MONDAY BLUES NIGHT IN THE NEARLY DESERTED BREWPUB ...

The brewpub is practically empty, here at the drab epicenter of the late Monday afternoon dead zone. Not much of a surprise. Personally, my capacity for rage and indignation is much like the strangely bland atmosphere in this rather over-weened beer-hole: stupefyingly bloated, over-full and largely immobilized. Does that make sense? Probably not.

I haven't been myself recently, so please bear with me. I'm in the middle of starting up a business -- no lie -- and that sort of madness is more than enough to yank one's psycho-existential underpants up over one's head ... What the fuck?

Yes, well. This week's blues excursion features the incomparable Freddie King, complete with choreographed horn players and go-go dancers. Outstanding.



(Real blog posts to recommence one of these days)

RING THIS GODDAMNED THING ... AGAIN

ON THE SUBJECT OF MUSIC ...

As far as music is concerned, some horn-blowing of my own is in order, I guess. Here's a couple of songs I home-recorded with my brother and sister, and had reviewed by Recording Magazine. What the fuck, as they say:

"Vanishing Red"

"Kokomo Platter"

What does any of this have to do with, well, anything? Hmmm ... good question.

Minor note: I'm the bass player ...

TO NO REAL PURPOSE -- ALBERT COLLINS

Drinking and web-trolling finds me this video of one of my all-time favorite bluesmen, Albert Collins. Nobody could get stuck in a blues groove like this guy; blues is a perfect descriptor for our neo-con pukefest.

I wish Albert was still with us ...

HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY

"CROSSFIRE"

Near closing time at the groovy midtown Sacramento brewpub; a song comes on the electric muzak machine, and strikes a chord, as they say --

CROSSFIRE (by Stevie Ray Vaughn)

Day by day night after night....blinded by the neon lights
Hurry here hustlin there....no ones got the time to spare
Moneys tight nothin free....won't somebody come and rescue me
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire
Stranded....caught in the crossfire.

Tooth for tooth eye for an eye....sell your soul just to buy buy buy
Beggin a dollar stealin a dime....come on can't you see that I
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire
I am stranded....caught in the crossfire.

I need some kind of kindness....some kind of sympathy oh no
Were stranded....caught in the crossfire

Save the strong lose the weak....never turning the other cheek
Trust nobody dont be no fool....whatever happened to the golden rule
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
We got stranded....caught in the crossfire
Stranded....caught in the crossfire
Help me

"Help me ..." No shit.

NOW, HERE'S ONE THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF

Via Crooks & Liars:

1 In 4 Homeless Americans Are Veterans

AP Via Yahoo:

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

“We’re going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous,” said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa. Read on…

Unspeakable fury ... Incalculable loathing ... I can't fucking stand it ...

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ...

Tangentially related note: how quickly do you suppose Kucinich's motion to impeach Cheney will be tabled ... by Democrats? Just wondering.

A WORD ABOUT FEINSTEIN

Remember when the advent of two female Senators from the state of California was "noteworthy"? When it was "significant?" When it seemed to auger a "new era" in US politics? Surely I'm not imagining the whole thing: it was a big deal, wasn't it? I'm sure it was.

Perhaps those who, several years ago, thought we should "celebrate" the apparently flabbergasting fact of California's Senators both being women, might have spared a moment to ponder what it really meant, in hard-boiled practical terms. Which was ... not much.

Now that Feinstein has established her Lieberman-in-drag credentials beyond all doubt, by conspiring with Chuck Schumer to ensure that alleged human Mukasey will have no real problem becoming the next Attorney General, I wonder if those who think her sex is an important aspect of her political career might actually re-think their position. After all, this is hardly the first time Feinstein has savagely poked us all in our collective eyeball; as a noted war profiteer, she's supported the Bush wars from the start, and has been an enthusiastic neo-con enabler of the highest order. She's the quintessential large-D Democrat, with all that entails, here at the nadir of the North American republic. The irresistible imperative of being a monumental hypocrite and cringing coward, in the best 21st-Century DLC tradition, far and away trumps all considerations of gender having any role to play in the polluted political atmosphere in DC. Corporate-inspired corruption is, sad to relate, a gender-neutral phenomenon.

Alright -- you can all untwist your knickers and ratchet down the self-righteousness. I don't bad-mouth Dianne Feinstein because of any closet misogynistic tendencies; I bad-mouth her because she's a goddamned corporate shill in a Senator suit. This is something to keep in mind, all you Hillary diehards out there, you misguided halfwits who're convinced there's really a difference between male and female politicians. They are what they are ... the precise composition of their gonads notwithstanding.

But I do remember when having two women in the Senate seemed significant. It's just another Bush-era joke anymore ...

JOBLESS GIBBERISH AMONG THE DRUNK PEOPLE

I'll say one thing for being gainfully employed -- it largely spares you the burden of having to pay attention to just how stupid people are when they're drunk ... OK, yeah, so they're just as stupid when they're sober, so what the fuck am I talking about?

I apologize. I keep thinking that my personal melodrama would have some value to anybody besides myself. How ridiculous.

Maybe you all could give me the benefit of the doubt, since I'm trying to re-orient myself to being out of work for the first time in almost thirteen years. I'm a little rusty at the jobless slacker wastoid thing, you see. With about five weeks worth of severance pay, and a soon-to-be cashed out 401(k) to fall back on, apparently I'll have plenty of time to adjust to my new (old) status as unemployed bar souse; I can already feel the sloppy allure and magnetic attraction of lazy indolence, even as I pointlessly ogle the shapely collection of waitresses that seems to congregate around this midtown Sacramento brewpub, to no good purpose. The stationary panic that lies bubbling just below the surface is screaming, most incoherently, that I should be doing the responsible thing and get out there and find a job. Apparently, I'm not listening.

Honestly -- why should I listen to the more commonsensical centers of my battered psyche, when we're collectively teetering on the precipice of ... whatever it is we're teetering on. I seriously can't fathom why I should strive and struggle and hack and tear and toil myself into a triple-bypass frenzy, merely so's I can re-enter the insane economic struggle I was only losing anyway. Well, living in the street is a pretty good incentive, I guess; I don't really covet starving to death either. But it seems like a losing battle one way or another, employed or not. No crap job ever solved anything, much in the same way a Democratically-controlled Congress is no answer to the dire political/Constitutional crisis that is eviscerating this country: like handing the Republicans their scaly asses after the last midterm election, it just feels good to be offered a new gig. But then, the stark frigidity of reality makes its presence felt all too soon, and you understand that nothing has changed, not really. What does that remind you of?

Jesus, sounds like I'm plumbing ever new depths of negative snark, if that were possible. Actually, I'm surprisingly optimistic, under the circumstances. I'm not destitute -- yet -- and I'm fortunate to have a tightly-knit family that simply won't let anybody sink out of sight ... in the meantime, I have time to think, and to tickle the ass crack of whatever muse is fucking around with my karma, at least a little bit. Things could be much worse. Or better, but that's neither here nor there.

So then, take care my friends -- don't work too hard. I'm going to order another amber ale, and learn how to groove with all the drunks I secretly despise. It's the least I could do ...