Modern Folk Quartet

They aren't so modern anymore but this is Phil Spector (Righteous Brothers, Ronettes, Crystals, etc) swinging for the fences as producer, layering upon layers. It's safe to say Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was heavily influenced by this sound when he produced his own songs although they were being recorded neck and neck with George Martin of the Beatles. June 1966, as I've said before, is the best month of pop music ever.

Are The Holidays Over Yet?

I recently received a digitally animated Christmas card where a pale child dreamily walks through a winter wonderland pulling his sled. He stops at a spruce tree that lights up magically. Then he proceeds through the calm forest until he reaches a point overlooking a small New England town where the church steeple is the highest point and all is tranquil and peaceful. The boy pulls a violin off his sled and begins to play along with the music that has been accompanying his walk. Merry Christmas!
And the whole time I'm wondering: "People call me idealistic? This might as well show Jesus at the gates of heaven handing out cherry pie and cigars to Nascar fans while Libertarians are cast into a pit of flames."

As I was nearly penniless up until my 80 consecutive hours lobbing lobster crates, I never was affected by the commercial demands of Hannah Montana and her Barbie Doll daughters. So I missed my opportunity to play 1% Scrooge while the 99% Bob Cratchets of the world save pennies for their crippled Tiny Tim son. "God Bless us Every one!" Such bullshit...state sponsored casinos on stolen Indian reservations and kids huffing piss and shit in a bag: that's what reality is right now. Tar sands projects that pollute and decimate; wolf bounties returning to save precious cattle for high priced steak houses on Route 1 for Rye snobs; chipmunk movies where "After surviving the sinking of their cruise ship, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore must survive on a Polynesian island"; drug cartels competing with T-mobile for domination of telcom infrastructure; guys breaking jars with their assholes; bath salt used as cheap crystal meth; pet food companies manufacturing rice and chocolate...on and on.

The status quo is some fucked up shit and I don't need the holiday ideals to sugar coat my concrete cookies.

Un Mundo Sin Drogas

Raise your hand if you are tired of the drug war and want to stop it. The time has come to go on the attack. I read that Mexican drug cartels have started installing their own telcom towers to use for advanced warning. THEIR OWN TELCOM TOWERS! That's like your local crank dealer owning his own warehouse full of servers so he can be an internet service provider and better monitor his customers. The scales are rapidly tipping in Central America in the direction of drugs being the future. Mexican special forces are defecting to the cartels because the money is better and, frankly, the cartels have a better health care plan.
Obviously, I live in a fairy tale world where I become Peter Pan at night and fly around on my green wings planting flowers and healing wounded squirrels...so it should come as no surprise that I think I can do something about this insanity. Sure, you can shake your head in your pathetic fear castle and call me stubborn for not accepting the ascendance of drug cartels but I like to frame the debate in these terms: I'm NOT the crazy person for tying a helium filled happy birthday balloon to the ass end of the Titanic, but YOU ARE the asshole for sitting on your hands while the ship sinks. Either way, it looks like we're in for a wet and wild ride but personally, I'm optimistic and believe humans want to do spiritually rewarding work, and not manufacture and smuggle cheap cocaine and marajuana into America so the 99% can find some relief from their failed.expensive pain relief medication. I'm tired of it all and if the ship is going to sink then I prefer to die with a paddle in my hands rather than watching college football and eating franks and beans until our colons explode.
We choose our allies and I'm recruiting allies for a direct attack on the Mexican drug cartels. I don't mean we will will actually target cartel drug lords because that would be a pawn fighting a king over a spoiled bounty. No, what I want to do is retrain the pawns on the other side so they reject the drug-based lifestyle. That takes manpower and man hours. If I can toss lobster crates around then I can make a difference in the drug war. We need a grassroots movement to show Mexicans that Americans are sober and intelligent and compassionate people. We don't want to exploit them anymore. We want to peacefully coexist!
That's as far as my plan has gone but I think it's honest and it's important and it's time has come. The best way to combat the drug trade is to stop taking drugs and to encourage the people at the source of the drugs to stop making them. Who is with me?

Happy Festivus

Love your neighbor.

Lobster Blues

 Next time your lobstah roll is next to your gray whiskers I want you to think of my arthritic toe and chew long and hard on that monster from the deep. I'd like to type out a nice essay on this lobster topic but I have no time and my fingers hurt too much.

They say blues can not be faked because it is the music of the broken man.

Well, nothing like a week in the lobster processing biz will turn you into a broken man. And if your fingers are so swollen that you can't play a single note on the guitar without searing pain then that's even better. Why do the cotton pickers like Howling Wolf play and sing so well? Because they don't give a shit and their fingers hurt and they are beaten and poor and disrespected and you get what they feel. I started playing this song and it was like someone else was singing and playing, not a pretty kid who wants to be Jackson Browne. It's because my fingers are so swollen and bleeding and cracked and my voice is weakened and my neck is still throbbing. That's 62 hours in 5 days, my fucking friends. Give me shit about my lazy ways and I invite you to come down to the pound during holiday rush season and put it 62 hours. Better yet, I want you to go pick up two stacked car tires and throw them across the garage...FOR 19 STRAIGHT HOURS...and I will stand next to you and blast Slayer and Metallica in your ear and call you a motherfucker as I rip two packs of marlboro lights (along with 6 other chain smokers). You do that and then you can write your own message to me on toilet paper and shove it down my throat. Until then, you will need to shut the fuck up and keep your opinions to yourself because you'll be a fraud and a fucking asshole. "Use your big boy voice" is how the lobstermen describe it. That's my big boy voice. shut the fuck up. this is my domain. I'm lord of this castle. Me. Oggy. Not you.

They say, "Lobster processing ain't rocket science." Yeah? Well, I've worked with engineers in their calculator world and I can say that "rocket science ain't lobster processing"