Three Rights Make a Left

 Ok... first, a disclaimer. I don't often expose this, because, for some reason, guitar players, and musicians in general, are not supposed to have brains. Though my own brain is probably not even close to the most educated in the musician sphere*, I do have a degree in Math/Computer Science, with a minor in Philosophy and emphasis in statistics. Advanced statistics is VERY difficult. The whizzes in stats become actuaries after passing a series of tests, largely known for their insane difficulty. I'm NOT a whiz... in fact, I fell asleep in statistics class and fell off my chair one day. This blog entry doesn't touch on advanced statistics and you don't need more than a 6th grade education to understand this. In other words: Donald Trump -- just stop here. You'll be lost after this point. Today, I'm writing about how politicians -- or their corporate sponsors -- like to quote statistics to support their spin of the day. However, in many instances, the exact sam...

  This writing is a reaction to this article from someone's web site: 40 Uncool Things that Boomers Won't Give Up Disclaimer: I know this author is trying (accent on try) to be funny -- and I'm as capable as any boomer of taking a little ribbing -- which is to say, if I were in the same room with this person, I'd step on their cell phone. And since they did not have a "comments" section, I'm forced to pierce their thin little skin with my rapier wit on my own blog site. Before I proceed with my skewering -- at least my feeble attempt, given my advanced age -- I do want to make a generalization about articles like this, in all seriousness. To me, an attempt at satire that demonstrates,  " ... obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group " is, by dictionary this definition, "bigotry".  If you were to substit...

This is reproduced from a post on Facebook. It's full of so many fallacies and so much misinformation, I felt like I needed to rebut this point by point. It's too much for Facebook, so I'm adding this just so my comments are on the record. T Note that I've reproduced the original post verbatim.   IMPORTANT NOTE: "ME" is not me, Jim , but the original poster.   The original post is in red. The "cast" is as follows: The original post was a conversation supposedly between is two characters: 1) "Hater" -- a fanciful debater of unknown party affiliation who espouses opinions which are generally MAGA leaning, but certainly not the opinions of any identifiable thinking person; 2) "Me" I repeat -- NOT MY OWN OPINIONS -- these are the replies of the original poster, a Trump Apologist that just repeats MAGA approved lies, all of which have been shown to be at best, partially true... but not really. The parts in BLUE are my own comments an...

OK... are you listening Congress? Here's what we need to do: 1. Let's stop calling indigenous people "Native Americans" and start calling them "Americans". The rest of us will be called "Immigrant Americans". 2. Let's pass a constitutional amendment that no branch of the government can purposely "shut down the government" just to get their way. 3. Let's establish consequences for elected officials lying to the public -- I think public flogging would be appropriate, followed, perhaps, by tar and feathering. 4. Let's pass a law that once and for all requires congressional districts to be drawn without regard to political advantage to one party or another. We should call this "The Respect for Votes Act". 5. We need public financing of national campaigns or, at very least, full disclosure of  contributions... and, also, the repeal of "Citizens United". 6. We need new Voting Rights Legislation to repair ...

I'm pretty sure that anyone who knows me personally has little doubt where I stand in the political queue... somewhere between the box office and the parking lot. If you stand on the north side of the line and face Mexico, then I'm not far from my car, as long as the box office is on the Pacific Ocean. Just testing your analytic geometry skills. However, if you know me only from my musical performance, then my philosophy is, hopefully, nebulous at worst, opaque at best. This is no accident. It's not for lack commitment. I started my political involvement by handing out campaign literature for Bobby Kennedy, poll watching for Eugene McCarthy, continuing through manning the phone bank for Obama. In between, many letters and phone calls to senators and representatives on both the state and federal level. I haven't done marching and demonstrating -- I'm just not a joiner. When I'm on stage, I have one aim -- to entertain. Which is not to say that I compromise ...

Today, I feel the reality, I feel so temporary. As if tomorrow was yesterday and so unnecessary because I have lived it so many times before

This was originally posted in the facebook group, "Gigs from Hell", May 22, 2018 I've played something close to 10,000 gigs in my life (yes... I'm a geezer) give or take a few hundred. Given this volume of giggage, the amazing thing is that not more were horrors. Oh... there was that night in Topeka when the drunken club owner began shooting his pistol inside the cinderblock club. Or the night a drunk climbed up on the stage screaming in my ear, "Caught in a trap... caught in a trap" (he wanted to hear "Burning Love"). I've played gigs when I was almost too sick to stand up, including bouts of stomach flu. I accepted an induction into my state's music hall of fame when I had pneumonia. But I played and enjoyed it!  There is one night, though, that I feel like I should contribute to my blog. This is known as "My Gig with Billy Buck and His Kentucky Boys". (NOTE: I have changed to name in the event that the original "art...