Thursday, November 17, 2011

Less than one percent. . .

. . . A group of millionaires [200-plus people making more than $1 million per year (including actress Edie Falco and economist Nouriel Roubini, among others] believe that America has been good to them and that it is their duty to give back. "The government provided a foundation through which we could succeed," writes the group on their website. They visited Congress Wednesday to ask for higher taxes. Hard to believe. Well, it happened. Some of the more liberal-bent members actually welcomed them, some conservatives merely tolerated them.

Grover Norquist reportedly said, "If you think the federal government can spend your money better than you can, then by all means" pay more in taxes than you owe. (A real humanitarian, this guy.)

One of the millionaires told Norquist that if he wanted low taxes and less government, he should renounce his citizenship and move to Somalia where they don't collect any tax.

These millionaires want the panel to raise taxes on people who earn more than $1 million, even though most Republicans are committed to NOT DOING just that. So the millionaires tried to meet with ANYONE who would listen. The progressive caucus did meet with them.

Lawrence Benenson, vice president of Benenson Capitol Co., ran into freshman Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., in an elevator. "I'm with the Patriotic Millionaires and we want to pay more in taxes," he told her.

Then it was off, to see Norquist. For his part, Norquist was ready for the group with a lesson from the Torah: Maimonides and his "eight degrees of charity." That's what Norquist says the millionaires are essentially proposing with their tax-me-more pitch.

So Norquist made his colors quite clear. 'Let's stand on ceremony and F*^@k the people' is essentially what he said.

What will it take to make folks like Norquist SEE the light????




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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Bill of Rights, Karl. . .

(from truthout.com)
Karl Rove Flips Out at Protesters: "Who Gave You the Right to Occupy America?"
Wednesday 16 November 2011
by: Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress | Report

Last night, former Bush official Karl Rove appeared at Johns Hopkins University to speak as a part of the annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium. Rove soon discovered that he wasn’t going to deliver his right-wing rhetoric unopposed, as a cry of “Mic Check!” rang out among the audience.

As the world rises up against economic injustice, Truthout brings you the latest news and analysis, free of corporate influence. Help support this work with a tax-deductible donation today.

“Karl Rove is the architect of Occupy Iraq, the architect of Occupy Afghanistan!” yelled the demonstrators. Occupy Baltimore had infiltrated the crowd and began chanting against Rove. “Who gave you the right to occupy America?” asked Rove to the protesters, apparently unaware of the Bill of Rights. As they repeated their slogan, “We are the 99 percent!” Rove petulantly responded, “No you’re not!” He snidely added, “You wanna keep jumping up and yelling that you’re the 99 percent? How presumptuous and arrogant can you think (you) are!”

Get with the program, Karl. You’ve been talking to polite (warranted?) audiences for too long. These people aren’t gonna listen to you drool for an hour or more and wait in line to ask you a question. Do you really expect that, Karl? Who is the BUFFOON here?

Note: And nobody got hurt.

Watch Occupy Baltimore confront Rove:





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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Dish it out, baby. . .

The final version of a spending bill in Congress released late Monday will allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable in school lunches, which the USDA wanted to prevent.

Republicans were concerned about troublesome and costly regulations imposed by the USDA and said (get this) the bill will provide greater flexibility for school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals.

So, I suppose with this new vegetable, we can expect the appearance of new gastronomical delights like steak and pizza, fried green pizza, pizza soup, maybe split pizza soup too, tossed pizza, caesar pizza, mixed green pizzas, mashed pizza. . .

The Republicans are always trying to bring Ronald Reagan back in some form. This surely takes his ketchup-as-a-vegetable philosophy to new heights.




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Monday, November 14, 2011

"The First Amendment. . .

. . .DOES NOT bar religion from the public square and from government in general. Under the First Amendment, the resulting separation of Church and State puts restrictions on government but does not put restrictions on religion. . ."

(reaction to a recent blog by Howard Bess. See bottom)
The good Reverend seems to hit it on the head on a regular basis. He says that the current crop of republican presidential candidates, as well as the media 'reporting' on them, all miss the boat on their interpretation of the First Amendment. He would like to know how the religion of the candidates informs their views and intentions with regard to the following issues. "As president, would the candidate pursue the teachings of his religion?"

WAR AND PEACE - religions generally favor a path toward peace

POPULATION CONTROL, BIRTH CONTROL, AND ABORTION SERVICES - how long will the earth be able to sustain the needs of this huge (and growing) population so highly encouraged by their right to life 'philosophy'?

FULL RIGHTS FOR GAY, LESBIAN, TRANSGENDERED AND BISEXUAL PERSONS - many/most organized religions do not favor these just and necessary rights

PRESERVATION OF THE INTEGRITY OF THE WORLD’S ENVIRONMENT - what will the candidate do when scientific knowledge directly confronts the teachings of his religion?

PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION - parochial schools have been known to practice discrimination

PROVISION FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE LESS FORTUNATE - entitlements and being 'thy brother's keeper'

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is HYPERLINK "mailto:hdbss@mtaonline.net" hdbss@mtaonline.net

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING HIM!




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The poet said . . .

. . . trailing clouds of glory we come and go
What do we really know
Smiling so brightly betraying the years
They have still to try
Those little men
with that glory
Riddles and bedtime stories
Little men
With that glory
In their eyes

Innocence and wisdom coexist inside their minds
Together with appreciation for the the things we miss
In our haste and our big business
Always in awe of the wheels spinning round
With a laugh for the foolish things big men do

The poet said trailing clouds of glory we come and go
What do we really know
Smiling so brightly betraying the years
They have still to try
Those little men
with that glory
Riddles and bedtime stories
Little men
With that glory
In their eyes

Everybody thinks about the world and what the future brings
Who really knows the plan and all its subtleties
We're really smart at least that's what we think
Going our own way in blissful retreat
From the prospect of seeing things too clearly

The poet said trailing clouds of glory we come and go
What do we really know
Smiling so brightly betraying the years
They have still to try
Those little men
with that glory
Riddles and bedtime stories
Little men
With that glory
In their eyes

LITTLE MEN
©1992 Raymond M. Jozwiak


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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Just because you're not a drummer. . .

. . . doesn't mean that you don't have to KEEP TIME.

(from T. Monk's advice. . . )
Pat your foot and sing the melody in your head when you play.

Stop playing all (that bullshit) those wierd (sic) notes, PLAY THE MELODY!

Make the drummer sound GOOD.

Discrimination is important.

You've got to dig it to DIG IT. YOU DIG?

All Reet!

It must be always NIGHT, otherwise they wouldn't need the LIGHTS.

Let's lift the bandstand!!

Avoid the HECKLERS.

Don't play the PIANO PART. I'm playing that. Don't listen to me. I'm supposed to be accompanying YOU.

The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.

Don't play EVERYTHING (or EVERYTIME); let some things go by. Some music (is) just imagined. What you don't play can be more important than what you DO.

A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world. It depends on your IMAGINATION.

Stay in SHAPE! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig and when it comes, he's out of shape and can't make it.

When you're SWINGING, swing some MORE!

Always leave them wanting MORE.

Don't sound ANYBODY for a gig, just be on the scene. Those pieces were written so as to have something to play and to get cats INTERESTED enough to come to rehearsal.

You've got it! If you don;'t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case YOU GOT IT! (to a drummer who didn't want to solo)

Whatever you think CAN'T be done, somebody will come along and DO IT. A genius is the one MOST LIKE HIMSELF!

They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along and spoil it.





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Real change . . .

. . . we are all evolving. . .

(from THE SINS OF SCRIPTURE by John Shelby Spong
© 2005 John Shelby Spong)
". . . if change is the tactic to be adopted, the change cannot be simply cosmetic, an adjustment around the edges of our faith story. It has to be so total and so radical that many will think such a change is either impossible or will result in the death of the patient. It would be easier, some say, to start over by building an entirely new religious system than it would be to seek to reform this one so totally that continuity might be strained to the breaking point. . . Our task is not to build tomorrow's church. That is something into which we have to live one day at a time. Our task is rather to face the need for radical change and take the first, probably tiny step necessary to erect a totally new foundation. That step is found, I believe, in acknowledging our evolutionary origins and dispensing with any suggestion that sin, inadequacy and guilt are the definitions into which we are born. This also means that we rid ourselves of the idea that the world was created for the benefit of human beings, or even that the planet earth is somehow different or special in the universe. . . "




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Friday, November 11, 2011

Let's see -- I can't..., I can't. . . I'm sorry ... oops...

. . . (based [loosely] upon http://www.rickperry.org/issues/)
America is at a crossroads. One in six work-eligible Americans cannot find a uh, the uh...struggling to avoid foreclosure or to just make ends meet. As national leaders spend more time assigning blame than laying out a clear vision, the prospects for recovery seem let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops..

Rick Perry will get America working again.
As Governor of uh, the uh...let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops, Rick Perry has helped build the nation's strongest economy. Since June 2009, more than 40 percent of all net new jobs in America have been created in Texas. Thanks to his fiscally conservative leadership, Texans enjoy one of the lowest tax burdens in the country and one of the uh, the uh...

The principles that have guided Rick Perry's leadership in Texas are the same principles that will guide him as let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops:
Don't spend all the money. Keep taxes low and regulations fair. And invest aggressively in job creation, because good jobs make the American Dream possible. It's time for a leader who will allow us to believe again – to believe that America's best days are ahead, that we are not consigned to a fate of high unemployment and economic uh, let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops., and that our place in the world can once again be secure with a policy of peace through strength. That leader is Rick Perry. And the restoration of the American Dream begins today.

The Issues

Jobs
Rick Perry will get government out of the way so we can get America working again. By cutting taxes, repealing regulations, balancing our budget and uh, the uh...America can create millions of new jobs. Perry not only espouses conservative economic ideas – he has put them to work in his home state, where nearly 40% of uh, the uh...let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops.

Fiscal Responsibility
Washington is broken. President Obama and other establishment politicians think it can be fixed with let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops. Rick Perry knows it will require taking a wrecking ball to the three pillars of big government: overtaxing, overspending and overregulation.

Security
As a proud Air Force veteran, Rick Perry believes we must pursue peace through strength and provide the resources to maintain uh, the uh... Perry will advance American interests abroad by standing firm with our allies, and ensuring American blood and American Treasure are spent only when American interests are threatened. Equally important, he will protect the American homeland by forcing Washington to let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops.

Healthcare
Rick Perry believes government must stimulate job creation so more Americans are covered by employer-sponsored health plans. We must repeal Obamacare, and completely transform the uh, the uh...let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops.

Social Issues
Rick Perry is a conservative of conviction, not of convenience. On the bedrock issues of life, marriage and uh, the uh..., Perry’s conservative values are clear and uh, the uh...let's see -- I can't..., I can't. I'm sorry ... oops.




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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Good or bad. . .

. . . music brings something out of EVERYBODY. . .


(from http://www.quotegarden.com/music.html)
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach


All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! ~Thomas Carlyle


If the King loves music, it is well with the land. ~Mencius


Without music life would be a mistake. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche


Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes


If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. ~Gustav Mahler


Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? ~Michael Torke


And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done


He who sings scares away his woes. ~Cervantes


Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name


Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. ~Benjamin Disraeli


Music is what feelings sound like. ~Author Unknown


There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
~Lord Byron


Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. ~Henri Rabaud


Music is the poetry of the air. ~Richter


If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. Sydney Smith


There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. ~William P. Merrill


If in the after life there is not music, we will have to import it. ~Doménico Cieri Estrada


Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. ~Henry David Thoreau


Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. ~Ludwig van Beethoven


I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. ~H.A. Overstreet


My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. ~Edward Elgar


Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
~Oliver Wendell Holmes


Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. ~Charlie Parker


Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. ~William F. Buckley, Jr.


Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. ~Henry Ward Beecher


Play the music, not the instrument. ~Author Unknown


Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. ~Ludwig van Beethoven


Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence. ~Robert Fripp


[An intellectual] is someone who can listen to the "William Tell Overture" without thinking of the Lone Ranger. ~John Chesson


Music's the medicine of the mind. ~John A. Logan


You are the music while the music lasts. ~T.S. Eliot


Music is the universal language of mankind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer


Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. ~Ezra Pound


He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. ~Robert Browning


You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. ~Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket


The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't got the joke yet. ~Oliver Herford


What we provide is an atmosphere... of orchestrated pulse which works on people in a subliminal way. Under its influence I've seen shy debs and severe dowagers kick off their shoes and raise some wholesome hell. ~Meyer Davis, about his orchestra


Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. ~Victor Hugo


...where music dwells
Lingering - and wandering on as loth to die...
~William Wordsworth, "Within King's College Chapel, Cambridge"


Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel. ~Buffy Sainte-Marie


Music is an outburst of the soul. ~Frederick Delius


Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. ~Oscar Wilde


In music the passions enjoy themselves. ~Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886


Music is what life sounds like. ~Eric Olson


If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. ~John Cage


Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. ~Arnold Bennett


Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. ~Alphonse de Lamartine


There is in souls a sympathy with sounds:
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
~William Cowper


When words leave off, music begins. ~Heinrich Heine


Truly to sing, that is a different breath. ~Rainer Maria Rilke


Music is the shorthand of emotion. ~Leo Tolstoy


Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together. ~Anais Nin


There is no truer truth obtainable
By Man than comes of music.
~Robert Browning


Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. ~Aaron Copland


What passion cannot music raise and quell! ~John Dryden


The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. ~Leonard Bernstein


Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die. ~Paul Simon


Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory -
~Percy Bysshe Shelley


A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. ~Benny Green


The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides! ~Artur Schnabel


The pause is as important as the note. ~Truman Fisher


The city is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built forever.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson


Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. ~Lawrence Duncan


Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius


Rock music in its lyrics often talks ahead of the time about what's going on in the country. ~Edmund G. Brown


Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love,
With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
~Joseph Addison


My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle. ~Liberace


Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson


Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music. ~Ronald Reagan


The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life… the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. ~Richard Baker


Jazz will endure just as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains. ~John Philip Sousa


Music is the medicine of the breaking heart. ~Leigh Hunt


Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. ~Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard, Comments of Abe Martin and His Neighbors, 1923


Country music is three chords and the truth. ~Harlan Howard


An artist, in giving a concert, should not demand an entrance fee but should ask the public to pay, just before leaving as much as they like. From the sum he would be able to judge what the world thinks of him - and we would have fewer mediocre concerts. ~Kit Coleman, Kit Coleman: Queen of Hearts


I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Are we not formed, as notes of music are,
For one another, though dissimilar?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley


Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. ~Edward George Bulwer-Lytton


A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? ~Charles Ives


The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. ~Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz


After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays


Music is love in search of a word. ~Sidney Lanier


It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. ~Victor de LaPrade


Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. ~Jean Paul Richter


All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it. ~Dave Barry


Music is a friend of labor for it lightens the task by refreshing the nerves and spirit of the worker. ~William Green


If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong. ~Simon Rattle


Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all. ~Helmut Walcha


I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else. ~Lily Tomlin


The scratches in Yoko Ono records are moments of relief. ~S.A. Sachs


Music is well said to be the speech of angels. ~Thomas Carlyle, Essays, "The Opera"


Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ~Robert Benchley


The taxpayers cannot be relied upon to support performing arts such as opera. As a taxpayer, I am forced to admit that I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera. ~Dave Barry


No good opera plot can be sensible:... people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. ~W.H. Auden, Time, 29 December 1961





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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Junk, stuff, things, baggage. . .

. . . whatever you call it, everybody's got it; and probably more of it than they need. And I mean actual, PHYSICAL junk and not the mental baggage we all carry, which will indeed be the topic of another blog at another time.

My wife and I just got rid of a lot of junk in the last two weekends and it really feels good. As each of our parents passed away, I vowed to myself that I did NOT want to leave a lot of stupid junk laying around so our children would have to sift through it, and as is so often the case, throw out most of it in the end. We both are taking that idea a little more seriously now. Of course it is also somewhat selfish on our part. The more we clean out now, the easier it is to find the things we actually need and everything is just so much neater.

Why does it seem that human nature has a tendency to collect, store, hoard, whatever you want to call it? Maybe after additional research in the field of evolution it will finally be revealed that we have not, after all, evolved from the apes (a prospect that troubles so many 'traditional' thinkers) but that we have indeed evolved from a much more noble creature - THE SQUIRREL!




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Monday, November 7, 2011

Ah, our favorite non-candidate. . .

. . . (from The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said Calendar)

[After being asked by a television news anchorman if any new initiatives are in the works] "Gah! Nothing specific right now. Sitting here in these chairs that I'm going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on the front lines are forced to and it's our privileged obligation to find solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day being held accountable, not being just one of many just casting votes or voting present every once in a while, we don't get away with that."

You must have guessed who said this. It's Sarah Palin.




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Sunday, November 6, 2011

On very special. . .

. . . occasions. . .

When celebrating felt right
This place we'd go
With AMBIENCE AND WINE
On a Saturday night
Caricatures hung on the wall
Eavesdropping on our most intimate moments
I love you

It was essential to go there
To mark the passage of time
Between the dates
We used to signify
The bond we shared and to dine
Only served Angus A-1 prime
To patrons of each and every persuasion
I loved you

But now that place is all gone
Where did our love go
Where is the ambience and
McCafferty's piano

While you eat you're serenaded by some local musician
Playing bad renditions of the popular songs
You sing along

And so it ended
Our passion somehow just faded away
And likewise too
That place we held divine
Became a dance club today
The memories come flooding in
Sweet talk and all the romancing we did there
It's gone now

But now that place is all gone
Where did our love go
Where is the ambience and
McCafferty's piano

McCafferty's Piano (from the forthcoming AMBIENCE & WINE [stay tuned])
©2010 Raymond M. Jozwiak


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Saturday, November 5, 2011

Finally it happened. . .

. . . the trials and tribulations of Ful Treatment. . .

A match. A 'club' that required exactly the musical product we were offering. It was a relatively roomy, oblong configuration with a large rectangular bar that encircled the tending staff, located at one end with a dance floor to the side and a stage at the far end of that. It was located in an industrial area to the south of the city, in close proximity to the docks, business of which brought many merchant marine and an assortment of blue-collar clientele for some weekend reverie. In fact, we frequently, unfairly generalizing, joked about the patrons' general lack of teeth and violent tendencies. Let's face it though, large amounts of quickly consumed alcohol frequently does result in less-than-gentlemanly behavior in humans, irrespective of type of employment or socioeconomic level.
Our bigotry was not based entirely in fiction though. One particularly well-lubricated Friday night crowd included two, physically imposing females, complete with the teased, bouffant hairdo, each with a personalized version of a blond-streak adornment. Someone in the crowd was heard to refer to these ladies as 'skunk-heads', referring to the aforementioned blond coloring. As the evening progressed, it became obvious to us and our wives/girl-friends/significant others that accompanied us to the gig that night that the 'skunk-heads' had become enamored with several male members of the crowd. It became more obvious still later, that there was some discontent among the party of ladies and their newly-found, romantic interests. Eventually a real, true-to-life bar brawl erupted as a result of the developing sexual tension (or was it friction?) When the fists began flying, the entire band and our visitors were, for lack of a better description, was flabbergasted. At that point, we all know precisely what happened, but each would relate a different version now if asked, one of the involved merchant marines picked up a chair from a table adjoining the dance floor, and broke it over the head of his antagonist, sending a wooden chair leg hurling meteor-like onto the bandstand. It seemed as thought the frame froze at that point, all sound ceased, and we all stared toward the crowd, mouths agape in astonishment for what seemed to be a short eternity, but ended with Greg (our saxman/vocalist) picking up the disconnected furniture appendage, waving it in the direction of the audience saying something to the effect that he dared anyone to try anything NOW!




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Getting ready. . .

. . . for the rain.

Only once in a lifetime
Does the right time appear
And that time for me
Was the day that I met you
There are good and there are bad things
Misunderstandings
That's just the way life is
So we'll have to face each storm
Before the next kiss

I'm getting ready for the rain
Here come the clouds all rolling by us
Are we ever really ready for another pain
I'm getting ready for the rain

But I know the rain will surely end
And the sun will shine again
It always does
It always will
Nothing ventured nothing ever gained
Always different but the same
When will we learn
When will we learn to

Live like its our last day
Don't take the fast way around
Cause this love we have
Is a fragile thing we've found
Why should we continue hurting
And go on skirting the issue of our love
Cause we know these sleepless nights
Will pass like the clouds from above

I'm getting ready for the rain
Here come the clouds all rolling by us
Are we ever really ready for another pain
I'm getting ready for the rain

READY FOR THE RAIN
©1992 Raymond M. Jozwiak



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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Stuxnet. . .

. . . sounds like the name of a new, sci-fi, thriller. Well it IS!!!! Only it's real.

(from Wikipedia.com)
"Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It targets Siemens industrial software and equipment running Microsoft Windows. While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems, it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.

The worm initially spreads indiscriminately, but includes a highly specialized malware payload that is designed to target only Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes. Stuxnet infects PLCs by subverting the Step-7 software application that is used to reprogram these devices.

Different variants of Stuxnet targeted five Iranian organizations, with the probable target widely suspected to be uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran; Symantec noted in August 2010 that 60% of the infected computers worldwide were in Iran.Siemens stated on 29 November that the worm has not caused any damage to its customers,but the Iran nuclear program, which uses embargoed Siemens equipment procured clandestinely, has been damaged by Stuxnet. Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Lab concluded that the sophisticated attack could only have been conducted "with nation-state support", this was further backed up by the Finnish computer security company F-Secure's chief researcher Mikko Hyppönen who commented in a Stuxnet FAQ, "That's what it would look like, yes". It has been speculated that Israel and the United States may have been involved. . . "

Doesn't sound out of the realm of reality, does it?!




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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Have you ever really. . .

. . . read the story of Sodom from the book of Genesis? This is the text used by the literally 'uninformed' to defend their homophobic positions; those who think their Bible must be interpreted 'literally'.

(paraphrasing from The Sins of the Scriptures, by John Shelby Spong, © 2005 John Shelby Spong)
'Travel in the ancient world was hard and dangerous, so travelers were few. Visitors depended upon the hospitality of a citizen of the place they were visiting. Without it, more often than not, strangers became fair game for abuse which usually took the form of ribald play in which the manhood of the strangers was compromised.

The two 'messengers', who accompanied the Lord in his inquest of the citizens of Sodom with the intention of destruction, left the Lord with Abraham and visited the city of Sodom. Late on the evening of their arrival, Abraham's nephew Lot offers the strangers hospitality, much to the dismay of the town's menfolk who had been eagerly anticipating a night of debauchery since the arrival of the two. They surrounded Lot's house and demanded the surrender of the two visitors. Lot refused knowing that once the protection of a home had been offered, the honor of the entire household was at stake if that protection was compromised.

So Lot makes a counter offer, one that literal interpreters of the Bible generally fail to criticize. He offers his two virgin daughters to the crowd to "do to them as you please." (Also consider the literal interpretation of offering daughters as though they were property, precisely the ancient biblical view of women.) The daughters have, of course, not been consulted regarding the proposition, as being property only, they have no say in the matter.

Well, in short, Lot and his family (including the daughters) escape and the city is destroyed by the visitors in accordance with the Lord's intention.'

Have we learned the biblical condemnation of homosexuality from this fascinating little story? I must have missed it. What I did, and we all should, learn from it is that NONE of this material should be taken LITERALLY!




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I can't explain . . .

. . . or to paraphrase Ellington, 'If you have to ask, you'll never know.'

from Slate By Dahlia Lithwick|Posted Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011, at 5:57 PM ET
". . . I confess to being driven insane this past month by the spectacle of television pundits professing to be baffled by the meaning of Occupy Wall Street. Good grief. Isn’t the ability to read still a job requirement for a career in journalism? And as last week’s inane “What Do They Want?” meme morphs into this week’s craven “They Want Your Stuff” meme, I feel it’s time to explain something: Occupy Wall Street may not have laid out all of its demands in a perfectly cogent one-sentence bumper sticker for you, Mr. Pundit, but it knows precisely what it doesn’t want. It doesn’t want you.

What the movement clearly doesn’t want is to have to explain itself through corporate television. To which I answer, Hallelujah. You can’t talk down to a movement that won’t talk back to you. . .

. . . By refusing to take a ragtag, complicated, and leaderless movement seriously, the mainstream media has succeeded only in ensuring its own irrelevance. The rest of America has little trouble understanding that these are ragtag, complicated, and leaderless times. This may not make for great television, but any movement that acknowledges that fact deserves enormous credit."




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Monday, October 31, 2011

Creepier than Halloween. . .

. . . and actually quite tragic.

from This Week In Texas
2009-02-04 / Local History
by Bartee Haile

". . . Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa in the dead of winter were a sub-zero ice box that took an awful toll on man and machine. On any given night, half of the stage talent and support staff were sick - "Goose" Bunch's feet actually froze! - and the tour bus gave up the ghost in the middle of nowhere.

By the time the road show reached Clear Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 3, Holly had had it with all-night rides on the latest mass transit - a converted school bus with a broken heater. He chartered a private airplane to fly him and two passengers to Fargo, N.D.

Ritchie Valens won one seat on a coin flip with Tommy Allsup, and Buddy assigned the other to his Panhandle pal. But soft-hearted Waylon gave his spot on the warm plane to Richardson, who had come down with the flu.

"You're not going with me tonight, huh?" Holly joked at Jennings' expense. "Did you chicken out?" Waylon explained fear had nothing to do with it, that he was just doing the Big Bopper a favor.

"Well," Buddy said in obvious jest, "I hope your damned bus freezes up again." Waylon answered in kind, "I hope your old plane crashes."

And that was what it did less than 10 minutes after take-off, killing all on-board.

"I just wanted to go home," Jennings recalled 37 years later, "but they wouldn't stop the tour." The grief-stricken guitarist had to wait until he collected his pay after the final performance to return to Lubbock.

Waylon Jennings made the most of the 43 years that an act of kindness on a cold Iowa night bought him. At his death in 2002, he was a full-fledged legend in his own right with more than 60 albums and 16 No. 1 country-music hits.

Buddy would have been proud. . . "




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Normal or not? . . .

. . . who's to say?

My brother-in-law came to the house last Sunday to watch a football game. He lives on the outskirts of the metropolitan area and is does not, as a result, have the games of our local NFL franchise available on his cable television broadcast schedule. Now this may sound like a very ordinary situation to you. Brother-in-law visits brother-in-law, the guys watch the game together with a few beers, maybe a pizza and pretzels, right?

Well most of it's right. The only wrong part of the picture is the 'guys' part, at least literally. You see, the two football fans that enjoyed the game together were my brother-in-law and my wife. My wife and my two younger sons are the only football fans in the family. Our eldest and myself would rather. . . be doing just about anything else. So as my wife and her brother were screaming at the television, I walked through the room. He said, "Ray, I guess you're not really interested in this game are you?" to which I responded, "You could tell, huh?" (not rudely, mind you.) To my brilliant remark he responded, "I guess you're the only normal one here."





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Saturday, October 29, 2011

The OWS protesters. . .

". . . are filling a large hole in America’s democracy. Congress, the president, the media, and even the think tanks were not reflecting the frustration, confusion and anger among Americans. They talked, they did not listen. I have witnessed these people several times now, talked to the group twice, talked to them in private—they listen. It is quite wonderful.

But what bugs me most is the widespread criticism of their ignorance of economics. What they know and what Wall Street and much of Washington do not is that the American model has been failing for decades. Look at income inequality. More important, look at average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation, now back to their 1969 level. Look at our crummy roads, our unequal education, our uniquely absurd healthcare system. Look even at relatively weak capital investment.

Then they are lectured by people like the Competitive Enterprise Institute that they do not understand how markets work. There have been no free markets by neo-classical or even Hayekian standards for decades on Wall Street. When there is no transparent pricing of derivatives, there is no free market. When five major banks control the entire market, there is oligopoly, not free markets. When enormous banks in every avenue of finance exchange information within their own companies, information asymmetries, not to mention potential for insider trading and front-running, are rife. When the conflicts of interest between ratings agencies and their clients are built into Wall Street, who can but laugh that this is real competition. And what about asymmetric financial incentives that made the bankers rich? They rewarded risk when you won, but did not penalize when you lost.

Don’t lecture the OWS movement about competitive markets. In league with Washington regulators, Wall Street learned how to rig those markets. And then they could misprice risk and lead to runway speculation that was bound to result in failure. One number always grabs me. Private financial firms wrote 18 percent of mortgages, which resulted in 42 percent of all serious defaults. There is the culprit. And then they didn’t have the capital to cover the losses. They drove the housing market sky high. Then they built debt on the bad mortgages.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that even had markets run on more competitive lines speculation and crisis would have been completely avoided. There is little in neo-classical theory that suggests mild corrections are all that is needed to set economic growth on its inevitably stable path. But people like Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke stuffed the deep crises of 1982, 1987, 1989, 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2000 into that mild model. The great moderation was born.

Then wise guys who cannot help but champion Wall Street with little sense of history tell us that all the OWC criticism is unwarranted. Capitalism must be allowed to make mistakes. This is true.

But on balance, OWS is not against capitalism, it is against wild capitalism. And it is against injustice. Is Wall Street?"
(by: Jeff Madrick, TripleCrisis Op-Ed http://www.Truth-Out.org)




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Another one of those. . .

. . . pesky, health-related things that you have to do when you get old. Well, when you get OLDER. Well, maybe I should say when you have health-related issues that requires medication and monitoring NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE. Well, maybe I'm just bitching because I have to go out EARLY on a miserable, rainy, cold, Saturday morning. And not only do I have to go out EARLY, I can't even have my morning coffee or absolutely ANYTHING to eat. Yes that's right. Since midnight, I haven't had a thing to EAT or DRINK, except water of course, because to produce accurate results, I have to FAST on days I do this.

Two common, health-related issues are present in this particular system of mine, high cholesterol and hypothyroidism.

"The term high cholesterol is a bit misleading, because there are two types of cholesterol. If you've been told you have high cholesterol, it usually means you have more of the bad type and less of the good type. This may put you at higher risk of having a heart attack or a stroke.
You won't notice if you have too much bad cholesterol, because you won't have any symptoms. The only way you can find out is to have a blood test."

"Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone. Symptoms: Early symptoms: Being more sensitive to cold; Constipation; Depression; Fatigue or feeling slowed down... " well YOU get the picture.

SO, here I am, EARLY Saturday morning. NO COFFEE, NOTHING TO EAT or DRINK, FASTING since midnight, terribly inconvenienced and just miserable about it just because I have to go have them draw my . . . BLOOD!




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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ten reasons. . .

. . . only one of many situations that have led to the discontent of the general public.

(from Truthout.com)
". . . Here are ten reasons to take your money out of Bank of America - and park it at a credit union or community bank near you. (And yes, that may be near impossible if you have a mortgage with them, as refinancing away from any big bank nowadays is a nightmare.)

1. B of A rejects the right of customers to protest. When two Occupy Santa Cruz protesters in California marched into a local Bank of America to close their accounts, the response was, "You cannot be a protester and a customer at the same time," followed by a threat to call the police if the women didn't leave. (The attending officer later reiterated the bank manager's message.) Meanwhile, the fact that Bank of America charges a fee for closing an account prompted Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina), who resides in Bank of America's headquarters state, to introduce a bill to protect customers from such fees.

2. To recoup ongoing losses from its stupendously dumb acquisitions of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, B of A pillages its customers. Thus, despite massive public outrage, the $5 debit usage fee for customers with less than a $5,000 balance and no mortgage with the bank will begin in 2012. B of A was the first large bank to confirm it would charge this fee, which is the highest in current discourse among the banks. Banks collect 24 cents from retailers for each customer swipe, much more than the median 8 cents it costs a bank to process the purchase. Senator Dick Durbin's (D-Illinois) response was to urge customers: "Vote with your feet. Get the heck out of that bank."

3. B of A's other fees are just as bad. According to its last annual report, the bank has 29.3 million active online subscribers who paid over $300 billion worth of bills in 2010. In May, B of A raised its checking account fees, which included e-banking, to $12, in line with JP Morgan Chase's decision to do the same, up from $8.95 per month. In June, it started a $35 overdraft fee, even on overdrafts of one cent. Next year, it will incorporate basic checking with a new "essentials'' account structure that makes monthly fees unavoidable, that will not include free bill pay, and that has a mandatory $6 minimum fee. Last Monday, Bank of America was charged (along with JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo) with colluding with the two major credit card companies, Visa and MasterCard, to keep ATM fees high; in other words, they were charged with "price-fixing," in direct opposition to antitrust laws. This is the third of three such suits filed recently, each seeking class action status.

4. Bank of America takes gross advantage of the military. It is the official bank of the US military and has branches by or on many bases, which provides the firm with another locus of extortion. B of A can entice military personnel to take out loans at usurious rates. Personal loans made to soldiers for a few thousand dollars can actually keep them indebted for the rest of their lives. Last May, Bank of America paid $22 million to settle charges of improperly foreclosing on active-duty troops. The firm spun these foreclosures as being Countrywide's fault for having started them before becoming part of B of A.

5. Bank of America is officially rated the biggest, scariest bank. Its stock price also fared the worst of the group of banks (which also included Citigroup and Wells Fargo) when Moody's Investors Service downgraded it on September 21. B of A's long-term holding company (parent bank) rating was chopped two notches to Baa1 from A2, and its retail bank rating was cut two notches from A2 to Aa3, placing B of A four notches below rival JP Morgan Chase and one below Citigroup, the third-largest US bank. Its bank holding company has the lowest rating among the top five banks with the largest derivatives positions. This caused great fear for investors involved in derivatives trades with the Merrill Lynch division, prompting them to request trades be moved to the part of the bank with the better rating - the retail part with the insured (peoples') deposits. That way, B of A doesn't have to pony up as much collateral to back the trades, as it would in a subsidiary with a lower rating.

6. B of A's derivatives position keeps rising. The total amount of derivatives in the FDIC-insured portion of B of A as of mid-year was $53.7 trillion, up 10 percent from $48.9 trillion the prior year, and up nearly 35 percent from its pre-fall crisis level of $40 trillion (the Merrill Lynch securities division holds $22 trillion in addition.) The bank has $5 trillion of credit derivatives, nearly double its $2.7 trillion pre-Merrill amount. In addition, because of its inherent zombie status and rating downgrades, the cost of insuring B of A against a possible default continues to rise in the credit derivatives market - a pattern that American International group (AIG) once followed.

7. Bank of America got the most AIG money of the big depositor banks. By virtue of having acquired Merrill Lynch's AIG-related portfolio, B of A got to keep approximately $12 billion worth of federal AIG backing, too. It also received more government subsidies than any other mega-bank except Citigroup. Its stimulus package included an initial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) helping of $15 billion for the bank and $10 billion for Merrill, plus a second helping of $20 billion in January 2009 after it became clear that Merrill's losses had spiked to $15 billion - in order to ensure the takeover from hell went through and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and then-Merrill Lynch executive John Thain could pat themselves on the back for saving the world. The government guaranteed $118 billion in assets, mostly Merrill's, in the new merged firm. With the benefit of the Fed's nearly 0 percent money policy, and a depositor base to plunder, B of A repaid that aid.

8. Bank of America leads the big bank fraud lawsuit settlement tally. So far, it has racked up the largest settlement, $8.5 billion in June, to settle claims related to $100 billion worth of Countrywide-spun mortgage securities backed by faulty loans, with bigwig investors like Pimco, BlackRock, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
B of A is also being sued by state and federal regulators for questionable foreclosure practices and a union benefits plan for hiding foreclosure problems that impacted its share price. It is one of 17 major US financial institutions being sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency for billions of dollars of mortgage-securities-related losses that may require B of A to potentially repurchase $50 billion worth of allegedly fraudulent securities.

9. Even after lawsuits, B of A would still rather please investors than customers. Investors that won money in the $8.5 billion settlement were upset that B of A was continuing to service loans, instead of foreclosing on them more quickly. Now, B of A had a nasty incentive to kick people out of homes faster, rather than work with them to refinance or restructure mortgages. Two months later, their foreclosure process has, in fact, sped up. Bank of America foreclosure notices are surging again following a slight robo-signing- related slowdown, meaning they are now sending out a greater increase in default notices (90-day overdue loans) than other banks. The bank has $30 billion in residential mortgage loans in default, which will become foreclosures for thousands of families.

10. Bank of America, despite having been buoyed up by the government, did not pay taxes, and, given its glorious ineptness, will be laying off 30,000 workers. Not only did the bank pay no federal taxes for 2010 (or 2009) by making use of its posted pre-tax loss of $5.4 billion, it actually cited a tax benefit of $1 billion. Meanwhile, it has announced plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs over the next few years as part of its plan to save $5 billion, ostensibly due to the settlements it's paying for engaging in upper-management-approved fraud. . ."





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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

We've tried to tell him. . .

. . . that the car is worth preserving. . . at least FOR NOW!!

For some reason, Russ is not as keen on preserving the automobile which was bestowed upon him upon graduation and his subsequent relocation to Los Angeles. (City of Angels, as that cowboy fella says)

Sure, it's old. 'Bout twelve years now. Sure, it's got lots of miles on it. Around 150,000. But it's a Toyota. Those suckers have been known to last 200 or more thousand miles if maintained.

And we've been encouraging the maintenance. And he's done it. As far as we know. But whenever an oxygen sensor or an electric window goes up he gets discouraged.

Not that we don't understand. After all, he's trying to develop a career in the movie industry. Motion pictures. Film. You know. So work isn't always regular, steady, stabile, conventional, lucrative. . . you get the picture. (Pun intended)

But STILL. It's a car. That runs. That was FREE. Yeah you have to put money into it. But not to purchase it. It's paid off. It's YOURS baby!

Be clear. I am not belittling his point of view. We love the guy. It's just a little frustrating to hear that the next time something other than an oil change is required to keep the car on the road, he may just throw his hands up and say. . .
THAT'S IT. And we're not really sure that's in his best interest at this particular time. That's all.




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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The beauty of the Falls. . .

. . . From Wikipedia:
Taughannock Falls is located in the Town of Ulysses in Tompkins County, New York in the USA. The park is northwest of Ithaca, New York near Trumansburg, New York. The name Taughannock comes from the Algonquian-speaking Lenni Lenape (Delaware) Indians, referring either to chief Taughannock or the word taghkanic (great fall in the woods).

The main cataract of the falls is a 215-foot drop (66 m), making it 33 feet (10 m) taller than Niagara Falls. It is one of the largest single-drop waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains.[2] The water flows through a long gorge with cliffs up to 400 ft high (120 m), characteristic of the area's gorges that give rise to the common "Ithaca is Gorges" bumper stickers and t-shirts. The waterfall and gorge comprise an example of a hanging valley that developed in a very similar fashion to the one at nearby Watkins Glen State Park. None of the local gorges were "carved by glaciers." In fact all of the gorges are post-glacial valleys carved by the streams that still run through them. It is the valleys over which the waterfalls hang that were eroded (over-deepened) by the advance of the Pleistocene ice sheets.

Visitors can reach an excellent view of the waterfall by walking along a 3/4-mile-long trail (1.2 km). The gorge trail is open all year long, unlike the rim trails which are closed to the public in winter. Visitors in autumn can enjoy the picturesque colors of the surrounding trees. Swimming under the waterfall is hazardous and strictly forbidden.




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If my memory serves. . .

. . . my old band-members Jay (guitar/vocals), Jeff (drums), Greg (sax/vocals) and myself (keyboard/vocals) undertook a string of private affairs and wedding receptions. Soon we decided to dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of a regular engagement, most desirably at a nightclub. Our one weak point however in pursuit of this lofty goal was our repertoire. Our rehearsals were few and far between. In fact, I now cannot remember an actual rehearsal with this incarnation of Ful Treatment. To our chagrin, and self-deceiving disbelief, club owners actually wanted the bands they hired to play the current top-forty popular favorites to which the audience could dance. We, in our haughty laziness (or was it lazy haughtiness?) refused to do that. In fact we simply continued to play as much of our uptempo (and preferably 'newer') material instead of succumbing to the current trend of disco music brought about by the recent resurgent popularity of the Bee Gees thanks to the film Saturday Night Fever. In our defense, we did learn a new number or two, just simply not enough to market ourselves as a top-forty act. Another improvement that we opted not to pursue was the hiring of a fifth band member to play the bass guitar, a definite enhancement to a combo's authenticity when reproducing dance music (as well as rock music in general), and mainly for the reason that it would have resulted in another party with whom to share the money.




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