Shhhh...God Can Hear You

I understand that the question: "What church do you go to?" is often used as a sort of conversational icebreaker between practitioners of the same religion. It's a valid question among fellow travelers.

Sometimes I am mistaken for one of those travelers.

Recently, a Christian friend asked me where I went to church.

"I go to the radio station", I said, "I have a Sunday show. Then I watch football."

"Duh", they replied,"I know that...there's plenty of time between your show and kick-off to go to church."

"Well, actually I'm not a Christian."

"Oh." They seemed puzzled. "I always thought you were."

"Really? Why?"

"Because you are very open and honest."

Me? This struck me as especially hilarious. I started laughing.

"What's so funny? You are."

"No, I'm not", I protested, "in fact, I just finished lying to my grandmother. I'm scum."

There was a long pause, finally broken by my friend's whispered questioning:

"You lied to your grandmother...? Uh...do you mind if I ask what you lied about?"

"I lied about religion."

More silence, followed by another hushed question.

"Um, I am not sure that I understand. What exactly did you tell her?"

"I told her that I believed in God," I whispered back,"It made her feel better."

"But you don't believe?"

"No. Why are we whispering? God knows what is in our hearts and thoughts; why are we talking so softly? He can hear. "

My buddy considered this for a second.

"I thought you just said you don't believe in God...how can you know how God thinks and hears?"

"I don't know. But there are books and stuff that claim to. I have read some of them."

"Yeah, I know, me too, but not as much as I should...I wish I were a better Christian. I'm Bad. I'm not Good, at least..."

Now it was my turn to be confused. I asked for some clarification- why were they not a 'Good Christian?'

"Because, honestly, I don't go to church much anymore, especially during football season...the kids have moved out...the divorce...you know how it is. I should go more often, is all..."

Damnation! I have a lot of Christian friends and most of them say the same thing, that they are not "Good Christians", usually because they don't go to church very often...or have ribald thoughts...or drink/smoke/toke (in moderation) etc. It's never for anything that hurts another person- in my understanding a Bad Christian would be one that deliberately causes harm- and none of my friends are like that.
I'd like to ask them questions to help me understand this logic gap, but they have already told me that they are Bad Christians...if I took my car to a garage and the mechanic said: "I am a Bad Mechanic", I'd be disinclined to ask for mechanical advice or service from that shop.
But this was the only garage open, so I asked him a question that I haven't uttered in years:

"Let me ask you something: what if you instinctively lived your life in accordance with the words of Christ- perhaps a few bad deeds (such as 'white lies' told to comfort a dying relative)- but considerably more good ones- you never hurt anyone, you help people when you can; you act on empathy and compassion, you are charitable and honest, kind to children, pets and the elderly etc...in short, you live a very moral, exemplary life- except you were not a Christian. Would you still get into Heaven, assuming it exists?"

"Hmm," he pondered," that's a tough one. Me, I'd be inclined to say yes, that it was deeds, not words that counted- and I think that helping people is a form of worship that has it's own rewards...but I'm a Bad Christian. I think most Christians would say that you were going to purgatory -or to Hell. But not me. But my opinion doesn't matter, I'm a Bad..."

"No, you aren't. You are a Good Christian. If your God exists, He surely loves you", I said.
I meant that.


It's been a year or more, but the last time I asked someone that same 'what if?' question, I was told by a self-proclaimed Good Christian that nothing you did on earth would matter unless you first accepted Jesus, that you could save a billion lives and you would still burn in Hell for eternity because you hurt the feelings of a being that's powerful enough to create the Cosmos. On the other hand, you could kill a dozen people, find redemption on Death Row and get into Heaven on the fast track via lethal injection.

I hope I never understand how someone could believe that.

That sort of dogma makes it difficult for me have any faith in God or Man, so it was refreshing to hear a more tolerant, open perspective...my friend had nudged me ever-so slightly towards a favorable impression of his faith, which, I would think, is what a Good Christian would do.
I think his God would approve and would love him for it. I explained this to my buddy, who seemed a little confused, but mostly unruffled. At least he listened.

"But you don't believe in...ah nevermind, dude. You might be crazy but you're right. Even if you do lie to your grandmother."

I think my Bad Christian pals are better souls than they credit themselves for.

Ebony and Irony

I hadn't realized what an utter piece of garbage our old turntable mixer (above, right) was until I got a chance to play with our new one...yep!
New one!
This morning there was a piece of gear in the studio that I'd never seen before- a shiny DJ mixer! Woot! Fancy!
No one had sent out an email or called me, so I was surprised as holy heck to see it...I cued up a record, pressed a few buttons, plugged in the headphones...
Cool!
It has a much better sound than the old one, I could hear the difference straightaway- it has long been a source of considerable consternation to me that my records sound better at home than at the station... why is that?...it's the mixer, duh!

There isn't much that makes me happier than new audio gear.
I was clapping my hands together in glee.
Serious glee, I'm tellin' ya.
The sort of joy that transcends dignity.
*Squeal!*

I pointed the new gizmo out to the early morning DJ, but he doesn't play vinyl. He didn't care. He hadn't even noticed it, his loss...I really wanted to share this happy moment with somebody...but who to tell?

Voila!

In walks one of our nighttime DJs.

"Hey man!", I said,"Have you seen this? This new mixer is cool!"

"Um, yeah. I came in to switch it."

"Switch it?"

"Yeah. It's mine. I left it here last night."

So with under a minute to spare, he replaced the new mixer with the old one.
I cued up another record.
It sounded like shit.

The New Breakfast Snob, Nov. 25, 2007:

Funkadelic- Grooveallegiance
Pledge allegiance to the Funk! The equipment fiasco had threatened to derail my groove train, so some serious action was needed...

Osibisa- Move On
OK. This has cowbell, it helps me rock steady... speaking of helping ,Cowbell has posted details on how you can send gifts directly to the troops in Iraq- and a story that might move you to do so.

Larry Graham- Can't Stand The Rain
This morning we had a brief but heavy pelting of hail, which soon turned into a dreary drizzle, which may or may not have cleared up by now...I'm too goddamn gloomy to be bothered to look outside my window-and my window is directly behind my monitor...I'm that depressed.

Kinks- Sleepwalker
This is one of the very first records that I bought with my own money. I wonder if I will ever have my own money again...my unemployment runs out next week, just in time for X-mas...please Godzilla, I'm an adult now- no more retail...no more foodservice...no warehouses...where are the 'real' jobs? The kind you can blog from, I mean.

Soweto Gospel Choir- Paradise Road
Geez, I should stop complaining...it could be worse. I could be in Soweto- or Baghdad.

Stewart Copeland- Gong Rock
Ex-Police drummer's solo album is so good it almost takes my mind off of war and poverty...where is Klark Kent when you need him?

Kraftwerk- Das Model
I start thinking of Africa...and Germans...African Campaign...1941 all over again...Desert Fox...Rat Patrols...make it stop...

Gong-Can You:You Can
I can say that I am truly grateful that I saw Gong perform in Baltimore, Md., many, many years ago...they were great.

Can- Halleluwah
Can't say I saw Can. Fives times fast.

Stewart Copeland- African Dream
According to the computer, I had four on-line listeners...if you add that number to the number of people listening on the FM dial, it's probably closer to a half-dozen than it is to four.

Soweto Gospel Choir - African Dream
You can't spell 'Soweto' without 'Stew', as in Stew Copeland, who we just heard do a different song with the same name as this one. Circular, maaaaan...like a globe, duuuude.

Nina Hagen - African Reggae
Whatever Nina has to say, she says it in German...a Teutonic tantrum invoking Ras Tasfari. That might seem a bit ironic , but it's nothing compared to this:

The new Will Smith movie, I am Legend, is a re-make of a Charlton Heston flick, The Omega Man, based on Richard Matheson's 1950's sci-fi novel, I am Legend.
In The Omega Man, Heston's Lone Gunman killed a lot of vampires...Charlton's character also had interracial consensual necrophilia with an Afro-Vampire, which was pretty hot stuff for a future NRA figurehead to be involved in...I wonder what Heston would say if he found out that the Hollywood Jews gave his job to a black man?
He'd be happy, I think. Chuck marched with MLK and was an ardent civil-rights activist.
Who knew? Let's give some props to Charlton Heston!
It's a madhouse!!!



Joe Strummer- Get Down Moses

Charlton Heston once played Moses in the film version of a different sci-fi book. In the book, the Moses role was originally intended for a non-white man, so I think it's only fair that Smith gets the Omega Man gig...I wonder if Will's romantic interest will be a White Zombie?



Moody Blues- Dear Diary
Woke up late, wasn't were I should have been...what's happening to me?

Rickie Lee Jones- Runaround Rorschach
Ink blot romance. Welcome back.

Blonde Redhead- Four Damaged Lemons
Damaged lemons? Make broken lemonade.

Manfred Mann- Fritz the Blank
On the 'fritz', i.e., broken, damaged- plus a Germanic reference in the names, get it?...oh, never mind. Go back to sleep.

Loreena McKennitt- Gates of Istanbul
I sure wish she'd play somewhere around here. I'd pay if I could.

Quiet Sun-Bargain Classics
Classic early Brian Eno appearance- bought last summer for three bucks: a bargain!

Emerson, Lake & Palmer- When the Apple...
Quite possibly the longest song title ever. I'm not typing it all. I'm not even reading it.
Listen, yes. Type, no.

Soft Machine- As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still
Gong's Daevid Allen briefly played with an early incarnation of Robert Wyatt's Soft Machine...the Soft Machine served as opening act on a Jimi Hendrix tour- one of those concerts was in Richmond. I was too young to attend the Hendrix show, but I saw Allen in Maryland; that's as close to Hendrix as I'm likely to get.

Altan- Beidh Aonach Amarach
I can't pronounce this but I really enjoy it.

Fairport Convention- Now Be Thankful
A belated tip-o-the-hat to Turkey Day.

Jethro Tull- Up To Me
Take you to the cinema, leave you in a wimpy bar, You tell me that we've gone too far, come runnin' up to me...up to me.

It's up to us. 2008 will be a New Year, dammit!

Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
Who filled your head with this 'freedom' stuff?



Pretty Things- Old Man Going
S.F. Sorrow is one of the first 'concept' albums, ever. It's a musical narration of the sad, lonely and wholly insignificant life of Sebastian Francis Sorrow...first, war fucks him up, then his lover dies in a dirigible explosion which S.F. witnesses...broken, he falls in with a bad lot and eventually an aged and withered Sorrow finds himself sitting on a park bench, sharing fulsome wine with Aqualung.
No one cares.
The End.




------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TRICK HAPPY ENDING:
In 1998, the Pretty Things re-united and performed the entire S.F. Sorrow album live at London's Abbey Road studios; it was broadcast on the BBC and released as a limited-edition CD that features the entire original band, with Arthur "Fire" Brown as narrator and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on guitar.


Cool , eh?

Commentary

Thanks

A little over two years ago I had a very unpleasant night. It started on the evening that I quit drinking.
I hadn't been feeling very well, so I thought maybe I'd lay off the booze for a week or two...but after less than a day, I started feeling ill- I had to leave work early, I could barely keep from throwing up and I was so dizzy that I could hardly speak: "sick...must go home", I mumbled and left.

Other than a beer, I only wanted two things:

1) An ice cube. For hours, I had been plagued with an indescribable thirst, the like of which I had never experienced- but every time I drank water, I vomited. A small sip of water would result in a small geyser of black, bloody bile; followed by incapacitating stabbing pains in my guts...perhaps a smaller sip of room temperature water would help...more blood and pain. Ice cubes felt good in my mouth as long as I was careful not to swallow any of the melting water- I felt hot and cold at the same time and the ice was the only consistent thing in my world at that moment, cool, always cool...me, I was sweating, shaking and shivering but the ice made me feel stable...until it was gone.

2) I wanted to die. The tearing, burning pain from my ruptured esophagus was almost as bad as the realization that I really didn't care that I was dying...I was losing blood by the mouthful and I really expected to expire at any moment- alone in a filthy apartment, surrounded by vodka bottles, beer cans and my own bloody puke, which I didn't see any pressing need to clean up.

I wonder if I'll ever understand why I changed my mind, but obviously I did.

I used my last twenty minutes of consciousness to drive myself to a fairly distant hospital - the same one I was born in, in fact. I live across the street from a hospital, but I didn't want t go there- I once spent 12 hours in their ER waiting room and I didn't think I had 12 hours to wait...it was late -not much traffic- I ran a few lights, sorta hoping to get pulled, but not caring- any cop would see that I was sick...anyway, I made it into the emergency room with a few minutes to spare. Just a few.

A gauzy figure asked me who they should notify. I probably wasn't going to live and they needed a next-of-kin. I wanted to say something but I don't know much after that...it was all tubes, machines, masks and bright rooms full of worried people...and then nothing.

A few minutes later, I woke up in an unfamiliar bed. A stern-looking man in a white coat was standing over me...I was in a hospital. There were things inside my nose , my mouth, my arms...other places. I immediately wanted to be somewhere else.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital..."

"Do you know what day it is?"

I told him. I was wrong by three days.

For three days I had suffered a series of grand mal seizures brought on by my sudden alcoholic withdrawal- after years of daily drinking, my body wasn't capable of running properly without alcohol...at various points it looked as if my heart, kidneys and/or liver were going to quit altogether, but luckily, they did not.
All told, three surgeries were required to repair the physical damage done by decades of alcoholism. The emotional damage is a different matter. That is something that I am working on at this very moment.

After I was told what had happened to me, I knew that I wouldn't drink again, but convincing my therapists and doctors was not so easy...one woman told me that statistically, most people who arrive in my condition don't live more than a few months- they usually drink again as soon as they are released and die shortly thereafter. Given my personal history and family background, she was not at all optimistic about my chance of recovery- my liver was starting to break down and it was too early to tell if it would recover (it did)...I was advised to start getting whatever affairs I had in order.

Fuck that. Football season was getting ready to begin and my 39th birthday was right around the corner...my previous plan of "dead by 40" didn't seem so appealing...I didn't know dying would hurt so much. I was in no hurry for more pain.

During those days I learned to love ginger ale, though I seldom touch it anymore.

Ginger ale meant I was getting better- one straw full, sip...wait...take another, smaller one...in an hour you can have another sip. Maybe.
Tiny sips of ginger ale and an IV full of Valium sustained me for several days...eventually, I convinced my keepers that I wasn't suicidal and that I could be trusted to go home unattended. If I'd been insured, I imagine that I'd have been placed on the 5th floor psych ward...but I wasn't insured, so I was freed.

I didn't have much to come home to. I had lost my temp job during my absence and had spent what little money I had on medical bills and Nexium. My car was a 'rolling total', an '87 Honda in worse shape than I was...at home, all the blood and mess from that dreadful night was still there, dried and caked onto everything...

For two years after that, I left a little blackish spot of dried blood on the wall behind the toilet- I pointedly avoided it during my rare cleaning episodes- I left it there as a reminder to myself as to how goddamn fucking lucky I am to be alive and that one drink could put me right back behind the toilet.

Last week I cleaned that speck off. I don't need it any more.

I was going to make an "inspirational list" of things that I am thankful for, but honestly,
the one thing that I am most thankful for is the fact that I am still alive.

I spent today in my kitchen.
My grandmother has been too ill to prepare a 'real' dinner for many years- for a while we made do with the store-box type, which are awful- but after I sobered up, I took on the job of preparing our holiday family meals.

With Grandma, my Dad and my Uncle all in bad shape, I have to face up to the fact that each holiday may be the last one. There's nothing I can do about that except try to make sure that we have the best dinner possible... today I prepared homemade stuffing, laced with cranberries and fresh rosemary leaves- sadly, parsley, sage and thyme were of the dry variety- I boiled, peeled and mashed five pounds of fresh russets, adding just a touch of cream, white pepper, fresh roasted garlic and olive oil...mmmm...so good...and finished with a rice pilaf, using just a touch of cumin...a recent experiment showed that this blends exceptionally well with traditional gravy and stuffing-important life lesson: don't be afraid to take chances when cooking! Some odd combos work nicely... mangoes and goat, for instance.

Anyway, I don't need a list of things to be thankful for.

I have only one thing to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to be alive. That covers everything.

In Defense Of Blog (#96 in a series of 2)

It seems that hardly a day goes by without another lurid internet scandal hitting the news. This hoax led to the suicide of a young girl- it is especially heinous because it was perpetrated by adults, not by other kids. It was done by neighbors.
One cannot help but conclude that the adults- who passed themselves off as a teenage boy- enjoyed the cruel emotional destruction that they wrought on the poor girl- there doesn't seem to be any motive other than pure evil meanness and sadism.

Cable news has created a new "reality" genre- one in which the lowest life-forms on the planet (Internet Trolls) are lured into fake trysts with underage decoys that they met in chat rooms; when they arrive at the meeting place, they are met with TV news crews and , later, the police. Strangely, many of the men (it's always men) have seen these programs, yet they can't resist the trap...and there seem to be an endless supply of these 'predators'. It's disturbing, to say the least.

All of this negative attention makes me increasingly reluctant to discuss blogging with my non-blogger pals, so I'd like to take a minute and point out a few of the positive things that blogging has brought into my life:

Yesterday I had something that I wanted to discuss with somebody- but most of my local friends know each other and this town has an amazing ability to distort gossip- so I called a long-distance blogpal and had a long talk about football, sex, politics, religion and stuff...it dawned on me that I was watching NFL football while talking on the phone with a woman about sex (and football!)- for free! A lot of men would pay for that...

...speaking of paid, I made honest money last week, and I couldn't have done it without my blog. A while back, I got a comment or two from a fellow music fan who had found my blog by googling obscure bands... we exchanged a email or three and it turned out that we live in the same city, so he came down and sat in with me one morning during my show- we found that we live exactly one block apart, small world, eh?
Last week I fed his cats for him while he moshed across England- upon his return I was rewarded with cash, a tin of travel sweets from London and assorted music-related geegaws not typically found in the US.

Honestly, I'd rather clean catshit than work for lawyers again, but I do need to find a real job soon...

Blog also helped me through the long painful months after I got sick and had to quit drinking. I quit cold turkey without any outside help, which is probably the hardest possible way- I started writing about my experiences on my blog and I soon found that I wasn't alone, which helped a lot during the worst of days.
I got hurt a few times too, but that's part of life, ya know? Stronger for it and all that...yeah.

I've been blogging nearly four years, which is a long time by blog standards. There's a big world out there that doesn't involve blogging, and I've had a slow, difficult time adjusting to it since I quit drinking- that sort of change just doesn't happen overnight- things have been really rough lately but I haven't started drinking again, so I feel like some real progress has been made...but I've also started slacking on my blog as I get more involved with real life; it's as if blog is a sort of therapy for me ( I know I'm not alone in this) and maybe, just maybe I don't need therapy as badly as I once did.
At least I hope that there is some truth in that.

Anyway, this isn't the end, not yet...I've come close to deleting this blog many,many times... something always keeps me from doing so. I've had at least a half-dozen other blogs over the last few years and never formed any sort of attachment to or from them, but this one has survived every purge, weathered every storm...and there's an election year coming up, so I imagine my political outrage will keep me on-line to some degree, but things are changing for me. There are things happening I don't feel like blogging about- perhaps they'll be fodder for future posts, perhaps not...

I've been becoming more interested in writing fiction, but I find that blog is a terrible platform for long, serialized fiction- the chapters are presented to the reader in reverse order- and the reader, unless they are well-versed in the logistics of blog, often doesn't realize this, entering in the middle or at the end...one of the first blogs I read was like that.
It wasn't until the author printed out the entire blog in manuscript form and mailed it to me that I caught on- it was excellent...that seems so long ago , but it's the sort of thing that keeps me coming back to blogworld- one of the finest unpublished writers I've ever read once sent me an entire manuscript- that never woulda happened without my own blog.
Strange things can happen- sometimes that includes good things.

Hmm...it occurs to me that I am giving myself a pep talk- and that means :

Puppies!

See ya soon.

Ungodly Ours

Two miracles to report:

A) My car is on the road again. Repair cost= $0.00. To say more would invite a jinx.

B) There are some things that a gentleman does not blog about. That didn't stop me from phoning a friend in a nearby state and giving her the details though ...I was absently watching football while I was babbling... Cleveland missed a last-second field goal by inches, first it looked good, had distance- 51 yards- then it bumped the vertical post, caromed off the horizontal crossbar , hovered in mid-air for what seemed like minutes and finally fell forward into the end zone, no good...no, they called it back...the judges ruled it first went through the posts, then bounced backwards off the back of the support beam and through them again...good for three points, which tied the game.
Good, no good, good again- it took the officials a looong time to sort it out...I was in the middle of describing my personal "yes/no/maybe/yes" scenario to my friend while this never-before-seen football spectacle unfolded on live TV.

Foreshadowing? We'll see.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night I got an email FWD from God. It seemed that His messenger here at Fallentown-FM would be unable to host this week's Gospel Hour and hey, would I mind coming in an hour early and "getting my praise on?"

My what?

I suspect that God knows I'm an atheist. Perhaps making me do these Gospel shows at 6 am is His way of punishing me...perhaps it's my reward. The view from the top of the dung heap isn't half-bad...I can see my house from there.


Tones Of Gospel, Sunday Nov. 18:


Ray Charles- America the Beautiful
I got to 'sign on' to the public airwaves with Ray Charles singing 'America the Beautiful'.
That's pretty cool.

Aretha Franklin- What a Friend We Have In Jesus
One of my earliest and most memorable erections occurred when I was eleven years old. It was spurred by filmed footage of Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Ironic, eh?

Mavis Staples- Wade in the Water
Baptized in a holy font of burnt 7-11 coffee. Ow!

J.D. Steele Singers- How Should I See You Through My Tears?
This is from the soundtrack of The Gospel at Colonus - it was produced by Steely Dan's Donald Fagen - it's quite good. Got eyes? No?
Oh, right...

Johnny Cash- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Wow. More Cash to follow.

Sam Cooke- This Little Light of Mine
Eh. Filler.

Mahalia Jackson- Amazing Grace
Mahalia Jackson- Nobody Knows the Troubles
In 2006 I saw a Chicago Library exhibit featuring 'Blues Women'- there were some concert posters on display...man, Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin on the same bill...what a show that must have been.

Clarence Fountain & Blind Boys - Lift Me Up (Like a Dove)
More from Gospel at Colonus...

Bill Anderson- The Rev. Mr. Black
This isn't about the Man in Black. Or is it? It's not.

Soweto Gospel Choir- Paradise Road
This band sure sounds good with coffee and sunrise.

Kitty Wells- Dust on the Bible
This woman sings about entering your house and running a white glove over your Bible, checking up on your piety.
There is a word for women like her- and it ain't 'Wiccan'.

Institutional Radio Choir- Lift Him Up
Great name.

Soweto Gospel Choir- African Dream
I think Jesus would like this band. It's a hope thing.

Loretta Lynn- On The Sweet Bye and Bye
Cash & Carter- Let the Circle be Unbroken
For Mom.
I didn't know I still had so much mourning in me.


Now.
Time to shift gears and do my regular program.

The New Breakfast Snob, Sun Nov. 18th:

Aphrodite's Child- End of the World
This song is describing a place, not an event, but it fits today's theme- whatever that is.
AC once released an album about Satan or something...it had a giant 666 on the cover, back when that still had shock value. I can't remember what that sounded like...this song is kinda wimpy...

Jethro Tull- Wind Up
Only a truly rotten bastard would play this song directly after the Gospel Hour.

Marianne Faithfull- Guilt
I know, I know...I can't help myself. The whole thing is out of my hands by now...what happens next is anyone's guess.

Johnny Cash- Personal Jesus
I may be broke, but I got Cash...there's a Cash song for every occasion.

XTC- This World Over
This sounds like the Police. End times over and out...

Kraftwerk- We Are The Robots
After the humans are gone, the world be controlled by the AI program from Civ IV.
Only then will we know peace.


The Stranglers- Paradise
"I went in search of Paradise, they said it would be good for my head"

The Kinks- Waterloo Sunset
"... they cross over the river... they are in Paradise..."




The Great Society- Grimly Forming
This was Grace Slick's band before Jefferson Airplane.
The song is about war protesters and the soldiers who shoot them...see, back in the 1960's there was this war in a place called the 'Nam...today, only one living person believes that Viet Nam was a 'good' war. Unfortunately, that man is our President.

Arlo Guthrie- Wheel of Fortune
This is for the Twin.

Chris Spedding- Breakout
The more music changes, the more it stays the same.

Pretty Things- There Will Never Be Another Day
When this LP, Emotions, was re-issued on CD, the label included a nice set of bonus tracks- the original LP was 'sweetened' with strings, horns, mellotrons and assorted production clutter intended to boost sales - I like the 'rough' mixes better.
There was another day, it turns out...

The Kinks- Jukebox Music
"It's all because of that music, that we're slowly drifting apart..."

Cocteau Twins- Evangeline
Why do I do this to myself?

Alan Parsons - To One in Paradise
Ah, dream too bright to last!

Damien Dempsey- I Believe in Love
Top 40. Really.

10 CC- Sand in My Face
Don't mock my Cherry Poptart beach towel.



Elvis Costello- Sunday's Best
It's tough on babies everywhere.

Randy Newman- Little Criminals
I bet Randy Newman would've been fun to get wasted with.

Nina Hagen- Lucky Number
Nina Hagen was so much fun to record with that her band recorded the music in Los Angeles and then sent the tapes to Berlin for Nina to finish.
I think she's hot.

Flaming Groovies- Have You Seen My Baby?
Randy Newman wrote this song. And yes, I have. I think she's hot.



Steve Hillage- Light in the Sky
Power chords and flying saucers from former Gongster guitarist. Motivation Radio!

Golden Palominos- Heaven
I should have played this during the Gospel Hour:

it feels good for a minute- all that shoving and shoving
all that screaming and moaning- but it all leads to nothing.
it feels good for a minute- all the promises sighed
all that whispering and crying- all that coming like dying


Genesis- Counting Out Time
...a more light-hearted approach to the same subject.

Neil Young- Welfare Mothers
Wow...you have more problems and less money than I do?
I think I'm in love.
Let's have babies!

Paula Cole - Happy Home

I never knew what to say to anybody,
I didn't know what to do, I was far too young
But everybody could feel the suffocation
Underneath a facade of a happy home

Paw- Seasoned Glove

Oh Daddy, where have your shoes been?
Please say that this is not my fault
Something I did-
You've been gone for such a long time
You've been gone at just the wrong time

Larry Graham- Easy Rider
Fightin' and Shuckin'!

Noise War and Peace

I'm currently cat-sitting for a new friend of mine while he travels abroad...prudence dictates that I not post pictures of his vacant home on the internet; suffice it to say that his domicile has an honest-to- gosh yard, complete with a real front porch- a front porch that would be at home in the Appalachian foothills- a sittin' porch. A pickin' porch.

It was on this porch, however, that I learned that my musical prowess does not extend to the mandolin- I think I have a total of about ten ounces of body fat and it's evenly distributed amongst my clumsy, blundering fingertips... Electric guitar is much more suitable for me.

And bass. I love me some bass- I have an old 1960's Gibson SG Jack Bruce model that is so sweet and ergonomic that it almost plays itself-about half of my songs were composed on that bass -although my bassists often improved on my lines, freeing me up to work on guitar nitwittery.
That was one of the best things about being in a good band...I'd bring a rough sketch or recording of a song to rehearsal, introduce it to the band and we'd try it- often it didn't sound anything like my original vision- it would sound better. Less often, the tune would fall flat- this was usually the fault of the song, not the band...some of my songs sucked...anyway, back to my original point, which was...fuck, I dunno, sumthin' about guitar...or bass?

*************************************************************************

Some vaguely bass-related advice: Don't engage in 'noise wars' with people you can't beat.

Many years ago, myself and several other guys shared a second floor apartment- the dudes living above us were the real-life models for Beevis and Butthead and they liked to play their Poodle Metal music loud. Really loud, through a full-sized PA.
Louder than my guitar amp- I had a Fender Twin and I couldn't hear myself practice- seriously loud.
War loud, it was.
One night it became so bad that I grabbed my baseball bat and went upstairs and waited for the song -Pyromania, I think- to end. Then I started bashing the metal door as hard as I possibly could- I had left three massive dents by the time I heard footsteps approach and a wary shadow moved behind the peephole.

What they saw through the fish eye lens was a 19 year-old me- shirtless , sweaty, drunk, beet-red and holding a Louisville Slugger. Smiling.

"Open up.I want to adjust your stereo."

They didn't respond, but the tunes stayed off for the rest of the night.

It quieted down for a bit after that, but the bad upstairs behavior soon resumed.
At 19, I fancied myself to be quite the 'large-A' Anarchist; about the last thing I would have considered was calling the Police for anything...but in this case, I didn't have to.
The authorities came to me.

I was weighing narcotics on my triple-beam scale when the FBI knocked on the door. I thought it was a customer-fuckin' coke-heads were always early, beat the joneses, ya know- so I walked down the hall and answered the door without stashing my gear.

I was greeted by two FBI Agents, a youngish black guy and an older white man- in hindsight, they looked like the guys from Men In Black, but that hadn't been filmed yet- who informed me that they were doing a background check on Beevis, who had apparently applied for a position in Law Enforcement. Did I know Beevis?, they asked, was there anything about his character that I'd like to comment on?

"Well, he really likes loud music. Those dents in the door upstairs were made by me, trying to get his attention- you have to knock really, really hard for him to hear you."

The agents were taking notes.

"I see. By loud music, do you mean they have lots of parties? Crowds, meetings, gatherings...that sort of thing?"

"No, I think it's just the two of them, although they may have had company last night. They threw a sofa out of their window- it's still in the alley, go look."

This, swear to Godzilla, was 100% true. My roomies and I were watching TV the previous evening when we saw a large piece of furniture plummet past outside, narrowly missing the fire escape.
It was a couch and it wound up smashed all over the cobblestones below us.
Messy and dangerous.

"A sofa?", asked a dumbfounded Feeb.

"Well, it was actually a sofa-bed. That's why I think they had help. Those things are too heavy for two dudes to throw."
I helpfully described last night's incident.

"What...what did you do when you saw a sofa fall past your window?", asked the younger agent.

"Do? What do you mean, do? "

"Did you call 911?" , the agent elaborated.

"No. Why? It was just a sofa- it wasn't on fire or anything-besides, the whole upstairs smelled like pot smoke and I didn't want to cause trouble. There are drug dealers in this building and some of them are crazy."

This got their attention.

"Drug dealers? In your opinion, is Beevis involved in drug activity?"

"I don't know. All I know is that it aways smells like weed when they are home."

After that interview, I felt pretty certain that Beevis wasn't going to get his badge...although I sadly suspect I may have been wrong.

Much more recently, my new neighbors decided to have an impromptu house party...they arrived home shortly after the pubs closed at 2AM and decided to celebrate their drunkenness by playing the same disco-dance song over and over and over, screaming and laughing the whole time...I don't know the song, all I could distinguish was the bass line and the beat, which repeated endlessly for hours while I vainly tried to sleep...I briefly considered visiting next-door, but I was afraid that I might show an alarming lack of tact...better to remain calm, I thought...I used the extra waking hours to pick out songs for my radio show...

...throughout my entire two-hour show, I could not get that goddamn bass line out of my head.

When I got home from the station, it was barely 9am and the noise next door had stopped. I imagined that my neighbors had finally drank enough to pass out and were eventually going to wake with some pretty sizable hangovers...I, however, was wide-awake and sober and I could clearly hear the ghost of that bass-line; loud and insistent- the buried heart of a murdered man.

An exorcism was called for.

For my ritual, I summoned the demi-god Gallien-Krueger, who , at 100 watts, is surprisingly loud.
Especially at full volume.

I pointed the bass speaker at my neighbor's bedroom and played the fucking monotonous chromatic bass line from their favorite song over and over and over and over until I heard the sound of people stirring.

This took about two minuteS.

Then I stopped and took a long, uninterrupted nap.

Later, I tried to play the cursed bass riff...and I couldn't recall it.

Success!

It's Not You, It's Me

I have never had writer's block.

Lost: Civilization

Prediction: Everything that has already happened will happen again.

Songs From The Big Hair (The 80's Show), Saturday, Nov. 10:

The Damned- Street of Dreams
I love the Damned. I'm not sure if they were setting trends or making fun of them (or both) but you gotta admit that Rat Scabies is a cool ' nom de rawk'.

Frank and Dweezil Zappa- Sharleena
This was recorded live in LA, 12/23/1984, and features a 15 year-old Dweezil Zappa playing live with his father for the first time ever. I saw Zappa around this time, but Dweez didn't play in Salt Lake. I don't think Frank wanted his son to be exposed to Mormons. On-stage in Utah, Frank went into a long, disparaging rap about the Moron Pumpernickel Choir,after which he suggested that we 'TAX THE CHURCHES'...it made the event staff visibly angry. I loved it. Frank was my favorite atheist.

X- Hot House
It was while I was living in Utah that I first saw X. I watched a stoic Billy Zoom standing nearly motionless, playing the best rock & roll guitar ever and smiling all the while...I didn't know it at the time, but Billy was an old man then- he was like 40 or 50...punk rock will keep you young! Unless it kills you.
After seeing X, I lost interest in the Grateful Dead.

Robyn Hitchcock- Tropical Flesh Mandala
My bestest buddy Ron turned me on to the Soft Boys way back in 1980...Ron has contributed to my musical education in many, many ways, all of them good. Thank you Ron!

Captain Beefheart - Tropical Hot Dog Night
I discovered the Captain via Frank Zappa. Those two egos couldn't collaborate for long, but they did play together...the Captain retired long ago and I never saw him in concert, but I have met several former members of The Magic Band. I even have Eric Drew Feldman's autograph!

Nirvana- About A Girl
On impulse, I held an impromptu radio contest. First caller to correctly state how much it cost to record 'Bleach' wins...something. I was happily surprised when the phone started lighting up right away-people are listening!
Answer: It cost $600. What a bargain! The winner, it turned out, is a friend of mine .Coincidently, I recorded his band's first CD back in 199? - for a lot less than $600.

XTC- Melt the Guns
This is, was and always will be a good idea.

Robert Fripp- Chicago
For the Twin, who was listening on his new PC at home in Chicago. I'm glad he got a chance to hear me.

Cardiacs- Everything is Easy
For Schlep, for turning me on to this great band. That is one of the many wonders of music- there is always more to discover. Always.
Nothing about these guys is easy. They defy everything- I love them for it.

Oingo Boingo- Wake Up! It's 1984!
Does anyone remember a movie called The Forbidden Zone? Many years ago, I used to make frequent alcoholic pilgrimages to Baltimore, where I would partake in strange rituals that involved marathon viewings of the Forbidden Zone- which shares initials with Frank Zappa. Woooo....

The Kinks- Give the People What They Want
The Davies brothers mock nearly every popular music trend of the 1980's and it takes under four minutes for them to do so. I especially love the way brother Dave pokes fun at the histrionic Poodle Metal guitar frettery that was so popular back then. Fave Dave quote: "It wasn't called Heavy Metal when I invented it." That would be an arrogant statement if not for the truth it carries.

Meat Puppets- I Can't Be Counted On At All
After I played this song I got an alarmed phone call from a friend of mine. I am supposed to feed his cats next week...sorry man, didn't mean to scare you! Those cats will be just as fat as the day you left, never fear!

Crack The Sky- Big Money
The CD this is from is called "From the Greenhouse". It's a concept album about today's headlines. It was written 20 years ago.

Replacements- Go
Wow...raw, powerful and sincere. 45 rpm to boot!

Tupelo Chain Sex- The Revolution Will Be Televised
Actually, it'll be blogged . Part of me wishes that the government would (try to) take away the Internet- it will take something very drastic to get people marching in the streets again, which, IMO, is a necessary thing. Stumik rules!

Mission of Burma- That's When I Reach For My Revolver
Burma. Revolution. Guns. Propaganda by the deed. Everything old is new again...only the names change.

The Wipers- So Young
Only the good die young. There's immortality in immorality!

Lou Reed- Martial Law
I went into a long improv rap and dedicated this song to Gen. Pervy in the Free Dictatorship of Invadistan...my whole show is laced with commentary and innuendo supporting my personal and political agendas- which is exactly how it should be. I actually got a phone call from the Prez of our Board of Directors, complimenting me on doing a great job- that's the sort of ego-stroke that makes my day. I asked if the offer of a position on the Board was still open. It is. I'm taking it- it will look good on my resume, if nothing else- and it'll help explain what I did between jobs.

Snakefinger- Kill the Great Raven
From a 1984 concert in Chicago. Snake, like Frank Zappa, was one of those very few guitar players who had a sound and style that was uniquely their own - regardless of what material they were playing, they had 'that sound'.

Frank Zappa- Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy
I hope the Liberator was listening. I dedicated this song to her. Play nice!

Gary Numan- Observer
It occurs to me that I have seen all of this before.

King Crimson- Neal and Jack and Me
This album , Beat, is a musical tribute to the Beat poets of the 1950's. I am a fan of literate rock- and the guitar tandem of Fripp and Belew is sublime...great while it lasted.

Robert Wyatt- The Age of Self
Robert Wyatt could have been a tragic figure, but isn't. Following a drunken accident, he found himself paralyzed from the waist down, a terrible fate for anyone,-especially a drummer.
His first reaction? Depression.
His second? A musical career that spans four decades.

Danielle Dax- Tomorrow Never Knows
Sexy woman with big hair and a bigger gun. Great Beatles cover...relax your mind and your hat will fit better.

The Stranglers- Mad Hatter
I dedicated this song to myself. During my music 'career' I almost invariably wore an antique top hat on stage- I fear that the mercury may have leeched out of the felt and into my pores...that would explain why I can't remember much about the 1980's. Yep. Blame the hat.

-----------------------------------------------------

I could have played records all day yesterday. It was one of those rare moments of groove, alone in the booth and everything with the most natural flow, bam! right down to the 1/10th of a second and wow, that song blends right into the next one, who knew?...it felt wonderful; I was kicking back and watching myself work...absorbed, immersed and totally in control but somehow detached from the process.
Perhaps detachment is not the best description for that feeling.
'Peace' may be more accurate.

Anyway, I managed to carry that feeling over to this morning's show. A little bit, anyway.

The New Breakfast Snob, Sunday Nov. 11, 2007:

I had a CD of ambient storm noises playing in one CD deck...as the thunder and rain built up, I gradually pushed the Pink Floyd cut into the mix ...as the Floyd receded into telephonic noises, I eased Kraftwerk-honking and squealing- onto the airwaves, the krafty Germans jumped into the beat just as Floyd echoed out... probably the finest 120 seconds of my entire DJ career.
Fuckin' bliss, man.
And you missed it.

Pink Floyd - Bring the Boys Back Home
Subtle, huh?

Kraftwerk- Autobahn
I take a vicarious roadtrip. I'd forgotten how kool Kraftwerk were.

Andy Partridge- Madhatten
Bits and pieces of old XTC outtakes and experiments...more mad hattery.

Tangerine Dream- On Crane's Passage
I like the smell of kraut in the morning. Krautrock, that is.

King Crimson- Happy Family
From Lizard. For Lyzard.

Victor Banana- Value Ape
This is from the soundtrack to a graphic novel- A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel "Ghost World" Clowes. Value Ape-Gorilla Savings!

Buffy the VS cast- Life's a Show
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my all-time favorite TV shows- this is from Buffy:the Musical.

Randy Newman- Short People
How insensitive!

The Kinks- Mr. Big
Your minions serve your beck and call
but they don't compensate at all
because inside, Mr. Big is very small
-R.D.D.

XTC- Supertuff
I am a bad motherfucker. Don't mess with me.

Hot Tuna- Bowlegged Woman, Knock-kneed Man
More live music- this is from Double Dose...tastes better than a t-bone steak, excitement on the side.

Crack the Sky - Maybe I Can Fool Everybody Tonight
Still more great live cuts- this band was amazing in concert. They used to play 'I am the Walrus' live- something even the Beatles couldn't do.

Marionette- Tricycles
Fairly new local band that I've had the pleasure of working with. A wide range of influences met when this band formed...I look forward to seeing them develop.

Elvis Costello- Radio Sweetheart
Hi! Remember me?

Atomic Rooster- All in Satan's Name
This song isn't an endorsement of Satanism, it's a condemnation of evil. Maybe.

Jethro Tull- No Lullabye
The live music keeps a comin'. I wish I'd had a chance to see Jethro Tull.

Neil Young - The Restless Consumer
Neil has been quietly releasing some excellent records over the last few years- Living with War and Greendale are both fantastic...disturbing, but fantastic. Harvest Moon kinda sucked...but that was a long time ago.

X- The Have Nots
Dedicated to the restless consumers of alcoholic beverages.
Drink at the Bar Nothing
bar everything
but the bottom step of the ladder
-J.D.

Ten Years After- One of These Days
Macho guitar. What more do you want?

Frank Zappa & Capt. Beefheart- Muffin Man
These double chocolate-chip muffins have 680 calories each, including a whopping 25 grams of fat. I am going to eat four of them and hibernate until March.

Damien Dempsey- Marching Season
Damo sez: Stop beating the drums of hate. Will anyone listen?

Talking Heads- Mind
Drugs won't change you...religion won't change you...I need something to change your mind. Mind.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer- Still (You Turn Me On)
I don't get many calls during my morning show, but I got two from this song- who knew that ELP still had so many fans? I like the waaawwwaahwhwahwahwa guitar riff.

Pretty Things- The Sun
This really is a pretty thing. In his prime, Phil May had a voice that could make a gargoyle weep.

Can- She Brings The Rain
More German muzik. Sounds smooth, but isn't.

Pentangle- In Time
Wow...this acoustic jam is breathtaking, recorded live in a living room on primitive gear...the sound is wonderful, honest and open...you can hear the air and it's clear and crisp.

The Kinks- Life Goes On
A friend of mine just had a real bad time
His life was shattered and he lost his mind
His girl ran off along with his best friend
Under emotional stress he brought his life to an end
It was such a tragedy-
but that's the way it's got to be-
Life goes on and on and on
Life goes on and on... oh, yeah...

Towards the end of this song, there is the sound of a single hand-clap... I imagine that more claps were recorded but Ray decided to omit all but the one from the final mix...to me, it's a symbol of affirmation and defiance in the face of despair.
That's what I hear when I hear this song.

Life goes on.

The Importance of Being Frank

I had the extreme good fortune of seeing Frank Zappa perform a half-dozen or so times...the show I recall the best was Salt Lake City, circa 1985. FZ was originally booked to play at The Salt Palace, a god-awful sports arena with acoustics that were so bad it pretty much didn't matter what band was playing- all one heard was the sound of permanent hearing loss.

Luckily (for the fans) , Zappa didn't sell enough tickets for the Palace, so they moved the show next door to a small auditorium designed for symphonies- the sound was impeccable, the view from our third row seats was unbeatable and the skill of Zappa's band was on a level I have yet to see surpassed by anyone of any genre - and I have seen a lot of bands since 1985.

Frank would often light a cigarette and watch as one of his bandmates- such as Steve Vai- played a solo...after few minutes, he'd stick the cigarette in the strings of his own guitar's headstock, which was the signal that he was about to play his solo, which he would do until the cigarette was almost burning the guitar...oh, man...nobody had guitar attitude like Frank Zappa. Frank was better than almost anyone alive and he knew it. He didn't have to boast or talk it up, he just played and when he did there wasn't much you could do but stand in mute awe and try to absorb as much as possible, hoping to retain some fleeting bit of the creative mojo that came so easily to Zappa but so rarely touches most of us.

Years later, I was descending the stairs of a stage here in Fallentown after one of my own concerts and an excited young man approached me.

"You must listen to a lot of Zappa", he said, " you play a lot like Frank."

That was the highest compliment I have ever received, although I'm nowhere near the caliber of FZ. Few are.

If you really want to play like Zappa, it helps if you are Zappa. Dweezil Zappa, that is. I was interested in this show, but the $32 price tag was way out of reach...so I asked for free tickets on the virtue of my overall coolness- and got them!
So last Thursday night, a friend and I want to see Frank's son Dweezil play a concert of his father's material. When we arrived, all I could see was a jumbo screen playing concert footage of FZ himself...was this the warm-up, we wondered? On tip-toe, I could see the band...they were playing along to old footage while a roadie was trying to isolate the malfunction on Dweez's amplifier...a bad cable, I think...once all the tech difficulties were straightened out, his band- featuring FZ stalwart Ray White and a cast of great young players ( the sound was so bad I couldn't catch their names during the introductions)- launched into a 'best of' medley that lasted three hours, finishing with 'Muffin Man' and 'Illinois Enema Bandit'.
Awesome.


Zappa really did love his fans and he passed that on to Dweezil. After the show, he stayed on stage, shaking hands and giving autographs to dozens of fans, myself included.

"Your father would be proud", I said. It was loud and I don't know if he heard me, but I know it's true- what father wouldn't be proud to see their son carry on the family tradition- especially when it's a musical legacy as rare and powerful as Zappa's?

I spent most of the next day playing the riff from 'Muffin Man' over and over again on my guitar. It was pointless but quite gratifying.

Until my mixer exploded, that is. Every light that could go RED did go RED and a horrible buzzing sound blew out the speakers on my cheap stereo. I checked my receipt...the warranty expired 30 days ago. Fuck.
Might as well take a drive, get some food, calm down.

My engine died. After months of auto-drama and thousands of wasted dollars, I blew a cylinder and now my Volvo is little more than a giant Swedish paperweight.
Now I can't use it to not drive myself to the job I didn't get on Friday.

Except for the great show Thursday, my life has become pretty goddamn unbearable. For the first time in months, I have found myself thinking about drinking again, and how easy it would be to lose all my problems by crawling into the bottle and never coming out again...but, no.
Not gonna happen- I have too many things to do. The thought of drinking scares the shit out of me, which is exactly what it should do. As long as I have fear, I will be sober. I have lots of fear.

I have fun too:

I have a radio show today at 3PM, Songs from the Big Hair, which is our weekly 1980's program. I found a concert CD that has Dweezil's first ever live performance on it-, it's from 1984- Dweezil is 15 years old and he trades licks with his father on 'Sharleena' ...how cool is that?
I've got more Zappa lined up- I'll be carrying my tribute over to tomorrow morning's show...I might have to walk 20 blocks through cold rain to play my old Zappa records, but, by gum, that is what I'm gonna do.

There are a lot of things I can't seem to do- pay rent, eat, find a girlfriend, etc.- but there is one thing I can always do, and that thing is playing music.

After my show is over tomorrow, I'm gonna go home and play 'Muffin Man' until my fingers hurt.
Why?
Because I can.

Trickle Down

I didn't know it at the time , but I got fucked by Ronald Reagan on my 20th birthday, Sept. 15, 1986. That was the day he signed Executive Order 12564, which called for a drug- free Federal workplace. This is ironic, because at the time ,the CIA was using money raised from domestic cocaine sales to fund arms purchases for the Contras, a brutally violent group of Central American terrorist organizations and drug-smugglers supported by Reagan's administration.

During the Reagan years, cocaine became cheap and plentiful- what was once a 'Hollywood' drug suddenly became a wide-spread ghetto commodity - the CIA and the DEA tacitly allowed tons of cocaine into America; the law of supply and demand soon made the drug affordable to the working-class.

Before Reagan (and former CIA head G.H.W. Bush) took office, most drug users had never heard of 'crack' cocaine. That, obviously, has changed.

This is not Internet rubbish, it's a matter of public record. A Freedom of Information lawsuit forced the National Security Administration to declassify thousands of documents pertaining to the US-Contra narco-trafficking. Oliver North's personal diaries were included. It's all here.

It was Reagan's dealings with the Contras that spawned the American crack epidemic in the first place. All of that blow had to go somewhere- new markets needed to be created.

It wasn't long before the lower-class, i.e., urban blacks, discovered that they could make a lot of money acting as unwitting middlemen in the distribution of coke from the CIA to the American middle-class. i.e., white people. The introduction of the 'crack economy' to urban America not only destroyed countless African-American lives, it's destructive tentacles reached deep into 'White' America's middle and working class families who became the customer base for the nascent crack industry. A suburban white would drive into the city, buy cocaine from a street hustler working for the new 'Gangsta industry', who then passed the money up to his boss and so on until it came back to the white men at the CIA, who used the money to buy illegal weapons to support covert wars overseas, none of which involved 'white' countries.
Again, I'm not making any of this up- it's in public government records such as Oliver North's handwritten notebooks:

In a July 12, 1985 entry, North noted a call from retired Air Force general Richard Secord in which the two discussed a Honduran arms warehouse from which the contras planned to purchase weapons. (The contras did eventually buy the arms, using money the Reagan administration secretly raised from Saudi Arabia.) According to the notebook, Secord told North that "14 M to finance [the arms in the warehouse] came from drugs."

Reagan's crack epidemic didn't merely spawn a new generation of gangsters, it also created a lot of jobs. For example, it was a huge windfall for the prison industry. Suddenly , there were record numbers of minorities to incarcerate- the for-profit prison business seized this great chance to expand as the conservatives moved to privatize the prison industry- for the results of this expansion, see the Dept. of Justice's own website.

• At yearend 2001, over 5.6 million U.S. adults had ever served time in State or Federal prison
  
• Of adults in 2001 who had ever served time in prison, nearly as many were black (2,166,000) as were white (2,203,000). An estimated 997,000 were Hispanic.
  
• If incarceration rates remain unchanged, 6.6% of U.S. residents born in 2001 will go to prison at some time during their lifetime.
  
• U.S. residents ages 35 to 39 in 2001 were more likely to have gone to prison (3.8%) than any other age group, up from 2.3% in 1991.

If you are a young black man, current odds say that your chances of spending time in prison are roughly one in six. (16%)
One in six.
That is unacceptable.

Back to my original point, it was EO 12564 that laid the foundation for the creation of a huge new industry- corporate, for-profit drug-testing laboratories. Today, the pre-employment drug-screen is nearly ubiquitous for every job, regardless of how menial or low-paying.

Every time an employer hires a new employee, they have to pay a corporation such as LabCorp a fee for the prospective worker's drug-screen. This testing costs money, therefore it stands to reason that employers would become more cautious in their hiring practices as a result. Which trickles down to fewer job openings- which become even more scarce if you have a criminal record (see stats above). Drug testing has been a huge cashcow for the shareholders at BigPharmCo, but has it improved America?

During the 1980 Presidential campaign Ronald Reagan famously asked America:

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

My fellow Americans, it has been well over a decade since drug screening became almost mandatory and I ask you to ask yourself:

Are you better off now than ten years ago?

There is an obscure clause in an obsolete document that -at one time- was used to protect the American citizen from unwarranted searches and groundless seizures of personal property, which I believe should extend to the contents of one's bladder.

According to that same document, an individual is also presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Unfortunately, that document- the United States Constitution- is no longer in effect.
Today, an employee is considered stoned until proven sober.

But it's not just stoners who have to worry about having their right to privacy invaded by an amalgamated corporate and Federal inquisition, it's now everybody's problem.

Everybody that uses the Internet or a telephone, that is. The rest of you can breathe easy.

As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

"An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room," he said.

Klein, who worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T, said that the highly secretive electronics-focused National Security Agency began working with telecom companies to gain wholesale access to vast amounts of data traveling over the Internet.

Are we better off now than we were ten years ago?

Rumors of War

June 28th, 1914. Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian Empire, made an unwise visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. There was a growing Bosnian separatist movement, calling for Bosnian autonomy from the Empire and there had been numerous threats and rumors of violence directed at the Arch-Duke.

Ferdinand, intending to demonstrate that the Empire still had firm control of the region, kept his plan for an automobile parade through the Sarajevo streets.

Almost immediately, a hand grenade was thrown at Ferdinand's motorcade, killing an Austrian soldier in another car. Ferdinand's convoy changed course, but took an unfortunate turn and became lost- soon, his car was stopped by a man named Gavrilo Princip- according to some accounts, Princip was the same man who had thrown the grenade earlier. In any case, he took advantage of the chance encounter; Princip shot Ferdinand and his wife, killing them both.

And World War 1 began.

Austria accused Serbia of aiding the Bosnian rebels, specifically that they had sponsored the Black Hand Gang, a slavic nationalist society that had carried out the assassination.
Austria warned Serbia that it had had better get it's act together. The Austrian army began mobilizing in anticipation of an invasion of Serbia. Diplomacy failed when a 10-point treaty fell through over the issue of Serbian sovereignty. War between Austria and Serbia seemed inevitable.
Serbia, lacking the might to confront Austria-Hungary alone, asked it's long-time ally Russia for help. Russia obligingly agreed and began to mobilize it's own forces.

Austria, not wanting to engage the Russians alone, called on it's ally Germany for help. Germany agreed.

This alarmed the French, who called up their army.

Germany had been secretly working on the Schlieffen Plan, which detailed a two-front war against France and Russia in the event that Russia were to begin marshaling it's army- which it had just done. The German command believed that it had a six-week window of opportunity to conquer France (which was supposed to a cakewalk) before it would have to face the Russians.

On Aug. 14th, the Germans invaded France via Belgium;Belgium had a defense treaty with Great Britain and the 1839 pact was invoked- Britain began preparing for full-scale war. The rest is, as they say, history.

Clearly, the framework for this war was in place for years before the assassination of the Arch-Duke provided the catalyst, but one has to wonder what might have happened had Princip and his Black Hand Gang failed in their murderous plan.

It was WW1 that ended the reign of the German Kaiser, which led to a tumultuous period in German politics, a period from which Hitler's conservative National Socialist Party emerged triumphant, which of course led to World War Two- the second "War to End All Wars" waged during the first four decades of the 20th century.

An ill-advised visit. An errant grenade. A bad turn down the wrong street. A chance encounter between an assassin and his target. Two shots.
A series of accidents, violence and blunders that irrevocably changed the course of human history.

In that context, the fate of this man seems crucial to the current global crisis of violence:

Pakistani dictator General President Pervez Musharraf is no stranger to assassination attempts- his outwardly pro-USA stance has caused him to be quite unpopular with a significant portion of his own population...unpopular enough that Pakistan is currently under a state of military lockdown as Pervez struggles to remain alive and in power.

Should Musharraf fall, a number of things could happen. The possible outcomes run the gamut from 'so bad that I am afraid to write about them' to 'so bad that I am afraid to think about them'. What will the USA do when two or more of it's allies go to war with each other? Which side, if any, will the US support publicly? Will it be the same people that we support privately? It's very hard for us, as citizens, to know. This problem is compounded by the fact that we Americans, as a society, don't really care, despite 5,000 years of history that provide clear examples of what happens when the citizens of a powerful, overreaching empire become complacent towards their leadership- which they always do. Always.

Empires fall. Egypt, Greece, Persia, Rome, Ottoman,France, Russia, England, dozens more...all had one or more empires, all have fallen. I'm trying to console myself by thinking that America is not an Empire - but that's a lie and I know it.

These are interesting times.