Too Many . . .

https://caloosabelle.com/news/community-mourns-trio-of-cowboys-lost-too-soon/

. . . cowboys . . .


Why don't you grow up
just as fast as you can.
All of your innocence
Is a flash in the pan.
It's overrated, you say,
Tryin' to be a nice guy.
It's so much easier this way.
So why even try.
Too many cowboys.

Everyone's watching,
So you think all the time.
Maintain the image,
But it's all in your mind.
What's so damned special about
Being hard as a nail.
Banishing subtlety
Sets yourself up to fail.
Too many cowboys.

Just too many cowboys.
Not quite enough men
Who will listen,
Rather learn, than
Only just pretend.

You wear a big hat.
It's a Stetson of course
Chew some tobacco.
Take a ride on your horse.
You've got some buddies I see;
Just a little hard-boiled.
They've got some dirt on their hands;
They all dabble in oil.
Too many cowboys.

Can't say you're sorry.
Can't say you're wrong.
God is on your side.
He's been there all along.
It doesn't matter to you
If they're hurt or they're dead.
You've been above it so long,
I'll stick by what I said,
too many cowboys.

Only if we knew back then
The things that we know now.
You'd have stayed back there
And we'd be better off and how.

Get in your big truck
And just drive away.
You have no interest
in the things that I say.
Nor did you ever
Listen that much at all.
You set yourself up
For some big kind of fall.
Too many cowboys.

And just like a cowboy,
Just the kind that you are,
Virile and macho
But without a guitar.
Into the sunset you rode
And the credits did roll.
Not a regret did you feel
But you've taken your toll.
Too Many Cowboys.


Too Many Cowboys
©2015 Raymond M. Jozwiak
from Just More Music

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Prescience? . . .

https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g47202-

d102404-i228732057-Tinkertown_Museum-Sandia_Park_New_Mexico.html

(from Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken)
". . . I really think that if we don't start caring about whether people tell the truth or not, it's going to be literally impossible to restore anything approaching a reasonable political discourse. Politicians have always shaded the truth. But if you can say something that is provably false, and no one cares, then you can't have a real debate about anything. . . I've always believed that it's possible to discern true statements from false statements, and that it's critically important to do so, and that we put our entire democratic experiment in peril when we don't. It's a lesson I fear our nation is about to learn the hard way. . . "

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Another Shot

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Choice . . .

http://cdmdirect.com/the-cost-of-giving-direct-mail-readers-too-many-choices/

Dear National Democratic Party,
I just read https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/31/dnc-superdelegates-110083 and hope to (whatever I should hope to, since i don't believe in a theistic, invasive) god that the Democratic party does NOT make the same mistake it made in 2016. . . PLEASE let the people make their choice and DO NOT pit a candidate that is NOT fully supported by the general, Democratic population against trump. Please LEARN from history (circa 2016.) WE WILL end up with four more (unbearable) years of the orange imbecile if you do not learn this vital lesson from the last election. . . I beg you. . . PLEASE let the populace make the choice!!!

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Lesson . . .

https://wbckfm.com/78348/

. . . NOT learned . . .



(from https://www.axios.com/qassem-soleimani-death-reactions-iran-85bd4b62-85f4-4e29-a0ec-1e6376534f03.html)

". . . Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.): "Qassem Soleimani masterminded Iran’s reign of terror for decades, including the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Tonight, he got what he richly deserved, and all those American soldiers who died by his hand also got what they deserved: justice.". . . Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) "Wow - the price of killing and injuring Americans has just gone up drastically. Major blow to Iranian regime that has American blood on its hands. Soleimani was one of the most ruthless and vicious members of the Ayatollah's regime. He had American blood on his hands. I appreciate President Trump's bold action against Iranian aggression. To the Iranian government: if you want more, you will get more.". . . Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.): "This is very simple: General Soleimani is dead because he was an evil bastard who murdered Americans. The President made the brave and right call, and Americans should be proud of our servicemembers who got the job done. Tehran is on edge - the mullahs have already slaughtered at least a thousand innocent Iranians - and before they lash out further they should know that the U.S. military can bring any and all of these IRGC butchers to their knees.". . . Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.): "The end of Qasem Soleimani is welcome and long-overdue justice for the thousands of Americans killed or wounded by his Iranian-controlled forces across the Middle East, and for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqi Sunnis ethnically cleansed by his militias.". . . Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.): "Qassem Soleimani was an evil and deadly terrorist with the blood of thousands, including hundreds of Americans, on his hands. President Trump was right to order decisive action to kill Soleimani to prevent further attacks and defend American lives and interests.". . ."

(from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-vows-revenge-after-us-drone-strike-kills-elite-force-commander/2020/01/03/345127d6-2df4-11ea-bffe-020c88b3f120_story.html)

". . . "With his departure and with God's power, his work and path will not cease, and severe revenge awaits those criminals who have tainted their filthy hands with his blood and the blood of the other martyrs of last night's incident," Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement. . .The country's defense minister, Amir Hatami, said the nighttime strike ordered by President Trump would be met with a "crushing" response. . ."

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Learn . . .

. . . from Baltimore . . .

. . . America!


(from Dan Rodricks https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-md-rodricks-pugh-0502-story.html?fbclid=IwAR3t2N73H8ZxfiK8sHavoEfv5Mh9OE2ZGo__RAJnr6KDKG59ZP8Hg07bzVE)

". . . It was only March 13 that we learned — from a report in The Baltimore Sun — about Pugh’s questionable deal to sell thousands of copies of her mediocre, self-published children’s books — some $500,000 worth — to the University of Maryland Medical System while she sat on its board. But that was just the start of her downfall. A cascade of “Healthy Holly” revelations followed, making it clear that Pugh had been involved in more deals than she had acknowledged during that David Lynch-weird press conference on March 28, the one with the bibs. . . The unusually fast and broad condemnation of Pugh’s “Healthy Holly” deal-making — the part that came from city dwellers and not just the usual crowd of city haters on talk radio — reveals evidence of civic impatience. And Baltimore badly needs impatience. . . And Baltimoreans were quick to dismiss Pugh because we are sick of corruption or, at the least, dysfunction, chaos, distraction and embarrassment. . . We probably expect too much from mayors, but, at the minimum, we need an honest, stable and conscientious leader in City Hall, not someone scheming up lucrative side deals. . ."

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The Lay . . .

. . . of the land evokes images, in my mind, of old cowboy movies replete with ten-gallon hat, many horses, six-shooters and lots and lots of wide-open spaces; the proverbial 'back forty.' In my current reality, the lay of the land means adjusting in terms of where to find what, and learning exactly how to get there. . .


(http://grammarist.com/idiom/lay-of-the-land-or-lie-of-the-land/)
Lay of the land is a phrase that figuratively or metaphorically means the current state of affairs, how something is organized. Literally, the lay of the land is the arrangement of features upon the land. One usually assesses the lay of the land in preparation for action. The idiom lay of the land is first recorded in 1819. A related idiom is the British phrase how the land lies, a usage that turns up in about 1700. According to Google Ngram Viewer, the use of the term lay of the land peaked in the early 1900s. Lay of the land is a North American phrase. . . Lie of the land is the British phrase that metaphorically means the current state of affairs, how something is organized. Literally, the lie of the land is the arrangement of features upon the land. In fact, lie of the land and lay of the land mean the same thing.

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Growth . . .

(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/lifelong-learning)
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
― Henry Ford

“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”
― Michel Legrand

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
― Albert Einstein

“You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
― Julia Child

“I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.”
― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“There are few things more pathetic than those who have lost their curiosity and sense of adventure, and who no longer care to learn.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Way to Be!: 9 Rules For Living the Good Life

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”
― Samuel Johnson, The Rambler

“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”
― Robert E. Lee

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”
― Thomas Jefferson


. . . They're all true.  At least they are for me. I remember as a kid, at times saying "I'm bored." Now I know for a fact that, even if I lived to be 1,000 years old, I can never be bored.  There is always something 'educational' (meaning possessing the ability to expose you to something that you do not know- or maybe as you get older - something you have forgotten) to experience whether it be a place to visit, something to see, something to hear or something to read.  Yes read.  This is a word that upsets a substantial amount of people these days.  Also, in my case and hopefully in yours, there is always something to create!


Still Growing
©2017 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Cut . . .

. . . the rug. . .


. . . and then, I learned to dance.  Not literally.  Well, yes literally.  Not that I am a good dancer or that I dance frequently.  But the figurative dancing came eventually. Throughout my middle and high school years, I remained the awkward, chubby and uncomfortable person that I was in elementary school with only slightly improved self-esteem and confidence.  Some social skills, if you will, were developed. I essentially chose my 'crowd', said very little, agreed with (and to) quite a lot, and in essence, slowly learned to 'dance'. . .




Cut The Rug
©2017 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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True. . .

. . . colors . . . 

. . . when I finally escaped what I perceived to be the 'land of make-believe' and graduated from college, I told practically everyone I knew that I would never go back to school, ever.  About five years later, I went back to school. Call it maturity. Call it wisdom. Call it pragmatism, but I re-entered the world of academia in pursuit of a Masters Degree (in business administration, in fact) about five years later. Never regretted it. I began to see the beauty in higher education.  I also realized that I actually have a desire to learn, something I still possess. But being involved in business, since the 'music' business is so frequently insufficient to provide adequately for a family, my higher education was quite useful. But academically speaking, an irony that became evident during this period is that no matter how much someone (someone being a 'worker' within an organization) complains about the antics of a superior (within their own workplace), when (and IF) they attain a position of supervision or management, they actually engage in conduct far more extreme than those of which they originally complained.  In other words, they show their true colors . . . 

True Colors
©2017 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Striving . . .

In a pocket-neighborhood sandwiched between the rolling hills of a 100 acre cemetery and a can manufacturing factory stood the rows upon rows of little brick houses joined at the hip, providing shelter for a multitude of lower, middle-class and mostly blue-collar families, straddling the border of the 'big' city to the west. It was here that our protagonist lived the initial twenty-two years of his life learning about the world, in general, and learning about music. It's only now, after the passing of an additional thirty-eight, and additional learning about the world, in general, and about music, that he speaks through the music, as if it were second nature or even purely instinctual, about events, observations, people, places, emotions, wants, needs, pleasures and pains that have transpired throughout the entire period. Only now, the process of codifying, recording or documenting, if you will, the vignettes of music and lyrics, has somehow become more difficult whether due to a dearth of uncommitted hours or simply an impediment brought about by advancing years or even waning talent. It's not that a desire does not lie beneath the surface of a, what some may label, mundane existence, because surely he does not view his presence on this orb mundane by any means.  It seems that the entire process is interrupted, more often than not, by other things and that although the intent is to return to that divine pass-time to complete individual, pre-meditated works, the reality is that only on rare occasions is completion now actually accomplished. He does, however, spontaneously create constantly and prolifically, telling tales of bold, juvenile adventures, characters of shady as well as honorable reputations, encounters with wonders of nature, lessons culled from a multitude of days now spent an memories which elicit a gamut of emotions both mature and not. 

Way It Is

©2016 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Wildness . . .

Traveling down to the Congo
Flying 'round Amazon way
Natives are playing the bongos  
Listen to what they have to say
You know I'm ready for love
And I thank my lucky stars above

She's all dressed up and there's no place to go
But she's a Wild Woman
She's got a secret so nobody knows
That she's a Wild Woman
She won't pretend to be something she's not
And I don't have to need her
'Cause she's something I've got

Swinging from cocoanut branches
Swim with the crocodiles too
But late at night she romances
What is a helpless boy to do
I've seen it a thousand times before  
You get hit in the back with the slamming door

She's all dressed up and there's no place to go
But she's a Wild Woman
She's got a secret so nobody knows
That she's a Wild Woman
She won't pretend to be something she's not
And I don't have to need her
'Cause she's something I've got

She's just a lady
And you can count on that
A little shady
But she'll get up to bat
You think she's crazy
But she can smell a rat

I've seen it before let me tell you
Maybe I'll see it again
Maybe I'll learn something from this
About how to lose and how to win
It's not a good thing to lose your cool
And be forced to say something out of school

She's all dressed up and there's no place to go
But she's a Wild Woman
She's got a secret so nobody knows
That she's a Wild Woman
She won't pretend to be something she's not
And I don't have to need her
'Cause she's something I've got


Wild Woman
©1998 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Idealism . . .

. . . is difficult to maintain . . .

. . . as I grow older.  But I'm not giving up!  I'm not crying for the past, like the spammy emails you receive about the 'good ole days' when men were men and children had to walk uphill (and from) school in three feet of snow without legs, because I firmly believe with age, both individually and societally, things always do get better.  (If your gonna make something great again, be sure you can prove that it was truly ever great.)  But I do clearly recall viewing adults through a very idealistic lens.  Of course my parents taught me (rightly, I might say) to respect my elders and I took that very seriously. I thought that every and all adults were very smart, very reasonable, unselfish, giving, caring individuals who had nothing but the best interest of us all at heart. Not a bad beginning. In hindsight, children should learn to respect all others regardless of any pre-conceived notions 'cause what kind of pre-conceived notion has a child?  Only those they've learned from adults. You must learn the respect before learning analysis of education, intelligence or motives. I learned quickly, beginning with college and very clearly at my first full-time job, that that was just not true. Life since then has only confirmed to me that while I may not be the impressive intellect one would write home about, there all all kinds of folks ranging from blindingly bright to barely a flicker, and I for one intend to continue learning and growing. . .

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Learning . . .

. . . from the past . .

(from Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, translation by John E. Woods)
". . . One can call what came to light here the dark possibilities within human nature in general-but is was in fact tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Germans who committed the acts before which humanity shudders, and whatever lived as German stands now as an abomination and the epitome of evil. What will it be like to belong to a nation whose history bore this gruesome fiasco within it, a nation that has driven itself mad, gone psychologically bankrupt, that admittedly depairs of governing itself . . . that will have to live in isolated confinement, like the Jews of the ghetto, because the dreadfully swollen hatred all around it will not permit it to step outside its borders-a nation that cannot show its face? . . ."

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So Now . . .

. . . I gotta be a tech guy TOO!!! . . .

". . . European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. 

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities. . . "


Can somebody HELP me here??!!   I have NO idea what they're talking' about . . .

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