When I decided I wanted to trip again, I was only considering the fun I had when I ate LSD as a teen and young man. I did remember the deep insights and awesome conclusions I made about Life. But those deeper thoughts always ran second behind the trails, breathing walls, words that appeared on sidewalks, and body rushes that often were better than sex.
Psychedelics were an all sensory experience that for a time, removed me from the reality I was trying to escape. More often than not, when I came down from a trip, the world did make a little more sense, I credit my use of hallucinogens for turning me from an angry kid into a kid who was more centered; not prefect, but better able to handle the inevitable disappointment that came with living a life. Hallucinogens taught me how to chill.
My renewed interest is not so much for the physical experience but for the spiritual experience. I want an experience that will once again help me find some footing in a world I am positive is losing control of itself.
I don't know if circling back to the world of psychedelics will bring me some peace. I do know Religion won't do it. That avenue closed for me over 50 years ago. But what really has gotten me fired up is the whole culture that has grown up around Fungi and its relationship to the Human experience.
The 4th Annual Maine Fungi Fest is happening at the end of this month. It is only an hour away. I figured I would go and check it out. It is a 3 day event. I assume Saturday will be the big day. I am not going so I can get high. I want information and connections to help me learn more about fungi, the trippin kind and the other kinds, edible and medicinal. What I have learned so far is nothing but a tease. I want some real interactions with folks who have some expertise, not just loose dog experiences like I have had so far.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ....................................
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I am breaking one of my own hard line rules here. The song, "Journey to the Center of the Mind" was a 1968 song that rocked every teen club from coast to coast. The Amboy Dukes were only around for a brief time. It is understandable then I had no clue who was in it or what one of them might turn into 50 years later. Seems Ted Nugent was their lead guitarist. I vowed many years ago before Ted became the Winger Asshole he is today, that I would never own or play any of his music.
Contrary to popular belief about rock and roll stars of the 1970's, most of them did not actively go after underage girls. Sure it happened, but no where to the degree the myth has created. When I was driving rock and roll bands around though, Ted Nugent had very bad rep for bedding underage girls. When he released, "Jail Bait", in 1981 though, that was when I was done with him. He was a mediocre talent with the reputation for being a class A asshole.
Anyway, rules are meant to be broken I guess. Offering up this tune is proof.
Mushrooms don't wait for you to pick them. They have their own schedule. When they have met their seasonal biological needs for self preservation, they lose everything above ground and retire to the network of mycelium they are constantly building underground. As long as the proper nutrients they need are available, the Mushroom in the ground will just get bigger and healthier.
The batch of Psilocybin mushrooms near the septic tank looked beautiful yesterday. Today, they looked like their moment in the Sun was over. The gills must have dropped all their spores. They looked so bad, I picked the ones that were left.
Now I have set up a jury rigged dryer in the basement and I'm hoping to dry them for storing. If it works, great. We will see.
The other thing I am planning is to set up a grow environment for the batch I picked a short while ago. I have barely a clue how to do it; call it just a sniff of a hint. But it is either toss the rooting material that came up with the Shrooms I yanked or give it a try to see if I can grow them. It would be a major triumph if I was able to make that happen.
Apparently the Shrooms I have in the yard love wood chips. When the septic guy filled over the new leach field, he hauled in a a few dozen railroad cars of chips, so I have wood chips. ....... Uh, okay, okay; it wasn't railroad carloads, it just seems like it.
I also have some wonderful leftover high end soil from my days of growing pot. I will mix it with some wood chips and plant the mycelium (the root system of mushrooms) that was stuck to the Shrooms I yanked.
Some follow up - Good and Not so Good
My jury rigged hydrator worked beautifully. The first batch I put in took 4 hours, but it is bone dry and ready to store.
I decided to pick the rest of the Shrooms out in the yard because of the condition of the ones I picked this morning. One batch had been hit by a critter. Only stems and a few buttons left. I took them. Then I cleaned out the remaining batch.
Apparently, the best time to pick them is when you see them. Don't dawdle.
So there it is; another installment in Mike's learning curve regarding Psilocybin Mushrooms. I have a long way to go. I have a lot to learn. I have many mistakes to make. This is what Life is all about, pushing new limits, failing and trying again.
My next task is to create the mushroom growing environment. I have an idea of what I am going to do. I will keep you posted.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ....................................
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All this recent focus on mushrooms leaves me no choice but to play a song I have been avoiding. Why was I avoiding it? I guess it was because the choice is too logical, too convenient. It's the first song many of my Boomer contemporaries would pick if they were writing about consuming Magic Mushrooms. ........ I have resisted long enough.
But which version should I pick? The original I danced to at Teen Club back when acne was my biggest problem? Or a newer version, a cover by talented musicians in a completely different genre.
I decided that, though there are many fine covers of "White Rabbit" originally released by in 1967, no band performs it better than they did. Grace Slick was in her prime and she could belt out some tunes. Enjoy.
It appears I have 3 different varieties of Psilocybin mushrooms growing in my back yard. They seem to have been hitchhikers who caught a ride with the shitty fill, the septic guy put down after he installed the new septic tank and leach field two years ago. Psilocybin Mushrooms love wood chips. The fill was chock full of wood chips, chunks of asphalt, gravel, and just for fun, a token few cubic yards of real loam.
Two days ago I threw caution to the winds and ate two small mushrooms. I definitely felt the changes they made in my mind and body. Very mild high with zip for negative consequences.
Then this morning ....... Actually, just over an hour ago, I ate some different mushrooms that were growing near the septic tank. They were large, more robust Shrooms. I ate 16 grams; 3 fresh ones. And yes, I am feeling the results. A tad more intense than the other day but not crippling ......yet. I do not expect to be comatose or turn into a drooler. Shrooms have never really had that kind of impact on me. ........ Well, there was one time on a mountain bike camping trip up country Maine back in the early-ish 1990s. We ate Shrooms; got lost in the woods at night and stumbled around until dawn. I might have eaten more than I should have that night. Had a blast though.
Just a short note about my new adventure - locating and harvesting wild Psilocybin mushrooms. Apparently, they are everywhere if you know where to look. And finally I have a clue where to look. This discovery could make for a fun and interesting summer.
Later Gators, I have a trip I have to take ...............................
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Music today will have nothing to do with anything on purpose or for that matter, not on purpose. My mind is crammed now with dealing with the enhanced senses of a Psilocybin influence. I have headphones on and am listening to "Misc. Playlist #1". There is no rhyme, no reason no sensible flow to any of my "Misc" playlists So when I felt like it is time, I will pick a song with no attempt to tie it to this post. After all, this post is nonsense and I take pride in that fact.
Y'all have a super day now. I know I will.
I scrolled ahead on this playlist. I noticed first of all, I was going to have trouble picking a tune. There are just too many good tunes .... and then I came to Broken Peach's cover of "Tainted Love".
Best enjoyed loud with a full screen video. Zombie chicks in nursing outfits. It just doesn't get any Hotter than that. But first, I have to start off with another cover. This time it's an excellent Bluegrass / Country cover of an old Buffalo Springfield tune, "For what its worth" .............. It's a two-fer post..... Just excellent.
When I sold my bike shop and retired 7 years ago, I didn't fuck around. No half ass effort laced with regret and angst. I retired and have not looked back since. Of course my decision was made easier given the health issues that began to rear their ugly heads back then. They didn't cripple me I guess. They did however, fuck with my mind; never mind the Hell that broke loose in my body. .......
But this is not a "Woe is Me" post. No it isn't. It's a celebration of sorts.
When I retired I decided I was pretty much done traveling. The current events of the planet these last 5 years just reinforced that feeling. The world beyond my local yokel borders was off its rocker, gone berserk; was now just a wasteland of hate and discontent.
I looked inward. I looked in my pockets. I gazed over the lakes and a few times to the horizon at the far end of the visible ocean but a short drive from my home. Why the Fuck would I want to go anywhere?
I used to go everywhere. Been there and done that. Don't need it now. Definitely don't need to see how deep a hole my country has dug for itself. These are my "Golden Years". There's plenty of Gold right here for me to discover. Yesterday, I discovered some of that gold I just knew was hanging out nearby or just down the road.
Because retirement freed up space in my brain to fill back up again, I filled it with moments remembering the misdeeds and the fewer better deeds from my past. My psychedelic years were definitely go-to moments for me to attempt to remember. I tripped so much back in the day, specific memories come back as snippets and glances of those times; often combining the highlights of several trips into one memory. One trip ran into the next one which continued into the next one, etc, etc, etcetera. Yeah, Snake's and my purchase of 500 hits of Purple Micro-Dot acid turned into many lost moments that summer; that summer of 1970.
Dredging up ancient LSD trips got me to thinking. Caused me to consider again, how much I would love to trip again. I always liked it, even when the circumstances were not ideal.
I wondered though. Had I acquired too much caution as I became an old man to take the chance again? ...... uhm, NAH... Any concern I might have entertained was lost as soon as it crossed my mind.
I determined that some way, some how, I would score some psychedelics; LSD, Peyote, Shrooms; didn't matter. I wanted to see trails again. I wanted to see the ground ripple, walls breath, watch my face melt in any nearby mirror, but most of all, find the words in my mind scrawled on sidewalks and church doors. Being retired seemed the perfect time to revisit this long past part of my life before I became too careful.
Instead of trying to chase down a local connect for what I wanted, I began to intermittently look into growing mushrooms in the basement or wherever it was that mushrooms would grow. Online, there are too many choices for information, grow kits, spore connections and guides on how to find it in the wild. Like everything online, the results of a google search can boggle the mind.
Based on the writings of a world renowned Psilocybe expert, Alan Rockefeller, I began to closely inspect the mushrooms I came upon in the local woods and in my own yard. Two years ago, we had our septic tank and leach field replaced. The fill used to cover it was less than I expected. There were noticeable chunks of asphalt, gravel, and wood chips mixed together, passing for the finish layer. Two years later, the grass seeds the septic guy tossed around are still trying to take hold.
Last year while I was out with Maggie, I noticed some mushrooms growing out of that shitty top layer he called topsoil. The mushrooms looked familiar. I had seen them before. Were they Psilocybin mushrooms? Or were they trouble if they found their way into my gulliwots? I thought about it overnight. In the morning I was determined to try one or two. When I went to the spot, some critter had beaten me to it. I was pissed, but I thought maybe that critter saved me a trip to the local clinic........
Yesterday. intermittent showers and 40 degree temps made outside an unpleasant experience. But I went out anyway because I had remembered those mushrooms from last year. .... and now I had images to compare with.
At the same spot, there was a new batch popping up through the chips/ gravel mix. They looked like they were trippin Shrooms for sure. They did not look fully grown yet, their caps hadn't spread open into a proper mushroom look yet.
From the information I had gathered, I also had some good clues on whether this mushroom was not just a Psilocybin mushroom, but most important, was it safe to eat.
If it smells earthy like fresh mushrooms at the store smell, well, that's a good sign.
If the gills are white - not necessarily a good sign.
Then there was the taste test, a very scientific way created on Tik Tok I think. The idea was to let your mouth decide whether a mushroom was okay to ingest. I am sure other more knowledgeable Mycologists than some clown on Tik Tok might shake the heads, but since I can be clownish on occasion, the taste test method seemed logical as long as the tester understood the possibility of consequences they might not like.
If you got sick within the first 2 hours, that was better than getting sick after 6 hours.
Okay. Now I was armed with all the information to make a half assed and sketchy decision. Did I concern myself with the odds? No. Did I worry about not waking up tomorrow. No. I picked 2 small Shrooms, ate them fresh and waited.
I figured 2 small Shrooms would not kill me ; maybe make me sick. Regardless, I instantly relied on the old rule of dropping acid Snake and I came up with. Never regret eating Hallucinogens. If it's in your belly, it's too late to regret. Go with the flow, chill, enjoy the ride wherever it might take you. This philosophy certainly helped me to handle jail, several ER visits, being chased by rednecks through the woods, and an afternoon "sitting up" at a funeral home with Snake's very dead Great Grandmother. She talked to me the whole time. Snake asked me who I was talking to. When I told him his Great Grandmother, he busted up laughing, then I busted up laughing...we become so unruly and loud, we were escorted outside to calm down. To be fair we were originally told we would not have Dead G Grandma duty, but things changed when the scheduled sitter blew off the assignment
Staying on topic now .......
I definitely felt the effects of the small dose. I felt music more than I heard it. The letters on the keyboard squirmed some and when I felt my face, it felt awesome. No headaches, no cramps, just a couple of hours of a low dosing Psilocybin.
My primary concern after I came down was will I wake up in the morning? Or even go to sleep tonight. Nothing like taking a foolish risk to find out how important living is. I can't say I was feeling fearful, anxious or uptight. Sometimes in order to feel alive, one has to threaten one's existence, even if it ends up an empty threat.
It appears I came through in decent condition. And now I have a small crop of Psilocybin mushrooms to collect, dry and hold onto for that moment I feel I need to "Trip the Light Fantastic".
Keep it 'tween the Ditches .........................
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One of my favorite tunes to listen to while tripping back in my younger days was "The End", by the Doors. If I was getting hyper or antsy, this song always calmed me down.
On this date in 1945, my father was on a flight to Europe as a member of the Armed Forces. He was a cog in the coalition of US military experts who would begin the restoration of Europe after it had been devastated by World War ll. Their efforts were called "The European Recovery Plan" which would eventually be called "The Marshall Plan", after the dynamic General George Marshall, who headed up the effort. 17 European economies, devastated by the previous war, were rebuilt from the ground up by the USA and mostly on the USA's dime.
I could go anywhere with that opening; the politics, the debt owed by Europe, the absolute class act that the Marshall plan was ...... But I won't. This is about my father.
As he related his experiences to me, he did not get to Europe in time to witness the signing of the armistice. Like I mentioned, he was on a plane at the time. But he did spend the next 4 years as one of the cogs that made the Marshall Plan a success. He toured Auschwitz only a week or so after he landed. He was taken off his detail as a budget officer helping to finance the recovery and loaned to the prosecution team at Nuremburg. He traveled all over Europe to assess the costs of resurrecting various areas as much as possible to their previous splendor. He knew what he was looking at and what it looked like before the war. He had spent 4 summers in college as a European tour guide for American tourists in the late 1920s.
My father was a stoic, stiff upper lip kinda guy. I was somewhat taken aback when he told me he cried the first time he saw what the war had done to Europe. He took many pictures of the damage, but only rarely did he pull them out to look at them. I discovered them after his death when I was nosing around in the many boxes of slides, photos and photography equipment he left in the attic. I have yet to transfer them to a digital record.
His post war experiences he said were probably the best and worst times of his life. Everyday he had to deal with one type of post war damage or another. But he also found love and married a WAC he met. Sadly the marriage did not last as she was killed. I am not sure how she died. All I know is she died. He never talked about it.
The front page to the right is from the defunct Baltimore newspaper, the "Baltimore News-Post". I found it under a trashed linoleum floor in a factory worker house I lived in in Mt. Washington, a neighborhood in Baltimore. The house was perfect for two, just out of college guys. It had a yard and it was cheap.... Dirt cheap.
What makes the page unique is the color standard at the top and the unusual height of the Headline letters. That was some high tech shit back in those days. But what the page symbolizes is just how invested the planet had been in World War ll. Everything stopped worldwide for 4 plus years while countries from every corner of the globe lined up in factions and then proceeded to try to destroy each other. The Axis powers and the Allies. The Allies fought the Axis countries on two fronts, the Japanese in Asia and the Germans and Italy in Europe and northern Africa.
It was about this time 100 years ago that the World started warming up for another war. The first World War had ended badly for Germany. The treaty they were forced to eat was rather draconian. Many Germans wanted revenge. In 1923 Adolf Hitler and some 2000 malcontents marched into the city of Berlin hoping to overthrow the government. They failed. Adolf was awarded a 5 year jail sentence, thrown in jail where he wrote that wonderful Project 2025, ...uh, I mean "Mein Kampf", the workbook he would use that eventually put him on top of the world for a few years. The real World War ll began with a whimper in the 1920's and ended with world wide conflagrations and millions dead by 1945. The planet had never experienced anything like it before or since..........
So, I would say that this V-E day packs warnings and possible dire predictions of similar fates if we don't stop fucking around. The evil cycle of 100 years is looking for a repeat performance and so far, we seem to be welcoming it back.
There is no such thing as overreacting when History is not just threatening to repeat itself, it has begun the process.
Later ......................................
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An appropriate tune for this post would be a song that was popular during WWll. My mom loved this song. It made her cry every time she heard it. Maybe it was because her first husband, a Navy Commander, died during the War. It is also the song Stanley Kubrick chose to close his second greatest movie, "Dr. Strangelove". As the nukes go off destroying the world, this song kicks in. Perfect.
Here is "We'll Meet Again", by Vera Lynn,, released in 1943.
Too many signs passed by this morning for me to ignore them.
The first sign was a dream waking me up. All I could remember was an image of some dude dressed in 1800s duds hanging from a cross made of woven straw, hay, or grass. This first sign I blew off and got started with my day.
I am an admitted hoarder, uh, I mean collector. Have been all my life. I never know when that something I saved 10 years ago might come in handy. In defense of myself, I rationalize by asking, "Is my style of collecting really hoarding?" Or is it collecting things I know will come in handy someday. I go with "collecting". "Hoarding" sounds like a psychological condition. And I know I am sane.... at least most days I do.
My second sign appeared as I was enjoying my first cup of coffee and scrolling through some of the 437 screenshots currently taking up space in my PC . I do this sometimes on the premise I will actually delete a few..... HA! Yeah, sure thing. The next time I want to scroll, there will be 460 or 470..... who knows? I certainly cannot delete them. I might have a use for one in 10 years.
In mid scroll, the second sign caught my attention; an image of an older man wearing a classically red MAGA hat, only the words read, "Make America Pray Again." This image tied in and disturbed me more than the crucifix up top; which BTW, is not a very good representation of the image from my dream.
It was when the Jon Stewart quote showed up in my Facebook feed during my second cup of coffee, I couldn't ignore this many signs any longer. Their appearance in such quick succession gave me my Blog topic for May 6, 2025. I had finally found some connections within that messy network, I charitably call my mind. Bold letters formed many inches high:
ORGANIZED RELIGION
Again one of my go to subjects was begging for more commentary. I certainly have beaten this horse many times in the past and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
My first thought was of the wish of many Americans hoping to return to the days they have been painting in their minds of when America was a safe country, a just country, a country that obeyed the Will of God. Their delusion regarding this never-was paradise of Heaven on Earth has had years to morph into a fantasy that the Word of God will not only once again run our lives on Sunday, it will also run our lives every other day of the week. Mandatory fealty to an imaginary entity will eventually put all of us on the same page and life will be wonderful again.
Of course first, we have to clean up the messes those pesky Libtards, Commies, uppity women, Brown people and all the other Satan worshiping Heathens forced upon us. To make that happen, a big first step would be to put all the brown people in their place or boot them out of the country.
God wants a White Nation. We know this because just look at any proper crucifix. There is always a handsome lanky White American Jesus, a guy with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, dangling from those Roman nails patiently waiting too be resurrected for who? Not brown people, that's for sure.
The Christian Nationalist hat the old guy is wearing reminds me and should remind anyone who sees it, that there is no difference between the Taliban and the type of control Christian Nationalists want. They are quick to loudly disclaim any association with those hated Fundamentalist Muslims. Hell, they don't dress like us, they don't pray like us, and most of all, most of them don't look like us.
If those are their sole criteria, they are fooling themselves. Besides, those are only the differences in appearance. At the core of both extreme versions of their rigid beliefs is control, iron control with dire consequences for those who dare stand up to them.
The Christian Nationalist leaders recognize the fact that they do not have the same power over Christians as the Taliban has over its Islamic flock. Most are afraid to admit they wish they had. That would only lend credibility to the notion of Iron control the Christian Nationalists really want. But they cannot help themselves. They constantly expose their true intentions by committing unforced errors with public displays like the hat there. "Make America Pray Again" is unequivocally calling for mandatory prayer among our population. It doesn't use persuasion like "Urge America to Pray Again, it insists we "MAKE America Pray Again.
I remember mandatory Lord's Pprayer and mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. All through primary and secondary school, both were part of my morning rituals at the various schools I attended. Funny thing though, it did not seem to make any difference. Christianity had begun to leak followers in the 1960s .This slow trickle jumped dramatically in the 1970s and continued until now. In the late 1960s 73% of Americans claimed they attended church regularly. Today, the number is around 47%.
This loss in Christian strength might make those who dislike organized Christianity feel full of themselves.; make them feel they have American Christianity on the run. Don't be foolish. Organized Christianity is patient, insidious and determined. It will never be defeated. This drop has only made the Fundamentalist Christians even more dangerous than ever before. There is a higher percentage of fundamentalists relative to the remaining population of self described Christians. That makes the potential for a Christian Nationalist takeover of what is left of Christianity in this country, a more attainable goal; a movement of maybe lower numbers but with a more evil intent.
Last but not least. almost every time I think of the possibility of an American Theocratic State, I dredge up a flash fiction piece I first wrote on 1/4/2012, then re-posted on 9/7/2021. It proposes a possible future that should worry all of us. Yeah, it is fiction, but given the recent push by Christian Nationalists, its a damn site more believable than any Zombie movie.
On that cheery note, I will bid you Adieu ........................................
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I finally am posting a song that we could consider current and up to date. This is a band I just discovered. A punk rock group formed in the late 1980s were still releasing new music as recently as 2020. Here is "Christian Nationalist", by Anti - Flag.
Optimal impact - punch it up to and including WOW on the volume dial.
Before people, who might read this post, allow their panties to knot, I am only posting this image of Obama dressed as the Pope to write about the shit storm this image has created on a Liberal Facebook group page I moderate with some other folks.
This image was posted by an admitted Liberal who is one of the moderating crew for the page. So we can't blame the sleazebags on the Right.
The response to this post was incredible with overwhelming disapproval of it, Cries of "Take it Down", "Obama would never Approve", "Disgusting", filled the comment queue. If I closed my eyes, uh well, I couldn't read the comments then ... new approach here. If I imagined I had my eyes closed and was listening to these comments, I would have thought I was lost in the middle of a Trump Rally.
The outrage this image caused among the Liberals who comprise the members of "My Political Voice" on Facebook illustrate how much passion people, no matter their political leanings, have regarding religion; those who hate religion, those who may live and breath within its reach, and those who object using it in combination with their politics. Religion has been and will always be a divisive and polarizing concept. The fight is between Realists and those who fantasize about a big white guy in the sky they just know someday will save them from all this ...... whatever "all this" happens to be at the time. Seems a waste of time, this battle does.... Oh Well.
I want to laugh and blow it off, but actually the Liberals on the page responding like this reinforces my contention that America is wound up so tight right now, something will touch off the bottled up anger and all Hell will break loose in the near future. Hate and Discontent is building to a fever pitch on both sides now.
This is not a good thing. If there is to be trouble, the Left needs to remain as calm as they can and allow the Right to set it off. The Left needs to allow the Right to totally fail and show America what happens if we leave them in charge. So far, they have been doing a stellar job of failing. We should allow them the rope to continue their ill advised crusade for stupid shit.
I know they are causing damage; hurting and tearing down institutions and policies that are the backbone of what a caring government should do. But right now, at this moment, losing it and going berserk is not the answer.
I have to say, it feels very strange to be a voice of reason. My track record would indicate I would be for all the nasty suggestions spoken or written behind closed doors. But I am not for violence of any kind and I know, violence will never work as long as Trump has this country by the short hairs.
Hysteria does not often end with the hoped for result. Hysteria more often than not, initiates poorly considered knee jerk solutions. Just look at the Right Wing model unfolding before our eyes. The Winger movement, the project 2025 bullshit is the product of all the hate and hurt feelings the Right has created for themselves going back... well, going back past the middle of the 20th century. The Right knows how to hold onto a grudge. Their problem is, they allow their grudges to dictate how they govern once they control the reins again. Democrats tend to just move on.
Keep the Sunny Side up and your rubber on the Road ................
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I may have previously used this song for a post. Killing in the Name of...", by Rage Against the Machine by far one of my favorite political/anti-religion tunes. This band pulled no punches with their music. And what tells us they were great is their music is more relevant today then when they produced it. ........ Play it Loud, Play it Proud, Play it anyway you want, but play it.
As a child, I would often read the headlines on the front pages of the daily newspapers my parents read as they sipped morning coffee. Those headlines were almost always about serious things, adult things, stories about serious incidents, accidents and events that had real consequences for folks faraway and more often, nearby.
Sometimes the stories were of victories or losses in war; maybe a tragic occurrence many miles away or next door. The front page was used for the serious parts of life, not the stupid meaningless concerns of the overactive imaginations of panty bunchers and malcontents.
Unless the paper was a scandal sheet bought at the checkout counter at the local A&P, there was usually judicious restraint used on the front pages of mainstream newspapers. Just the facts Ma'am, thank you very much. The pressure to report the news without emotion was a cornerstone of the medium. Serious journalism was hands down, the goal of most daily rags. That isn't to say, silly and moronic issues never made the front page. But for the most part, the news on the front page was printed with serious regard for the resulting impact on the readers. Silliness and inane concerns were relegated to the Letters to the Editor page, the editorial page, or advice help for lonely hearts.
There is no front page anymore. The print media is now drawing its last breaths. The few that are still surviving are doing that, just surviving. Everyone it seems has substituted the Internet and Cable TV for their front page. A result of this is, no matter how Lost in the BoZone someone's view of the world is, there is a front page waiting somewhere just to reinforce their skewed view of the world they exist in. It is an odd coupling of insane notions being paid as much respect as the Truth. Suddenly, the outlandish rumors and insane stories we laughed at while paying for our groceries were now on the same marquee with the real news. No longer is there a perceived difference between the two for many folks.
Reality TV was born out of this by fooling people their stories reflected Reality. It became clear that knowing the truth was not as much fun as believing the fantasies. Suddenly the "Reality" shows pushed journal news shows to the side. Very few are left on mainstream media now other than 60 minutes on CBS. And they are now under pressure to embrace bullshit journalism that is acceptable to a chosen few.
I had a roommate in college and for awhile after. Toole's life on Sundays was defined by the Sunday paper. He would settle in with the paper in the morning with his coffee and often not come up for air until early afternoon. He did this every Sunday he could, slowly digesting the newspaper a section at a time. It is a ritual I imagine he continues with today. I always imagined it was like going to church for him.
I only bring up Bob's newspaper ritual because back in the day before computers and cable television, information was slowly absorbed, digested, given a chance to settle in. News did not need, nor did it pressure us to make knee jerk decisions about the veracity of the information we were being fed. Yeah, the journalists manipulated and massaged their stories to work us in the direction they wanted us to go. But there was very little blatant outright lies being presented as the truth. The Information networks of back then had more respect for the public who were reading or listening to their news. Now days, the media plays us for chumps more often than not.
I'll leave it there now.
Later Gators .........................................
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Musical selection today? ..... Hmm..... Well, that was easy.
I googled "Songs about the News". Many choices popped up. I tasted some and then.... a Tom Paxton song released in 1964 popped up. On the first listen, I remembered it. A friend who lived a couple of houses away from me on Roosevelt Street in Bethesda had this song on a Tom Paxton Folk album he had bought. He wore that poor record out.
China has spent decades laying tracks for the future.
We’ve been digging graves in the past.
They’ve built cities, schools, trains that move faster than thought.
We’ve built military bases, debt, and an empire of rust.
This is the first stanza of a poem written by Henry Morgenstein, titled "Tracks in Future / Graves in Past". Apparently it is part of a regular newsletter Henry sends out. He attributes these beginning words to Jimmy Carter.
I am not a big fan of China by any reach of the imagination, but I do have to concede that these words seem to point out China's interest in moving forward, while America is busy wallowing in the remnants of a decaying past.
The rest of the poem is a salute to China's material and economic growth while not even mentioning their horrific human rights record that continues to this day. Just because a certain population or populations are in a wonderland and loving it, there are billions of Chinese who are not. Too many struggle in dismal conditions while 10 lane highways and bullet trains crowd out their communities. If this is what we want in our future, I say fuck that. Growth should never override the freedoms of the populations who created that growth. That is just repeating the ugly models of the past again and again and again.
History is cyclical and filled with too many repeats to mention. Empires rise, empires fall. Given the hard times and decline we Americans have created for ourselves starting in the 1980s of Ronald Reagan, it would be easy to conclude that though America was once on top, we are now working hard to find the bottom. The class divisions have never been worse, the economic divisions never more profound, and worst of all, we are now struggling to save the country our forebears created so, so long ago.
Yeah, I don't have a very optimistic vision for our country at this point and only a slightly rosier vision of the future of Humanity in general. We keep shitting in the nest we live in. We deny the negative changes the planet is going through by wasting time pissing on each other's feet while those who don't care continue on their merry way raping the planet and poisoning the chances we might have had to save ourselves. Short term thinking always comes at a higher cost than careful planning.
Whatever happens in the future America will deserve what it has sown and the rest of the World will deserve what they end up with if they don't pay attention to what America did to itself.
I'd say, "Keep it 'tween the ditches" ..... But why bother? We seem intent on driving into them.
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I know A.I. is causing controversy wherever it pops up. But I have to say, so far when it applies to A.I. manipulated music videos, most of the ones I have seen are awesome. Here is "Child in Tiime", by Deep Purple. This song was released in 1968. The song combines with visuals more in tune with the madness that is our current reality. It hits its mark wonderfully.
Enjoy the visuals and don't forget Deep Purple is generally better enjoyed when the volume is wound up to WOW.
Fitful sleep, combined with periods of being awake, is part of my life now. I have become so used to it, when I wake up at Dark-Thirty to stumble to the bathroom to pee, I will often wonder, will I be able to go back to sleep? Often I cannot get back to sleep.
One of my first remedies is to turn on the TV. Nine times out of ten, I fall asleep before the first commercial. If that doesn't work, I watch the movie or TV show and then reset the sleep clock to catch a few winks before it's time to feed Maggie and head outside to face our day.
Last night I was waking up every 45 minutes or so. So I turned on the TV and picked a movie I would not normally choose. It was another of the many, many Zombie chomping Apocalypse End of the World extravaganzas, but on a low budget. With a title like "Die Alone", I was sure it would be boiler plate, rehashed Zombies chasing normal people who are stupid enough to get caught kind of movie. I did not expect any twists I had not seen before.
As it turns out, "Die Alone" was a pretty standard Zombie movie but with a few tweaks that caught and kept my attention for the most part. I only remember dozing off once and that was only for a few minutes. I would have welcomed the sleep, but my brain obviously had been stimulated enough, it was not going to let me sleep. It wanted to watch the movie. I almost expected it to ask me to make some popcorn.
I won't repeat comments from the one review I read, but it was a decent movie with less of an emphasis on the actual horrific scenes of Zombies and what they were having for dinner; rather it focused on the characters and their interactions that built to a unique twist at the end.
It was filmed in Canada on what appears to be a typical Canadian budget. I found it refreshing to watch a film that did not take the easy path and glorify the violence between survivors and Zombies. Watching Zombies get mowed down by ever more complicated machines of destruction does nothing for me. This film caught my attention early by creating a mystery in the first 5 minutes. It isn't a great movie, but certainly better than the average Zombie/Apocalypse stupidity that make up much bigger budget films. Zombies were not the center of attention, the interactions of the characters was. Plot and characterizations, not special effects, drive this movie.
The few slow moments do not detract from the overall quality of the film. Yeah, I'd recommend it.
In some ways it reminded me of "The Road", a very good 2009 apocalypse film based on the excellent novel by the same name. There are no Zombies in "The Road". But it has a similar feel as "Die Alone" as it depends on characters and a sincere plot.
Keep it 'tween the ditches .......................................
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The logical choice for this post would be a tune about, named, or at least containing a vague reference to Zombies. The Cranberries' fine song, "Zombie" immediately came to mind. The problem though, was I used a Cranberries tune for my last post. Two songs in a row from the same group is not allowed per the rules I set up back whenever it was I made including music with posts part of the package. I figured, if I couldn't entertain with my words, I'd include the efforts of people more talented than I as a consolation prize for any disappointments people might have after reading my dribble.
I considered breaking my own rule. I remembered I have always considered self imposed rules with a kind of fluid adherence. If the mood suited me, I broke them in a heart beat.
Without further ado; here are The Cranberries, and their song, "Zombie".
Apparently my brain was not happy with yesterday's post. I asked why. My brain stayed silent on the topic, yet here I am again wanting to write about A.I., dreams, and other things that help make up the nonsense I sometimes obsess over.
I make no apologies about my intermittent preoccupation with nonsense. As a matter of fact, trying to break the nonsense in my brain down into sensible word bites like complete sentences with appropriate grammar tossed in here and there, has always been my first goal when writing. The real bonus now; fictional nonsense keeps me from my current preoccupation with the evil nonsense passing as Reality right now. At the moment, Reality does indeed suck.
The good news is, since I have been actively trying to make sense of the nonsense in my mind, the nonsense is still there, but at least now, it's almost , on the cusp, close to and nearby word groupings that make a point occasionally.
Hmm ........................
There I go again. I sat down to write an expansion of yesterday's thoughts and by the third paragraph I was off down a new rabbit hole. ........ No, not this morning. This distraction thing of mine is a big reason I don't post. It tends to piss me off unless I am really baked. And lately, I have been less baked and more straight than usual. ......... Back on Track.
Yesterday, a confluence of minor incidents and accidents were most likely responsible for my brief fascination with A.I. The image up top was the jig-saw puzzle of the day. A Facebook meme regarding A.I. passed through my feed. and then an A.I. video caught me and I posted it for a minute as real. I wrote about it, posted it, and moved on with my day.
Lately, I have the habit of picking a movie or TV show episode to fall asleep to. Every time I tell myself I will stay awake. Every time I don't. It used to bother me as I had been a life long night person. Now, 7 or 8 years into retirement, I have decided it doesn't matter.
So I pick a new movie arrival on Netflix. "Havoc", starring Tom Hardy as a hard boiled police detective who's moral compass is off, but not far from the good guy who used to be........ Not sure when the curtain came down ....... must have been pretty close to when I started the movie ....... Damn, I hate not knowing when sleep is here and when it isn't. ......
The next thing I know, I am in full dream mode with Tom Hardy. He is not a hard boiled police detective. He is just a working stiff and the two of us are busy parking cars in a huge, to the horizon field of tall grasses with waves of tulips here and there swaying to and fro. The cars we are parking are junkers, high end beauties, and for some reason multiples of the red Volkswagen I learned to drive in so many years ago. Figures, Tom gets to park the high end rides while I am stuck with the junkers and the many Volkswagens. Tom laughs at me as he jumps out of one beautiful car and into another. I am the sad sack watching him enjoy his job while I am seriously hating mine................
I look up the rough dirt road we use to access the field. I see the dust trail of another car being delivered by Tom. When he is maybe 75 yards away, he loses control. The damn fool always drove too fast. .... He loses control and rolls it many times.
Because Tom is so cool and nothing ever goes wrong for him, when the Porsche stops rolling, it is back on 4 wheels and without a scratch. The car is perfect and so is Tom as he climbs out. He stands with legs spread, his hands on his hips and once again he laughs at me. He turns and begins to walk back up the road for another car. ........... As Tom disappears over the crest of the low hill, all I can come up with is, "You Fuckin Asshole".
My bladder then woke me up and now, here I am trying to write down as much as I can remember of the dream. There was more, but it hangs at the periphery refusing to take part in the tale. I can almost remember, ..... No......... Fuck it.
So there it is, an example of the "New Consciousness" I read about yesterday. Or, as I am beginning to believe, my own personal version of "Artificial Intelligence". Or is there really a world apart from our own that exists just for the dreams we come up with. Maybe Alice in Wonderland is a true story.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................
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I didn't fuck around this morning finding a song. Almost immediately I thought of "Dreams", by the Cranberries". They are definitely one of my favorite bands. Dolores O'Riordan, their lead singer, was taken from us too soon. I love her voice.
I shared one of those short videos that float endlessly around the Facebook pages, It showed a special rig on a boat that was used to clean barnacles off the hides of whales. I share a lot of videos and I assume many are fictional creations for consumption and not random moments of Reality caught by a smartphone. An Internet friend commented on it. He very rarely comments. He leaves likes, dislikes, laughs, surprises, or care emojis almost all the time.
When I checked the notification queue on the right, I was surprised to see he had left a comment. Usually I check the notifications starting with the oldest first and then move up the queue. This morning I opened his comment first.
No matter how careful I am , I still get sucked in by fakery, pranks, and general overall mischief at my expense on an irregular basis. I don't care about the inconsequential fun fakes. I have pulled a few legs in my time myself. But the use of trickery when it matters does bother me. I began some years ago to try to make sure what I shared regarding the serious issues of our lives, politics, religion, social justice, environmental were as above board and honest as I could. I still got burned, but not nearly as much as I used to.
And now we have to deal with A I ( Artificial Intelligence ). It's been around awhile, but recently it has infiltrated everything, Images were first. Now A I is writing stories, homework papers, creating fake news and generally creating a shitstorm out there in the information maze.
How does one trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes, felt with their own hands, or heard with their own ears as it left the lips of the person they were listening to? It's as if anything outside my mind is suspect now.
Believing my eyes and ears is on the chopping block now. Soon, I won't be able to trust even what is going on in my own brain. Of course, given my foolishness as a younger man, I learned then not to place too much trust in what was spinning around inside my cranium; especially when in the grip of one kind of substance or another.
It may just be a coincidence, but just this morning I read a brief story about dreams and how the full on dreams where we participate are more than just dreams. They are a different type of consciousness. Combine the advances in A I coming at us, it looks like we are hard into either finding alternate Realities or inventing them for ourselves. I am not so sure this is a good thing. It appears we headed for some interesting times as we deal with the Real and the Unreal. We are having a tough time dealing with the Reality we are trapped in now. What is going to happen when we have more than one to choose from?
Anyway, just some half baked thoughts I have yet to completely sort out. All I know is if I had some hallucinogens' again, I could compare Reality with the fun One I created years ago when I was young and numb.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ...............................
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Maybe I don't need to re-acquaint myself with psychedelics again. I just googled "Music about Artificial Intelligence". What I found was mind blowing. There were songs written by A I; also songs previously released with new A I video, and at least one group, who had A I write the song and create the video, then put their name on it. Depeche Mode at least, was up front about it.
I spotted a great Pink Floyd tune, "Comfortably Numb". It's the original song , but with an A I generated video. Not sure how to describe the visuals other than they definitely reminded me of LSD trips form long ago.
I was going to research to find out who was first. What country first began interring segments of their populations in camps? I decided it really did not matter. Something told me it was a practice as old as Civilization was. Concentration camps have been around since before I was born. As far as I am concerned, that is all I need to know.
What brought this to my attention was a MEME a Hoser friend from Canada put up and passed through my Facebook feed. Oh, he is no Hoser. I just like the term, it is so Canadian. My friend is a stand up guy who more than likely spread more good than I ever did.
After considering the MEME, I decided that the point of the MEME is spot on, though one claim was not correct.
A prison in El Salvador holds our recent deportees. Many, if not most, are held without Due Process. The hope was removing them from within our borders might remove them from our minds as well. "Out of sight, Out of mind" is a tried and true method to help folks forget the unpleasantries they are responsible for. Works for the current administration, or so they thought.
The problem with the MEME I have, is the claim the El Salvador prison is the first concentration camp created by the US government. From what I have sorted out from the mutated history spoon fed me over the years, is we started building concentration camps back in the early 1800's when Andrew "Asshole" Jackson started rounding up Native Americans and forcing them onto reservations. I guess that was better than just killing them, but it was not right then, no matter what the apologists of today would have us believe.
The solution brought about by the reservation system, with some serious genocide mixed in, was ultimately successful. White men had successfully stolen a continent from the original inhabitants and just as the Crusades were a religious excuse to extend White Power over those pesky Muslims, so was the genocide and containment of the American Indian hidden behind an excuse that used in part, the word of GOD. It was our God Blessed "Manifest Destiny" to own both coasts and everything in between.
We had a system of control, while maybe harsh, it worked. Our country moved forward and began raping and killing the land instead of the Indians. We became a world power eventually and were able to finally pee in the tall grass with the other big dogs from across the Big Pond.
Life was good, until it wasn't. WWl, the "War to end all Wars", should have been enough warning to the planet; that out of control Capitalism run by autocrats was a recipe for disaster. No, we needed a second lesson. WWll involved more of the planet and killed millions more people, military and civilian, than any war up to that time.
During WWll, the US government was rightfully paranoid. There actually were enemies everywhere. We were in a two front war with two countries who were bigger assholes than we were. It was indeed a fight for survival. The rights of many people were put on hold. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 placed 117.000 people of Japanese descent in concentration camps. They were treated better than the Jews were, but they were still uprooted, moved and forced to live in barracks like so many other concentration camps created by Man to control populations they considered dangerous.
What this leaves me with is sadness, anger, and a feeling that America is no better than any other country. The lie we have fed ourselves for over 250 years that we embody the lofty morals and ethics created by Man for Man to aspire to, are just words. In the scheme of what is important, a country will pursue its interests without much consideration of what will result and who it will hurt. Self interest will always rule the day.
Bottom line. Nobody should be surprised at what Trump is doing. It has all been done before. And he is at best, nothing but a stupid, very stupid, copycat.
I'll stop here and get off my high horse and shovel the dung now.
Later ....................................
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At first, when attempting to pick a song for this post, I was sure it would be a bitch to find one I liked. I first googled, "Concentration Camp music". That was a non-starter. Everything seemed to be in Yiddish. I don't know Yiddish except for a very few Americanized words. I decided then to use the title of the post, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" music. ......... Jackpot.
Seems there are a sizable number of tunes with the sentiment at their core. Problem was, the first few tunes were all heart rippers: girls who had left me, boys who jilted me, Life can't go on because you will never be out of my mind, tunes.........
And then I came across George Strait's, a take you back to the good ole days of Country Music tune, "Out of Sight Out of Mind". It's tear jerker, but a good one. Old Skool country music was meant to be tear jerking music.
While I was listening to George, I noticed in the queue of next songs lined up on the right, was a great tune from an English folk punk band from ............... wait for it .......from England. I discovered them a few years back. They are political and damn good musicians. The song is "Criminal Justice".
I recently fell down a rabbit hole comprised of a cluster fuck of ideas and attitudes regarding how international relations between countries should be run according to the new direction our current Asshole in Chief has cozied up to. Since 1998 it has been known as Diplomatic Realism, It's about a kind of Anarchy, but at the international level.
Instead of continuing to be the planet's top dog, it appears Trump wants to break down the division of power into three spheres of influence between China, the USA and of course Russia.
It is just a new twist on the expansionist mentality that was at its zenith during Teddy Roosevelt's, "speak softly but carry a big stick" period over 100 years ago. Nowhere have I yet read where India is positioned in this division of spoils. I assume Trump takes it for granted India will fall under China's umbrella. This of course assumes there is even a plan or just the usual MAGA dumasses making shit up.
Diplomatic Realism insists a country should worry about its own self interests before all others. Forming alliances are only formed it if there is a profit of some kind for the homeland. Doing the right thing just because it is the right thing should not be part of any relationship with any other country.
Trump and his self-interested cronies are definitely working the diplomatic game from a hard line view of Diplomatic Realism. They want to drop alliances that do not obviously help the interests of the USA. In other words, they want to keep doing what America has been doing internationally but without the fluff and PR tokenism we have successfully used for well over 100 years. No more carrots and but in the future, much bigger sticks.
What was once American Imperialism hiding behind the curtain of altruism we used to open doors with, blunt force will do the job if threats don't do initially. Instead of massaging the shoulders of other countries to get what we want, we plan to become just another thug country that only shares with those countries who toe our line.
Trump and his clown circus are total losers who do not understand nor care that our Nice Guy Imperialism was working like a charm. They have now exposed the USA for the assholes we have been for years. Yeah, we have done good, major good over the years. In the end it has been for our benefit first and foremost. And that is as it should be. Finding a non-violent solution to national security is certainly the smarter move than flinging bombs and entrenching troops in thankless and stupid conflicts, uh ...oh wait, okay, okay, so we blew it a few times, but hey, we are only human and we meant well........ cough, cough.
Regardless of what we used to do diplomatically or what stupidity we used to unleash on any country we thought deserved it, it appears the Trump administration, along with his clown parade we know as Congress, have positioned themselves to up the ante and drop any notion of civility when dealing with other countries. The posturing, muscle flexing and intimidation in my opinion is the first evidence that even the Right is now aware our dominance is on the way out. They don't want to face the music. Eventually, they will have to. I just hope they don't hasten our downfall with the stupidity they have planned over the next few years.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on a subject I have only just recently set my mind to. I am sure once I think I have a better understanding of Diplomatic Realism and its possibilities, I will make adjustments to what I just wrote the next time I feel the need to bring up the subject.
Until then, please keep it 'tween the ditches ................................
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A song that wonderfully describes America's Imperialistic tendencies is , "America", written and recorded by Tracy Chapman. Her unique voice, musicianship and wonderful way with lyrics caught my attention back in the 1990s. "America" was slammed hard by the loud mouth Wingers of the day back then; proof that the Right's tendency to hate the truth is part and parcel of how they view the world they think they own.
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