I had a post all queued up, ready and waiting for me to send it out into the light of day. Put some moderate effort into it; spent some of the time I have running out. When I finished, I knew it was a piece of shit. I left the title however and began to write something else.
Because I have to get outside and do Fall yard stuff, instead of something else, here is the Clif Notes version of the deleted post.
My original effort was about my last time experiencing blue balls as a young adult seeking more than just platonic hook up with a member of the opposite sex. The post quickly became obnoxious as I remembered after finding the scrap of paper that had my targeted companion's phone number and address on it. Her name was Debby and she was a Pro Level groupie.
I was on my first of two Black Sabbath tours I would haul while driving for SHOWCO out of Dallas, Texas.
Debby was a master manipulator. She had me wrapped around her little finger. She looked out of place hanging back stage. She looked normal. She did not look like a groupie. When our interactions ended and I had dropped her in Knoxville, I actually thanked her for the experience and for reminding me that control is the key when the horns come out. This wasn't High School anymore.
Some experiences need occasional reinforcement. ........... sometimes that reinforcement needs to be brutal.
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For some reason, I thought of "The Lemon Song", by Led Zeppelin as I finished the last paragraph. Somehow, it seems appropriate...................... No. Wait. I wonder if there is music dedicated to this common Male afliction ..................... (when there's dots, it means I am either thinking or finding something)
As usual, YouTube did not let me down. There is a dirty song community thriving in the heartland of YouTube. This song is from the 1950s. At the time, it was banned throughout the known Universe; biding its time until one day a huge world wide communication network would be built that freed it from the purgatory the bunched panty set of the 1950s had exiled it to.
Here is Dik Gozinya with "I Got Blue Balls". (wink wink - A.I. )
I had originally picked Zep's, "The Lemon Song". Instead, here is "When the Levee Breaks" for another Two-Fer Tuesday.
I woke up this morning at 2:40 AM. I was not surprised. Waking up at dark thirty now is the rule not the exception. Bladders want what bladders want. Routine fog in my brain took a few minutes to clear. I looked at Maggie. She dropped out of her chair, came over to me, tailing wagging. Her message was clear.
"Are we going out for a pee?"
I nodded and scratched my head.
"You betcha Maggles, let's do it."
I stepped out into the backyard, found a suitable spot not too far from the back door and I assumed the position. Maggie found a usual spot over near the puckerbrush.
This moment of "peeing into the stream" so to speak was not the normal brain fog dark thirty AM moment. I realized first that it was November and it felt like a summer night out here in the dark. Something was wrong. I should be shivering.
The last remnants of the brain fog cleared and it hit me. Election Night! It was election night! I quickly buttoned up, called Maggie and the two of us went back in the house.
I hesitated before turning on the Tube. I did not want another major disappointment like I had in 2016 and 2024. Trump had to be brought down. This was the perfect storm to do it I hoped. I went into the kitchen, turned on the TV with the sound down and prepped a batch of coffee. No matter what I found out, I was up for the duration.
I tuned into MS NOW and turned the volume up. This was the first screen shot I saw. My man Troy had beaten Susan Collins. There would be no question, or shouldn't be.
Wide fucking awake now, I sat down at the table with my first cup of coffee and watched the coverage. The crew on MS NOW were giddy like teen age school girls at a Beatles concert. Not only had the Democrats won both houses of Congress, they won big. At the time I began writing this post, the Senate was at 54 seats for the Democrats and 44 for the GOP. In the House races,; 245 were predicted for the Democrats, which assured them a decisive majority.
Of course the dust has not even begun to settle yet. Ther are races still out there to be counted. The election was most certainly a landslide for not just the Democrats, but for America as well. Maybe now we can begin to repair the damage to our country Trump and his wimp ass GOP lackeys have forced down our throats.
Fuckin A, God Damn Shit..... America finally has some good news. It's about Time.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ..................................
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I had the song picked before I even stared this post. Here is Kool & the Gang with their iconic and timeless hit from the 1970s, "Celebration".
I think many Americans, Left or Right, have come to the same conclusion. America is in crisis. How pivotal and drastic the result, only History will be able to sort out....maybe.
Our country has been through numerous adversities that at the time, seemed to be life threatening senarios. Many folks were sure their world as they knew it was ending. Some of the threats were tempests in teapots, and some were indeed catastrophes that brought about change of historiccal proportions.
Major challenges to the status quo can often deepen and intensify political divisions to the point that both parties can be taken over by bug eyed crazed extremists whose only reason for being, is to spread fear and loathing of the other side. It really does not matter which side instigates the fear first. If the division is deep enough, any common sense on both sides becomes spotty. We become emotional voters, which are the worst kind of voters who use their vote to blame, not for change.
The one thing that ties the two sides together is the fear and loathing each has for the other. Both sides feed on the lies and evil they perceive the other relies on to push their own agenda.
In this mid-term election, the stakes have been pushed so high for the opposing sides; tomorrow, we will wake to another jolt to our system. Will the jolt put on the brakes of our slide into an authoritarian country run by the isolated rich and Christian Nationalists? Or will, as too many of the Right Wing believe, America becomes a country where illegal immigrants run amok, eating our white children, raping our white women, turning our white boys into girls and our white girls into boys; and before we can blink, suddenly Al Akbar is president and white Christians by the millions end up in concentration camps?
These fear filled scenarios we dream up rarely evolve as we conceived them. The nationwide fear that drives these ugly scenarios though, should not be ignored. The Fear is real. Fear that runs this deep does not just go away because of an election. All a midterm usually does, is move the balance temporarily; unless of course, one side kicks the other to the curb hard. It is looking like this may be one of those elections. When the dust settles, one side is bound to be truly disappointed and disillusioned. The other side will have a false sense of security and entitlement.
I am rooting for the Blue Wave myself. Not because I want to destroy the Right. I want to stop the direction they want to take us. The leader they chose to believe in has not only failed, he has shown he has nothing but total disregard for all Americans. The Right is wrong and now most of them know it.
I started this post to pontificate on a much different subject. Per my usual loose dog ways, I re-routed, took a different fork, changed direction without knowing it until I had that last paragraph written. I am now finishing this post up and going down to the Town Hall and vote. Something tells me I won't find any DOJ goons hanging out.
If you haven't voted yet, please do so. Not voting because you might think what's the use? .... Well, by not voting you help to support the notion that voting does nothing.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ......................
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A song I saved back a few years ago is perfect. Here is:
"Bohemian Trumpsody" - Marsh Family adaptation of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen about Donald J. Trump
Midsummer 1963; my family moved from Tampa, Florida to Tallahassee, located 250 miles up in the panhandle. Besides being the state capitol, Tally was also home to Florida State University, one of the bigger colleges in the South.
Folks in Tampa told my parents, the pandhandle was almost Georgia. Be careful. North Florida didn't cotten no free spirit bullshit, nor God forbid, any casual fraternizations with "Negroes". ( I will refrain from using the popular racial slur that passed for normal at the time) Blacks were still under White Man's thumb in Florida, especially in the Panhandle. Black folk knew their place in the Pandhandle. Jim Crow ruled.
Central Florida was full of run of the mill Crackers who did not go out of their way to show their racist tendencies. I am sure Tampa was segregated, but not to the degree, the citiy of Tallahassee went to. Head down to South Florida and the Keys, it was a party every day. No one seemed to care about anything but having a good time. Northern Florida was definitely a different state of mind than further south.
In Tallahassee, everything was segregated. Restaurants, buses, movie theaters, drinking fountains, and most motels and hotels posted signs clearly defining who could use this or that, eat there, or which end of the bus they could sit.
An exception was the Travel Lodge my father had been hired to manage. It was integrated. I think it may have been because visiting black educators and atheletes needed somewhere to stay while they visited or played at FSU. Travel Lodge bordered the college. The racists could ignore one motel I guess. Of course this is only conjection on my part.
A lot of life changing events occurred during my time in Tallahassee. Probably, the most transforming for me was my exposure to the burgeoning Civil Rights movement that was playing out right in front of me.
Along with the brutal eye opening blatant racism, I also saw moments that showed promises of what might be coming. Civil Rights people were showing up more and more. there was a change coming. Everyone knew it, even I did.
I cannot remember the name of the elementary school I attended as a 6th grader. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Savage. She is one of the teachers I remember the best. She was awesome.
The school was affiliated with the education department at FSU. Student teachers learned the basics at my school.They had all the latest cool educating stuff. New buildings, TV's in every class and they used those TV's regularly. I remember watching the aftermath of JFK's assasination on those TVs. I watched live as Jack Ruby jumped in front of the TV camera and shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the stomach. ....... That school was one of my favorites of the 12 schools I attended before I went to college.
I struck up a friendship the first week. We'll call him Jake. Jake's parents were post grad students at the university. They lived in a FSU owned apartment complex. It was early to mid September when Jake invited me over to his place. We would hang out, eat lunch and later in the afternoon, his mom or dad would drive me back to the Travel Lodge.
Cool. My mom hauled me out the next mornig to his apartment complex. Jake and I did shit 6th grade boys do. I don't really remember those details. Just a normal get to know ya friend visit I guess.Their apartment was tiny, tiny, tiny. His mom set up a couple of card tables and wooden folding chairs outside and served lunch for everyone. She called us to eat.
What I remember with intense clarity is was what happened next.
As I sat down on the folding wooden chair, it collapsed. Instinct kicked in and I tried to catch myself. Instead, the collapsing scissor action of the wooden chair sliced off a sizable chunk of the 3rd finger on my right hand. I remember screaming, falling and then I am not sure how long before Jake's mom came out of the apartment building. She was carrying something. She dropped it when we looked at each other.
From that point until I found some focus in the Emergency Room, everything was a blur. My next clear thoughts were of sitting in an overcrowded waiting room, my mom is sitting next to me and the biggest man in the world walks through the crowd waiting there. He was defintely the biggest man I had ever seen in person. He was wearing bib overalls and he had a straw hat on.
As he walked through, he would stop and chat some with the folks. Everyone seemed to know who he was. Mom and I were clueless until someone next my mom identified him as "Haystacks Calhoun", national celebrity in the pro wrestling world at the time.The longer he was there, more people recognized him. Someone loudly aasked how come he was at the hospital. He laughed and sad something like, "Oh, the ole lady's having our baby."
The waiting room was a divided space. Blacks had their own section. Haystacks walked right into their space and started yukking it up with them also. It was not until years later that I began to understand what I had experienced in Tally the year and a half I lived there. I saw so much hatred and yet, what really stands out, were those few moments in the ER waiting room watching the biggest man in the world in my eyes cross a line no white man was supposed to cross.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ..............................
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I often ponder my musical choices for my posts longer than most folks would consider sane. Perhaps I do. I guess it's part of the pleasure I add to writing posts. It's the search for music I have never known, the end result, just an expansion of my love of music.It has become part of the show. And I'll ponder and taste music as long as it takes until I finally pick a tune. Sometimes I do have a song in mind before I begin to write. Sometimes I have to check 20 songs or more before I find one I like.
Here is a song that has no real connection to my post. A new song from an artist I have never heard of. Gotye & Kimbra are from New Zealand. I am not sure what genre I would call this tune. Doesn't matter to me. I really like this tune.
Tunrned up to WOW or turned down LOW.... works either way. Definitely a toe tapper. Enjoy "Somebody that I used to know".
Recently, I cut off my participation in the Political and Culture wars that currently has our country by its short hairs. I had a good excuse; a real honest reason to stop adding my awesome Libtard indignation to the overwhelming wave of all the other Libtard's disgust over what the Right Wing has done to our political and cultural landscapes.
I stopped initially, to spend time preparing our home, inside and out, for replacing all 25 windows and both entry doors. There was a lot to do. Years and years of clutter had to be relocated or tossed out. Outside, 60 plus years had turned the once cleanly trimmed hedges that wrapped much of the house into a 10 foot high jungle the birds loved to nest in, but essentially made using the windows to look out of a hit or miss situation.
The windows were installed over 3 weeks ago and the after effects are still running BA's and my life. We are dealing with 45 years of hoarding pretty much anything you can think of. Inside, Outside didn't matter. We (mostly me I guess) were committed to filling whaever space there was to fill.
Dealing with the "Windows" was why I stopped wasting away in front of the 'puter fighting the good fight against those nasty clueless Wingers.
Once I had managed to stay away for a few weeks, I realized that my voice missing from the fray on the Internet was of no consequence. I waas changing nothing. Everything was fucked and becoming more fucked everyday whether I was part of it or not.
I was going to stay away until after the upcoming Mid-Term election. I can't wait for that 6 month vacation from politics before the next election kicks into gear. I was going ignore the maddness. Problem is. I am weak. I can only pass so many accidents without looking before the pressure builds to a point I know I have to create some relief.
So, I am back at least for awhile until I get fed up again.
Keep it 'tween the ditches .............................
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< The after image was a mistake.At least the new Doo was.
I had become tired of my efforts to look like Willy Nelson. On a spur of the moment while driving by the 4 Seasons Barber Shop in Shapleigh, I noticed their lot was almost empty. I turrned in, went in, and said take it all. Without asking me the finer points of how much "all" meant, the barber dug in like she was one of the Air Force barbers from my youth who only knew one haircut; ..... high and tight. Before I caught on, it was too late. Hell, it has always grown back; just now there seems to be less hair available to grow back.
All in all though, I haven't seen my chin for years and who knew a face could grow so much in so few years?
Later ............................
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I chose this great Blue Grass tune, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", made famous by the Ma Carter and family back many years ago. It may be my favorite blue grass tune of all. ....hmm... well, anyway, today it is.
I had originally chosen a version featuring a crowd of country and Blue Grass royalty. I was denied. I could view it on YouTube, but I couldn't share it.
So, I found the version I first fell in Love with in the 1970s. This is not the original recording, but it is an almost perfect rendition that features Ma Carter and a host of gifted musicians.
The story below has to be the funniest story I have read in ages. Tears flowed as the story unfolded. I laughed so hard, my dog looked at me with her head tilted. I am saving it in a blog post. The tale is just too excellent to not have it to read again and again and again. It is that special of a story .....................Enjoy
A furious row has broken out between a local tattoo artist and his client after what started out as a routine inking session, left both of them requiring emergency hospital treatment.
Vintage film fan and part time plus size model Tracey Munter (23), had visited the Ink It Good Tattoo Emporium on Wellgate last week to have the finishing touches applied to a double buttock representation of the chariot race scene from the iconic 1959 film, Ben Hur. Tattooist Jason Burns takes up the story.
“It was a big job in more ways than one.” he told us “I’d just lit a roll up and was finishing off a centurions helmet. It’s delicate, close up work. Next thing is, I sense a slight ripple in the buttock cleavage area just around Charlton Heston’s whip, and a hissing sound – more of a whoosh than a rasp – and before I know what’s happening, there’s a flame shooting from her arse to my fag and my beards gone up like an Aussie bush fire.”
Jason says he rushed to the studio sink to quell the flames, only to turn round and see Tracey frantically fanning her buttock area with a damp towel. The flames had travelled down the gas cloud and set fire to her thong which was smoking like a cheap firework.
“To be honest”, said Jason, “I didn’t even realise she was wearing one. You’d need a sodding mining licence and a torch to find out for sure. She could have had a complete wardrobe in there and I’d have been none the wiser.”
Jason and Tracey were taken to Rotherham District Hospital accident and emergency department where they were treated for minor burns and shock. Both are adamant that the other is to blame.
“I’m furious” said Jason, “I’ve got a face like a mange-ridden dog and my left eyebrows not there any more. I don’t know about Ben Hur – Gone With The Wind’s more like it. You don’t just let rip in someone’s face like that. It’s dangerous.”
But Tracey remains both angry and unrepentant;
“I’m still in agony,” she said, “and Charlton Heston looks more like Sidney bloody Poitier now. Jason shouldn’t have had a fag on the go and there’s no way I’d guff on purpose. He’d had me on all fours for nearly an hour. I can only put up with that for so long before nature takes its course. My Kev knows that. I give him my five second warning and I’d have done the same for Jason, but I didn’t get chance – it just crept out.”
Ted Walters from the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service wasn’t surprised when we told him what had happened “People just don’t appreciate the dangers. “ he told us, “We get called out to more flatulence ignition incidents than kitchen fires these days, now people have moved over to oven chips. We have a slogan ‘Flame ‘n fart – keep ’em apart’. Anyone engaging in an arse inking scenario would do well to bear that in mind in future.”
<<~~>>
Reminds me of when I was a young teen. Snake and I used to have a little performance we called the Japanese Fire Drill. When one of our crew felt a fart coming on, they would shout, "Japanese Fire Drill". They would assume the position and another crew member lit up the Fart.
We would then grade said fart on strength of flame, length of time in the air, and for the trifecta, a sound grade. One of our more clueless friends once asked if he could get a better grade if he dropped his pants and performed the procedure Au Naturel. No one volunteered to light it, so he had to do it himself.
Who knew that a flame follows the gas to the source? I never saw someone jump so high and shout so loud. He wondered if he should go to the ER, but decided he had been humilated enough in front of his buds and blew it off. I cannot remember his real name, but we called him "Dum Ass" from then on.
And yes, lighting up a fart does lessen the stink, but never entirely.
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Musical choice today is a random song if I can't fund a fart song. ...... Uh, well I guess fart songs are a staple in the audiophile community of Humanity. Because I am in a hurry this morning and farts are not so funny I feel up to checking hundreds of songs about farts, here is a short from "Family Guy".
I learned early in life the story of the boy who cried wolf. The story reinforced what I already knew to be true. I am still a tad fuzzy which came first, the story or the realization. Does not matter.
Little kids pick their noses. There might be one or two who didn't, but I would not believe anyone who claimed they never have. Picking one's nose is an early rite of passage.
I picked my nose as a child. Because I had a small schnoz, it became apparent the chubby fingers I wore on my hands were not going to support my nose mining career for long. My physical limitations eventually stopped the practice. Until that time though, my mom was my "boy who cried wolf".
Don't Pick Your Nose ...... You'll Pull Your Eye Out
I remember heeding her warnings at first. I freaked out; probably had a bad dream or two. Because I was a kid, I could not or would not stop stuffing fingers up my nose. My mom would never yell, she would just repeat her patented response. Eventually, I figured out she was bullshitting me.I held my preferred nosepicking finger against my nose at the point I figured would be as far in as I might be able to insert it. No way Mom, the end of my finger was inches from my eye. so, the next time she caught me and warned me:
"Not-Ahh, my fingers are too short."
She laughed. Apparently nose picking was not one of Mom's seven deadly sins. These early interactions with Mom are what helped to prepare me for the cynical lifestyle I would fall into as an adult; especially the world of Politics I would get into.
The Left has their Twisted Patty Pants, but nobody gets their knickers in a knot faster and more often than the Right does. The Wingers tend to believe anything their leadership tells them. False claims of Doom and Gloom over molehill issues are their stock in trade. Crying Wolf is second nature to the sleazy leadership of the GOP and every other other Right Wing group I can think of; especially now that the Orange Buffoon has the whole bunch of them by their short hairs.
Hmm ...........................
Somewhere in my mind, tucked in a corner where the dust bunnys live, is the reason and connection to the short Internet article I read this morning regarding another possible way to keep Alzheimer's disease at arm's length. At the moment, I am still hoping to locate the original connection.....hang on.
The short internet article regarded one of the "simple" measures a person can take to help avoid the onset of Alzheimer's or other signs of Demetia; Listen to music more. Apparently it doesn't matter what music, but tthe article did indicate that the music of our youth was a great place to start.
Okay, so now I have all the excuse I need to continue my time Rockin Out to Oldies, Newies, and music I never heard of before.I have become an ancient mariner of sorts, who cruises the Planet's tunes on a daily basis. I have discovered so much unheard music, I am positive that like the Internet, Music is found everywhere and to deny myself the pleasure of hearing it, well, that is just stupid.
As to connecting the dots that lead back to nose picking? .... Damn, it just ain't happening today. I would be smart to disconnect now ..............
That is all I have for today ...... Keep it 'tween the Ditches ......................
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It's Tune Time and once again the vapid empty space between my ears fails to inspire. ... Hmm, might try turning some music on bud............
Today - "Crazy Mary", by Pearl Jam. Just might be my favorite Jam song.
Apparently, many American Farmers and Ranchers are not as upset with Trump, so much as they are upset at the Woke Folk of the Left who have decided to back their Woke opinions with their wallets.
These Right Wing farmers and ranchers were warned time and time again, starting in Trump's first term, that he was a liar, a cheat, a con man and he'd throw anyone under the bus if it served him and his selfish interests. He has always been a sleaze bag and since 2016, he has only gotten worse.
And now, many MAGA Farmers and Ranchers are mad at the customer base they need to survive. I would go into this deeper, but why would I? I have a few great Woke responses in the video below.
Warning: Watch out for uncensored, angry from the gut, Woke Folks. Each voice make great cases for why we should not feel sorry for the MAGA Farmers and Ranchers. They helped create the shit storm of America's new reality under Trump.
My comment at the time:
"Awesome compilation. MAGA ranchers are looking for sympathy huh? I'm gonna fall back on something my mom used on me as a little punk; after Life had handed me some harmless indignities. If a dictionary was nearby, she would point or hand it to me and say something like, "If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it between 'Shit" and "Syphilis". Eventually, all she had to say was, "Where's a dictionary", and I would walk away with drooping shouders and possibly muttering something nasty. She could be brutal, but I survived and I thank her for not caving to my whining little kid BS. Of course she had already raised two other boys before my unplanned entrance into her and Dad's world."
The cracks in Trump's great experiment are growing. It didn't have to happen this way. If Donald had been a smart man and an honest broker of even half of the lies he told, he might just be in MAGA Pig Heaven right now. Instead he has begun his lame duck status almost a year sooner than it should have. All by himself, he has gleefully spread hate, fear, and uncertainty throughout America. I think he has lost interest in actually governing, and is now hard into the raping and pilliaging of our nation. What a nasty and useless piece of shit he is.
I should stop here.........
Keep it 'tween the ditches until November 3rd, then be sure toVOTE BLUE !
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It's a rare occasion for me to quickly find a tune that will dovetail decently with the post. Today, I had the tune before the bytes were dry in my post. This tune was the theme to a early 1960's TV series that championed the cowboy culture; men in dusty hats, gun at their hips, and a pack of tobaccy in their hands as they spin up a butt in one hand and gaze upon the herd of steers they have to drive up to Abilene.
I was eight when RAWHIDE became a hit. That show taught me all I needed to know about being a Cowboy.
I just returned after a brief break from Facebooking every day. While I was away, my favorite FB Winger Group, "Opposing Sides", decided to pause their existence. Not exactly sure what a pause in Facebook is, but the page does not function and hasn't since September 7th, a week ago. Is it kaput, done, reached its limit, or has trying to support an undeserving hero finally proven too much for the people who administer the page?
When I first noticed the page was not working, I was momentarily disappointed. Where was I going to vent all my pent up anger at the Idiot Right and their selfish brain dead approach to ruining the country?
Now, 15 minutes or so later, I'm over it. All the page ever did was get me worked up, often leaving me taching hard over redline. It had been fun for a time....... until it wasn't anymore. Maybe now, I'll back off to hopefully reduce the anxiety level I was often left with in the Past.after all, a rousing hour or so of , "I'm not the idiot, you're the idiot" was usually all there was. Nobody won. Nobody convinced anyone they were wrong or right; just clueless flounders insulting each other in a troll fest where no conversations of any worth resulted.
Good Riddance!
Even if it does come back online, I think it will be without my participation anymore. I am so fed up and tired of the Trump Clown Show, I am no longer willing to treat any Winger with anything bordering on civility. Pwning a Winger no longer gives me the pleaasure when I was full of piss and vinegar over 10 years ago asTrump first squatted in the White House.
<~~~>
I wrote the piece below on August 30, 15 days ago. It was written as I stood ready to plunge again into the socio/political battles playing out on the Internet. Instead of finishing and posting it, I shut down everything and took the break I just came back from.
Are my batteries re-charged? Is my piss and vinegar quiver filling back up? I hope not. I want to coast the next 50 days until the mid-term elections.
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Other Realities
origin - 8/30/2026
Okay. So I am contemplating heading down another rabbit hole. All my other trips to the Other Realities were unforseen and unplanned. This time I know I am standing on the edge of this hole and seriously considering giving in to its evil allure; volunteering to climb into the abyss to do battle with the red capped lunatics who reside there.
Once I accepted the fact that America is being raped and pillaged by a political ideology that has sunk into a morass of ineptitude and chaos, I feel ready. How can they continue to surprise me with new forms of stupidity and corruption? I feel this new world I exist in will be a cakewalk...... as long as I manage to avoid the many new pitfalls the current landscape has developed..........
I know what is down this particular rabbit hole, having been caught in it many times over the past 20 years. This time though, I won't be caught off guard. The are no longer any surprises to knock me off my game. I am finally in a state of awareness now that nothing will ever catch me flat footed. I know what to expect and I am ready...............
Who am I kidding? Over confidence when entering a new rabbit hole is insane, given the possible negativity that might follow me out once I have figured out I am in too deep.. My uncharacteristic show of bravado should probably be a warning, not a sign I might have everything in control. I stopped myself at the edge of this plunge into the newest lunacy landscape to pop up. I have second thoughts now. They are quickly morphing into .......
"Take a break Crum. Calm yourself. Stop worrying about that which you have no chance of changing in the short term. It's the long game we are faced with, not the petty nuisance stupidity the Right puts out to distract us."
I'm out for awhile..... See Ya soon.
8/30/26
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There is only one song to play here. It was written and first recorded by Jefferson Airplane with vocals by Grace Slick in the mid 1960's. I was really into its message, that is for sure. Those were the early days of my experimentation with whatever drug or alcohol derivative that happened to be around. Yeah, I was into rabbit holes even back then. I eagerly jumped into those mind altering moments. It would be about 10 years before I stabilized and found my center again.
I have again run into the wall where my Internet savvy ends and my all too normal cluelessness begins. If I was 4 years old, I would have figured it out already.
The problem today is I wanted to save the video below to a playlist in my Youtube video collection. I tried to find it in Youtube, but no luck. All I have is the Facebook rendition. I don't know the name of this tune yet, never mind who wrote it. I did notice a reference on the video about "A I", but I think refers to the dude at the top who is sampling the video.
To temporarily solve the problem in my typical Rube Goldberg way, is to post it on my blog. Hopefully that will work and I won't lose it. Later, I can dig deeper into the song as time allows. I am at the moment, supposed to be readying our house for window replacements...... 24 windows of replacement. But that's another story...... Or maybe this is the beginning of that story. We'll see.
If anyone out there knows the name of this song, let me know in the comments. Or not. I can usually figure it out for myself.But when I grow tired of that effort, I will begrudgingly ask my wife. And yeah, she'll make fun of me. So what else is new?
Later ................................
>>> Regarding the image of Trump and his swimming buddy, Jeff from July, 1984; well it has nothing to do with the post, well ...... I am looking for a reason that makes sense and having trouble coming up with one. Hey, sharing is enough of a good reason. Right?
I was scrolling through my "Saved Art" file for a new Wallpaper image. The current one was at least a few months old. It was time for a new image.
I did not pick the image to the right. I passed right by it, choosing instead, a different one to look at each time I woke up the 'puter. After I had set the new wallpaper, I went back to this image.
Of all the visual arts, I think I like sculptures the best. Paintings, mosaics, and other two dimensional art forms are nice and all, but I like the additon of that 3rd dimension. ............ Hmm. yeah right. Maybe I just like sculptures better than flatscreen art today. Tomorrow, who the Hell knows?
This sculpture is attributed to Hugo (Wolfgang) Rheigold and is located on Monkey Island, somewhere in China. It is a rendition of an Orangutan ( I think) sitting on a stack of books written by Charles Darwin while he comtemplates a human skull.
If I was a deeper thinker than the skin deep one I represent on a daily basis, I could imagine there is an infinite number of tangents, thoughts, and imaginations I could unpack from this one sculpture. What the sculptor had in mind matters little. What matters is what I pull from it.
My knee jerk first consideration was this is a moment from the Future. How far in the future doesn't matter. But it is from the Future. Mankind has attained our species' unwritten goal and finally destroyed ourselves. .... Kaput, Toast, Ancient History.
Among the ruins, this statue remains and is now cared for by the Apes. The apes though, are just smart enough to follow in Man's footsteps, but sadly, they too will fail by eventually outsmarting themselves also...... And so it goes.
I used this quick evaluation to conclude that the top of the food chain critters do not stay there forever. They will always fall by the wayside through either outsiders forcing their extinction, or more likely, they will destroy themselves because of mass stupidity just like we did.
I stopped trying to see something else in this sculpture. I was bumming myself out ........ I blame Trump.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ...................................
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Music. The End of things....End of the Line.... Future's last breath.
No band in my experience performed songs about death and End Times better than the Doors. A friend of mine called the music of the Doors as "Buzz Kill Music". Music for the Depressed.
We had a few heated fuck off moments before we stopped mentioning the Doors. I have always liked the Doors. I bought their first album as a 15 year old in the 1960s. No band in my mind created better songs to listen to while high on hallucinogens than the Doors. Soft or loud, their music always worked. The Doors rock.... and still do; thanks to the digital age.
Without any more nonsense, please enjoy, "When the Music is Over", by the Doors. Play it low, play it loud. Works either way.
When I was young, my dreams were vivid. Maybe I remember those early dreams as being vivid because I actually remembered the dreams, some of them I still hold onto. During my productive professional life, whatever it was, the dreams became memories of having them, not the specifics.What I was usually left with, were feelings of a kind of pleasure or waking unsettled and ill at ease.
Once retirement came, I had less to worry about when I was sleeping. The many problems of my day to day existence cut to a minimum, left more room in my mind to wander wherever it might while I was asleep.
I began remembering dreams again. I am not sure if remembering dreams again comes with becoming an old fart or not. I only know that having them back is one of the few perks of me being old.
Last night, I woke up laughing, the words "Self Scratching Testicles", the first words I uttered. As I floundered around looking for my glasses, I could not stop chuckling. My funny bone was off and running. As I type this, an intermittent chuckle or snort will erupt, breaking a train of thought or snap me back to the task at hand.
Seriously though, While I am not a chronic nut scratcher, I do do it. Any guy who claims they don't well, they're lying. The sac needs attention from time to time. We guys are lucky we have hands, or the occasional serious case of Jock Itch might create a sharp uptick in men doing themselves in.
Before I started this post, I considered the crassness of discussing anything related to our naughty bits. Why is today the day I even considered the notion of crassness? I had very rarely ever considered it unless it was crudely pointed out. I decided it was more important to bring attention to a problem the Genetics and Cloning folk might be interested in. By highlighting this chronic Human problem that has been around since the beginning of Humanity, it might lead to a cure if the right people were made aware of the problem. Those science geeks just love solving the unsolvable.
It might take a few generations, but I bet some genes could be manipulated, some genetic code re-written, so that eventually, guys would never have to use their hands to tend to their balls. Little fibrous growths attached directly to the nerves controlling the itch impulse in the brain, would automaticallly engage and attack the offending area. Men would no longer need to worry about being caught scratching their crotch. The Ladies would be spared the embarrassment of being seen with the ball scratching idiots who asked them out, but did not indicate their fondness for scratching in their bios they posted online.
Just another idea to help the species progress; put further distance between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.. The only thing is, could this human created change in our DNA be subverted and manipulated to design longer fibrous tentacles so that sexu .......... Uh, Nevermind.
Keep it 'tween the Ditches ..........................................................
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What tune could possibly dovetail cleanly into a post about Itching Testicles? Hmm....... I will get back to you. ...........
Well, that was easy. Googling "Tune about nuts", I scrolled down maybe 5 or 6 suggestions, when an old Roger Miller tune caught my attention. I do not remember "I'm a Nut". My guess, it was a B-side offering on a single with the hit on the A-side. There is no doubting it's Roger; his voice and tendency to include silly vocal sounds made it obvious. Most people will remember him for, "King of the Road", which I will also include today.
And here is his most famous hit, "King of the Road". I loved this song as a kid. Still do. It reminded me of being on the move all the time, which was my existence from the day I was born until I finally settled here in Acton, 30 years later.
I wrote my first memoir when I was 10 or 11. I can't remember if it was 4th or 5th grade. Regardless, the assignment was exactly that, "Write a memory from your past". Of course there was much discussion and silliness that ensued. None of the kids in the class, including me, could get our heads around the idea of "the Past". Yeah, we had heard of it, but it was something only old people talked about around the dinner table at dinner. My mom and dad often told stories of their younger days to fill in dinner conversations when the topics became too toxic or just ran out of steam.
The assignment of course was much more than telling a story from the earlier days when we were younger. It was an exercise in penmanship, thought construction and punctuation. There was no word limit to meet; It just had to be as neat as possible, with the periods, commas and spelling laid down as cleanly and correctly as possible. I cannot remember my grade, nor do I remember it being highlighted in any way by the teacher in front of the class.
I do remember the subject however. I wrote about the time I set off a fire alarm in kindergarten when I lived in Japan. The whole school emptied, I freaked and ran to the teacher outside and immediately admitted I did it. I didn't however snitch on the older kids who kinda teased me into it.
The type of fire alarms we had in that school had small thin glass windows designed to be punched inward with something thin, like a pencil or maybe even a finger. Some big kids, they must have been at least 2nd graders, spotted me looking at the fire alarm. They encouraged me to break the little glass window without setting off the alarm. They insisted that they did it all the time.
"Go ahead kid, I dare you", or something along those lines caused me to step up to the alarm and use a pencil to punch the glass. Instant Chaos erupted. The big kids looked at each other with huge eyes, turned and disappeared into the depths of the school. I remember a panic I had never felt before. I probably spun a few circles and who knows, I might have peed my pants. If I did, I buried that part of the memory deep enough to not really remember if I did or didn't.
I remember writing about it because in my young life at the time, it was a memory I had still not really gotten over. Seeing all the kids in school standing in lines out on the playground, looking at me as I had been marooned and condemned to stand next to the principal; well, I never forgot that.
The magical moment came later at home where I had been cooling my heels in my room for several hours. My dad came home and immediately came into my room; in full uniform no less, his tie still tight and his cover still on. He sat down on the bed next to me. I fgured it was spanking time. I was not a stranger to spanking; seemed the natural "next step". Instead, my father talked to me, well, he sort of grilled me. I ended up snitching on the big kids. He looked at me and chastised me for allowing anyone to influence my decisions. He stood up and left. No spanking, no yelling, just a lecture on not allowing people undo influence on my actions. And even cooler, he didn't tell the school there were others involved. He allowed me to take the blame.
Of course, my short essay in 4th or 5th grade about that incident in kindergarten was nowhere near as deep of a dive as this post is. I just remembered now that the essay was the first memoir I ever wrote. It might have also been the first essay I ever attempted also.
To me, it seems logical that as an adult, I would follow up with over 200,000 words in 280 blog posts about shit I did in my Past.
I will add this one to the post count and move on.
Keep it 'tween the ditches .....................................
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This past weekend, my wife and I joined our daughter and her husband at another Rustic Overtones concert. It was held at Tuckerman Brewery in Conway, New Hampshire.A day sitting in comfortable chairs, swilling excellent craft beer and listening live to the band I have seen more than any other band ever. My first concert of their's was also my daughter's first concert of her life. It was held at the worst music venue in New England, the Portland Expo, a very, very large quonset hut tunnel. The reverberations in the hall made it impossible for me to enjoy the music. Lis loved it. She loved Rustic Overtones.
Almost 30 years later, we still go see them play. I guess I have seen them 20 times; Lis , many, many more. They are an old favorite.
The USA does not have a great track record engaging in warfare in any conflict since WWll. World War II was the last war we won completely, decidedly, and without question. Many US soldiers died, many civilians sacrificed; it was the last war that had virtually no controversey swirlling around it. If it is possible to consider any war "good" or "worth the price", it would World War II.
WWll, and the "Great War" (WWl) before it along with the Civil War are the only wars that seemed inevitable that we would participate in. They were the "Good Fights". Any other armed comflicts we moseyed into was by choice. And those efforts didn't always go our way. Most were failures, half failures, or just colossal wastes of money, men and time.
I felt that for most of my life, my country has either been setting up to be in an armed conflict, embroiled in an armed conflict, or just exiting an armed conflict. We can't seem to go for more than a few years of Peace, before we start jonesing for that next bomb cratering, rubble creating military clash with some group we have designated as assholes with hostile intent.
Here is a current reminder of the armed combat we could have chosen to not participate in and been much better off for it:
Korea - 3 Years, 1950 to 1953 - We could only save half of the country.
Bay of Pigs Invasion/ Cuba - 1961 - We Lost.
Vietnam - 1955 - 1975 (19+ years) - Cost 58,000 US lives. We lost.
Invasiion of Grenada - October, 1983 - 8 Day conflict - 24 US soldiers died.
Kidnap Daniel Noriega (president of Panama) - 5 weeks in 1989- 24 US lives - An effort to help win President Ronald Reagan and his ever faithful co-President, Namcy Reagan, their poorly concieved and poorly run War on Drugs. As it turns out, that war is still ongoing with no end in sight. It was a PR War failure for Reagan, but we did manage to bring Noriega back to the US to face charges. Meanwhile, some other loser stepped into Noriega's shoes and the drugs flowed like before.
Operation Desert Storm - 2 months in 1991 - Fought by a coalition of countries; The US was by far the largest force at 697,000 fighting strength. 298 US deaths -We spent $61 billion dollars. The goal, remove Iraqi Forces after they invaded Kuwait. We won and got the Hell out of there. The conflict was a set-up to trap Saddam Hussein being stupid. Hussein stepped into our trap. At least we finished something for a change.
Operation Gothic Serpent - 15months 1992-1993 - 19 US Soldiers dead. US Troops in Somalia were tasked with, well, I am still not sure what they were there for, really. All I remember is, it was ugly and American soldiers died for essentially no good reason. A great Anti-War Movie, "Black Hawk Down" was one result. But nothing good for the people of Somalia ever came of the 19 US lives sacrificed.
Operation Iraqi Freedom - Includes combat in Afghanistan - 20 years - Almost 7800 US lives. Results are mixed. We did replace Saddam Hussien as leader of Iraq, but we caved finally and left Afghanistan after failing like every other country has who was stupid and over confident enough to think they had the answer.
Trump's War on Iran - Feburary, 2026 to ? - Still limping along after 6 months. Still a mystery why Trump felt compelled to start a war with Iran. And not 2 weeks into this stupidity, Iran figured out they could own the Strait of Hormuz and stop much of the World's oil from reaching its destinations.The war was over at that point, yet Trump still does not get it. Too stupid too run a war in the first place; he is definitely too bullheaded stupid to admit defeat and pull out. Iran is definitely winning the war at this point. US Troop morale is in the shitter and our supplies of munitions are dangerously low. And now we have worse than nothing to show for it.
There have other miscellaneous conflicts the United States found itself in the middle of as a support asset. US Men and materiel were spent in varying degrees of ugliness.
I was born in 1952. I am 74 now. If I add up the total number of years this country has been in conflict around the globe, the total would be north of 47 years or over 60% of the time I have been alive. The results have been underwhelming, given the outrageous costs in men, money and materiel.
I know war is good business. Nothing like a good conflict to keep those war factories churning out machines of death and making piles of money on armed conflict and the destruction that results. I know casulaties are part of the deal. But why? Why do we spend so much time, effort and money attempting to murder each other on such grand scales?
It is most definitely a good time to keep an even keel. Stay sharp. Stay Tuned In. ................
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I know I have used the original rendition of Black Sabbath's, "War Pigs" with a post or two in the past. Well, that was then, this is now. But maybe this time I'll try to hustle up a good cover of it.
I tasted entirely too many versions of "War Pigs". Lost at least an hour checking out all the different renderings of this early Metal classic. I came back to my favorite Busking alternative band, The Big Push. Ren and his boys rock hard. Enjoy.
And because the song that followed War Pigs was their version of Sting's, "An Englishman in New York", it is now another two-fer post.
When I saw the video of Billy Strings, a favorite guitarist of mine, hit in the head with an object at a concert in Indiana, I was reminded of my own incident of be being hit in the head while on a stage in June, 1977
A quick replay:
Led Zeppelin's last US tour, June 3, 1977...... The gig was at Tampa Stadium (the old stadium). 70,000 plus fans had been waiting for several hours in the hot Florida sun to hear one of their favorite bands. 15 minutes into the first set, a classic Summertime Florida thunder storm blew through, dumping many many gallons of water on the venue.
The awning over the stage was holding thousands of gallons of water over the stage where many thick cables handled massive amps and voltage of electricity. The local Fire marshall called the governor of Florida. The governor officially closed the concert down.
Upon hearing that the concert had been canceled, many of the fans had been waiting for hours, became an angry crowd. They tossed aside the "full proof security fence" and rushed the stage. By that time I had been volunteered to help the security guys defend what was now a mostly empty stage except for the stacks of speakers that were to be loaded on my trailer.
The scene was madness. 3,000 to 4,000 people were still hanging out near the stage. They were not happy. I looked out at them and their risng anger. It was obvious what was going to happen. The rest of the 70,000 fans had already left. Security guys in black Tee shirts, SHOWCO roadies and drivers stood nervously waiting for the crowd to breach that "Impregnable" wall.
Over a thousand hands got busy and finally destroyed the integrity of the wall. Stoned and drunk fans climbed onto the stage. There were not many, maybe fifty or so. But, they were rabid. The loose crew of security types, myself included were expected to keep them back. Some of the crew were holding mic stands and were very enthusiastic with using them to keep the fans at bay. I carried no blunt instruments. I have thought about that day from time to time and today, I still don't know why I joined them onstage to defend an empty space. Young and still numb is all I can come up with.
Along with the breach, many glass bottles, parts of the wall , etc. ended up onstage. Something hit me in the back of the head. I got pissed I guess. I ran across the stage to help one of the drivers who had created his own fight by being too quick to use his mic stand on someone larger and obviouly out of it. The madness only lasted 5 minutes or so when suddenly it was over as Tampa cops poured into the field and took care of the out of control mob and the remaining hanger ons..
I cannot say for sure what hit me in the back of my head. It was thrown with enough force to draw blood and raise a good sized bump. I walked around the stage looking for what it might have been. I found the hash pipe you see in the image. While it may not have been what hit me in the head, it was on the stage when everything was over, so I grabbed it and have used it off and on since then. Next year will be 50 years since I picked up that pipe. I guess I should be grateful I found it. It has been a dependable go to cannabis consumption device when I was tired of rolling joints. And it was one of the few pipes I managed to not lose over the last 50 years.
Morons throwing stuff at the stage is sadly, a time honored tradition. Negative responses by the artists are often the result. At a concert at the Wheaton Youth Center in Wheaton, Maryland in the early 1970's, Snake tossed a lit joint at Dr John. Dr John swung his micrphone and hit Snake right in the head and glared at me like I was who he was aiming at. Geez, I told Snake not to throw it; we'd never get it back and it was our last joint.
As always, please keep it 'tween the ditches ...........................
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I'm feeling like a Two Fer musical choice for this post. First up is Billy Strings in cahoots with Willy Nelson on a tune about geeting too old to party like they did back in their good ole days. Here is 'Claifornia Sober". Enjoy.
This next video is "Good Times, Bad Times". It is from Led Zeppelin's first album, ironically titled "Led Zeppelin". It was another one of my infamous record store van purchases at Clark's Tank n Tummy filling station in the foothills of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. That was the summer of 1969. The record store guy pulled it out of one of his boxes in the back of his van, handed it to me and said, "Here, you are gonna love this album."..................... He was right of course.
However, the biggest plus of this album was its impact on my father. My dad was quite the audiophile. He had started constructing his own sound systems starting the late 1950s. He built ociiloscopes to track the sound waves. He built huge speakers and the huge amps to power them.
At the time everything going through those speakers was Mono (only one channel). He had read of stereo being the next big thing. He called Heathkit and latched onto one of their first stereo amp DYI kits. He put it together and was immediately disappointed in the music that amp delivered. He went back to his stupidly huge mono amp and that was that.
About 7 years later I had built up my own stereo system. It waas much smaller than what he had built, but it kicked ass. 20 amps per channel with some good quality 10 inch speakers i put in homemade barrel halves. When I pulugged in my headphones, it was just awesome. I figured out that the RocknRoll setero music world was way ahead of the curve over the more classic audio world.
After I bought this album and had run through it umpteen times, I decided I had to get my dad into some headphones. I made him come up to my attic bedroom and put those headphones on. I did not want to scare him, so I started with the volume on low. I waited for him to respond. He gave me a thumb's up, "Louder". I cranked it. He started to yank the headphones off, but suddenly stopped and just listened. I watched the his lightbulb go off. He smiled. He had seen the light. From that day forward, he was a Stereo Man.
Afterwards. his system building madness grow three or four fold. He started with those huge 20" inch woofers; added 8 or 10 smaller speakers and built a 200 watt stereo amplifier. When My mom wasn't home, he'd fired that system up and rattle every window in the house. I could hear it clear as a bell from Dunc's place about 100 yards down Sam Page Road; especially when he fired up his sound effects record; Trains, planes, whistles and artillery blasts.
Here is Led Zeppelin's, "Good Times, Bad Times"; the song that turned my father into the audiophile beast that was his destiny. Funny though, he would often play this song as a judge of how good the stereo recordings of his favorite music were.
Definitely best enjoyed with the volume turned up to WOW!
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