You Talk Too Much

George Thorogood is not especially known for writing original tunes. The bulk of his work consists of remakes of existing music, so I'm not sure if this topic is based on a Thorogood original or a version of his interpretation of somebody else's work. I always liked Mr. Delaware Destroyers' music, but I'll concede he lacks originality...but that's not what I'm bitching about today, no my beef is with....


EVERYBODY who yaks incessantly on their cell phones, simply because...they can. In New York, there's a ban on making cell calls while driving unless you use a hand's free mic, yet day in and day out I see hundreds of ignorant boobs with one hand on the wheel and the other plastered to the side of their head gabbing about the idiocies of their lives. I travel by bus and the moronic conversations I overhear are beyond inane, the people are gabbing simply because they can. I have to wonder what the parties on the opposing ends of these one-sided conversations think about the dull tales that flow out of the mouths of these doofuses.


Last week I had to pick up a prescription at Wal Mart. The branch I go to has very narrow aisles, so navigating them is a real headache, especially if you're pushing a shopping cart. yet many are plugged and clogged with dimwits who are so busy blabbing into their phones they don't realize what problems they're causing. The worst area is where the check-out lines abut the aisles with merchandise. A couple of young gals were waiting to approach the cashier and were way out in the main aisle, I asked if they could move up to make it easier to pass by. One turned and sneered down her nose at me and then proceded to blather on the phone about Daniella's gym outfit. I truly wanted to kick her fat-ass up the line a few feet, but since I can't afford an assault charge, I was left to manever around her immense portruding buttocks. What is it about cell phones that everybody who owns one feels that they must use it 24/7/365? I can understand the CEO of General Motors having to make important phone calls in the course of his day, but the schmoes that I encounter on a daily basis are just killing time by flapping their gums. This would be an appropriate time for a busy signal! If you've got an opinion on this, don't call, e-mail me and let me know what you think. Sigh....

Madness

Harkening back to the 1980's, this title is one of those Rock 'N' Roll songs that can be used in the trivia question: What bands also have songs that are the same as their names? During the "new wave" blitz of the early '80's a band called Madness, had a song called Madness. It was more of a Ska tune than a real rocker, but I'll stretch things when they're convenient to my goals.

Being that I'm destitute, I started watching the cable channel AMC once I had to ditch the premium channels due to lack of income. I kept seeing promos for the original series, "Mad Men" not about lunatics, but the advertising forces on Madison Avenue, ( Greg Kihn's "Madison Avenue Man", is probably a better title for this one, but then I'd have to lose the trivia question connection, this will pop up later!) during the heyday of television. It starts in the 1950s and works it's way up to the Psychedellic '60s. This fits my interest in pop culture, since I was born in '55 and lived through much of what I was viewing. I kept intending to watch, but never did. The first season passed me by. I began reading all kinds of rave reviews of it, and seeing letters from fans asking when the new season would start, so I began watching the new season of "Mad Men" in September of '08.

On the 'plus' side, the acting is very good, and they've got the look down pat. I think of all the shows I watched as a kid and how the commercials still stick out in my mind. They were vivid, they had orignal jingles, animation and humor, television advertising was a new frontier and it was being conquered like Hannibal crossing the Alps. So why am I writing this?? because I have watched the entire second season and I'm still waiting for something to happen. The show is bo-ring, there's no suspense, it's too much like real life! I've never seen an episode where I am left on the edge of my seat thinking, " I can't wait until next week!" If I miss an episode, I don't feel compelled to watch the repeat to get 'up to date'. The entire first season was rerun during one of the holiday weekends and I couldn't force myself to sit and watch what I'd missed for openers. Why are people so in love with this show? It got several Emmy nominations.

I understand that everybody has different tastes, but maybe I'm emotionally deprived or something, because I just watch each week and end up thinking, "eh, so what?" when it's over. I'd much prefer to see the inside deals and creative wrangling of the team creating the advertising campaigns, than their dirty laundry and the lives they live as an aside to their job. I certainly don't see the comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock movies. Maybe I need some mental conditioning to make me see it their way. People's lives have a dark side no matter what their occupation is, so any job could be made into a television show, just look at " The Office". I find the humor in that sit-com disturbing, despite being mildly amusing.

The bands who's names are also song titles are: Madness-Madness, Talk Talk-Talk Talk, Black Sabbath-Black Sabbath, Bad Company-Bad Company, and...damn there's one other that I cannot think of at the moment and it'll drive me nuts from now until the next time I can get to a computer to update this column. It sucks getting old!

21st Century Digital Boy

I swiped this title from Bad Religion. I really like this band, and I've often commented on how much they sound like Pennywise. I don't know if they're still together or if they broke up and members of that band are in Pennywise. But that's not why I'm writing this. On February 19th 2009, our television systems will switch from analog to digital transmissions. I LIKE technology, I think it's ultra-kool! Many adults, are not in acceptance to change, and whine about it, but it's going to happen whether we like it or not, so it doesn't pay to get angry about it. The thing that totally bugs the hell out of me, is that our politicians don't make any plans for the ecological removal of old technology.

For years I've heard how batteries were the scourge of the landfill. They contain heavy metals, acids and make a nice toxic brew when they decompose. In the late 1980's or the early 1990's New York had some sort of ordinance that any vendor that sold batteries, was supposed to take the dead ones to be recycled. This was at the height of the Walkman/Discman era, when every schmoe had a personal music system that ran on energy cells. I would see people replacing them and tossing the old ones down the storm drains. Yeah, that's a "green" solution to the problem! On several occaisions I tried to turn in dead batteries, and most vendors got around it by saying that I had to have proof that I bought them at their store. Who does that? Many new electronics come with batteries included. When I bought my TV, the remote had Toshiba batteries in it. Naturally, they didn't last forever and I had to put in some Duracells. Now, where does one go to return Toshiba batteries? I've never seen them in any stores. Now I just put them in the trash because I have no clue as to how to responsibly dispose of these power systems.

So pretty soon, the United States will be awash with old analog TVs. I saw an item on a local news show about a homeless guy in Southern California, who would find old electronic gizmos in the trash, and he'd recycle them because many used precious metals on the circuit boards. He did this to sustain himself, but then he discovered that the computer ships were worth more than the metals. He started a business selling them to China and he's no longer homeless and the subject of a modern Rags To Riches story. The problem is, when I try to find places to take my old electronica, there aren't any on Long Island. People aren't 100% against recycling, it's just that we're so overloaded that every task has to be EASY. If all communities had a week every month where recyclers of electronics came around and picked up trashed computers, televisions, radios, stereos, etc., they'd do it! But These things take up space, and too often we need that space to make room for the new era of entertainment. If the recyclers only came twice a year, nobody would bother to keep the old Maganvox aside until they did, instead it'd end up in the landfill, the one thing we're trying to avoid. Putting aside the electronic junk for a few weeks is doable, and I personally would like to see that happen, if nobody else is willing, maybe I'll have to take it upon myself to start this trend. Maybe I'll become the next Rags To Riches story....nahhhh...life never works out that way!

Last Night I Wrote A Letter

As always, I start my bitching with a title of a song that has particular significance to me or my situation. Sometimes I really struggle to find something apropos. This time it's the complete opposite, I have a bunch and am wondering which is the best choice. My first instinct was "Mr. Postman" by The Beatles. I Llike the song and I like the Beatles, but I'm more inclined to go for the obscure. Next was the 1960's classic by The Boxtops, "The Letter", but then I remmeber the godawful version that Joe Cocker did, and nixed that one. I then recalled a band called, Starz, one of my faves from the early 1980's. It fits as well as the others and it gives me a chance to expose a lesser known rock entity to anyone who reads this drivel. So let's get to what's bothering me today....


As a loner, I enjoy getting mail, it gives me the illusion that I somehow fit into this universe. Since I don't have friends or acquaintences who regularly write me , I order lots of stuff so I get packages, the "Every Day Is Christmas" syndrome. I suffer from it badly. I have an amigo who lives in Georgia, and when I closed down the business I was running, I had a ton of binoculars left over. I decided to mail a couple of pair to my buddy and his wife. I also enclosed a program from the 2008 Belmont Stakes and a couple of Triple Crown baseball caps. I boxed them up and took them to my post office and mailed them out. Like everything else, shipping has gone up, but it was still within my price range and I let it go at that.

Weeks went by and I hadn't heard from my friend. He frequently is out-of-town for long periods, so I e-mailed him and asked if he'd gotten the package. The answer was NO. I took my receipt and went to the Post Office and asked if there was any recourse to find out where the package went? The answer was NO. In order to do that, one has to pay extra to have tracking, or a return receipt, or any other number of methods to keep tabs on the mail. But since the Post office's job is to deliver mail, a part of the job should be, to make sure it gets where it's destined to go. If I had a kid come to my door and ask if I'd like to have my lawn mowed for twenty dollars a week, I might think, "That's a good deal, with the price of gas and the time it takes" So I might take the offer, then if the kid added,
"And for an extra twenty dollars, I'll ensure that the job gets done" I would think twice.

If I'm paying somebody to do a job, then I expect that the job will be done, it's like a contract. The U.S. Postal Service is taking MY package, and I'm paying them to get it from Point A to Point B, it becomes their responsibility to do that. I shouldn't have to pay extra to make sure that they do.

I have sent tons of useless items to people all over, and they generally seem to get where they're intended. The time I send something valuable and irreplaceable, that's when the Postal Service loses it? I'm not sure I'm buying that line. If you live in Georgia and spot your local postman checking out the scenery with a pair of Selsi Binoculars while wearing a maroon Triple Crown hat, I'd be leery of relying on him to deliver your packages!!!

LOW

As always, I try to find a rock 'n' roll song title to use to start my blogs. This isn't always easy, so some times it's really a stretch to get the title and my complaints to coincide. The first song that came to mind when I was composing this blog in my head was, " Low Rider" by Eric Burdon and War. The only thing is...I despise that song, I don't even consider it rock and roll. The next one was "Lowdown" by Boz Skaggs. Although it's not as grating as "Lowrider", it is a song that will never appear in my music collection, in any way, shape or form. Wracking my brain for something more appropriate, it came to me in a flash. The whole "Keep It Simple, Stupid" ethic arose and the song "Low" by Cracker fit perfectly. Cracker is a band that came out in the Grunge era, so I associate them with The Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Bush, and that ilk. But I'm not writing about Cracker, I'm writing about....PANTS.

I have mentioned on numerous occasions that I am unusually thin for a person my age. Being thin is a mixed blessing. I am turned off by fatties. I know it's not politcally correct, but it's also not attractive or healthy to be hauling around a ton of excess blubber on your body. Yet I find it rarer and rarer to see thin gals walking around. A demi-tee, cut off just below the breasts is a good look for Daisy Dukes, but it doesn't have much appeal if it's accompanied by a roll of flesh the size of a pool float just above the waistline. But being that this is a Capitalist Society, manufacturers see that people are growing widthwise as well as heightwise, and they're making clothes to cater to that crowd. My dilemma is: that I can no longer find clothes designed to fit me comfortably, since I seem to be the only adult male with a 28 inch waist. I've got Levis corduroys from when I was in high school, that still fit me. I certainly can't wear them to any event where looking decent is a concern, but it's nice to know that I haven't porked-up the way the rest of the country has. Much of this is due to the Capitalists trying to be up on the latest trends in fashion, and that is dictated by...(gasp)...adolescents. That's right, our bratty teenaged offspring are who decides what gets mass produced and what doesn't. It will always be, that kids will go out of their way to look differently than their parents, for the simple reason...parent's are majorly uncool. Form and function have little bearing on the trends in teens' garb. They want to look radical, so a bunch of egg-headed parents, see what's being worn and then set up the process of mass marketing this look, so all high schools and colleges are festooned with thousands and thousands of individuals trying to look different by buying the stuff their hip friends wear. Talk about a viscious circle! But face it, do you know of any teenagers who are so innovative that they'd take the time to make their own clothes? RIGHT.

Getting back to my problem, I was skimming the internet trying to find somebody that manufactures pants cut for thin people and I discoverd that Levi Strauss now makes a new number code for their jeans series. I recall how badly the 505 with the button fly flopped. But in any case I ordered a pair and waited for them to arrive wondering if this was the answer to my dilemma. The jeans do indeed fit, but they don't fit well. The problem being...that they are the style popularly known as "low rise". Low rise jeans look great on females, they have wider hips and nicer butts than males...or they used to, now it's a toss-up. And because females are anatomically different from males, the low slung jeans aren't a problem for them, because when "mother nature" calls, they simply have to lower the jeans to go about their business. Males, on the other hand have been known to just "whip it out" and go where ever they happen to be when their bladders get to the point of exploding.

Since low rise jeans don't go up as high on the torso, they have less material between the crotch and the waistband. That translates to mean a shorter zipper. And that means when it's time to "leak the lizard" that it's harder to fish it out of the layers of underwear through the smaller opening. Hypothetically speaking, try to imagine this: you're having a barbecue and have the grille fired up and the guests are starting to arrive. You grab the package of a dozen hot dogs from the fridge and try to open the sealed plastic wrapper. You can't tear it, so you try biting off a piece to start a rip, and that fails. You search frantically for scissors but cannot locate any. In a final act of desperation, you grab the pen out of your back pocket and poke a hole into the seemingly impregnable plastic barrier. You eventually get an opening the size of your finger in the packet and you then try and worm the hot dogs out of it. The hole isn't expanding and your fingers are tearing the hot dogs to flecks of micro-sized, meaty dandruff. That's what it's like trying to urinate while wearing low-risers.

I'm sure there are some people out there who'll say, "Why don't you just undo the top of the jeans and lower them?". My response is, for one, that I wear my cell phone clipped to my belt and the weight of it is enough to cause it to slide off and fall to the floor, and I certainly don't want my phone swimming on the urine soaked floor of a public mens' room. And secondly, I find it very freakish to walk into a public lav to see guys standing at the urinals with their pants around their calves and their hairy, fat asses greeting me as I walk in. You see these people who do this are the types that wear sweat pants, not because they're avid sports fantics or in the middle of an intense work-out, they're middle aged blobs who can't be bothered to find clothes that fit them correctly. Stretch waist bands are a godsend for the lazy, couch potatoes our nation has evolved into. I don't enjoy that sight, so I don't want to present that scenario to anyone else!
Besides, I don't have a nice ass, it's flat and skinny, like a purple neon sign that says, " Sorry girls, nothing good for you here!"

Don't want to be alone

This is a title from an album that came out when I was still in High School. When existing members of successful bands got together, the media deemed them..."Supergroups". BBA was a supergroup that featured Jeff Beck of "The Yardbirds" fame, plus Tim Bogert, and Carmine Appice who served in "Vanilla Fudge" and "Cactus". Not only were they a "Supergroup", but a "Power Trio" as well. I'm partial to power trios. There are bands with a lot of members, like The Allman Brothers, and despite the talent level of the individual members, when you've got a big band, the amount of sound will make up for any lack of talent that may exist. Many of the disco bands of the late '70's and early '80's suffered from this problem. But that's not what I'm writing about...as usual...I'm whining about my own little world.

I'm one of those characters that just doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. I get along with my cohorts, co-workers, co-inhabitants and any other co's that exist. But I seldom get close to any of them. This makes dating a real problem. I once had a friend tell me over the phone, that the personal column in the local newspaper was hysterical. At the time I worked as the producer of a morning radio show, this also made me the main comedy writer. One of the early lessons I learned was: take material from any place you can get it! The personal columns ended up as fodder for much of what I wrote. The problem was, the more I looked at them, the more I began to think, " Hmmm, she sounds like MY type of girl..." And I foolishly began to respond to them. At the time, computers weren't widely used, so you had to enclose a photograph and send your replies to a P.O. box. This was to keep stalkers and axe murderers from having easy access to the women folk who posted ads looking for Prince Charming.
After sending out dozens of witty replies, and getting no responses from any. I began to get desperate, and I'd add tag lines saying that I understood if I wasn't their idea of the perfect mate, but I'd appreciate it if they returned my photograph. This is a key point, because I don't photograph well, and since I'm always alone, I have nobody to take any pcitures of me. I would go through my archives of snapshots and find one that was flattering, and get a dozen copies of it. After sending them all out, I'd head back to the local 24hr Photo ( this was the '80's if you recall) and order a dozen more. After doing this more times than I'd like to remember, I had still gotten no responses. If these women didn't want to date me, I can understand that, but why would they want my picture??? I began inserting self-addressed, stamped envelopes in my and asking for my pictures to be returned. After all of that I finally got ONE back. It had a note enclosed with it, beginning with..." You sound like a nice guy, but...". The word "but" is crucial here, because after it you can roll out a scroll of faults and it absolves the writer of being predjudiced. It continued, "...I'm six feet tall, and I don't want to date anybody who's shorter than I am". A reasonable clause in the unwritten rules of dating. It was then that I decided, rather than answer the ads that were placed by desperate women, most of whom I'm assuming aren't all that good looking, otherwise they wouldn't need to run ads in the paper, I'd place my own ad. In this I took a page from the only person who retunred my photo and added a caveat. I said that I'm skinny and preferred that I date women who weigh less than I do. BIG MISTAKE!
In this world of battling obesity, the only women who weight less than I do are either, A) in a chemo ward. B) pre-schoolers. C) Already taken. Leaving me to sift through the crumbs once again.
On a program I saw on The History Channel, it said that 120 pounds was the trigger for women to hit puberty. With the Thickening Of America running wild, that means that women are reaching puberty in the pre-natal stages. Can you picture the doctor informing a lady who's just spent her summer giving birth, " Congratulations, you've got a healthy, one hundred and twenty two pound, baby girl! And boy...has she got a rack on her!" Kids are being born with boobs and pubes, and they develop into a disaster area of overweight problems. So the odds of me finding a cute, slim, thin, svelte, slender, trim, skinny-assed gal are looking astronomical. Add to it that I'm not getting any younger, handsomer, or wealthier and it's not likely that I'll find the girl of my dreams. Yet, I still keep on looking. What's wrong with me?

Undercover

This title is one I pinched from the Rolling Stones in their post "Some Girls" phase. It is no secret that many bands do versions of other people's songs...some seem to rely on that as the sole source for their material. These are most often called "Covers".

I am convinced that if Jimi Hendrix had never done a cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower", that song would only be a small footnote in rock and roll history, but his interpretation has jettisoned it into the stratosphere of rock classics, and as a result, a ton of other people have done covers of that tune. His ears picked out things that don't exist in the original version, and has helped create a rock icon. Everyone from U2, to Dave Mason have done versions all leaning towards the Hendrix style of playing that one song. I think Bob Dylan owes Jimi BIG TIME! I sure as hell would not have considered doing a cover version of that song had I only heard the Dylan disc being played on the radio...but let's face it, the Bob Dylan version didn't get a whole lot of radio airplay because it was long and monotonous. Hendrix created a monster, and now some forty years later, it's still huge and assautling everything and everyone with a dynamic that simply did not exist in the original tune. Thanks Jimi, it certainly was worth it!!!

Radio Silence

This title is stolen from an R.E.M early work, which in turn is a term used during wartime for a period when communications are shut down to avoid tipping off the enemy of activity planned against them. More and more I find myself reminisicing about my short radio career. I hate to sound like a braggart, but I was good at my job, and it never ceases to baffle me as to why I was unable to get a gig at another radio station. I was hungry and would have busted my balls to make WLIR regret ever letting me go, but apparently that wasn't enough. There's a new radio station in town and I've been tuning them in more and more, partially because they play some of the stuff I used to dish-out, but also just because there's still a part of me that says, " I should be working there!"

If you are from the tri-state area, the new station is WRXP 101.9...New York's Rock Experience. What gets me even more miffed is: there's a guy working there who also worked at WLIR when I was being phased out. I never met him or heard hisshows,but the word in the hallways was: He was completely un-hip and one of the other workers did a pretty good impression of him that really cracked me up. I was always at the station at odd times, so our paths never crossed but he went on to work at the radio station my mother listened to, which in my way of looking at things, meant...he was in it only as a job, not for the passion of the music. Or maybe he was passionate about a lot of different types of music, it's hard for me to say. He used to announce the records and mispronounce the artists names, referring to David Bowie as David Booey and other similar blunders...he's got a gig at the new station in town and I'm, sitting here with six broken ribs typing and trying to keep myself from coughing up a lung.


We've heard the old expression, " It only hurts when I breathe", well having broken ribs is like that, except it hurts all other times as well. I had a trailer run over my right side, so that is where all my ribs got broken and a small puncture in the right lung. Like most people, I'm right handed so that makes everything a painful effort. Sleeping is the worst because it's something that allows me to escape from the doldrums of my now boring existence. To avoid the pressure on my right lung, I have to sleep with my back perpendicular to the ground, which isn't easy. Complicating matters, my right knee took a nasty shot as well, so I cannot bend it easily and that makes it really tough to find a way to get a restful, comfortable sleep. I have a prescription for pain meds, but they aren't especially effective, long-acting, or plentiful, so I've been taking only half as much as I need to avoid having them won't run out too fast. The drug is Oxycodone, the stuff that the fat slob Rush Limbaugh was hooked on. Why that loudmouth got hooked on this crap is a mystery to me, it isn't at all euphoric, or enjoyable. But one man's poison is another's passion. I'm rambling again, so it's time for me to stuff my beaten tail between my legs and hobble off to my next dosing of meds...I wonder if they make you take a drug test at WRXP?.....

Superman

Now I'm really dropping down on the calendar to steal song names, this goes back to the seventies, from a song by The Kinks. As a youth, I would read the superhero comix, but I wasn't a die-hard fan of them. I liked the war comix much more. I read them until the covers disintegrated and the pages were dog-earred and torn. One day, my mother decided to go through the collection of comics that my brother and sisters had amassed, and she threw away the ones that were ratty...the ones we read the most. She saved stuff like the Archie comics, Betty & Veronica and the ones we'd read once and didn't like, so they remained in pristine condition. Superheroes translate well into motion pictures, sales-wise and script-wise. The Christopher Reeve Superman series started out well and quickly slid into the typical Hollywood overkill syndrome. Then in the '90's the Tim Burton Batman series began, and boy did I HATE them. Michael Keaton was a terrible B-man, but the series made a ton of money so they kept it alive. Burton's second effort was even more dreadful, then he gave it up and Val Kilmer played the Dark Knight or the Flying Fox or whatever other catchy title you want to call Batman. He was a better representation of the crime fighter, but the script of the movie he starred in was so pathetically bad that nothing could save it. George Clooney was his replacement but I never bothered to watch after the first three abortions. This past week, the movie " Ironman" came out. It's gotten primo reviews, but then again so did the Batman flicks and you just read what I thought of them, so I'll have to wait before making any assessment of the nature of the movie. Black Sabbath has a song with the same title, and from the lyrics I cannot tell if it's based on the comics or not, since I never read Ironman, but using that would have been too easy, so the Kinks are the next best thing.

Also released this week is a television cartoon that was one of the first Japanese Anime styles I ever saw, I hated the artwork, the animation and the characters. The plots were beyond lame and yet the movie, "Speed Racer" is getting high reviews. I don't care if Sir Alec Guiness was in it, I still wouldn't spend any of my money on that crap. The first Anime I ever watched was a shitty cartoon called "Astroboy". It was equally lame as SpeedRacer and drawn in the same style and animated in the same choppy, inaccurate motion as "SpeedRacer". I tend to lump them into the same category. The best animation was the Warner Brothers, Bugs Bunny and those characters along with Walt Disney's movies, there was true artistry in the way they were produced and looked when completed. Speedracer did not have either of those qualities.

Change is not easy to accept, and I find myself torn between trying to get over my childhood dislikes and see if the movie is as good as they claim, or if I'd hate it as much as I despised the Batman flicks. I DO want to see the Ironman movie simply because it's based on one of OUR superheroes, not some import from Asia, but that's being stupid too. As I already said, change is not always easy and I'm wondering if I'll have an easy time liking Ironman or Speedracer, or if I'll stick to my crotchety old ways and wish I'd spent my money on something more lasting, like an ice cream sundae?

Picture This

Harkening back to the 1970's I swiped this title from one of my favorite bands, BLONDIE. They came out of New York and put out a bunch of really FUN albums. Once they moved itno the 1980's they became commercially successful and the music became less spontaneous. But that's not the point of this topic, it's the subject of pictures. There are all kinds ofg expressions, like a picture being worth a thousand words, or a Kodak memory is lasting, well this scandal probably isn't, so I'd better get it written right now!...

Miley Cyrus. That for those who are living in a vacuum, is the real name of the Disney Channel's teen sensation, Hannah Montana ( no relation to football legend Joe). Miley or is it spelled Mylie(?) appeared in the June issue of Vanity Fair in some revelaing photos taken by the acclaimed shutterbug, Annie Leibovitz. Hanna/Miley appeared on the cover with a bed sheet clutched to her chest, her hair covering her back and the photo is taken from an angle where the most skin you see is on her shoulders and uncovered side. Back in the vacuous '80's her father, Billy Ray Cyrus had a Country/Western hit with " Achey Breaky Heart". She is now fifteen years old and had a sold out tour in 2007. The tickets went for exhorbitant prices and parents were going bugnuts trying to get tickets for their young darlings to see this manufactured pop sensation.

I imagine the uproar is about a fifteen year old looking like a vampish tart on the cover of a national magazine. I personally think it's a fart in a hurricane. Who cares? You can find teen porn plastered across the inernet, so why would I care if a fifteen year old poses minus her pajamas with only a bedsheet covering her goodies? The same kind of ado quickly came and went when a fourteen year old model named Brooke Shields played a preteen hooker in a movie called "Pretty Baby". The uproar was over faster than a sneeze, and Brooke wasn't suddenly thrust into a world of vice and sin. Teens are resilient creatures, and we all do stupid things in our lives, so Miley did hers, it's out of the way, now just let it go! The really audacious thing is that on the inside of the magazine is a picture of Miley and her father in a pose that is truly creepy! They're positioned ion a way that looks like a child molester and his victim more than a father and his daughter. According to Leibovitz, they were shown all of the pcitures before they went to press, so they had the option of nixing any that they objected to. The fact that they let the photos go is a reflection on the Cyrus family's decision making abilities, more than Vanity Fair exploiting a teenager. Miley's been around, so I'm sure that she's a bit world-wiser than the average fifteen year old girl. I think she's literate and is aware of how Britney Spears downward spiraled into rehab clinics and trashy press coverage. Of course the media is like a fireman dumping 98 octane on a six alarm blaze, feeding the frenzy rather than pointing out that people all do stupid things at one time or another, and this was her Blunder Du Jour. So let's forget about Miley and concentrate on how candidates can spend hundreds of millions of dollars just campaigning to be the runner for the Presidential post, and what that money could do if it was spent on environmental or health issues. I'll worry about Miley when she poses for Playboy, ( if my subscription is still valid )

Planet Earth

Going back to my radio heyday, I borrowed this title from Duran Duran. Double Ds are a band that recently reformed for the typical reunion tour. Although thye won't be making the rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, I kind of liked Duran Duran. They produced some good dance music in a time when dance music was sneered upon. Disco was the basic form of mindless beat that was used for dancing in the late seventies to mid eighties. Although it was less mindless than disco, new wave dance music was still pretty low on the totem pole of danceable rock. But nobody cares about that in the late Two Thousands. I borrowed this title because of Earth Day.


Earth day started in April of the late seventies. I always believed that Earth Day was April Seventeenth, but it fell on April twenty fifth this year, so either my memory is failing or somebody else's is. In any case as human beings we are rapidly developing junk that is polluting ourselves out of existence. Plastics, which are oil based can only be recycled so many times before they break down to unuasble levels. Whereas glass and aluminum can be recycled eternally and they don't become any less viable as materials with each reuse. Unfortunately our representatives in the grand forum of politics don't seem to find this to be an important issue. Litter is everywhere, but legistlation to fight it is nowhere. Electronic gizmos with limited lifespans are also increasing in popularity and use, but when these things reach the end of their lives they end up in landfills or our sewer ssytems. The silicon chips can be resued in all types of other electronic circuitry yet reusing them has gotten very little notice in the media. Here are some pleces that specialize in the recycling or reuse of electronic refuse...Myboneyard.com
eBayEZtradein.com
Freecycle.org
Earth911.com

are all places that spcecialize in reusing our garbage for worthwhile purposes. Yet they will remain virtually unknown because the powerbrokers to make them household names are too busy acting like morons to focus on telling the world about a better way to use our leftovers.

Back in the early 70s, I saw a news report about how batteries have potent pollutants, adding acids, toxic heavy metals and other potential pollutants to our air and water, we were told to recycle our used batteries, but to do so was a logistical nightmare. If it is made an easy step, I think people will try to follow the lead they are given, but if just left up to to us, it is unlikely to happen. I recall this specail saying that we should put our batteries in a glass jar and mail them becak to the manufacturer. Did this reporter have any idea how much this would cost? I had a Toshiba telelvision, it came with a Toshiba remote equipped with Toshiba batteries. How long do uyou think it would be, before I filled a glass container with Toshiba betteries? They aren't on the store shelves the way Duracell, RayO Vac, and NeverReady batteries are. Why isn't it easy to recycle batteries? Because it would cost the battery manufacturers money to make it easy. In the end it would save them countless dollars and cents, but the initial lay-out of funds would be sizable, so we won't see it untill it becomes mandatory. And our political candadates won't make it mandatory becuse they're all wimps, and they don't want to lose the votes of those battery company employees. So we all will pay for it in the end. Funny, I don't recall seeing any battery connections in my asshole.

Politician

Ahhhhh yessss, going back to the fabulous sixties for this title. "Politician " was a tune by the famed supergroup trio, Cream. What most people don't realize is that Jack Bruce did most of the vocals, NOT Eric Clapton! In my opinion, he's one of my favorite bass players in all of rock, plus one hell of a vocalist too. But that's not what I'm writing about. I'm writing about the era of that song. The age when psychedelic rock was all over the radio, protest in the air due to the increasing military involvement in a place called Viet Nam, and youth seemed to be a dominant force in everything that was seen and done in those days. I was a freshman in high school in 1969, the year that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and this little outdoor rock concert in a small place in upstate New York called Woodstock were dominant stories in the news. Of course there was a whole lot other than that going on, but we have selective memories. We tend to overlook the less pleasant moments in our biographies, and dwell on the memories that grow in scope and scale as we age. In my opinion, youth have always been interested in the political process of the United States, but when riots are breaking out across our great nation, things get hyped more than they really are. I think that was the case in the late sixties, but not by much. There was a buzz in the air, protest songs were what suddenly was being played on the radio and reaction to what was going on in Southeast Asia was more important to young people than it was in the following years.

My mother was what many would describe as a "bleeding heart liberal". But she wasn't as liberal as my friends who had "cool" parents. In her mind, there was no need to try drugs, no need to get drunk, no excuse for wild parties, there were laws and they were in place for a reason and it was a citizen's duty to follow those laws, like 'em or not. My mother also disliked change, and was not very adaptable to new technology or changing standards. The way things were done in her youth was the way they should stay. I remember asking her why she never used her sideview mirrors when she drove, substituting that for a rapid back and forth head swivel that made me nervous to sit in the car with her. Her answer to that question was, " They didn't have them when I learned to drive". My response was,

" But the car has them, it's not like you have to go out and buy some, so why not use anything that will make life easier?"

Her response was, to remain silent and ignore the question. Old habits are hard to break. One Election Day she called me up early in the morning and began spouting off about some candidate she was particularly impressed with and urged me to go out and cast my vote for this hopeful. Resentful at being told who to vote for I said I had no intention of wasting my time going out in the rain to vote for anyone other than a President, knowing full well that it would piss her off to an extreme degree. Upon hearing that reply, she resorted to extortion. " Don't ever call me up and ask me for help if your car breaks down, if you don't vote...." I interrupted her to explain that I had already voted and I resented her telling me who to vote for, simply because it was a candidate that SHE liked. That shut her up and she apologized for telling me WHO to vote for but expressed interest that I did vote. It was an important issue. During the police action in Viet Nam, people not old enough to vote were being drafted and killed in the conflict, so fighting for that right was a big issue in my day.

I'm also glad to see that youth are playing an important role in the upcoming election, although I'm less impressed with the candidates. I actually like John McCain because of what he endured in the Viet Nam war, he seems less impulsive than our second Bush, who has gotten us into a HUGE mess in Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with the attack on September 11th 2001, but now he has created a breeding ground for Al Qaida to thrive in. Not to mention, Osama Bin Laden is still runnning around untethered. If we had spent the amount of money looking for that goon, as we have on the conflict in Iraq, he'd be dead or captured by now, but Iraq has become a quagmire that we cannot get out of gracefully and without creating more enemies than we had before our involvement there. I'm a vehement anti-theist, and I dislike McCain's religious ideas however, despite them being much less intense than some of the other Republican candidates had. I supported Hilary Clinton when she ran for Senator of New York, simply because she's a woman and I like to see things turned upside down. Halfway through her second term at that position, I cannot think of a single things that she's done other than campaigning. Whereas I am completely impressed with Senator Chuck Schumer, and he's frequently in the news because he actually does things.

I have no firm feelings about Barack Obama. I don't dislike him, but on the other hand, I can't say that I like him either. I have no feelings positive or negative for either Democratic candidate. They strike me like a couple of schoolyard rivals taunting each other, but actually lacking the guts to call each other out to the bike rack after school. I keep expecting to hear one of them make the accusation, " I'm rubber you're glue, it bounces off me and sticks to you!" When the other makes any statements that are less than flattering. " I know you are, but what am I?" probably will be the official response to what the first has to say. Afterwards a speed round of " Afraid Not!", " Afraid So!" will ensue until the host declares the debate over. These are the youth of my era now in position to become the leaders of the free world, and this is what campaigning has boiled down to.

I think I'll get out my headphones and listen to what Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker have to say, it's more entertaining and a whole lot better sounding than Hilary's story about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia.

P.S. I hate the fact that this blog forum doesn't allow indentation when starting a new papragraph. What the fuck is the deal with that???

P.P.S I'm adding this afterthought in February of 2009...after the presidential campaign got to the nitty gritty, I did 180 degree rotation. Barak Obama ran a skillful and erudite campaign, I ended up voting for him because McCain ran a sloppy bid for the P.O.T.U.S ad made a seious blunder in his choice for Veep. Our new President is a much more eloquent speaker than Mr Bush and has hit the ground running in his efforts to clean up the economy. He's inherited a big mess and will be spending the honeymoon period of his term just trying to dig us out of the cesspool he chose to jump into. My hat goes off to him, I admire the gusto which he's taken in his new job!

Make A Circuit With Me

The Polecats are hardly a household name in the Rock and Roll archives, but they had a semi-hit with a song by that title in the mid 1980's. It essentially ran down a bunch of terms of semi-conductors and then had the chorus, "Make A Circuit With Me". This was the best I could come up with in my title management, and it's a song that i like so it will have to do. Naturally, I'm not really interested in the Polecats or their one hit semi-wonder, I'm writing about how we've become a "Disposable Society". Environmental issues have long been a sore spot for me. I'm not a tree-hugger or one of those fanatics that throw paint on people who wear fur coats, I'm directing my anger at our administrators for being so lax in making it easy for the citizens to to recycle our resources. I believe that many more would do so, if it weren't such an effort. Our daily lives are bombarded with electronic devices, gizmos and gadgets. I bet you can't recall the last time you were in an environment where there were no cell phones, PDAs, laptops, Ipods, MP3 players, walkmen, battery operated watches, or any other forms of conveniences that require batteries. I can't. These things all fail at one point in time or another, and they're often more expensive to repair than replace. So our trash system is filling up with all types of eco-hazzards that we're ignorant about. I recently saw a story on some news program about a guy who was down-and-out, he lost his abode and like so many others, began living on the streets. He was mazed at how many old computers and other electronic paraphenalia he came across while dumpster diving. He saw that the circuit boards had gold on them, and he began saving them and cashing them in to sell the semi-precious metals. At one of the places where he sold the goods, they informed him, that the Integrated Circuit Chips were actually more valuable than the gold, silver and beryllium on the circuit boards. He started a business salvaging used electronica, and in the stereotypical "rags to riches" story, he's now a very successful businessman. Here on Long Island, I have seen zero places that do the same thing as this innovator did, asnd I keep asking myself, "Why?".
There's obviously money to be made in it. It's good for the environment, and good for the economy so what are we doing sitting on our fat, lazy asses throwing these treasures into dumpsters for? I would love to see my old stuff going to a better use than just taking up space in a landfill! I lack the knowledge to differentiate what can be salvaged and what can't but it can't be all that tough. Why don't municipalities make it easy for all of us to do the right thing? Why does everything have to reach critical mass before it makes headlines? Why do we all have to wait until somebody else does it first? I always thought it was cool to be the first, to be the innovator not the imitator, to be the leader and not the follower. Yet our trash cans runneth over.
Let's complete the circuit and get as much of this stuff out of our waste system and put it to good use. Then we can revel in the fond memories of that song by The Polecats!

Hell Hole

This title I swiped from "The World's Stupidest Heavy Metal Band" Spinal Tap. I recently had to vacate the apartment I lived in for twenty some odd years and moved in with my father. He grew up on a farm and what other people thought of the appearance of your proerty, was inconsequential. Unfortunately, living in suburban Long Island, that is NOT the case. He's become obsesssive about keeping things. He has a garage, a basement an attic and rooms filled with crap-ola that he'll never use, but he refuses to dispose of. A carpenter by trade, he always comments on television programs that feature tradesmen working in shops or garages that are efficiently organized, expressing his skepticism over wheather or not any "real work" gets done there because of the clean nature. I happened to mention that I' ve worked in shops that were neat and organized, and yes, the did get messy, but at the end of each day, we had to clean up and actually throw out the stuff that doesn't get used. He'd reply with a snort.
I find myself in a true to life hell, I'm something of a pack rat myself, but I can face the obvious and will toss things out when I get buried under and need space to work. I had hoped to get a job or start a business airbrushing. That image has long since faded and I seriously doubt that I'll be able to pursue my dream simply because I have no place to do it. He cannot throw away a box, the garage is full of semi-damp cardboard containers. He's got a wood-burning fireplace, so any branches, limbs, twigs or scrap pieces of wood are all saved, even though he only makes fires on rare occassions. He began saving styrofoam packing material because he noticed how hot a cup of coffe is and yet when in a styrofoam cup it can be comfortably held with a bare hand, so he plans on insulating the house with it. Forget the fact that this is strictly against fire codes and would turn the house into a funeral pyre in seconds if it somehow ignited, which judging from the substandard wiring is a very real possibility.
The section of the house where I have my kitchen is filled with boxes of stuff that I have no place to put, there's an air conditioner from the 1960s sitting on the floor, a fish tank with no fish in it on the counter. I'd like to unpack my belongings and find places for them, but I'm facing a tough job, because he hasn't moved a finger to make space for me to put my possessions. I had to throw away my bed, several chests of drawers and workbenches because he won't stop collecting firewood for the fireplace that gets used four or five times a year. He seemed annoyed at me that I threw thigns away. The old bumper sticker, "He who dies with the most toys, wins" seems to hold true for him, but he doesn't have toys, he just has junk, trash, garbage, and things which take up space and collect dust. I said that I'd like to do some serious cooking in my kitchen once I get some space. He perked up and pointed out that I'd managed to empty three or four boxes of stuff. I said that was aonly a fraction of the mountain, and I had no place to put the rest. His reply was, " Well find someplace". This made it clear that he had no plans to assist in this endeavor by actually tossing out any of his goodies. So I find myself halfway through my first month of living in a Hell Hole, with only remote prospects for jobs and no assistance as to where I can easily store and access my belongings while living with the King Kong of packrats. I have seen the future and it isn't bright, shiny or easy to maneuver around in. Somebody shoot me...please!

Hot Rod Lincoln

This song was a big hit for Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen when I was in high school, back in the early 1970's. I grew up living across the street from a guy who's father was a cartoonist for the local Long Island paper, Newsday. He was a hot rodder, and it was always cool to see T-bucket roadsters, and bubble top Impalas in his driveway. This guy was also a pinstriper, an art that I truely didn't appreciate until late in my life. Now I wish that I had befriended him when I had a chance, who knows what I might have learned. He later opened up a speed shop called,
" Northeast Performance", it didn't last long and he soon fell back on his pinstriping skills to make his living. I was always into airbrushed customs, for one, because I picked it up relatively easily, whereas pinstriping takes practice, and I was too itchy to do that.

I recently left my job in hopes of making my living airbrushing full time. My timing couldn't have been worse, I broke my ankle and while laid-up, was unable to practice, or do much else for that matter. By the time I was mobile again, I had exhausted my suppply of cash on medical bills and was stranded with the inability to get around and try to find a gig doing custom-paint work. Car freaks are everywhere and Long Island is no exception, but the messy winters and salty air play havoc on car bodies, so those who have show-quality machines keep them garaged during the winter. The economic news hasn't been rosy either, so people of moderate incomes can't spend money on frills when the mortgage is overdue, and rich people go to established places to get custom work done, not some start-up who has no reputation or resume to fall back on.

Cars have evolved to the point where many of them look like gum drops that have sat on the rear deck of the car in the sun while parked at the beach in summer. They don't have the lines that accent their shapes. Two tone paint jobs, no matter how well executed they are, add little flair to their amorphous lines. Front wheel drive and transverse mounted engines make hot rodding more difficult and the skyrocketing gas prices make it even less appealing. Hot Rods are on the endangered species list.

Not that it will ever die off, because young people and car-freaks will always look for ways to modify their vehicles. If they can't soup-up the engines, they'll trick-out the paint jobs, the body shapes or the interiors. Anything to individualize what they choose to drive. A car says a lot about its' owner, and todays cars are saying that we are a boring, unimaginative group. Let's prove them wrong!

Lie To Me

I copped this title from a blues guitarist named Johnny Lang. He was sixten years old when he had his first major CD release, and has several releases since then. Despite his age, he has a worldliness that surpasses his years, so he sounds like a Mississippi Delta, struggling, working stiff rather than a midwestern kid. But that's not what I'm writing about, as usual I'm writing about...me.
I am currently out of work, I am not inept, lazy or difficult to get along with, yet I've been experiencing a tough time getting back into the working world. I've always been fascinated by cars, custom cars especially. I'm NOT a whiz of a mechanic, or a hotshot at body work, my forte is modifying cars to stand apart from the crowd, rather than just blending into it. Long Island, New York is hardly the center of the custom vehicle industry, so I am limited as to the number of places where I can attempt to make a living altering vehicles, and yet when I do find places where I think I could make a noticeable impact on what is done there, they seem rather closed to my attempts to work with them.
I have a friend, who is a Type A personality to an extreme degree. When I've mentioned my lack of success getting jobs in the custom industry, his advice is always the same...LIE!
The problem with that is, once people figure oput that you fudged the truth, they think everything you do is bogus or bluster. I have no problem exaggerating my experience, but I'm not going to come straight out and say that I'm adept at doing something that I've never tried before, because those who are experienced will notice it right away and trying to explain the lack of sincerity with previous statements become an anchor around your neck.
I know lots of people who are chronic bullshitters. Most of what they spout out is far beyond believeablity, so they aren't fooling or impressing anyone. Instead they are inviting people to talk about them behind their backs and the way they play with the truth. Most of their stories make Hollywood dramas appear tame by comparison. I have no interest in having that sort of label dropped into my skinny lap. The same friend that urges my modifying the truth with job applications also suggests the same thing when attempting to woo women. For the same reason, I tend to shy away from that tact. It's one thing for a one-night-stand, but for a lasting relationship, any falsehoods will tend to pile up and it then gets difficult to sort out what I've told to whom, and keeping those stories straight will become a burden that builds up over time, eventually the dam will break and I'll look like an even bigger loser than if I just admitted ignorance.
So, for the sake of sanity and keping my image intact, I am saying that lying is something that we all have done at one time or another, and it's part of human nature. But THINK about what lies you tell before you open your big mouth. It will save you a ton of embarrassment in the future.

I am the D.J.

This one is from David Bowie, I believe it came out in the early '80's, but I could be mistaken.
When I was in college, way back in the late '70's, I used to cruise around Long Island to check out bands at nightclubs, and hopefully meet women. I was alway surprised at how hip the D.Js, who played the tunes between band sets were. They played stuff that I never heard on the radio, when I talked to them, they would often show me the album covers, and the bands were NOT the playlisted, top twenty, radio formula music. I often wondered, if they didn't hear it on the radio, how do they find out about these groups? Well I later learned, once I was established at WLIR F.M., that there's something called, "music service". This was a subscription organization that provided D.J.s with records.
Once I got out and began spinning tunes at clubs, I still had to buy my records like every "Joe Average". This became an expensive endeavor. I often drew the ire of music fans because I wouldn't spend my hard earned money on music that I didn't like. One evening a girl asked me to play a song by Bruce Springsteen. I told her that I didn't have any Bruce with me at the time, which was true...but I also didn't have any Bruce with me at ANY time, because I hate his tunes.
The club owner happened to be coming to tell me to make an announcement, and overheard the request. He told the girl to write down what she wanted to hear, and they'd get the record. He handed her a yellow legal pad that I happened to have with me and she wrote down her request, but as she moved away, she muttered, " I don't like him". By some strange coincidence, that happened to be my last night as a D.J. at that club. I have no probem playing tunes that I don't like, I just didn't want to pay for them.
The days of the ultra-hip D.J.s are a thing of the past, now you have to spin what the public wants, regardless of how inane it is. There may be some dance clubs where the unknown song can be snuck into a set without too much bad kharma, but I could never get the admiration of the common man by turning them on to the obscure rock that moved me. So it goes. ( A tune by Nick Lowe off the "Pure Pop For Now People" lp)

Neighbors

Yep, another Stones song for a title. This one's from the landmark '80's ablum, "Tattoo You". In the summer, for six weeks my job took me to Upstate New York, to the cozy community of Saratoga Springs. This could turn into a headache, since I don't drive and getting around was always a nightmare, but things there still had the "Small Town" feel of the late '50's/early '60's, so walking to breakfast and dinner was less of a nightmare than it would be here on Long Island ( Lawn Guyland for us natives).
One thing that I noticed was, that in the process of going out, people that I passed on the street all said, "Good Morning" or "Hello" as they passed, whether they knew me or not. That always gave me a good feeling, like the entire world hasn't become jaded, only the small portion I live in. When I return back to the Island, I try to be civil as I pass people on the street, for the most part, they regard me suspiciously as they pass. It's as if they're asking themselves, " What does that guy want?". I had hoped that this tiny gesture, might have a snowball effect and spread through the area, but that hasn't been the case. We've become more insular, shutting out the world and barricading ourselves behind real and mental barriers. I don't know if that old adage about strong fences building better neighbors has any truth in this day and age, it sure seems like stronger fences build suspiscion, doubt and underhanded ways to break them down or go around them.

Centerfold

Once again, I've borrowed a title from the '80's. The J. Geils Band had a hit by that name, circa 1984. When you think of Centerfolds, Playboy is the first magazine that comes to my mind. They made them famous, with such notable women, as Marilyn Monroe to Pamela Anderson baring it all for men to drool over. I've had a subscription to that "Gentleman's" magazine since the mid nineteen seventies. I don't think I threw any of them away. Inside there are advertisements for leather folders to preserve the naked women in a classy way. I put mine in boxes. When I was airbrushing fairly regularly, I often used them as references for my work, but lately, I've been reading them and then putting them into storage, never to look at them again. Due to my inability to find gainful employment, I have to move back home. I've amassed a sizable amount of junk, and sorting through it is a full time endeavor. There is a lot that has very little practical use, but I can't bring myself to part with it. My father is a worse pack rat than I am. He won't throw anything away. So compiling my junk with his is a good way to insure that most of it will remain buried in a time warp.
I tried gettig rid of some of my worldly goods on the internet. I have a couch that I cannot bring to his place, simply because there's no place to put it. I put that up for sale for $1.00. So far nobody's interested. I have one of those mini-cube refrigerators that has also garnered zero interest. The last item was my collection of Playboys. They're only magazines so who would want them? I put them on Craigslist for $1.00 just to get them out of my possession. I was hit by a number of inquiries, so I quickly changed the ad to read "Best Offer" instead, hoping that I could actully benefit from they're disposal. Once I weeded out the kids who were looking for "Whacking material", I was left with only two bidders. I ended up settling for $35.00 which was fine with me, otherwise they would have ended up in the recycling pile and the trashmen would have scored on that one. As much as I hate to admit it, times are changing too fast.
We now live in a disposable society. Buy it, use it, throw it out and buy a new one, seems to be the standard procedure for most of our goods. The electronic industry creates an incredible amount of pollution, due to the rate that things become outdated. I keep seeing stories on the news about how much recyclable material is in most ciruitry, and someindustrious guy goes about salvaging old computers, cell phones, radios and other assorted gizmos and not only melts down the precious metals from the circuit boards, but also found that the i.c. chips are even more valuable. I've got some computer equipment that's outated but in good condition, I hate to just dump it, yet when I try to find one of these industrious recyclers, there are none in my area. Why is that? I always see what a potential danger old batteries are to our environment, and back in the early nineties, some sort of ordnance was passed that stated any business that sold batteries, had to take old ones to be recycled. I never found anyplace that did. With Hilary, Barack and John out stumping for votes, I'd like to hear their thoughts on ways to get people up off their lazy asses and do something about a probelm that I'm reasonably sure I'm not the only one experiencing. As a race, we're too cavalier about what happens to what we don't use once it leaves our hands. The old "Out Sight, Out Of Mind" adage holds true in that respect. We only think about potential pollutants once they cause a problem like Love Canal, we're not proactive about environmental hazards, we wait until things get out of hand, then react to them, rather than mandate change before things get over our heads.
We as humans are so disposable, yet our dominance on the planet is making life difficult for the other living things. In New Jersey, they've had to change the hunting regulations because bears have been a problem in populated areas. Well DUHH, if we keep bulldozing wooded areas and building homes there, the bears don't exactly have Travelocity to help relocate them, so our solution is to kill them. If a bear kills a human, we feel justified doing it in, but bears would rather avoid us if they had the choice. We're taking that option away. It's even more mind boggling that I started out writing about a J. Geils Band song and ended up worrying about the future of our planet's animal life. I think I may have a problem...

Undercover

I took this song title from The Rolling Stones. I keep making jokes that the Stones will be soon touring in wheel chairs, yet every time they launch yet another world circuit, they never cease to amaze me how good they are. This title isn't from one of their better tunes, as always, that's not what I'm writing about, so it doesn't really matter.

In previous posts, I've stated my feelings about some of the clothing styles of the moment. This is another such tirade. For some peculair reason, hooded sweat shirts have become all the rage. These have been around for as long as I can remember, and I'm over half a century old. To me, hoods have always been a mark of dipshitness. When I was in my twenties, I wanted a leather jacket and went to several department stores looking for something to give me a "tough guy" mystique. The fact that I'm grossly underweight and couldn't intimidate a fruit fly, had nothing to do with the fact that I liked the way they looked. The jackets offered by department stores like Macy's, were very conservative. They seemed to be geared towards yuppie, brief case toting, business types. I started going to boutique shops in hopes of finding a cool jacket that fit my thin frame. On once such venture, a store clerk saw me poking through the merchandise and came over to offer assistance.
" May I help you?" He asked.
" Yes, I'm looking for a leather jacket" I explained.
" Do you want one with a hood?" He asked. The look on my face probably said more than I could have. I envisioned the Hell's Angels motoring through a town on their Harley's when a sudden rain started falling, so they all pull off the road to put up their hoods. The nurdness factor is off the charts. So now we've got a whole generation that walks around with their hoods up, and it's supposed to be cool. I'm not buying it! Even more preposterous is that, once these clowns get out of the weather, they leave the hoods up. I hang out at a local branch of Hooters, and seeing a hooded twerp shoving a hamburger into the void covered by the cloth that won't keep you dry in the rain, is like going to a geriatric Ku Klux Klan meeting. The intimidation fact or is: Zero. Even the name is one that doesn't inspire any emotion.
Hoodie. How cute is that? It sounds like a something adults say when they're around a newborn baby, " Ohhhhh, look at little baby Johnny, isn't he sweet. Look at those darling little fingers. Yes Johnny, that's such a cute little hoodie you've got on, ohhh yesss, you're soooooo cute..." Try to picture a stereotype bully walking into a store and asking to check out the Hoodies, it's a stretch. The girlyness is extreme. Am I the only person with in possession of any testosterone on the planet? I'd rather be tortured than have to wear one, let alone try to buy one.
In the form vs. function category, they do have their place. Worn underneath a jacket that will stop wind, they can keep you fairly warm, but on the other hand, so can lots of other more macho looking outerwear. So I think people who wear hoodies need to examine their wadrobe a bit carefullly, unless robbery is part of their agenda.

Changes

I'm a "Baby Boomer", born in 1955, schooled in the '60's and out on my own in the '70's. Actually not, I graduated from college in January of '79. It wasn't until my grandparents decided to sell the house we lived in, that my parents were looking at houses they could afford in the mid 80's. At the time I was working at a local radio station, and averaging five hours of sleep a day. The houses my parents could afford were further away, and if I moved with them, my sleep time would have lessened, so I decided that I wanted to live under my own rules. My folks didn't really like my lifestyle, so it was time to get away. I chose the David Bowie song title for this blog, since the 70's were when I was getting itchy to get out from under the wings of my overbearing parents.
As a single male, one of the things I had to do was learn to prepare meals for myself. I think I suceeded at that point. When I was in high school, there were cooking classes called Home Economics, or "Home Ec". Any guys who took that class were immediately suspect of being "fruity". Of course nobody ever questioned why so many of the great chefs are men, or accused them of being gay. Also, where better to meet women, than in cooking classes? Alas, I wasn't that sharp in those days and missed all the fun. I had to do it the Trial & Error way. Being a diabetic, meal preparation has always been a crucial point of survival. The fact that I'm still alive leads me to believe that I've been at least partially sucessful. In my younger years, I was also driving, so I had more time to prepare meals before dashing off to work. One of the easiest meals to fix was also one of the healthiest...oatmeal. It wasn't rocket science, if you wanted a cup of oatmeal, you boiled two cups of water, added the meal, stirred, put it in a bowl, added milk and sweetener and voila, you were done.
Lately things have changed. I've restarted eating oatmeal after a long hiatus, and if I add one cup of oatmeal to two cups of water, I get...runny, drippy, gruel. How have oats mutated to cause this phenomenon? Why all of a sudden ( maybe it isn't so sudden, maybe I just never noticed) has oatmeal required less water to get a consistent density? Why do the instructions tell you to add too much water? Don't they have people who test these minute details out? Does all the world except for me eat sloppy, runny, oatmeal? I'm really stunned by this development. I've refined my oatmeal making procedures, I now add 3/4 of a cup of oatmeal to 1 cup of water and things work fine. So I'm able to adapt, but why has oatmeal been reduced to an unappetizing slop? I thought they want people to be "heart healthy". Does the rest of the civilized world really eat oatmeal this way? Am I the deviate as opposed to the norm? I wish that somebody would explain this to me, but since nobody reads these bloggy bits, I'm betting that I don't get any answers, leaving me to just wonder...

When I Write The Book

It didn't take long, but once again I've ripped-off another title from the '80's. This one is from Nick Lowe's band Rockpile. It's a shame they didn't have more than one album, a band with Lowe, Dave Edmunds & Billy Bremner is a winner by my standards. In any case, they came and went like a fart in a summer breeze, leaving me with this title as a lead-in to my thoughts...
As a person who'se pretty creative, but a rotten businessman, I've spent many hours dreaming up all kinds of bizarro ideas. When my last girlfriend split, also back in the '80's, I was so irate, that I sat down at I think it was a typewriter and just started pounding out my thoughts. After writing several pages, I realized what a waste of time and paper it was, because nobody would have any interest in reading any of it. My friends weren't the literate type, reading was something they had to do in school, it wasn't something one did for relaxation, enjoyment and to become more informed. So pawning my attempts at literary freedom off on any of them was like pissing into a gale force wind. So I channeled my lack of prowess winning women's hearts into a more marketable medium, a novel. I wrote, rewrote, edited and rewrote some more. I finally ended up with what I considered to be something pretty decent. I had zero knowledge on how to submit works to be published. I thought one just mailed copies of their manuscripts to the various publishing companies and hoped they got lucky. That would have been easy compared to the bitter reality of it all. I bought a subscription to Writer's Digest, in hopes that would give me some insight as to the process of getting something published. Boy, was I naive!
At the time I was working at a car stereo shop, and making about fifteen grand a year. I found several "Publishers" that catered to unknown writers in the magazine, and submitted my work to them. One sent back a reply that stated that the plot was interesting, the characters were memorable and for fourteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars they would publish and print up one thousand copies of my book, the marketing was up to me. Am I crazy for not taking that super offer? My sister had friends who worked for Proof Reading companies. They were essentially the same thing, charging a fee to read and critique new "talents". She told me that most of the people were crack-whores who hated their lives, and wrote novels about crack-whores who hated their lives. Hmmmmm, that's a stretch. But one thing she also said was, they never told the people who submitted their tales of woe that the work was no good, they took the money and coached them on ways they could improve their manuscripts. Kindling came to my mind.
As time progressed and I bounced from one job ot the next, I ended up working at a concession at the local thoroghbred racetrack renting binoculars. It was the late eighties at that point and televsion sets were replacing field glasses as the preferred way to view the races, so I had a lot of down-time. I brought my old computer to the track and used that to write and rewrite several sequels to my first unpublished novel. Now I've got a whole series of works that nobody has ever read. Wow! The '90s came and went, and I watched my income slowly diminish as fewer and fewer people attended the races. This allowed me more time to write. I still think that my work could be sold, but getting it to the attention of anyone with clout is a talent that I don't possess. In the 2000's I decided to try E-Publishing, figuring that anything is better than nothing. It turns out that most works submitted for on-line reading must be in the format of Microsoft Word. As my luck would have it, I used Corel Wordperfect. I got my program at a computer show for thirty dollars, so I figured that if I had to buy a new word processor program, it might set me back $49.95 or something like that. Boy, was I ever wrong!
Microsoft Word is still in the two hundred dollar range. Even if I could afford that, I don't think I'd contribute to the Bill Gates's Offspring College Fund. I have no idea why it is so damn expensive, or what features I get with it that make it so much more valuable than the Corel or Brand-X word processing programs. So as I sit here typing out a blog that nobody will read, I wonder if my novels are really unintersting to everyone except myself, or if I'm sitting on an unopened treasure chest? I know that I don't read other people's blogs, so it isn't unexpected that nobody would read mine. If I had friends that read, it would be one thing to send them the links to my mental farts, but I think that most of it would fall into their definition of "spam".
On the plus side, my fingers will never be obese.

The End

My sister recently e-mailed me a list of the worst Rock & Roll songs put out by Rolling Stone Magazine. Of course, many of them were songs that I liked. One was the tune by The Doors,
" The End" closely associated with the movie, " Apocalypse Now". I'll agree that it's not one of Jim Morrison & Company's best tunes, but how it ended up in the worst of all time is beyond me. At least it's not a ditty from the '80's.
Today I'm writing about a televsion show that's been getting a slew of great reviews. "Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles" First of all, it's on Fox, which makes me leery from the get-go. I sat through an episode of this allegedly good show and had to make some observations. First of all, I liked the 1980's movie that it' based on. The sequel was also pretty cool. By the third installment, I was getting sick of it. I like things with a beginning, a middle and an end. It was clear that there was no END in sight! The "Terminator" series is a money maker, and nobody wants to stop making money, even if integrity suffers. "Terminator 3" wasn't bad, but it was painfully obvious that it was being milked for all it was worth, and that irritated me.
Getting back to the Fox series, I HATED it! The character, Sarah Connor was a babe played by Linda Hamilton. The television "cheap imitation" is nowhere near as cute or charismatic as the first Sarah Connor. Secondly, the first movie took place in the '80's, so now why are Sarah, her son and a teenage female terminator that's on their side, suddenly living in the present without having aged? Even worse, why is Sarah Connor no longer a blonde? Does she think a dye job will make her harder for a cyborg to recognize? The whole time-travel aspect of the premise is like a lame excuse to explain everything that's inexplicable. Maybe I'm being too harsh, since I didn't see the series from the onset, but what I saw did NOT make me want to see more. It, like most other television series, dragged things out to the point of being tedious. I'm sure there are legions of fans out there who love the show and will faithfully view it, but I'm not one of them. For me, the beginning was THE END!

I Can't Explain

Don't freak out! I used a song title from the '60's for a change. This one I 'borrowed' from The Who, and it means a lot to me, because it was one of the few Who songs I could play on my bass, without totally butchering.
The thing that I can't explain, is the rapid changes in merchandise availability. I would think that waffles are pretty much a standard type of breakfast amongst American families. But times are a changing. More and more households rely on pre-packaged, pre-mixed, pre-cooked food to eat right out of the package. I think I'm safe in saying that most households rely on more than one income to support the cost of living, so nobody has time to prepare, let alone eat a decent breakfast. Now that I'm out-of-work, I have the luxury of being able to prepare my favorite, carb-laden meals, pancakes and waffles. Unfortunately, my waffle iron has seen better days. In the baby boom years, I think waffle irons were popular house-warming and wedding gifts. Not so long ago, you'd see them in the Sunday newspaper supplements, on sale for $29.95 at any number of department stores. The iron that I use, came with a non-stick coating. After thousands of waffles, the non-stick coating lost it's repellant qualities, making it necessary to spray some form of oil on the grid to keep from fighting to get the waffles off the cooker. I like waffles that are fluffy, not the type that have ben on the grille too long and get a cardboard-like quality to them. So after using the oils to make removal easy, cleaning the iron has turned into a nightmare. I try to avoid immersing electrical equipment in water when ever possible, but not just the removable grids have gotten tarnished from the spray oil, the whole thing is a gloppy mess. It takes much longer to clean up after making the waffles than it does to prepare and eat them. This is precious time I could better utilize to look for a job, or write blogs. I finally decided to price a new waffle maker.
My first destination was Froogle.com. The implements they displayed were of the Martha Stewart caliber. As much as I love waffles, I'm not about to spend $149.99 on a machine to cook them. For that price, it should mix the batter, cook the waffles and serve them to me! If I was working, and had all the money in the universe, I see no reason to spend that much on a simple tool that could be gotten for thirty bucks two or three years ago. I next ventured over to Overstock.com. They were also poorly suited to fit my waffle addiction. Why have waffle irons gotten so damn rare and expensive? I can't explain. I'll certainly try though. As I mentioned earlier on, everybody's rushing to get somewhere, so taking time out to prepare a meal is a rarity. Popping an Eggo Toaster Waffle into the microwave is a far cry faster and easier than dragging out all the ingredients and fixing them yourself. Of course I don't think there's any comparison to how they taste. Since I'm a diabetic, I've devised a special formula to the mix, in order to help me deal with the wimpy tasting sugar-free syrups that are flooding the market. The fact that I often add fruit to the mix also has contributed to the demise of my waffle iron.
I suppose that I could try one of those liquidator outlets to see what they have to offer. I suppose I should hustle, there may be a run on the market, when all the carbo-junkies go out looking to score these much prized works.

Middle Of The Road

Yep, I'm going back to the '80's once again. This title I swiped from The Pretenders. Since music was once a critical part of my lifestyle, I always try to use a song title for my posts. This in itself isn't always easy. The first song that popped into my mind was, "Stuck In The Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel. That was a '70's band that featured Jerry Rafferty as their lead man. He had a big hit with a song that I despise, "Baker Street". That's getting off on a tangent that's not at all applicable to what I'm moaning about.
I guess I was in college when some scholar came out with an analysis of "Personality Types". As far as I can recall, this genius declared that the world is divided into two personality types, Type A, and Type B. I could be mistaken, but I actually did a bit of checking before writing this, and I was unable to find any references to Type C personalities, so I think I'm safe. The Type A personality is Outgoing, Aggressive, Assertive, Dominant, Gregarious, Bold, Brash, somewhat Egotistical, and if they aren't smart...talked about alot behind their backs. The Type B is more likely to be introverted, shy, cerebral, a follower rather than a leader, analytical, observant, and considered more of an outsider. These traits aren't mutually exclusive, there's a lot of crossing the lines, and that makes it harder, and I believe less valid that this labeling system is at all accurate.
There are two people I was friendly with who I'd label Type A without hestitation. Both of them were minimally educated, but "street smart". This isn't to say that all Type As are uneducated, it's just that the two examples I know, were. From my point of view, the Type A guy is more likely to get the girl. I think that harkens back to the early stages of man, where a woman wanted a good provider to produce strong, healthy, offspring and furnish food, shelter and protection for them. I'd label Donald Trump as a Type A, and he certainly doesn't fit into the "dumb jock" category. He does seem to lean heavily towards the obnoxious factor however.
I have a hard time categorizing myself, I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I certainly am not aggressive all the time, but I do have a competitive spark in me. I'm not a good loser, I want to win and when I don't, I used to let it bother me. It's only in my later years that I could easily shrug off a poor result of something I tried. I am not outgoing, but on the other hand, I did wangle a job as a disc jockey at a radio station out of sheer perseverance. I've done stand-up comedy, which isn't for the Shrinking Violets among us. I've bullshitted my way into jobs that I was marginally qualified for. I don't think those are features generally associated with Type B people.
I once had a girlfriend call me, " A disposable person". At the time it was early in our relationship, and I just took it as a joke, a jibe, a teasing comment. But more and more I really think she hit the nail on the head. When I look back at the people I hung out with, I was never the center of attention. One day we were hanging out at a small park, when another member of the group showed up and announced, " We were just over at the sandpits. They leave the keys in the trucks and we were driving them around..." One of the group who I was with turned to another and said, " Ya wanna go over there and drive the trucks?"
" Yeah, let's call Mark and Woody and have a demolition derby!" And the plot was devised. I didn't have to say, " Can I go too?" because it was just assumed that I was a part of the plan. However, if the same scenario arose and I wasn't on hand, the sentence, "Yeah, let's call Mark and Woody and Tony, and we'll have a demolition derby" would never have been spoken. When I was out of sight, I was truly out of mind. After numerous incidents similar to that, I asked myself, " Why am I trying so hard to hang out with people who don't give a shit about me?". I decided that I didn't need them, and I stopped going where I knew they'd be, or calling up on Friday night to ask what was going on. The results, I spent a lot of time alone. I've drifted through several groups of crowds I've hung with, and things always seem to turn out the same. I get along with them when I'm there, but once I'm gone, I'm forgotten. I don't enjoy being a loner, I'd much rather be a socialite, but since I've never found a spot where I fit in, I've decided not to force my way into a group, because that only fuels resentment. Maybe I should found a Type C Club, for all the people who don't quite fit the mold of the two types that are accepted. The only problem with that is, I think that eventually I'd be ignored, cast aside and forgotten.

Love Stinks

For this post, I'm taking the title of a song by The J. Geils Band. I suppose I could use Elvis Costello's "My Funny Valentine", but Peter Wolfe sums it up better. Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day. A day when all express their love for their partners with gifts and displays of affection. But for single people...forget about it. It's just another day, a day when everyone else rubs it in that you are alone. Sometimes it's a concious maneuver, but most of the time it's not. People are overjoyed to be loved, so they feel the need to let everyone know, whether they're interested or not.
I seem to be one of those people who's "Terminally Single". I've tried all kinds of avenues to meet attractive women, but they always seem to turn out to be dead ends. The basic problem is: that I'm attracted to the girls that everyone is attracted to. When a lady has a bevy of potential suitors to choose from, I always seem to end up pretty low down on the list. I hate to say this, but I think that romance is a dying virtue. People look at dating from all angles, and much of it is financial in nature, so that's a major strike against me.
Once, while talking on the phone to a woman who's personal ad I had responded to, she asked me, " What are you looking for?" I responded,
" I'm looking for somebody who's attractive, creative, with a sharp wit and unconventional"
" No, I mean what're you looking for?" She asked again.
" I'm looking for somebody to date, isn't that what I said?" I asked, feeling like a doofus.
" No, but what're your goals?"
" I'm looking to date somebody that I have a connection with..." I tried again, hoping that this time she got the gist of what I was looking for.
" Are you looking to get married!?" She finally spelled it out for me.
" I'm not looking to get married just for the sake of being married. I want to meet somebody special" I answered.
" Why?"
" Because I'm alone and lonely" I snapped, getting flustered with the direction the conversation had taken.
" You've gotta offer a girl more than that!"She snickered. After that, I stopped answering personal ads. I simply have nothing to offer. But human emotions don't work on that kind of logic, and years later I saw a report on the TV show, "CBS Sunday Morning" where they did a feature about the internet dating site EHarmony.com . It touted how successful they were at matching people and how many had gotten hitched since their first meeting. Their ads had a caveat stating, "If you apply now, your first contacts are free" or something along those lines. I went on line and read all the fine print, expecting to see what the cost of the set-up was. There was no mention of any prices . I decided if it was free, I'd give it a shot. There were 450 questions to be filled out. I began the process, and less than halfway through it a television show that I wanted to see came on, so I'd watch it until the commercial break, dash over to my computer, answer two or three more questiuons, dash back to the television, watch more of the show and then repeat the process. It took me forever to finish, when the results came back it said something like..." even E-Harmony.com cannot find a match for everyone". So in other words; I'm too fucking weird for even an internet dating site to find some scag to dump in my lap. What a confidence builder!
I could go on for paragraph after paragraph with dating disasters I've endured. With that in mind I just want to wish all those loving couples a Happy Valentine's Day. On February the 15th, don't go to work and recant all the tales of your undying love to the single folks who're cringing inside. It won't endear us to your tender hearts!

Got Alot On My Head

This is a song title I swiped from one of the better '80s bands, The Cars. I'm not a "fashionista". I like the clothing styles of my youth more than what's available today. I believe that my underwear looks better beneath my clothes, rather than having my pants slung around my ankles so everybody can see my, big, brightly colored boxers. I'm funny that way. Hats are a negative in my book. Sure, they serve a purpose and I believe in form following function. It's okay to wear "lid", "skypiece", "topper", "cover", "copter" or whatever other slang term you want to apply to keep your ears warm or your hair dry. As a fashion statement, hats suck! Most of them are ugly, and anybody who chooses to wear them must have a truly hideous looking head if they want to keep it under wraps.
I DO wear hats, however. In cold weather the capilaries in the skin on your noggin don't recede the way they do on other parts of the body, so it's possible to lose a large amount of body heat through the head. I used to work at the New York thoroughbred racetracks, and as an enticement to get people to show up, they'd have give-aways. Most of the trinkets they dispensed were cheap items, like t-shirts and...( dont' tell me you didn't see this coming)...hats. These are baseball cap styled bonnets that were extremely cheesey. The portion that covered the head was usually small, so it almost resembled a Yarmulke with a brim. I usually ended up with more than one of these junkers, and I'd keep one in my backpack in the event of rain. On one such weather related occasion, I dug out my cap and went to the bus stop. I kept noticing a peculiar odor. I checked to make sure that I hadn't stepped in anything unwanted, glanced around to see if I was near a dumpster, and sureptitiously took a whiff under my arms. They were all fine. When I got home I hung my jacket and cap on the newel post and went about my regular activities. Remembering that I'd forgotten to pickup a chance at the Mega-Million lottery, I grabbed my cap and flipped it onto my head. It was then that I caught another whiff of the dank odor, it was the hat that smelled. I tossed it aside and grabbed another from my closet and went out. Once I got back from the local 7-11, the second hat also stunk. It seems that these hats once moistened, get quite odoriferous. They also DON'T keep your head dry. Fine lot of good that does, " I want a hat that only is useful on days when it's not needed!". I smelled like a hamper in the high school gym locker room, where all the damp, musty towels were tossed, to ferment into a sickly aroma.
After that discovery, I went to a camping catalog and searched for a waterproof hat. I found one that was reasonably priced and not overly unappealing looking. With shipping, it came to about sixteen dollars. This hat served me well for many months, and I happened to lose it about two weeks ago. I went nuts going through on-line sites looking for another. It seems that most hats are worn for style, as opposed to protection from the elements. The kids today like wearing baseball caps, with the brim which is designed to keep the sun out of your eyes, backwards, or skewed sideways. Why don't they just get those doofy looking caps that fisermen wear? Those have brims that go all the way around, so no matter which way you put it on, the sun still won't get in your eyes. Form vs. function.
It is also de rigeur for today's youth to tote their goodies around in a back pack. Most will loosen the straps to extreme points, so they're easier to slip ones' arms in and out of them. I don't have any problem with that, except...it causes the pack to droop low on the body creating stress on the lower lumbar region of the back. Ages of camping/hiking wisdom has taught me that it's best to put the heaviest items as close to the body as possible and then tighten the straps so the pack is firm against the owners' back. This keeps the weight close in, and makes it easier to move about without having the weight of the pack offset your balance. But that's not what I'm bitching about, the thing that surprises the hell out of me is: that the backpack industry has to be a multi-million dollar a year business, yet try finding a backpack that's water proof. I've had many newspapers, records and other items I lug around get ruined because my pack leaked in the rain. There are water repellant packs out there, but they're designed to use when scaling Mt. Everest and the cost is nearly as high. With all of todays high-tech fabrics and materials, why can't an affordable back pack be made that will keep kids' school books from getting drenched in the walk from the bus stop to the front door of the house? What's even more perplexing is that many packs DO use water resistant fabric, but the zippers allow water to drip in, so when you get inside out of the elements, you open up your pack to find that your posessions are swimming in a pack that allows water in, but it doesn't seep out. Brilliant designing there, all of you portable tote engineers. Maybe one of these geniuses can design a pack that can be worn on the head, so today's kids can fill them up and wear them backwards or sideways.

Kill The King

Today is the day that the much touted Grammy awards are being announced. I've never been a fan of Grammy's because the music I like, isn't what the masses like. I buy music because it strikes a personal note with me, and I don't care who else likes or dislikes it. There are some automatons out there who like whatever is popular and their tastes shift with popular opinion. I borrowed this song title from Rainbow, when Ronnie James Dio was still their lead singer.
I personally am not a fan of Elvis Presley. I don't consider him to be the king of anything except White Trash garish behavior. Back in the '50s, when Rock and Roll was young, Elvis was an important factor, I won't deny that. His early stuff I have no problem with. Tunes like "Jailhouse Rock", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Hound Dog", and "Love Me Tender" are okay in my book. It's only during the 1960s, that Elvis put out such miserable drech ( or is it drek?) like, "Suspicious Minds", and "In The Ghetto" that I began to really detest him. The kicker was, when the Beatles were in the height of their Psychedellic phase, that Officer Elvis contacted then President Richard Nixon and offered to get evidence of the Fab Four's drug abuse in order to deny them the right to tour in the U.S.A. In 1972 when the televised farwell Tour From Hawaii was aired, that Elvis appeared on stage in his flamboyantly, flashy matador outfit that he performed the song, "Something". As a bigger Beatle Fan than Elvis Fan, I was enraged. He'd tried to stop the Beatles from earning a living by touring, and yet he had the balls to perform one of their songs? I am mystified as to why people put him on a god-like pedastal.
Of course the final chapter in Elvis's life is that he was as big a drug abuser as the Beatles, yet none of their lives ended due to their experimenting with substances for recreational purposes. Elvis became a punchline to a bad joke. He evolved into a fat, buffoon, stuffing himself into his idiotic costumes. Rock and Roll has survived just fine since his demise. I was working in a factory when he checked out, and that really killed me, because I worked at a machine where hearing protection was required. I happend to have a pair of headphones that looked almost identical to the ear protectors, so I'd plug in my radio and have tunes to make the drudgery, less tedious. For at least ten days after the death of Elvis Aron Presley, I couldn't listen to the radio because my ears were assaulted with tributes to him.
The King has left the building, and I can breathe a whole lot easier.

Black Coffee In Bed

I worked at a radio station during the early to mid 1980's, when "disposable music" was at it's peak. I swiped this title from a band called "Squeeze" formerly "U.K. Squeeze". Just because I labeled the music 'disposable' doesn't mean that I don't like it, I have some very fond memories of that era, but let's face it. Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, & Thomas Dolby aren't going to make it into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. They'll be swept under the rug, stuffed into an obscure corner of the trivia pile.
In any case, science marches on, and every day, some new revelation comes out about our lifestyles. First it was discovered that there's something in coffee that has amazing antioxident properties, then it was discovered that caffeine has all kinds of negative side effects. Now they say that preganant women shouldn't drink more than one cup of coffee a day. What should we believe? I personally don't care!! Coffee sucks! Just the way it smells makes me wonder how anyone can put that in their mouth? Yet Americans go to extreme lengths to get the crap. Starbucks is a wonder unto itself. For a while there was a big debate about Krispy Kreme vs. Dunkin Donuts. People told me that the KKs blew away the DDs, but the Krispy Kremes on Long Isand all went out of biz. Many people speculated that it was because their coffee was nowhere close to DDs. No matter how many Dunkin Donuts are in or around your town, there's always room for one more, and they all seem to thrive. One opened up in my area recently and it's across the street from where I buy my newspaper . Every morning I watch people make suicidal maneuvers that would have had Evel Knieval shitting in his pants, trying to whip into the parking lot of the local DD. It's all for that coffee buzz. Plus the fact that where all overworked, overstressed and trying to do eight and a half million things at one time, that people need to gnash their teeth to get their caffeine jolt and the sugar rush. And we wonder why Americans are so obese? Hmmmmmmm. I'll take the disposable music of the 1980's over coffee any day of the week!