Trent Franks or TRENT TANKS-No thanks

This Huff Post about Trent Franks is revelation regarding the low mentality and absolute stupidity wrapped up in ego and condescension that is typical of the GOP alleged leadership. A moron people elect these guys and you begin to wonder if the country deserves and Obama. A seemingly rational human being pitted against a hoard of intellectual suicide bombers who have one thing on their minds the defeat Obama and Democratic agenda. They care not a whit for their constituents and the country. what they care about is power that is unbridled and unproductive to all but those in the very wealthiest and most selfish. Collectively the FAR RIGHT are the country's form of hemorrhoid. A big pain in the ass.

My Father

My dad died yesterday at age 87. He was adored by his family. I am the oldest, his namesake and the black-sheep. I am the only one of the seven siblings who does not live withing a few miles of the lake front home on Burden Lake New York.
I loved my dad and I know he loved me but we were very different people but that changes nothing he was my father and a great and good man.
Last night when I couldn't sleep I went out by the pool and I had a great flash of memory. The day my dad taught me how to swim at Nassau lake in front of the lakeside Burger Stand my Aunt Jenny owned. We were in the water and he held out his arms and I would flail the water towards him and he would take two steps back just enough so he could reach me if I got a mouthful of water. I remember his laughter and his dark wavy hair. I learned how to swim that day. That is how I taught my daughter and I took the same gleeful joy watching her splash and being just close enough to grab her. Lessons learned
The earliest childhood memory I have between ages two and three is falling down the back stairs of our house in Albany. I vividly remember tumbling over and over down the stairs to the basement landing. I have had this memory real or imagined all my life. As I reached the bottom of the stairs he being outside heard the tumult and me screaming crying ran to the bottom and picked me up and held saying over and over "my poor baby" or words to that effect as I cried and he soothed. I had a broken collar bone and remember the trip to the hospital and days in a bath tub with X crossed bandages but more than any other childhood or infantile memory I clearly remember him holding me, comforting me and loving me and knowing because of that I was all right.
Once he told me in private during our tumultuous years "I'm not worried about you you'll be alright. You can take care of yourself it was my youngest by 21 years brother he was most concerned for. He was right because he taught me how to swim.

Kennedy

I am a born in the year 1949 baby boomer from the East Coast, therefore so much of how I see and absorb political abstracts and reality is strained through my Irish Italian background, the Democratic party and of course the three Kennedy brothers who were, in effect, our Knights of the Round Table with all their epic deeds and disasters, all their personal and public trials. Their heroics and their hubris make them singular and giants among contemporaries who are no where near their equals. There is no question as a clan, a family they are intensely unique and yet representative of our flawed but forever trying to be better selves.
John, Robert, Ted all common names for uncommon men.
Perhaps with Ted Kennedy's passing the momentum to end this idiotic health care debate will get going and those opposed will be shammed into doing the correct thing in Ted Kennedy's memory.

Elvis Rest In Peace

I thinks its like this. people are like pendulums as good as you can be is as bad as you can be. I suppose this might explain Elvis and Nixon and all the corruption that sometimes evolves from those with the best and initially, purest of intentions.
What Elvis left to the world far outweighs any of his negatives. The people who are responsible for Elvis's down hill ride besides himself, are the same people, for example who never told him the pants were too short of that stupid sequined white suit and who told him to stop wearing black leather. They really never got it in the first place they were along for the vampire ride and Elvis went along with it because we all know "Its great to be King"-He got lost as we all do and that's why I like the rest of us still love him he did "Treat Me Nice" Sorry that's been bugging me forever.

Les Paul- American Genius

For any of us who play guitar this is a very sad day. Les Paul whose name is synonymous with the instrument passed away at 94. Paul was a giant in terms of an industry and an art form. It is safe to assume everything we hear,every note of recorded music is the way it is because of Les Paul for he was not only an extraordinary guitarist he was an inventor and innovator of the first order right up their with Edison and Ben Franklin. A purveyor of American ingenuity he blazed the trail of multi-track recordings. Les Paul invented the overdub as I understand, the concept of the first multi-track Ampex tape recorder sprung from the fertile brain of Les Paul. His recordings with his former wife Mary Ford of songs like "Dear One (Waiting for the Sunshine) and the phenomenal "How High the Moon" stand up today as brilliant playing coupled with technical wizardry.

When Les Paul's right elbow was shattered in a car accident they were getting ready to fuse the bones, he instructed the doctors to bring his guitar and he had them fuse it at an angle so he could continue playing. His pictures from the early 50's on show him holding the guitar with his arm nearly at a perfect right angle.
Perhaps the most incredible thing about Paul is that he was gigging at least once a week in Manhattan all through his nineties. I don't know the details of his last months but he was working at his usual gig as recently as six months ago because I saw it advertise. He basically played and performed until the very end sharp and brilliant even with arthritis I saw a TV show where he was gallivanting across the neck of his Les Paul guitar more nimble than many one fifth his age and brilliantly inventive his playing always had a sense of flash and humor. He led a life than must be admired and wondered over beloved and iconized by any and all of us who ever plucked the strings of the instrument long enough to learn anything about it. One cannot think of the electric guitar with out thinking of two men Leo Fender (who's one hundredth anniversary of his birthday was last week) and of course the mighty marvelous Les Paul.
I own a 1967 Les Paul Gold Top it is perhaps, aside from my wife, the thing I treasure most in life. For me it is a magical thing.For me it is Excalibur and when I take it from its case I always feel a tingle of excitement even though I have owned it for over 34 years. When ever I play a gig it never fails somebody will walk up to me and ask"It that the real thing?" The Les Paul was more than the real thing it is the thing. I always smile and nod yes. They shake their envious heads and walk away usually backwards as one would walk from an idol in a temple. Which is what my LP is when it is on its stand on a stage somewhere. The guitar elevates my playing. I take solace in the fact that every time I open the case I will be reminded of his greatness by the familiar signature below the Gibson logo and in my small way play just a little better because I have my Les Paul in my hand but my guitar will always be his- A Les Paul- and any guitarist knows it doesn't get any better than that.

Madame Justice and Spector's Crazy

What a wonderful moment in American his to see the new justice and the president standing side by side and to hear both of their inspiring words. Its in these precious moments we know we are a great and good country. Then they have the moron who confronted Spector yesterday on MSNBC and you realize the we are also infested with idiots. I swear even the host Dylan -whatever his name is- seemed embarrassed by it. The fool claims Obama broke his oath of office and the constitution by appointing Czars(!)-He absolutely made no sense what so ever. Perhaps he has an illness or something that prevents him from speaking in complete sentences because he truly seemed either so nervous he could not talk or, and I say this with all due respect (*as Bill O would say), he is slightly retarded. He was babbling and I honestly do not think he was all there. It was a weird television moment because if he is representative of that opposition to health care reform they are in trouble. He needs medical attention or meds immediately and I say this with complete seriousness. He was rather pathetic frankly. The contrast between the two events could not have been more stark . The guy was right out of "Deliverance". It was not his fault if he is slow it's the people who put him up to the appearence and if I were a Republican I would keep him far away from a TV studio.

Arlen Spector and the Penn Crazies

I just watched Arlen Spector ( of whom I am no fan) defending himself and the Health Care plan(s)
in a Town Hall meeting and it was enlightening not for them but for me. While people say they can't understand the plan(s) I couldn't understand half the questions. For example a relatively young women reading from a paper asked the senator how he was going to protect the Constitution and get back to its true meaning. I would like to ask her when was the last time she read that document. All these "citizens" who claim they want their country back I ask them:back from what?
I keep looking at these people many of whom are overweight, badly dressed and ill spoken and abysmally ignorant of most up the facts. All seem incredibly paranoid and sure that they are so important individually once the government has their medical records that they, the Black helicopters are going to make a point of rounding them up. Maybe its me I'm willing to concede that I am not a person who has ever wanted a normal existence and I thrive on living outside the what people consider the "real world" I am a musician and artist so I don't really cotton to normalcy as America sees it but that does not make me any less hard working and tax paying as a "citizen" . For me all that mom and apple pie stuff is for the birds but like everybody else I do need access to health care, as does my beloved wife and we each had life threatening illnesses in the last year and know all to well about insurance and medical expenses, and the stupidity of these so called everyday people is shocking.