I have this in a frame in my home…

“I dislike the veneration of ignorance, the glorification of idiocy, the wild-eyed hatred of progress and the fear of education, which send the faithful shrieking, vampire-like, from the light of knowledge.

“I dislike the way in which prejudice is passed off as piety. The way superstition is peddled as wisdom. The way intolerance is raised to the lofty heights of “Truth”.

“I dislike how hatred is taught as love, how fear is instilled as kindness, how slavery is pressed as freedom, and how contempt for life is dressed up and adored as spirituality.

“I dislike the shackles religions place on the mind, corrupting, twisting and crushing the spirit until the believer has been brought down to a suitable state of worthlessness. So lost and self-loathing, so bereft of hope or pride, that they can look into the hallucinated face of their imaginary oppressor and feel unbounded love and gratitude for the additional suffering it has declined, as yet, to visit upon them.

“I dislike people’s need for a communal delusion, like drug addicts who unite just to share the same needle.

“I dislike the way reason is reviled as a vice and reality is decreed to be a matter of convenience. The way common sense and ordinary human decency get re-named “holy law” and advertised as the sole province of the faithful.

“I dislike religions’ wholesale theft of any number of ancient mythologies, only to turn around and proclaim how “unique” their doctrine is.

“I dislike how intelligence is held as suspect and inquiry is reviled as a high crime.

“I dislike the pillaging of the impoverished, the extortion of the gullible,
the manipulation of the ignorant and the domination of the weak.

“I dislike the invention of sins for the satisfaction of those who desire to punish.

“I dislike the demonization of unbelievers, the ill-concealed hate of proselytizers, the hysterical rants of holy rollers, the wigged-out warnings of psychic healers, the dismantling of public education via religious school vouchers, the erosion of civil rights by theocratic right-wingers, the righteous wrath of gun-toting true believers, the destruction wrought by holy warriors, the blood-drenched fatwas of ayatollahs and the apocalyptic prophesies of unmedicated messiahs.

“Most of all, though, I dislike the certain knowledge that religion, in one grotesque form or other, will be with us so long as there is a single dark, cobwebbed corner of the human imagination that a believer can stuff a god into.”

That pretty much sizes it up for me.

The following is from Mike, a friend of mine, that was sent to a number of people at the University of Washington.

I thought it a delightful little piece…

“So, I’m in my kitchen making French onion soup and listening to the Drive-By Truckers (and how many people can say that?), and I suddenly realize that I can’t find the homemade beef stock I had made several weeks before, after rummaging through the freezer.

So I was ready to make do with store-bought stock (albeit store-bought free-range organic and university-educated beef stock to assuage my guilt), when all of a sudden the Truckers “Easy On Yourself” came on (“Don’t be so easy on yourself/’Cause this one might be all that you have left”), and while I don’t think the Truckers were thinking of decrying giving up too easily on one’s immediate culinary dreams (it’s about being stuck in a brutal Southern town), I thought that perhaps the fact that I was making the soup to fulfill the passionately requested desires of the woman I love might at least get me in the same ballpark, if that ballpark was the size of the Olympic peninsula.

In any event, I went back to the freezer and starting digging in earnest. I mean, I went deep, I went places that had long since given up hope of any future human contact—and then I started making some important discoveries. Like, what was that container with the weird neon orange color that smelled, just, well, strange? And how did I end up with so much pork? Shoulder, chops, loin…some of dubious worth, and probably way too much porcine product for a Jewish guy from Brooklyn.* And generally, why did I have far, far too many items than I really needed? And look, beneath all of it, there was the beef stock.

And then I thought (and I know some of you are way ahead of me on this)…Obama! Just like me, I’ve heard that our President has experienced a rather nasty surprise that diminished his expectations of the possible. (Something to do with Massachusetts, I hear—apparently, for the first time since 1952, the voters of Massachusetts didn’t select a “Kennedy” even though one was on the ballot—I haven’t been paying much attention, honestly.)

What I’m saying, Mr. President, is maybe you should dig deep, look into that metaphoric freezer, and if you find something that looks weird and smells funny, you might want to get rid of it (I’m not naming names, but if you start with “Laurence” and end with “Summers” you might have something); and if you find yourself with way more stuff then you need (say over 1,000 pages), you might want to toss some of that pork and get down to what matters. And if you look deeply enough (you know, down there at the base), you just might find what you need.

What I’m saying, Mr. President is this—don’t be so easy on yourself.”

*Mr. Goldberg is actually a Jewish guy from Springfield, Mass., but that wouldn’t be very funny, would it?

This guy says that, “… whatever attracts you when your hormones are first kicking in, that kinda stays with you for your whole life …” I coulda been a pro yoyo-ist, rendering me unemployable. Luckily I grabbed an electric guitar, rendering me semi-unemployable but happy.

One of the many reasons why … I love teh interwebs

I never knew the difference between a national and a resonator til now!

I love the line, referring to the one chord blues style,

“… back in the old days .. these guy were so poor they couldn’t afford to put lots of chord changes in their songs …”

and ..

“… you’re never more than one fret away from a good note …”

Brings yet another dimension to my passion in life, rhythm guitar.

PS: Thanks to my old friend Jerry P for making me aware of this man.

You’re not alone in your lack of recall of this obscure band, trust me.

Back in the late 60’s I was in a pop rock garage band. I know, I know. So was everyone else. Known then as the U.S.Males, we were performing quite a lot in the Chicago-land area but again, so was everybody. Garage bands were like Starbucks now. On any given day, when we would go outside on a break, we could hear the muffled thump and low tone of a kick drum and a bass with a hint of too loud electric guitar and screaming vocals coming from multiple directions in my south Chicago suburb of Lansing, IL.

I was alternately on rhythm guitar or bass (when the bass player didn’t show up for a gig or practice) and was writing half of the original material along with Mike, the Farfisa player. We performed so much we began garnering bit of attention and backing.

So now we move into a more rarified field. We got ourselves a record! with the help of our friend, manager, mentor and body gaurd, Larry Goldberg who just recently got in touch with me through the interwebs. We recorded up in Madison WI (I coulda swore it was Michigan) and came back with a tasty little pop 45.

After a name change, we got on the bill with quite a few acts in the area. We started playing the same circuit with The Cryan Shames, The Flock, The Shadows of Knight, not to mention opening for Spirit, The Bob Seger System and a host of other bands too numerous and lost in the synapses of my mind at this posting. A few more were; Mason Profit, The Outsiders, The Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent’s band) and Alice Cooper (if you need a link to find out who Alice is, I can’t help you)

Not everyone was as lucky as my bandmates and I were in those heady days of early american garage rock. We had fun almost always. There was that weekend in Peoria .. but I digress.

Now, all these years later, a label named Sundazed Music Inc. has released a compilation of recordings released on USA and Destination records, available in *vinyl* as well as CD, which includes the A & B sides of our humble 45.

My life is awesomesauciest at this moment.

Makes me wanna make another record.

I was humming a song from Boz’s “My Time” circa ‘72. I went to my LP collection to see what else was on the record and was reminded, once again, that it was no longer in my possession.

My LPs of artists with names beginning with ~A~ through ~Co~ were stolen when I moved to Seattle back in ‘93. My Beatles were in an unmarked box thank goodness but all my Allman Brothers to my 1st couple of CS&N LPs were heisted and Boz was filed under ~B~ not ~S~ like it shoulda been.

It’s now out of print and the butt rash who stole my records probably didn’t even know what he/she had. Everyday’s a never ending rediscovery of what I had and have no longer.

I’m saddened by the fact that I can only repurchase it now for $40 … used.

For those of you experiencing the metaverse known as Second Life™ with me, I have a small rant to get off my chest.

As live musician in this cyberworld, I have a problem with large gestures spamming the chat.

You know, the howling wolf, 2 finger peace sign, cat, lips, the HELL YEAHs and the YEEHAWS et al.

I’ve talked to many residents and have had it explained to me a number of times.

“It’s my way of expressing my appreciation to the musician!”

While that may be your motivation, it appears to everyone else to be nothing more than an attempt by the gesturer to be noticed… by everyone in the vicinity and further if SHOUTED. It seems to be more self serving than expressive.

In reality, there’s nothing really expressive about it. It’s not original. In most cases you simply buy the gesture and assign it to an F key. It’s almost a non effort.

The larger the gesture, the more chance that someone else’s posted request, suggestion, advice or comment will be sandwiched into the gesture and, thereby, lost.

If you want to be originally expressive, type those 20-30 lines of chat manually for every post with different messages and images each time.

Now THAT’s an original expression of appreciation. (No, please don’t try, thanks! No really.)

A good number of residents as well as a lot of live musicians will mute you in a second for gesture spamming the room chat because it interrupts their chat/conversation with their friends in room as well as with the performer.

Kinda defeats your purpose .. right?

One can only hope that the Labs of Linden will, for residents who would choose to ignore gesture spam, come up with something that would auto block spammed gestures more than three lines long.

I could use that. I have friends that could as well.

I am, admittedly, a coffee snob, nay an *insufferable* coffee snob.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned …

I buy my beans green from small farms around the globe from Sweet Maria’s and home roast them to my liking (usually just short of charcoal) every month or so. Cost is around $6USD per lb. ($7-8 including shipping) and you lose about 3-5 oz per pound after roasting so cost is better than store roasted but not by much. The experience of home roasted coffee? Priceless!

I prefer beans from Indonesia because I can roast them dark, full city plus and still the coffee produces definite chocolate-y tones. Sumatra Mandheling is the most common and most purchased by Indonesian coffee lovers because of it’s consistency of flavor at all levels of roasting.

I have recently taken to buying my beans ($6USD per lb.) directly from Victor’s, a local roaster, because they seem to buy their beans from suppliers that produce a truly wondrous cup. Plus there’s no shipping applied to the overall cost per pound because I go right to their store.

If you have -never- tasted coffee that was roasted just 12 to 36 hours ago, you’ve never really tasted coffee.

The way to know if your coffee is fresh is to examine the how well the “crown” blooms when you pour water over the grounds (for drip brew, french press or aero-press methods). If the coffee is fresh and the water is the proper temperature, golden bubbles will rise to the top and form what is called a “crown”. The more vibrant and voluminous the crown, the fresher the coffee. When pulling a shot through an espresso machine, you’ll find you’ll get more crema in your cup with fresh coffee

Ever since I received an Aeropress from my daughter for father’s day I have been using nothing but this system to make my coffee. It produces an extremely fine cup. It takes some muscle to force the water through the grounds but so worth the effort.

I usually resort to drip brew for larger gatherings of, say, more than 10 people. I can aeropress cups during a smaller party making two shots at a time but I really have to like the people at my party to do that.

More coffee stuff soon

In the spring of ‘94, I went to Oahu with a country rock band called The Island Cowboys. Two six foot five Samoan brothers, Pele and Maluhki, were the front-men and the focal point. It was a pretty big deal with quite an entourage. We brought our own dance troupe, light and sound engineers, techs and roadies. We were there for a week and played at the Polynesian Cultural Center on the big stage for two nights. We also went to Waikiki and Honolulu to do some shopping mall appearances to promote our CD and we did a locally popular morning breakfast club radio program. We’d tour the island during the day and go clubbing at night, trying our best to be the quintessential Malihini to the delight of the Kamaaina. All in all, a fine time… until…

One night we were invited to the Don Ho show in downtown Honolulu. Our manager, Kanani, (who was also married to brother Pele) toured with Don Ho as a dancer so she had some serious connections and got us into the (sold out) show. We had pictures taken with the Don-man and he made sure we had a very good table at the back of the room that was on a slight riser so we were elevated above the heads of the crowd and could see and hear everything very well. The food was excellent and the rum drinks flowed copiously. The band was getting a serious buzz on.

(Here would be a good place to warn anybody going to Hawaii, be very careful of the colorful rum-laden drinks they serve there. Tasty as all get out. Insidiously potent. I have pictures of myself in a grass skirt and a coconut bra at a night club we apparently ended up in after the following fiasco.)

So, Kanani tells us that Don has agreed to let us perform on his stage some time during the show so we can’t leave our table. We wait and eat and drink and wait and eat, drink and wait some more. Our drummer, understandably worn out from the tour, gets fed up and splits.

Smart man.

We’re down one member.

The Don Ho show is… well, not my cup of rum, so to speak. Songs I was never fond of to begin with being done by the Perry Como/Wayne Newton of Honolulu. It would have been a real snooze-fest if we weren’t sipping on those flavorful island beverages. Don likes to have guests from the audience join him onstage, people with birthdays, anniversaries, guest musicians from around the world. I apparently was the only one in the room to notice that there was only one aisle open to the stage. People would invariably go to stage left which was a cul-de-sac. Groups of people would get caught in the dead end aisle, laugh nervously and turn around and head the other way, which I was enjoying immensely while sliding into the “uncontrollable laughing” stage of a serious drinking binge.

Don brought our manager to the attention of the audience with an invitation to come up and dance for old times. She waves him off but was further persuaded by a round of applause from the crowd, not to mention the “well on the way to being totally toasted” band members, boisterously encouraging her to take the stage. Then, completely unexpectedly, she get up from the table and bolts from the room. Her husband, Pele, sits and steams for a second, then races out after her. They head out of the club in a screaming argument. Don makes apologies to the audience for Kanani’s sudden apparent case of stage fright and goes back to his show.

We’re down two…

So now, at The Island Cowboy table, it’s the keyboardist, Tom, the bass player, Maluhki (the other Samoan brother) and myself. As best as we are able, we discuss what the heck we’re going to do if Don gives us the call before Pele returns. Pele wrote and sang 90% of the material on the CD and we had already decided which of his songs we were going to perform.  Maluhki had written two songs, so we refresh ourselves on the arrangements of both of them, but before we ca get a workable vocal arrangement agreed upon, Don Ho says,

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, all the way from Seattle, Washington, The Island Cowboys!” Maluhki says, “I’ll go look for Pele!” and shoots out the door.

It’s just the two of us now … so much drunkness.

Rum, in certain dosages, can be a hallucinogenic. I stood up and the room was a combination of a ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. I remembered our table was on a little rise and gingerly stepped down. Tom was not that functional. He steps off and falls right into a jack stand full of used dishes knocking them over in a clatter. I also had the presence of mind to stumble toward the aisle stage right, carefully righting myself at each table and chair-back that I could get my hands on. I make to the stage first, slur, “Hello Mr Ho” which made me laugh again while glancing out into the crowd to see Tom stuck at the DEAD END AISLE! He’s so drunk, he can not figure out how to get to the stage. He sheepishly turns around and lurches toward the  back of the room. I’m trying my best to converse with Don while keeping one eye on the entrance to the club room, hoping to see the brothers walk in, and the other eye on Tom’s progress. When I see him go through the  double doors to the kitchen and hear him yell, ”Somebody tell me how to get to the fucking stage!” I loose it completely. All I can do is bray with laughter and nearly double over, pointing weakly toward the back of the room.

I give Don Ho credit. He never batted an eye and was able to keep the crowd engaged while these antics unfolded. He’s obviously seen a lot of Mai-Tai handicapped Haoles (sp?) try to function in public. Two waiters bring the keyboardist out of the kitchen and escort him to the stage. I was so useless with laughter, I could barely breath.

Maluhki miraculously shows up to the stage at about the same time Tom and his escorts do. Tom is laughing and thanking his kitchen entourage for their help. Maluhki whispers to Tom and I that he couldn’t find Pele and Kanani. Tom and I find this news unbearably humorous and fall into each others arms in near hysterics. Maluhki explains to Mr. Ho that his brother will be back soon and if we could wait until he returns… I’m sure Mr. Ho is thinking, “Not in this life”… but he graciously lets us off the hook and back to our table. I remember on the walk back to our table people were cheering and whistling and clapping us on the back. I sincerely don’t know why. Maybe they thought we were an act. The Drunken White Guys.

We get back to our table to find fresh food and drink waiting. Pele and Kanani return and ask “Did Don call us up yet?” Tom, Maluhki and I look at each other and just go off. Maluhki is able to sketch out the tale but for Tom and I, it was another side-splitting, stomach muscle cramping bought of levity.

I would like to tell you all that we came to our senses and stopped imbibing at that point, but it would be a lie. As I said earlier in the story, sometime later that same evening, I ended up on stage in a hula outfit with a Mai-Tai in my hand…but that’s another story.

I’m gonna do my best to let people into my head here. I have a little fictional memoir started. I’l put some of the real stories here for your perusal. Like …

Christmas time, ‘65.

My aunt (mom’s sis) finds out I have a band. She calls me and asks if I’d like to make some money playing at a private holiday party. Well, as you can imagine, I was thrilled and said yes. She gave me the address and promised me $100 minimum. Tells me to show around 6pm as I recall.

(A little background on my Aunt Sis. Vivacious, red-haired Irish woman. Nurse at Little Company of Mary Hosp. where I was born. Wonderful sense of humor, always having fun. When she died, she was starring in a community production of “Mame”, a role she was born to play.)

It was a clear, cold winters evening. Snow everywhere. We found the place, not far from where my aunt lived in the Beverly neighborhood of south Chicago. Parking was a bit of a problem as it is in the city but we managed to get the van into the driveway. I go up to the door of this mansion and ring. A slightly inebriated elderly gentleman answers with a not so subtle look of “What the…”. I’m panicking, thinking “Uh oh! Wrong place? Wrong night?” I tell him I was hired to play for the Christmas party by my Aunt Sis at this address. Suddenly my aunt appears and takes over. She whispers something to the man and the guy started laughing so hard I thought he was gonna have a coronary right there in front of me. Aunt Sis hugs me and calls for some of the guests to come and help us bring in the stuff.

We load in (with the help of about nine or ten people) and it’s bedlam. People are laughing and frantically moving furniture and clearing a place for us to set up. Turns out my aunt planned this to be a surprise on the host and guests and everyone is thoroughly enjoying the gag.

The band sets up amidst a swirl of well toasted doctors and nurses. Once we’ve tuned and check, check, checked, I count the band into our best number “Long Tall Sally”  and I swear I felt the house move with the shear force of the merriment in the room. Well heeled people, dressed to the nines, danced with drinks in hand and smiles on their faces.

We played for about a half hour and would’ve played all freaking night if it were up to us but my Aunt Sis promised my mom to have us packed and on the road home before too late.

While we tore down and loaded out, women are hugging and kissing us and men are pressing ten and twenties into our hands and shirt pockets.  I know I went home with about $200 and another indelible mark on my psyche. I want to make a living doing -that- to people.

<~<~<~<~<~<~<~<~<~<~<~<~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>

“Good bands light up like ascending fireworks in the night sky. They climb as fast and brilliantly as they can, bang hard in search of the ultimate “ahhhhh” from their audience, and then fall in shimmering desperation, lingering as long and gloriously as possible until a new band streaks by them skyward to its own destiny. Very few explode with enough radiance to remain in people’s minds over the years.” ~ Carl Gustafson ~