Here i go again

Oh well I'll give this another shot. The political world is too nuts not to stick in my two cents- the crazy Bachman is history - Perry is going to humiliate himself some more by going to Carolina and New Hampshire and Santorum is on a roll.
Santorum is by far the wackiest of all- the more I hear him the more he makes Michelle B. seem sane. Santorum is a fascist- if you listen to him what he want to do more than anything is impose his rigid Roman Catholic orthodoxy on America. at every turn this is what he preaches. He is way more stiff backed than a Southern Baptist. He is a rock headed Italian American and being one in the same he is stubborn and will not bend-
He is also totally unelectable because of this. Once he starts talking to anybody outside of the Right Wing of Iowa who were ditching Newt, they will run from him like school children fleeing a nun with a ruler in detention.

The Racism Thang- Go Jimmy Go! A morning Tirad

This morning I watched that idiot Joe Scarborough beat up on Jimmy Carter for saying something my friends and I have been talking about since Obama stepped on the national stage. What planet do these people live on if they cannot see the raciest context in the Far Right's critiques and rantings? "Morning Joe"'s host maintains that only a "small segment" are "loonies" and people said much worse things about Bill and Hillary Clinton. Yes, Joe should know he said a number of those nasty insults and insinuations. The former congressmen who never fails to use the "when I was there" tact when self-righteously explaining how the world works, brags about being from the "Redneck Riviera" and loves, in fact has made a career of the fact he is the only conservative who lives on the Upper West Side!Of course , according to him they love him, He's their Redneck! The word redneck alone is associated, is practically a codeword, for the Good Old Boy racism of the post Civil War south and the worship of the Deliverance mentality that scorns the true cultural values and commodities of the Southern Americana Cultural Experience iconizes its ignorance and its obesity not only below the belt fat crainial fat as wel .
What was infuriating about this was context, Scarborough was criticizing a speech writer whose has revealed the same moral superiority and know it all redneck attributes he shares with the ultimate ole boy himself "W". The book "Speechless" describes the woeful cocoon W and ,in many respests, the media blissfully dwell in. Like Claude Raines in "Casablanca" they are "Shocked...Shocked" that president Carter could claim that there are American right Wing Obama haters who are racists! It's hilarious Carter tells the truth and everybody spits coffee through there nose. The other person who got it right was Maureen Dowd who also laid it on the line. I have often heard and thought myself. as I know many on the Left,Center AND Right have: will this African American Man , elected by the people survive? The Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, no one is immune when hatred and ideology cross the river of sanity into chaos and violence. So really Joe who do you think your kidding- only yourself

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.