate Barack Obama. I don’t care who the Republicans would have put up in that election, even a clone of Reagan himself would have lost!

And still, as McCain’s defeat was a referendum on his political positions and lack of Conservative purity, the Reagan legacy survived.

Which brings us to last Tuesdays defeat of Mitt Romney. Unlike four years ago, the idea of the first black President had lost its luster. It’s already done. He was already President, and his tenure in office a difficult and tumultuous one. A good majority of his accomplishments are not exactly super popular, and he is saddled with a sluggish economy with chronic unemployment just below 8 percent. That and the recent Benghazi mess and muddled foreign policy objectives should have made him easy pickings. Due to some flip-flops, and his RomneyCare experiment in Massachusetts, Romney was not a “perfect” candidate for the right. Never the less, the party had come to embrace him in a way they never did with John McCain. Because of his successful business background and impeccably clean image, Romney certainly did have the street cred to be the torchbearer for the Reagan philosophy on issues such as taxes, fiscal responsibility, and being all around business friendly. He adopted a foreign policy stance that was Reaganesque. Romney was, as his predecessors before him, running as the next Reagan, against a President who is seen by may as the next iteration of Reagan’s defeated foe, Jimmy Carter.

And yet, Romney lost.

Is it possible that we are seeing the end of the Reagan era? That his shadow is just too distant to be able to win the day anymore? There are, after all, a good many voters who were either too young to remember the man, or, were not even born when Ronald Reagan was in office. Could it also be the judgement of a new generation that the 30 years of Reaganesque economic policies just didn’t seem to work all that well when all is said and done? Some of my Conservative friends will bristle at this notion. “Obama is a socialist” they’ll say. OK. But how many economic policies has the Obama administration actually changed? Yes, he did bail out the auto industry using government as a tool. But in the grand scheme of things, the auto industry is only a very small part of the over-all economy. Quantitative Easing? That will place a burden on the future economic situation, but it doesn’t stymie growth in the hear and now. Dodd-Frank? Wall Street and Company had figured ways around any legal road blocks created by this bill long before it was ever signed into law.

For the sake of argument, lets say that we have strayed too far from the Reagan economic model. Doesn’t this make my argument for the demise of the Reagan era even more evident? The re-election of Barack Obama may very well be a referendum against the economic policies made popular with the advent of the election of Ronald Reagan, and may indicate that his legacy just doesn’t hold the sway on the public that it used to.

Note: As I finish this post, I noticed that Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast is thinking along similar lines.

Open Mic / U.S.S. Titanic Update. Part 1

It’s been a busy week, what with the surprising election results and all. I do have one more political idea to finish up and post this weekend. But I think it’s time to write an update on music stuff.
I played the open mic at Audie’s Olympic Tavern on Tuesday night, and followed that up with the Full Circle Brewery the following evening. This post will be focusing on the Tuesday night activities.

I’ve lately been bringing both the acoustic guitar and my Cort 4 string bass to the open mics. Seeing that I’ve been playing the thing for God knows how many years, playing the bass and singing is much more comfortable for me than the newer guitaring thing.

At Audie’s, I played a couple of songs on the guitar. First up was the Paul Simon song “Me and Julio”.

(music starts at 2:09)

Normally, as seen above, I play this bass-style with my Taylor Martin bandmate Jim Rust. The song is actually a holdover from the days when Jim shared guitar / singing duties on my band Acoustic Highway.. But since Jim broke his shoulder we’ve been on hiatus for the last couple of months. Well, I love playing this song, and I really really wanted to give it a shot, so I went for it. I pulled it off.

I also played the Tim Finn / Richard Thompson song “Persuasion”.

That is one of the oldest songs in my set; one of the first ones I set out to learn to play. It turned out pretty good. It could use more practice though. I’ve realized for a while that my habit of continually learning new songs means that I don’t take the time I should to polish and perfect the ones I already know. Case in point. When I switched to bass to play a couple more songs, I played “Driven To Tears” by the Police. Now, due to the disjointed rhythm of the lyrics versus the bass line, that is a tricky song to play. I did it OK, but, because I haven’t been practicing it much, I messes up the last verse and totally forgot how to play the middle 8…. But I have so much fun figuring out new tunes, it’s just hard to stop and focus on the older stuff.

Back in the day, when I way playing in my San Diego band Rare Form, I used to play a song by the Rembrandts from the 80’s called “Just The Way It Is Baby”.

It’s a nice simple song and I miss performing it. I’ve toyed with it on guitar, but the chords for this one are pretty difficult for me. This is one of the reasons I started bringing the bass out to open mics; so I call perform songs like this. And as a bonus, my open mic friend Randy McDonald joined me on stage and played some really sweet sax accompaniment. Before the night was over, i hoped up on stage and played the bass line to a few other songs, including Sublime’s “Sangria” (which I found I don’t know nearly as well as I should), and got to rock out playing Green Day'”Welcome To Paradise” with Metalachi rocker Estiban (Ramon Holliday)! I hadn’t play that for a very long time, but remembered how to play it just well enough to not completely screw up the bass riff in the middle of the song. Man! That is so fun to play!!!!

Closed out the Tuesday open mic playing a few tunes with Professor Charles Tenney. He’s more in the same folk / roots style that my band Taylor Martin plays. Since a play version of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” is playing here in town, we’ve been doing a song from that called “Science Fiction / Double Feature”.

Hell! Why not!

We gave the audience their final request of the night and played “Freebird”…. No, just kidding! They wanted “American Pie”… The song, not the movie! We were happy to oblige.