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And Then There Were Three!… Icebergs. (Open Mic Stuff)

OK. Up front I admit I bagged the title of this post from the 1979 Genesis album of the same name.

But this post has nothing whatsoever to do with Genesis, except that all the guys in that band did solo projects… And so am I!

Yes, the U. S. S. Titanic has sailed once again!

Last night I played my third open mic solo with just me and my guitar. Before I say anything else, I have to say the level of talent in this town is tremendously pleasing. Serge, my new friend and favorite local artists, sings his songs in Russian! It’s WAY COOL!!!!  Will post some video of that tomorrow.

On this occasion, I did markedly better than the last solo attempt. I have definitely come a ways since the last two outings. But this one was a bit different too. I normally don’t get nervous at gigs. Never really have.  Even for the first first two times playing solo, I was not nervous much at all. This one was different.

Why?

A number of reasons.

First – Consider this Iceberg #1

The first two times I ventured out into the mean cruel world of open mic performing, I hadn’t been playing guitar for very long for very long, thus my expectations were , I shouldn’t say low, but lets just say I knew there were going to be rough spots, chord malfunctions, maybe even a few stops and starts. [launch of the Titanic documented here] Now that I’ve been playing for over a year, I’m starting to expect a bit more from myself. That said, it is still really weird being on stage without other musicians to lean on musically,  to share the process of performing with. It’s just me, myself, and I. It’s lonely, and that is going to take a while to get used that.

Iceberg # 2

Those higher expectations coaxed me to make the fool hardy decision to not bring a mic stand and sing from memory. If someone at my current guitaring skill level had asked my opinion on whether or not do do this naked, without cheat sheets, I would not have recommended it. I would have told them to continue to set up the music stand just in case. Which of course means I did indeed forget a couple of lyrics.  Here is the skinny.

The first song I played was Stings “Fragile”. I previously played that at my second solo voyage. With the exception of maybe one or two iffy chord changes, I pretty much remembered and performed that well enough. The second song is where my memory failed. It was Neil Finns “Driving Me Mad”, another repeat from my second outing. I got halfway through the song just fine, but when I was getting close to coming out of the bridge and back into the last verse, I realized I couldn’t remember that last set of lyrics at all. So I just faded out as if the song ended there…. Hey, It’s an obscure song! Who’s going to tell!

The third song brings me to

Iceberg # 3!

This was almost certainly the root of my nervous condition. For the first time as a solo act, I performed one of my original songs. It’s a song I’ve written about on my blog a few times called “Just One Tear“. It’s a very personal song, written about the death of a dear friend some 18 years ago. I really didn’t want to screw this one up. Starting the song I was going smoothly.  I did  skip one verse of the song, but I had planned to do that before I got on stage. I never did like that bit of lyric anyway, and the song doesn’t lose much without it. During the last chorus, an extended chorus, right before I went into the middle 8 ending of the song, I stumble on a bit of lyrics. I managed to ad-lib something and recover, and was kind of proud of myself for it.

“See, I can do this!” I thought.

The next thing that happened really chaps my hide! As I got into the end of the song, the crescendo of the whole thing…. My fingers stumbled, my abilities to play faltered and I hit these horrible notes and made anti-chords!  Grrrr!  I was sooo pissed at myself!

The saving grace was that I remembered the lyrics, and was by design singing them at the top of my lungs! So it may not have been too glaring a screw-up. But because of its personal nature, I really wanted to get that song right.

If I would have done all covers, I’m not sure if I would have been so nervous. As a take-away lesson from last night, I vow that I will bring my lyric stand with me the next time the U. S. S. Titanic sets sail… Unless foolish pride gets in the way and I try it naked again!

Newt Gingrich – A Candidate Only Conservatives Can Love… Oh… Wait…

How much do Conservatives not like Newt?

“[T]he power of the Gingrich surge does show, again, a lesson taught well by neo-Nazi David Duke when Duke was ascendant in Louisiana politics two decades ago. When considering a candidate for office, almost right up until they enter the polling booth and sometimes even in the booth itself, most voters rely more on what they see and hear themselves in real time than on facts, history, logic, or learned experience.”

And:

“[Gingrich] has eaten from just about every trough imaginable inside the Beltway”

Wow! And that is just a couple of the many quotes from various Conservative commentators. Has Rush Limbaugh decided which way he’s leaning on this one?

From The: “Those Who Ignore History Are Doomed To Repeat It” File — UPDATE

European economics commissioner Olli Rehn railed on the British Government for rejecting to join the European Union 2.0.

“If this move was intended to prevent bankers and financial corporations in the City from being regulated, that is not going to happen. We must all draw lessons from the financial crisis and that goes for the financial sector as well.”

I think you need to go farther back Mr. Rehn. Try the financial history of Europe during the 1920’s, because you are making all the same mistakes via borrowing and bail-outs that created a Europe with either false prosperity or nations with stagnant economies.

It gets better.

In a further threat, the commissioner added: “The UK’s excessive deficit and debt will be the subject of surveillance like other member states, even if the enforcement mechanism mostly applies to the euro-area member states.

His remarks were being seen last night as the opening salvo in a new offensive by Brussels chiefs to isolate and bully Britain as punishment for Mr Cameron’s defiant stand against a further EU power grab.

And they provoked outrage among Tory MPs last night following fears that more EU tax and regulation on the City could cost up to 500,000 jobs across the UK.

Conservative MP Douglas Carswell said: “This unelected commissioner has helpfully reminded us exactly why we need to be outside the new fiscal union.

“Britain needs to be outside the EU, like Switzerland, to keep our banks and other financial institutions outside the clutches of bureaucrats like Mr Rehn.

So, even if Brittan voted not to join the new union, the new union feels they can watch and punish and tax Brittan without their consent.

Uhm… Anyone ever heard of the American Revolution the the whole “taxation with out representation bit”?

I love this summary offered by Carswell:

“If he is such an economic genius, why is the continent that he helps to preside over heading down a debt vortex? He should be worrying about his own maths, not ours.”

Yep. The EU is firmly set on borrowing more and more and more money, which does noting to create a self sustaining economic recovery, and will only deepen the crisis at hand.

UPDATE: Wow… There seems to be a lot of that “You Can’t Quit Us” thing going around! Maybe people will start opening their eyes to these governmental bodies and recognize them for the tyrannical kleptocracy that they are.

YouTube Banter! “How Did I Get Here”!

No answers to that, just some YuoTube funness!

• You may find yourself disliking this video.

  And you may ask yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

  

• I thought they changed this video but it’s the same as it ever was.

   

How Does It End? “Not With A Bang…”

“… But with a Tweet!”

Wait. That’s not quite how it goes. Hopefully, somewhere in the ether, T. S. Elliot won’t mind me mangling his work. I’m not the first after all to mess with his verse.

Anyhoo.  It has come to my attention  that the latest climate extortion  conference, this time being held in the swanky confined of Durbin, South Africa,  is on the verge of falling apart without any wealth distribution accords being agreed to. This news come to us via Twitter.

Now, normally,  I hate twitter… Especially when Celebz and Politicians use it. My first instinct concerning the use of this social network, which, in light of the fact that it  only ends up getting them into trouble, is to say to them… “What Are You Thinking!”. But them, I realize, if I really wanted to know that… I’d follow them on Twitter!

In this case… Boy! I Love Twitter!

“Got A Better Idea?”

Yesterday, Charles Krauthammer wrote a scathing piece reflecting on Obama’s recent channeling of Theodore Roosevelt. The President is in full campaign mode and kicked it off with a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Krauthammer opens with this:

In the first month of his presidency, Barack Obama averred that if in three years he hadn’t alleviated the nation’s economic pain, he’d be a “one-term proposition.”

When three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track” and even Bill Clinton calls the economy “lousy,” how then to run for a second term? Traveling Tuesday to Osawatomie, Kan., site of a famous 1910 Teddy Roosevelt speech, Obama laid out the case.

It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.

Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The “breathtaking greed of a few” is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their “fair share,” the middle class would have a chance…

He continues:

As is his solution, that old perennial: selective abolition of the Bush tax cuts. As if all that ails us, all that keeps the economy from humming and the middle class from advancing, is a 4.6-point hike in marginal tax rates for the rich.

Yep. I’ve been pointing this out for a while. The increase in the tax rate will help alleviate some of the government debt problems, but it will do nothing to actually create a self sustained recovery or restore the ground lost over three decades by the middle class. I can hear the response from the Begaulans of the world that Bill Clinton raised taxes and the economy grew. Yes. But to this day no one has ever been able to point to the reason why those high taxes CAUSED such a boom in the economy. If all it took were high taxes to create a robust economic cycle, then the 70’s would have been a golden era of economic prosperity. Due to the severity of the debt crisis, I do not oppose a tax hike of the magnitude proposed. I see no way to make a serious dent in the massive debt without it. But that Clintonian tax hike will not and can not create the economic recovery everyone want desperately to happen.

Krauthammer continues:

In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions “are now forced to take their children to food banks.” You have to admire the audacity. That’s the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection!

Why? Because, you see, he bears no responsibility for the current economic distress. It’s the rich. And, like Horatius at the bridge, Obama stands with the American masses against the soulless plutocrats.

This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez. But with high unemployment, economic stagnation and unprecedented deficits, what else can Obama say?

A real solution to the multitude of problems at hand would have been nice.

I was listening to the speech while I was driving to my next job. I liked the speech, for what it was. It was nicely worded. The middle class IS shrinking and there is no denying it. But, at every turn — in the speech, not the road — I kept asking to the radio “OK. So what is your solution to fix the problem of the diminishing middle class?”.

The radio didn’t answer back. Neither did Obama.

[President Obama] can’t run on stewardship. He can’t run on policy. His signature initiatives — the stimulus, Obamacare and the failed cap-and-trade — will go unmentioned in his campaign ads. Indeed, they will be the stuff of Republican ads.

What’s left? Class resentment. Got a better idea?

Yes… I do….

Class Reunion!

Get the whole “Hope And Change” gang back together again for a nostalgic look back at 2008 and 2009, the best years of their lives!!!!!

Most Important Blog Post Ever!!!!

It’s BAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!

The official one is gone forever, but here is Son Of Squirrelizer!

And, From The “It All Depends On What The Definition Of The Term ‘Is’ Is” Department.

The ban on earmarks is holding up quite well. Of course, now you don’t need earmarks, because now they are calling them “special provisions“.

In the same fashion, Newt was NOT a lobbyist.

Hat tip goes out to Senators Claire McCaskill (D) and Pat Toomey (R) for trying to hold their constituent feet to the fire. Too bad they will fail.

Why Climate Scientists Should NEVER Be Trusted With The Fate Of The World…. Or Run Schools!!!!

This is a hoot!

Furious parents vented their anger at a headteacher who turned off his school’s heating on one of the coldest days of the year.

Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C.

The school’s headmaster, Rob Benzie, shut down the radiators as an experiment to show students how the school could cut its carbon footprint.

You might think this is outrageous, but it’s right in line with the Green philosophy of life, and how life should be for the masses. From a previous Sonicfrog post – note:

Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years. (1)

This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.

Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods

He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down….

This is the way they want to reshape the world. Back to the first story.

Mr Benzie said he hoped to repeat the eco day again next term.

“I considered the day a success”.

Of course you do! So do I… But not in the way you intended.

Big Government Conservatism

On display.

So I guess if any of these three win, we’ll have a Marriage Czar?

Of all the problems out there, they have to sign a pledge for THIS? Romney sure can pander with the best worst of them, can’t he.