Madcap Washington

"At issue is how to reach an agreement to fund the government in the newly started fiscal year and raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit."

In a hundred years I couldn't create a performance art piece that is as insane as what I'm reading right now about the amount of debt the government is in. You say I'm crazy for trying to drive to Ellesmere Island to raise awareness about the arctic wolf?
Well, what does that mean about someone who thinks a $16,700,000,000,000 debt ISN'T ENOUGH???

THEY WANT TO MAKE IT AN EVEN $20 Trillion???

This isn't Monopoly money, it my fucking taxes getting flushed down the toilet for bombers that sit in mothballs and battleships that are sunk to create artificial reefs off islands that will soon be underwater in an ocean that will soon be dead.

I'm a guy who buys the cheap cereal because it costs 40 cents less. Jesus, historians are going to have a field day with the mass trance that everyone is under to allow this. It's the opposite of hysteria, it's pure stagnation...like we're watching a movie that involves a country called America and we're all waiting for the credits to roll and we can go home to fuck Judy Jetson. The only reason the National Guard would follow orders is BECAUSE THEIR HOUSES WERE BOUGHT WITH THAT DEBT. It's amazing what kind of loyalty to oppress taxpayers can be bought with taxpayer's money. What irony to polish the same boot that crushes your neck. I'd kiss your boot but my lips are under your heel.

These fuckwads puff up their gullets and say with pompous confidence, "Government debt isn't the same as personal debt because we're borrowing from ourselves and there is tax revenue etc..."

You hear that, Kenya? All you have to do is borrow a few trillion against yourselves and that's OK. Look how good we're living. No need to struggle in poverty. Borrow what you want and put an IOU in the constitution with a note: "do not pay until all other countries are broke"

THEY SOUND LIKE USED CAR SALESMEN TRYING TO MOVE LEMONS OFF THE LOT.

Like my bald headed grandfather would say, "If it looks like shit, and smells like shit, then don't call it ice cream."
Or like the convict in the aluminum factory told me, "You only have to look with your eyes."
I don't know what people are looking with but it ain't their eyes.

Sunday Memories

Jose and Juanita

Voltmeter Upgrade

First tolerable daytime temperature since April. I slept like 33 hours this weekend. I'm sure I have Leukemia.

(add your own snide comment)

Lefty and Some Random Thoughts About Music

I can't get enough of Lefty Frizzell. He even wears the string tie. Elvis and Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly sort of dominated the 1958 era but Lefty generated more music than all of them. His songs didn't break any rules or set the standard but if you gave me a choice I would have to take Lefty's songs. That's more a testament to my honky-tonk heart than to quality of music because Buddy Holly was a brilliant pioneer and Elvis was the all time live entertainer (Michael Jackson is #2 only because Elvis made it OK to grab your crotch and Elvis did it when it was almost a criminal offense) and Johnny Cash wrote a lot of his own music and promoted himself better. Lefty is the performer Hank Williams Sr. would have been if he'd lived longer. Hank Sr. died before any of the proto-rock music arrived. Lefty never made the jump to rock and didn't want to, he never grabbed his crotch or shook his hips and apparently never played an electric guitar. He was pure Honky-Tonk with no ambition to bust genres. When you listen to a Lefty song you'll either get a slow blues or a slower blues...no big surprises on the jukebox in 1954 in Nashville. I love how the pianist is using a folding metal chair as a bench. It's like this performance is in a High School gymnasium. I met a guy in Oklahoma who had a voice like this...pure as a flowing river. Notice how he sings "I got those drinking cigarettes and smoking coffee blues..." at the end.

Piano POV

This digital direction isn't my bliss but I don't have a good alternative. I thought I had the equipment to make this work but my laptop computer with 32 bit and 4 gigs of ram is the basement of audio synthesizers...so this m-audio MIDI controller has pushed the limits of my computer like Oggy climbing Chocorua mountain with half a vegetarian sandwich in his belly. The latency issue is brutal and I've only begun to dig into the audio card solutions...when the only good solution is to get a better computer with a good audio card.
I don't even want to play silly games like this but I got hooked because I have high ADHD and low self esteem.
I'm brainstorming how I would carry around a stage piano in my van and run it off my power inverter and play on sidewalks in Belize. and also have MIDI capability to create fake books. Acoustic pianos are so much more simple.
For now I have a 49 keystudio midi controller and synthesia piano game. I managed to synch it all up with my notation software which is my only goal. This computer can never act as a synthesizer.

Images of September

FOX TV At McDonalds. Sign says "DO NOT TURN OFF TV"

What? No number to call?

Donations for shots are welcome

Watching over Oggy

New Butyl Tape on window might fix the leak that has rusted the stove