. . . is ALL accessible from the new and improved 'rayjozwiak.com' website.
Check it out, if you haven't already. Ten albums from 2003's Chromatose to No Frills, release in 2016.
The black coffee’s aroma hangs thick like a cloud every morning.
He sorts through paisleys and patterns and stripes on the door,
As he lifts up a vain little finger to stifle the blood
From a close shave in the battle of life.
The late night crowd’s returning from an all night bout of drinking
While he’s all-consumed by grand delusions also known as wishful thinking.
His star quality seems to escape everyone
Who would be in position to help him.
Still he goes off each day in anticipation of all
Of the thrill and the joy that one feels
When he’s making interment arrangements.
He’s misunderstood.
A book a song a TV sitcom part you’d miss for blinking
Or a winning lotto ticket in his hand are only wishful thinking.
Oh its nobody’s fault but his own.
So few offers come over the phone.
But he still perseveres faces up to his fears
That can cloud the intentions and bring on the tears.
Still his spirits get lower each day that this program’s protracted.
Moment by moment it takes all he has to go on.
But he just grits his teeth, charges in, slings the arrows back into
The face of outrageous misguided conclusions.
And even though he’ll never die a pauper or a rich king,
He’s just not content to spend his time on anything but wishful thinking.
Oh the groceries and the bills aren’t paid by talking or by drinking.
So he just resumes the grind lacklusterly and does his wishful thinking.
". . . If a patient being rushed to the ER after an accident were to point to their mangled leg and say, “This is what matters right now,” and the doctor saw the scrapes and bruises of other areas and countered, “but all of you matters,” wouldn’t there be a question as to why he doesn't show urgency in aiding that what is most at risk? At a community fundraiser for a decaying local library, you would never see a mob of people from the next city over show up angry and offended yelling, “All libraries matter!”—especially when theirs is already well-funded. . . black lives matter “is simply aspirational;” it's a rallying cry for a shift in statistical numbers that show that people who are black are twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while unarmed, compared to a white individual. According to a 2015 study, African-Americans died at the hands of police at a rate of 7.2 per million, while whites were killed at a rate of 2.9 per million. . . Instead of exploring the reasons why a movement like this would even be necessary, many have a knee jerk reaction. “What about me?” “All lives matter,” they cry. “Why be divisive and unfair, what about our safety?” The point these people miss is that the majority of experiences here in America already tend to center and highlight whiteness and cater to its safety. . . "
You're a star.
Where you wanted to be,
You now are.
From afar
You appear not too different
Than me.
But the scars
You've acquired
Did not come free.
Had I tried.
Had I done all I could
With all my might.
Would the ride
Give return on the price
Which was required?
Cast aside
Any thoughts of security
in my life.
". . . On Sunday, following a lower-than-expected turnout at Trump’s Tulsa rally, TikTok teens, young adults and K-pop stans (fans of Korean hip-hop and pop music) celebrated their efforts to troll the president. . . young people told NBC News they felt satisfied after seeing the modest crowd size. . . Trump and some of his high-profile supporters had bragged in the days before the rally that more than 1 million people had signed up to attend. Trump Campaign Manager Brad Parscale tweeted on June 14 that . . . more than 800,000 people had signed up for tickets at the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Center. . . Approximately 6,200 people attended the rally on Saturday, according to the Tulsa Fire Department. . . Parscale downplayed the impact of the online campaign in a statement Sunday. . . “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work. Reporters who wrote gleefully about TikTok and K-Pop fans — without contacting the campaign for comment — behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade,” Parscale said.. . . ". . . "
P.S. Why bother to 'contact the campaign for comment' when it (and current White House 'occupant') has previously offered so many untruths?
Fifteen minutes of glory, maybe less.
What I wouldn't give for a chance to confess
All the intimate little secrets;
All my hopes and my desires.
I don't care just how valid you think that they are.
They've been mine for a long, long time
And I'm not ashamed of them.
Shut-up Joe.
How do you really know
What's goin' down?
How can you tell if there's a problem somewhere
That you've found?
We all need to gather round.
Help everybody else to see.
That running your mouth aloud
Makes it that much more difficult
For you and me
And our integrity.
Went to work at the factory at fourteen.
Thought I'd finish my schooling sometime in between
Drunken weekends and feudal street-fights
And the visits to my best girl.
But the time slipped away. I've got bills here to pay.
(from The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, Edited by Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.)
". . . No tyrant comes to power on the platform of genocidal tyranny, even though such ideas may be brewing already in the recesses of his mind. Each and every one of them promises to bring back law and order, create better economic conditions for the people, and restore the nation's glory. . . These empty promises - for the tyrant has little desire and even less ability to fulfill them - are always tied together with the thread of scapegoating Others, a necessary component that channels the narcissistic rage outward and increases the society's cohesion. . . "
I know a man who tries too hard
Cause he wants to be liked both near and far.
But it's not all that simple a story to tell.
And I'm sure it all started way back when
He was only a child.
The whole world laying ahead of him,
He couldn't get what he craved.
An uphill battle awaited.
Then something clicked inside.
Maybe he's okay.
Not quite as bad as he seems.
Am I expecting too much?
It's not intentionally,
Maybe it isn't polite
Looking so critically.
Maybe I do it because
He's just not like me.
I know a man who talks so much.
He's got nothing to say but it's never enough.
And it's like second nature, he's as social can be.
But the topic is always strictly 'bout 'me'.
From his self-centered view;
His egoist perspective,
Subject of interest he's found
His world revolving around him.
The real one beyond his touch,
Along with people there too.
Please won't you understand.
I don't want every man
Doing just what I would do,
Or moving the way that I move
Or the way that I sit or stand.
Stick to your guns.
Stick to your guns.
Don't let nobody make you run.
Just stick to your guns.
I'm not talking 'bout weapons,
Automatic and such.
If you have some conviction,
Principles mean so much.
Principles mean so much.
I just want to sing.
Hear the many vibrations ring.
Maybe my music's not your kind of thing.
I've got to get the others listening.
I've got to get the others listening.
It's a human thing,
We're easily led when there are two or three.
Two is company and three is a crowd.
A group of voices can be very loud.
The other voices can be very loud.
". . . Trump claimed on Tuesday that his predecessor did not take action on reforming police in America . . . (Obama) did take action to reform police and attempt to reduce bias in law enforcement. The Trump administration is well aware of that, too: It unraveled those changes. . . "He said President Obama did nothing on police reform, but the fact is they made a lot of progress and President Trump rolled it back," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. . . Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said, "Donald Trump says President Obama and Vice President Biden didn't do anything on policing reform, but he knows that isn't true because he has spent the past three years tearing down the very reforms the Obama-Biden administration pursued.". . . "
(from The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, Edited by Bandy X. Lee, MD, MDiv.)
". . . Many critics of Trump, particularly journalists but also those in the mental health field, have focused on his so-called narcissism, his need to be constantly approved of, the childlike nature of his character. In this they are minimizing the significance of his paranoid beliefs and, in so doing, are relegating his psychological dysfunction to a much higher level than is actually the case. This is also true of those show believe he is simply using his attack on illegal immigrants and Muslims to feed his base. In doing so, they are suggesting that he himself knows better, that he knows that he is merely using these ideas because they will appeal to the white working-class men who make up the bulk of his voters. Yet, this overlooks and minimizes the more ominous probability: that he actually is paranoid and that there is an overlap of his personal hatreds and those of his followers. Together, they represent a desire to undo the impact of all that has changed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the general liberalization of society and life in the United States. . . "
". . . Tango is a partner dance, and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the RÃo de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. It was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries, with enslaved African populations. The tango is the result of a combination of African Candombe, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Argentinian Milonga. The tango was frequently practiced in the brothels and bars of ports, where business owners employed bands to entertain their patrons with music. The tango then spread to the rest of the world. Many variations of this dance currently exist around the world. . ."
