Nov
10
2012
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.
Nov
10
2012
I don’t like the title I just came up with, and I don’t feel all that comfortable being critical of bloggers who I also consider friends. But Bruce… Dan… The name of your blog is “Gay Patriot“. It’s been 4 days since the election, and you’ve written nothing about the success of the four pro same-sex marriage initiatives that were voted on on Tuesday.
I recognize the Romney loss is a very important topic for a site dedicated to defending Conservative ideals. But I would think that a blog with the term “Gay” in its title would have had something to say about the successful passage of the gay marriage amendments by now.
Nov
8
2012
For years, I’ve been railing on the GOP for its ideological purging of moderates from the party. Not that I need any confirmation from Mark Levin on this, but here’s a statement he made concerning the defeat of Mitt Romney in the Presidential race:
We conservatives, we do not accept bipartisanship in the pursuit of tyranny. Period. We will not negotiate the terms of our economic and political servitude. Period. We will not abandon our child to a dark and bleak future. We will not accept a fate that is alien to the legacy we inherited from every single future generation in this country. We will not accept social engineering by politicians and bureaucrats who treat us like lab rats, rather than self-sufficient human beings. There are those in this country who choose tyranny over liberty. They do not speak for us, 57 million of us who voted against this yesterday, and they do not get to dictate to us under our Constitution.
Because of course all 57 million who voted for Romney share Levin’s hyperactive views of the world…. Not.
We are the alternative. We will resist. We’re not going to surrender to this. We will not be passive, we will not be compliant in our demise. We’re not good losers, you better believe we’re sore losers! A good loser is a loser forever. Now I hear we’re called ‘purists.’ Conservatives are called purists. The very people who keep nominating moderates, now call us purists the way the left calls us purists. Yeah, things like liberty, and property rights, individual sovereignty, and the Constitution, and capitalism. We’re purists now. And we have to hear this crap from conservatives, or pseudo-conservatives, Republicans.
The very people who keep nominating moderates, now call us purists the way the left calls us purists.
Mitt Romney got the nomination because the party favors the moderate?
No.
He got the nomination because he was the only moderate competing against, at one point, five Purist Conservatives, all splitting the Purist vote amongst one another. If you take the vote count for Romney vs the combined Gingrich and Santorum totals through the March 3’rd Washington primary, their combined popular vote totals beat Romney 2,099,585 to 1,854,670. Adding in the Perry / Bachmann votes increases the purest vote at that point to 2,143,976. Think of what that would mean if Romney were only facing one Purist candidate. In April you start to see the vote totals for the Purists slide as more and more Conservatives shift to the inevitable – Time to back the obvious winner of the process. But it’s clear Romney is not the choice of the majority of the party. He won because the Pruists offered too many choices and couldn’t get out of their own way.
But this is the Mighty Mark Levin, and the majority of the members of the GOP will accept his false narrative and rewrite of history without batting an eye.
And by saying “And we have to hear this crap from conservatives, or pseudo-conservatives, Republicans” by constantly harping on the “pseudo-conservatives” (aka RINO’s) I would say that pretty much does establish that you are, indeed, purists.
And you wonder why I left the party in 2005.
Nov
7
2012
I’ve come across some analysis of why Romney didn’t succeed in his bid to oust the current President. At Watts Up With That, they are following the FOX news planted meme that hurricane Sandy is the reason for Romneys loss.
Before I make my comment, note that I’m not a supporter of either party. I voted for Gary Johnson. I am not a Barrack Obama supporter. That said, my two cents.
One commentor wrote:
“We need to face the facts, it’s not 47% as Romney indicated, it’s over 50%. We’re finished…
You got the first part right. You and the GOP need to face facts. Many, probably a good 80% of those 47% don’t enjoy the fact they are getting assistance from the Government. They are taking assistance because they can’t find a job, or a combination of two part time jobs, that can pay at least some of the bills, keep a roof over their heads, and feed their families. By adopting this insulting 47% rhetoric, you insult a good chunk of the population who are honestly struggling and make them less likely to vote for you.
But, you might say, the GOP offered better solutions to create more jobs!
You offered solutions, but they weren’t believable. This country, and this party, have spent the last 30 plus years supporting free trade agreements that make it much much easier to export jobs overseas. Hell, part of the reason people still praise Nixon is that he helped open up the Chinese market, which resulted in many many businesses to move to China. How many times have we heard about businesses picking up and going to another country, and then have any number of the Conservatives explain that it’s a part of doing business. Why are Levi’s 501 jeans not made in America anymore? And Wall-Mart is great, except for many it is a reminder that they have no choice but to shop at the cheap store featuring mostly Chinese imports products that used to be made here in America, because they don’t have a good enough job or two jobs that pays enough to be able to afford to shop elsewhere. Now, one can’t blame the GOP exclusively for this of course, the Dems have their hand to play in this as well, but you guys chose a guy who for a good period of his professional life operated a business that actively shipped jobs overseas. So don’t blame 50 + percent of the country for not trusting your party when it comes to job creation.
This is a problem of reality overriding the preferred message. Earning more income from capital gains does not translate into bringing better, higher paying jobs back to this country, no matter who is in the oval office.
Commentor arthur4563 said this:
Since nobody asked, I’ll be glad to give my opinion of why the GOP has lost the last two Presidential elections. Both in 2008 and this year, their nominating system produced a Presidential nominee who did not have the wholehearted support of their own party – neither
McCain nor Romney had more than a quarter of the party’s support. And the reason this came about was because the GOP fielded almost a dozen prospective candidates, all of whom were conservatives except for one guy – in this case Romney – and the overwhelming conservative majority was split 10 or more ways, allowing a guy with less than 30% support from GOP party members to win a lot of winner-take-all primaries and get the nomination. The winner-take-all system is allowing this ridiculous situation to occur and those types of primaries should be banned. The GOP paid the price for using a non-democratic method of choosing their candidate. From my perspective, Gingrich was the only talent the GOP had…
You do realize Gingrich, during the primaries, was so great a candidate, he (along with a couple of others) managed the fun feat of not being properly registered to get on the ballot in his home state during the primaries. That’s called incompetence. The reason Romney won the primaries is that he is a very very good executive. The good ones don’t make stupid mistakes like Gingrich did. He seemed to be the only one who was doing this, running for office, because of a higher calling and not simply to stroke his ego or prove he was the ONE “True Conservative” , i.e. the most bad ass social conservative on the planet.
Here’s the deal as I see it. Did hurricane sandy make a difference in this race. It’s hard to say for sure. Mitts momentum did seem to be slowing before the storm hit. The storm quite possibly helped tip hurricane vulnerable states such as Virginia and possibly Florida in Obama’s favor. But go to the west. New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado were likely affected negatively due to the schizophrenic nature of Arizona and its “True Conservative” solutions to the immigration issue. As a group, Mitt only got, what, 29% of the Hispanic vote? And I’m already seeing several well known and well respected Conservative talking head berating those Latinos who didn’t vote for Obama as either illegals, complicit with law-breakers, or just stupid when it comes to their own best self interest.
That’s no way to win elections, or plant a seed that will contribute to positive electoral outcomes in the future.
I have more to say, but I must go work now.
Oct
31
2012
Thank GOD Disney bought Lucasfilm and not the other way around!…. We could have seen re-edits like this, but on Disney movies! Can you imagine what it would be like when Bambi’s mother gets offed…. Oops…. Spoiler.
Oct
30
2012
Republicans…. Get ready for an onslaught of Romney quotes saying he wants to do away with FEMA… That it’s “immoral”. Here is an exchange from one of the debates:
John King: “FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role,” Mr. King said. “How do you deal with something like that?”
Romney’s response: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.
“Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut – we should ask ourselves the opposite question,” Romney continued. “What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot …”
King interjected: “Including disaster relief, though?”
Romney replied: “We cannot – we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”
Yes, I know the Dems are already pushing a version of the quote that has Romney saying FEMA is immoral, and that is not what Romney said. But what he and the party endorses, the cutting of FEMA to help balance the budget, is going to look pretty foolish in light of the tremendous damage we’re already seeing. And some in the party, along with TV and radio squawking heads, HAVE demanded that FEMA be completely abolished because of the cost and it’s not Constitutional. This one is coming back to bite you in a big big way!
Oct
24
2012
So…. How was your Tuesday?
Yesterday was one of those hectic days.
Work was backed up due to Monday’s rain. I installed a heat exchanger on a heater, and that took longer than I thought it would. got home with just enough time to string the Taylor… Oh, if only I had only strung it!
While the strings were off, I decided to polish the thing. The fret board was very dull, so I spent some time polishing it several times…
Which then made me late for Acoustic highway practice! But, since the Taylor was so shiny and bright sounding, I was forgiven my tardiness.
So we had a great band practice, including the audition of a new member. We’re moving Chris from drums to guitar and becoming a five piece once again.
Then went to Spokeasy to join the mate for a beer, then played the Audies open mic.
Yes, the U.S.S. Titanic launched yet again! Thankfully, the time spent on guitar, though not as much as I’d like, is paying off. The more I play these scary open mics, the more confident I have become steering my ship and the better I am at avoiding massive guitaring mistakes, i.e. icebergs! Yeah, I still scrape the hull from time to time, but I still do that on bass, and I’ve been playing that for, what, 26 years!
First, and apology to those who read my facebook pledge to play a new original song or two. I didn’t play the intended original songs that I had in mind because, well, I never did have the time to arrange them yesterday. But I did play a couple of new songs, Paul Carrack’s “How Long” and the Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger”, both of which are very new to me on guitar. Except for going outside the venue for a couple of minutes to doodle and try and remember the chords to both song, both were unrehearsed shots in the dark Remember, no time to practice yesterday. I also played “Blackbird”, which came out much better than the last time I tried it. “don’t Dream It’s Over” was really cool, because a sax player joined me on stage for some killer accompaniment. That was SOOOO cool!!!! And then I let some other people play my guitar. I love to hear what a more skilled player sounds like on that instrument!
Then when I got home, I spent another hour looking at possible songs to learn that can give the sax player an even better opportunity to jam. I ended up stumbling upon a really cool acoustic version of Phil Collins’ “One More Night”, which has a tremendous sax solo at the end. Needless to say, I was up until l too late in the morning! But it was a heck of a night.
Is the tiredness today worth it?
You betcha!!!! I’m getting ever closer to being able to do a one hour show all by my lonesome! It’s my goal to be able to do that by the time March goosesteps into our lives and I turn 48. It’ll be kind of a birthday present to myself.
Now, for today. More work. A nap. And win the lottery… PLEASE!
PS. Here is the version of “One More Night” I plan to learn.
PPS. I’ve decided that the new working title of my solo album is going to be “Jealous Rage And icebergs!”, if only because I don’t think anyone has named an album that before.
Oct
22
2012
Said by Jim Graves, the Democrat trying to unseat Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann:
“She’s spending millions on ridiculous attacks ads saying I am somehow responsible for TARP, the stimulus bill, the Affordable Care Act,” he says with a laugh. “But I wasn’t in Congress then—I was busy trying to keep my company afloat and make payroll. She was the one in Congress at the time. She’s attacking me as being a big spender, despite the fact that’s the opposite of what I am. I’m a business guy. I’m a spendthrift.”
Um… Yer doing it wrong. A “spendthrift” is someone who wastes money and spends it out of control. Let’s face it though, how can a word with thrift on the end of it not be about being thrifty. Stupid English language!
Oct
15
2012
Lets me get this straight. According to many in the media, and beyond, the attacks on 9/11 were Bush’s fault because there was some intelligence that something big was going to happen, and even thought there was no specificity at all about the attacks on the WTC, this is Bush’s failings. Bush and his team failed to connect the dots, as it were. Given the lack of actionable evidence concerning a specific target for the 9/11 attacks, one has to ask exactly what could have been done. That said, it’s not beyond the scope of things to say, in retrospect, it could have been handled better.
Fast forward eleven years. The current President and his Defense Department staff not only failed to provide any security to the embassy in Beghazi after they expressed concerns about a possible attack, but, after the attack actually did happen, resulting in the deaths of four Americans, the administration floats a bogus story about the attacks being the result of unrest over an anti-muslim video, knowingly lying about the real reason for the terrorist attacks on the embassy.
Yet, you don’t hear the same criticism about the current administration concerning this President and his administration.
Exactly how does that work?
Oct
15
2012
Ann Althouse has posted a damning collection of information against the administration concerning the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi. She features some quotes from Sen Graham from “Face The Nation”, laying out the case:
The intelligence community on the ground in Libya has told Senator Corker and myself that within twenty-four hours, they communicated up to Washington that this was a terrorist attack. The president of Libya on the same date said it was a terrorist attack. The video of the compound shows that there was nobody at the Benghazi consulate. There was never a group to riot. And the evidence is overwhelming, and the idea that it was spawned by a- a video and a riot would be– hold the administration blameless. They said it was a copycat of Cairo. It wasn’t a copycat. It was a sustained attack that lasted for six or eight hours, using heavy weapons which undercuts the idea that al– al Qaeda has been dismantled and on the run and it certainly undercuts the idea that our policy choices in Libya have not going after the militia, not helping the Libyans training the national army were good choices.”
It’s not just Susan Rice. The President of the United States said that it was the result of a video on David Letterman two days later. And the facts are very clear. There was never a riot. There was never a group of people around the embassy. It was a coordinated terrorist attack that took hours. Patrick Kennedy from the State Department briefed congressional staffers the day after the attack saying it was a terrorist attack. The next day after she was on your show, the– the counterterrorism deputy said it was a terrorist attack and the President after that went on national TV The View and David Letterman talking about we’re not sure if this was inspired by a video, a hateful video.
Some of you might dismiss this because Graham is a Republican. But Bob Woodward is also featured with quotes.
There are lots of unanswered questions. And I love documents, and they released some documents in this, and if you go and look at the original request for more security, they say our policy, our goal here is to shift from an emergency footing to normalize the security relationship.
Now, this is in March, six, seven months ago. Anyone looking at that what say, wait a minute, read the document in which they say, oh, the situation is incredibly unstable. Well, why are you trying to normalize your security in a situation that’s visibly unstable? You even acknowledge that.
So you’ve got a bad policy. And anyone looking at that would say, wait a minute; we are screwed up; we can’t normalize here.
So that’s the first problem. The second problem is, as soon as an ambassador is killed, the president should be more proactive and be out there. He can go, you know, five minutes in the White House briefing room and say this is really serious; we’re going to get to the bottom of it; we don’t have the answers. And all of this could have been nipped in the bud and it was not.
And when Chris Wallace asked about Susan Rice’s insistence that Benghazi was a video induced riot vs a terrorist attack, Woodward says this:
I don’t think we know exactly why she did that or what was going on. But the key… is, two weeks later, the president’s at the U.N. and citing this YouTube video, I guess half a dozen times. That, as we now know, had virtually nothing to do with what happened in Benghazi.
And as we now know, they knew this was not the case the day after the attacks happened.
So why on Earth would the President and his team continue following such a stunningly bad and damaging path on this, even after it became obvious that this was indeed a terrorist initiated attack?
It was indeed an error on Romney’s part to make the statement before the facts were known. By issuing his first statement, he looked very partisan. These are the people who are never shy about reminding us that politics is supposed to stop at the border. He didn’t get it right. But the Obama administration, in their zeal to try and make Romney look bad, ran with the anti-muslim video story and committed the worse error of responding to Romney instead of waiting to comment on the actual events and leaving politics out of the equation.
When it started to become clear that Benghazi was indeed a terrorist attack, the administration continued to run with the “video” story. Why? Because, in their isolated circle of advisers and in some of the media, it looked like that was working. Romeny seemed to be taking a hit from this. But once the true nature of the attack permeated out into the regular media, they got caught in the trap they originally laid out for Romney. The administration became the Wiley Coyote of this story.
As Andrew Sullivan is so fond of saying…. Meep. Meep.