Mayor Bloomberg Goes off Deep End, Thinks He’s God.

This is what happens when the State runs things over private choice. Once they took over the Medical field in the 1950s with Medicare, the government then decided that they can tell us what’s good for us. After all, since medicine was now a collective and we are all paying into the "system" the government decided that they could tell us what was good for us. It’s only natural. They own the plan, you just shut up and do as you are told!


If you could have a single payer health plan, like your car insurance, nobody could tell you what to do. If you used it too much, your costs, and yours alone, could increase. But since collectivism has crept into almost everything we do, we get absolute crack-pots like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who thinks he alone knows all and you just are too stupid to understand what he’s putting down in the name of helping you.

Besides being totally mentally ill to believe banning sodas over 16 oz is going to do any good, Mayor Bloomberg first agreed to term limits then decided he should overturn that law so he can do the “Chavez Thing” and appoint himself Mayor For Life!. Good luck to him. Perhaps he felt that by being mayor forever that this will somehow keep someone from throwing a net over him and taking him to a Nut House because if anyone should belong in a mental institution, it's Mayor Bloomberg. The guy is delusional if he thinks this will do anything but make him look foolish. More foolish.

Like this is the biggest problem facing the city of New York! Unemployment is growing, people are shooting each other for drugs, taxes are increasing and people are leaving New York in droves and up in the clouds of Mt Olympus, Emperor Nero is applauding.

But such are things these days in the Formerly Supreme United States of America where up is down and right has somehow become wrong. This man Bloomberg professes to not understanding what all the fuss is about. He’s either lying or stupid. I’ll vote for both.

So I'll be quitting my job this week so I can run 20 oz sodas to New York City. I know I’ll be risking arrest but the payoff will be enormous. I plan on making some good money selling Black Market Beverages on the streets of Manhattan.

Me: Hey man, you need some sodas?

Addict: Yeah man, whatchugot?

Me: I've got 2-litters of Mountain Dew, the hardest stuff you'll find in a bottle, man.

Addict: Oh man, yeah, how much?

Me: That'll be $30.00.

Addict: Thirty? You crazy man? I can get 20 16 oz bottles for that money.

Me: Well go ahead, bro, and have fun opening up all them bottles.

Addict: Just kiddin, man, here's your money, gimme the stuff will ya?

Me: Cool dude, I'll be here every Tues and Thursday.

There you have it. I am off on a new vocation. Der Mayor has created a new profession for me. A new Prohibition and if I play my cards right, maybe I’ll start me a new Kennedy-like clan built off selling my illegal sodas for willing addicts to buy.

What a country!

Greek Election a Referendum on Obama’s Anti-Austerity Advice

From recent polling, Greece’s center-right “New Democracy” party has been gaining favor again in light of recent events where Germany and the International Monetary Fund have both recommended that the soon to be impoverished nation should start taking responsibility for their own actions.

The New Democracy and Socialist PASOK parties both favor the austerity plans that have been put forth by the European Union. Greece’s radical left party, Syriza, opposes these austerity measures but favors continued financial support from the EU which is akin to saying; "We'll take your money but promise you nothing.".

Greece is the bigger deal as a referendum on the present state of U.S. economic policy since France, having just ousted Nicolas Sarkozy, isn’t in nearly the trouble financially as Greece is right now.  These are desparate times in Greece and to see which way the people turn will determine if they will remain a debtor nation or regain a respected financial stature in the world.

President Obama just last week offered his sage advice on helping the Greek economy by advising the EU to back off their austerity plan for the country and instead provide more stimulus for the hapless Greeks.  After all, it’s worked so well here in the U.S., right? 

This message was also echoed by that great congressional financial mastermind, Barney Frank, who so successfully engineered the fall of the U.S. housing market by staunchly denying in front of an investigatory panel that there was nothing unsound about government mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which collapsed three years later taking the U.S. economy into recession. Sorta just fills you with optimism, don't it?

Germany and the IMF have since weighed in that floating bonds to bail out Greece or providing any additional funds, which would come from German taxpayers, would be like throwing money down a bottomless pit. Christine Lagarde of the IMF recommended Greek citizens start paying their own taxes.  The Greeks have expressed mock outrage and denials but I have a friend who has owned a house in Greece for the past 15 years and he’s yet to pay a dime in property tax so there just may be something to what Ms. Lagarde is saying.

So asking taxpayers in one part of the EU to bail out tax scofflaws in another probably doesn’t sit well with the vast majority of German taxpayers or it’s government. I’m guessing.

If the radical left should prevail in Greece’s elections, voting down the austerity approach to the Greek debt crisis, the people's voice will be clear. But if the New Democrats gain enough seats and build a majority with the Socialist party, the country just may accept the EU austerity measures and bring financial responsibility back to a country out of control when it comes to spending money they don’t make and can’t print.

This would be a rebuke of the Obama administration’s recommendations proving that despite the irresponsibility of a few countries, the EU isn’t so stupid as to accept financial advice from people who have never run a hot dog stand before.

Now if we can only bring some financial responsibility back to the U.S.

Won't Someplace Just Hurry-up and Collapse Already?

I’m just tired of waiting. All this putting off until tomorrow to do the right thing about the deficit and the national debt is making me wonder if anything can actually cause a financial collapse in this country anymore. The nation is supposedly $15 Trillion in the hole and states are running deficits all over but nothing seems to actually collapse. The payrolls are being met and the people on public assistance seem to be getting their public assistance.  We’re supposed to be teetering on the edge of a cliff.

So won’t someplace just hurry up and go over the edge financially so we can get this whole chain reaction fiscal cliff thing over with already?

Anybody, Greece, California, Spain, Rhode Island, Portugal, Missisippi… we can't go up until we hit bottom so we might as well get it over with. All we hear is that it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. So something happen already, Christ!

The stimulus bills, the government borrowing, the floating of bonds and the increases in taxation all are just going into holding up the government infrastructure of public unions and federal systems. There is no return on this money being spent because it’s being spent on government; it’s just providing a holding pattern. Without some sort of growth, this sorry excuse for financial policy will crumble. Eventually we'll have to pay all this borrowed money back, right?

The more people thrown out of work means there’s less tax money for the State. The more money the State tries to take at this point will throw more people out of work. The State has regulated and taxed us to the point where business cannot function and yet the regulations and increases keep coming.

Had this financial house of cards been allowed to go through it’s natural correction back in 2004 and had the banks not been "saved" we’d be coming out of it by now. The more it gets put off, the worse it ends up. This is not new, our ruling party has made the same mistake before.
But at this point there isn’t much do about it now but just let it collapse.

The government pension system, Social Security, Medicaid and public assistance programs will eventually not only not be able to meet their obligation to send out funds to recipients but won’t be able to meet their payrolls. Everything, government contracts, pension funds, sick day compensation, disability and so forth should be put back on the table and re-thought because right now, the costs of government has outstripped the taxpayer’s ability to pay. But that can't happen until the states file for bankrupsy.

So let it all collapse already. I’m waiting.

Mexico Continues to Mishandle Drug War

Had enough of the “War on Drugs” yet El Presidente Calderon? How’s it going for you and your establishment? Good? No, not so good.

A year or two back the Mexican government almost had it. They were exploring the possibility of legalizing drugs in Mexico. But when the U.S got wind of Mexico making an executive decision, that idea got squashed pretty darn quick.  Just who do they think they are anyway, their own government?

When it comes to the U.S. calling the tune, Mr. Calderon will dance to “La Cucaracha” around a sombrero quicker than you can say “50,000 citizens killed in six years”.

So the plan remains to continue to throw bodies at the Cartels. But as soon as the army shoots a Cartel "Pistolero" down, another desperate man (or woman) jumps in to take their place to continue the fight for their drug trade and the huge money it generates.  The Cartels then target the police and the body count rises for them and the civilian population caught in the cross-fire, living in almost constant fear for their lives since everyone knows that the police are in on the deal with the drug suppliers as well.

How is Mexico to win?

The answer is: They can’t. They won’t , ever. It’s not possible. It was never possible.

Why?

Because what they and all governments are dealing with is a Market Force. It is the demand for these certain drugs and the money they generate that drives people to risk all to fulfill this demand. If there’s money to be made, people will bring you what you desire and are willing to pay for. Market forces are unstoppable. They answer to no person and to no government.

Making certain drugs illegal forces them underground. This means the manufacture and supply of these drugs also goes underground. Government will work to keep them out of the hands of society and shadowy cartels will work to bring them into society. Every other means will be shut out. The money this underground activity generates is impossible to track and will be used to corrupt influential people, buy arms and fund terror all over the world.
By making these drugs illegal, the government has literally created its own adversary by making sure only the Cartels, desperate people willing to kill to control their government-made business, get the money generated by their exclusive contract for the sale of them.

Legalizing drugs ends this exclusive contract by opening up the market and allowing competition. If any licensed facility can sell them, how can they be stopped? Why would a person go to a less than stellar neighborhood in the dead of night when they can go to a safe place in the daylight? And the money, licensing, taxes and business assessments go to the local governments, not the Cartels. This money can be tracked and taxed. Thus the Cartels will be destroyed and the money circulated worldwide to fund anti-government activities and terror will dry up.

No, it’s not a Utopian ideal, there will still be addicts but since drugs would be legal, the money once devoted to jails, guns, police and corrections can now fund public rehab facilities, councilors and anti-drug education programs so that if a person wants to get clean, they can. As it stands now, there are few publicly funded rehab facilities and there are massive waiting lists for every bed.

Right now people who want drugs have no trouble getting them regardless of their illegality, yes?  So to say drugs should not be made legal because of the dangers of addiction doesn't wash. It is an arguement for the status quo, saying let’s leave everything as it is. As it is, is not working.

The Drug Cartels cannot make more demands if drugs are legalized because they would no longer control the distribution of drugs any more than they can control the distribution of another formerly banned substance, beer.

There is no good argument against legalizing drugs right now except the "come clean" admission that by keeping drugs illegal, the government maintains control over a massive police and penal system which brings jobs to many. Who cares if innocent people are being mowed down in the streets!?

But the important thing would be to take the money out of the hands of the Cartels which legalization will do.

People aren't going to do more drugs because they are legal. Right now a person who wants to try them has NO TROUBLE getting their hands on them despite any perceived penalties.

Just because the big news is about Mexico that the U.S. is any safer then what’s going on south of the border. Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ combine for almost 800 murders each year. Many of them drug related. New York City annually has around 500 murders. Many also due to the sale, consumption and trafficking of drugs made illegal by the government. Now think about many of the other big cities in the U.S. like Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA, Miami, FL and Los Angeles, CA. Just because it doesn't make the news doesn't mean it’s not happening.

Just to add some perspective, there is another class of drugs in the world, "legitimate" drugs made by licensed legitimate businesses, big multi-continental businesses as big as any cartel that we can walk into any Pharmacia and buy with a doctor's note. It's classified as MEDICINE! The competition over these drugs is also fierce. There is also great heaping wads of cash aimed to influence politicians, tax coffers, government agencies, advertisers and, most importantly, doctors. They also command armies, armies of lawyers to combat lawsuits stemming from all the side effects their products have on people.

More people take these drugs than all the illegal drugs COMBINED.

People become addicted to these drugs also, rob banks and gas stations to get the money for them and generally behave in the same fashion as the people who are hooked on illegal drugs. Their actions are illegal but the drugs are legal.

So what's the hell's the difference?

Doctors: Pushers in Lab Coats

This is the state of medicine in the United States today. I was at a pharmacy/mini mart last week and a kid jumped the counter, grabbed a bunch of prescriptions waiting to be picked up and attempted to escape on foot with them. He didn’t get out of the parking lot.

This poor sap was just doing what many of our fellow citizens are doing these days: Trying to get their fix. He must have run out of doctors to prescribe for him.

I changed doctors a few years back when my former GP offered me a certain male enhancement drug. I never expressed an interest in aquiring it nor did I ask. I was there for a checkup and we hadn’t even started yet. That was it for him.

I have always found it strange that people have so many prescription drugs lying around. There are a lot of drugs in cirulation these days and they're all prescription drugs.

I met a woman not too long ago who told me the story of how she came to be divorced. Her former husband had a thriving construction business. She told me that he injured his ankle on the job and the doctor prescribed Oxycondone for the pain. Doesn’t this man, a man with no history of addictive behavior, become hooked on this stuff? Doesn’t he lose the business, his marriage and ends up living on the street? Yep, scared the crap out of me to hear this. How can this be?

Legendary musician and self-proclaimed child porn researcher, Pete Townsend of the British rock band,The Who, once said about his heroin addiction that he was “Addicted the very first time” he used the drug and “chased the feeling of that first high” for the rest of the time he was involved with it.

Much like the American weapons industry and our national addiction to war, we have a huge economic interest in the manufacture and distribution of pharmascutical drugs. It’s big business! But these drugs are so powerful, they can take over a person’s life and negatively affect the lives of all they are involved with, their colleagues and their families. But what can you do, a customer is a customer.

I'm not going out on a limb when I say that most of the murder and robbery going on in this country is drug related.  Nobody wants to rob a bank if they don’t have to. These are acts of desperate people but with the wasted efforts of our penal coloney state, there are no resources to help people get clean. A jail cell, yes, a drug facility, no.

Drug companies have a huge sales force with the power of the “junket” and “seminars” that they get doctors to "teach" and to promote their “product” for big rewards. Who cares if it’s killing people? Certainly not the drug industry.

It has been reported that more Americans are now hooked on manufactured drugs than on the old tired stuff like Marijuana, Hashish, Cocaine and Heroin COMBINED. All that is oh, so yesterday. Your parents did those drugs way back in the 70s and 80s for crying out loud, why horse around with that stuff when you can get the good, clean high of a high quality pharmaceutical?

And it’s all LEGAL! Well most of it anyway. The manufacture and distribution methods are all above board at any rate. These are the "legitimate" drugs, the drugs allowed by the State. Those others are illigitimate. There's a big difference, see?

All good for the economy.  People gotta have good jobs so they can have good homes and nice communities with good schools to raise their kids in.

But these very same communities are in jeopardy and although the damage in dollars and cents may be harder to track, the toll outweighs the gains. Nobody grows up wanting to be a drug addict but we have plenty of drug addicts. Some are born but most are MADE.

There are few professions where the practitioners take an oath. Some swear to uphold the law, another swears to uphold the Constitution but one in particular vows to “do no harm”. All these oaths have been violated and this will continue no doubt. While people don’t trust the police much and certainly don’t trust the President, many people trust their doctors and believe what their doctor tells them. These drugs are “medicine” and most believe that it wouldn’t be recommended if they didn’t need it.

Yes, doctors take an oath but they don’t take a vow of poverty and in our society, as in any society, money does most of the talking. People, and doctors are people first, like to have things and what’s the harm in prescribing this stuff?

By the looks of what’s going on in our nation, plenty of harm.

Hiring Slows in the Summer

In case you didn’t already know it, companies don’t do much hiring in the Summer months. That means that we should be seeing a slowdown in hiring statistics through the next three months or so. Most people take off for the Summer. Human resource personal, hiring managers and organizational management all go on vacation at some point and are just not available for interviewing and decision making and so most companies will wait until they become available again before they even start a hiring process. Thats the way of business.   

If you’ve ever had the unfortunate opportunity to be looking for work during the Summer, you know it’s hard to get anywhere because the person you would be interviewing with is “away”. So is their boss.

So it will be interesting to see if the government’s job numbers will “improve” during a traditionally slow period. We know the Obama regime needs growth to appear to be actually doing something so will the liberal media attempt to further skew the numbers and spin them into the sun shining through the clouds? I’m curious to see.  

In the USA at least, the first quarter of every year is the best time to find a job. Many companies will know by this time what they will need for the coming year as far as resources are concerned and will do most of their hiring then. Hiring traditionally tapers off in the second quarter and then drops dead in July and August. Things then pick up a bit come September and into the Fall. Winters are also tough after the Christmas season in the Midwest and the formerly industrial North East.

So what we are looking at in the short term future SHOULD be a drop in job “creation” whatever that means in the age of Obama. I’m frankly surprised that anybody is hiring given the uncertainty in the marketplace due to looming national debt, mandated tax increases and the economy killing specter of ObamaCare.

But we just may see an “improvement” beyond the realm of human belief systems this Summer since we go to the polls this November. The news could very well be that things are getting better but only to the extent of what the nationally owned media will report.  

So as May turns into June most of us will once again be planning our “Stay-cations” since we still can’t afford to go to the places we couldn't afford to go last Summer and at any rate would most likely feel supremely guilty about it if we could given the situation of many people in this country right now.

But this should give us all time to ponder another four years of an Obama regime. Romney may not be the perfect candidate as far as the pure US conservatives go but at least he’s balanced a checkbook and has submitted a budget as a Massachusetts governor and has lived within it’s guidelines. That’s more than can be said of the present administration in which many members have never held a private sector job and who have yet to submit a budget to Congress for scrutiny and approval. This is in violation of the US Constitution I might add but what else is new?

With no budget coming from the president in 3 years, with no plan to stop spending and no idea how to combat the growing demand for power to run all those air conditioners from San Francisco to New York City this Summer season, this nation is fully ensconced in a grip of fear. Fear for the future for ourselves, our children and our nation.  

And all we've gotten from the present administration is threats. Obama theatens the Supreme court not to overturn his pie-in-the-sky healthcare mandate, threats to Congress that he will "go it alone" by using his Presidential edicts to circumvent their authority and threats against his opposition candidates. Yet he has no answers, no plans and no budget.

A future with Obama as President is no future at all.  

Obama Shuck’s & Jives on TV for Young Voters

If things could not get any stranger in this nation, the President of the United States sets up a campaign visit to a network television show to attempt to court the “youth vote”. Mr. Hollywood needs to put on a good show for the rubs since he has nothing else to actually give them for his 3 and ½ years in office.

Mr. Obama is doing what he does best, taking his one-man good guy traveling socialist tent show on the road. He’ll sing like Al Green, he’ll dance like Bo Jangles and he’ll tell ‘em all what they want to hear. He’ll be the glad handing, upbeat and cheerful guy everybody would like to have a beer with. Well, almost everybody.

The real irony in the president’s attempt to revitalize the youth vote is that these are the very people he and his policies are trampling the most and relegating them all to a future of wage slavery. Really, because of this man and his anti-private enterprise, big government supporting, never stop spending and never stop taxing approach to government is exactly why the younger generation, the recent college graduates and those 20-somethings out there in the workforce today, will have no future.

The reason Barack Obama is speaking at so many colleges these days is that the adults have had it with his “Just like you” act and the only people who still give him the time of day are the student activist groups and campus radicals that flourish under the government subsidized university system. This is the very system that has put these students under the Cuban heel of debilitating student loan debt. There is no need to cut costs at the University level since the government run student loan program will lend you any amount of money you need to cover the charge. That’s taxpayer money I might add, taken out of the economy for the funding of student loans.

But without a good job, you won’t be able to pay it back. This is why student loan debt is approaching $1 Trillion, another bubble just waiting to burst.

Have you heard the spots on the radio? Pick one, they’re all the same: Obama speaking in front of a student assembly and he’ll say something and everybody starts screaming and his voice will rise above the din to reach his trademark crescendo to finish his point every single time.

All just Wind and Sails.

Obama targets the youth vote specifically because these kids have no life experience beyond the 18 to 25 years or so they've been on the planet. They don't remember what it was like under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush I or Bill Clinton. They are all just pictures in a book to them and the economic successes and failures of these men have no meaning to them because they never lived through them. It is this lack of historical perspective Obama thrives upon. His style over substance rhetoric, pie in the sky platitudes and "with it" speaking style provide the dazzle of spectacle and appeals to their good hearts and good intentions.

But if they could think about it for even a minute they would put two and two together. They can’t get a job in their major, they can’t pay their student loans, they won’t be able to buy anything on credit as long as their loans are outstanding like a car or a condo. Nobody is coming to save them from the situation they are on the hook for. There are only so many resources and in time everyone realizes that at some point we all have to take responsibility for our actions and results will vary in the outcome of our lives and despite the promises, this is the ultimate reality we face as adults.

This is a man who has spent and spent again money this nation has yet to earn to the tune of $5 Trillion. Oh yes, there was debt before but nothing like this, ever.

There is no return on this money that has mainly gone to prop up public unions across the States, Wall Street banks and at General Motors Corp at the expense of taxpayers and shareholders alike, it’s just plain GONE.

We have lost 5 million jobs since 2007. We have had to devote more resources to people who aren't working in the form of Unemployment Compensation, Food Stamps and Housing Subsidies. Despite the “everything’s fine” approach to the economy, things aren’t turning around at all. Mass layoffs by every sector of the economy continues and companies are very concerned about the future costs of Obama’s National Healthcare Reform Act. Every initiative of the healthcare plan puts financial pressures on employers. Who will hire with this much uncertainty?

A study for The Associated Press has found that 50% of 2012 graduates are unemployed or under employed. Even if that’s partially true, the students screaming for Obama in the nations universities are going to have a very hard time of it come graduation.

So if it’s the nation’s student population who are still going for Obama’s Elmer Gantry revival act, what kind of education have they really gotten in college?

Certainly not the education that they’ve got waiting for them.

The Secret Service's Secret Services.

Is this what the long suffering American taxpayer, the ones of us who still pay taxes that is, deserves? Is this what our government's vaunted minions do with our money, under aged hookers? Well, not in Columbia anyway since hooking is legal but really, UNDER AGED HOOKERS?

Twenty call girls at last count, too. This is surely setting a shining example of American professionalism at the government level that I’m sure will stand as a model for other country’s intelligence services to emulate. This is how we do it in the States, right boys? Across the Atlantic the Israelis are scratching their heads. 

At least the breakdown of government services, the pouring of ever increasing amounts of money into every institution and getting less and less from them, is also showing in the higher levels. These people have bitchen, high paying government jobs that they apparently don’t take seriously. Don't they understand the struggles people are going through in this country while they're out having their "foreign relations?"

They have one job. Not multiple tasks like people who actually work for a living have, like take orders, process orders, follow through on the orders, catalog the orders, file the orders, call to check on the orders, run the credit checks for the orders and confirm delivery of the orders etc.

These people just have the job of protecting US diplomats. And the top US diplomat is the President of the United States when he’s on the road and I don’t want to see a sitting US president get popped in some foreign land because America’s "best and brightest" are too hung over from a night of debauchery to protect the president. Did they join to give service to the country or for the drugs, booze and broads? And can you imagine if this happened under Ronald Reagan?  It’s just shoddy, out of control behavior. 

These people are all the same whether they're the CIA, TSA, DHS, BATF or the Secret Service: They live a life well above the level of a majority of the people who pay their salaries as well as living a life above the law. In other words, they can get away with murder and we all know it.

While they may be good at investigating militia groups in Montana, crushing men, women and children in Texas and setting up church members in Idaho, it turns out that all the government's men are just plain lucky when it comes to protecting the president of the United States.

The Russians, Chinese and the Arab extremists are all collectively slapping their heads today when they read the news and realized that they could have been “pumping” information out of these yoyos for years! And who says they haven’t been? The president’s itinerary was found in some of the rooms that these guys had the hookers in. And we all know how well we can trust hookers, right? Hearts of gold they have, didn’t you ever see Pretty Woman?

Fry ‘em all. Every single one should lose not only their jobs but their pensions, which I’m sure, are pretty impressive given that it’s government that’s paying the big money for talent these days. They’re the biggest employer in DC. Throw ‘em all out.

That will give them time to think with the brains instead of their weenies. 

Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: The Channel – 1980 to 1991

The Channel used to sit at 25 Necco Street, at the edge of the Fort Point Channel that separates South Boston from the Financial District not far from where the Boston Tea Party happened back in 1773. It was surrounded by old brick factory buildings that seemed to be somewhat inhabited but also seemed to be very dark. The large parking lot was built for the other buildings as well and at night it would stretch out into the darkness beyond The Channel's parking lot lights. I always found it spooky. It was apparently also a great place to burn a car since I can recall burning cars in the parking lot on at least 3 occasions over the years.

The Channel was the 2^nd largest viable music venue in Boston at the time with a “suggested” legal capacity of 1700 people. The Boston Garden was the biggest venue in town but if you couldn't move 13,000 tickets, forgetaboutit! The Orpheum Theater, which is still in business, with its 2,700 seat capacity has no dancing and these little wooden seats built back during their last renovation in 1916 (no fooling). No matter who was playing, you just sat there and watched them and none too comfortably either. If you were even remotely tall, your legs were jammed up like a plane passenger in 4th class seating. The next closest place in size, The Paradise nightclub up on Commonwealth Ave, only officially held 185 patrons in the main room.

No, The Channel was IT as the city's #1 concert club with its large open floor in front of the stage, multiple bars, massive sound system with giant speaker stacks on both sides of the stage, laid back rules and low cover charge. It was all about selling the drinks and you can’t buy a drink if you can’t get in. Especially since the drinking age was going up in Massachusetts. It went from 18 to 20 in 1979 and from 20 to 21 in 1984 spelling the death knell for many of Boston’s original music clubs of which only two from that era survives today: TT the Bear’s Place and Johnny D's in Cambridge.

Some of the more memorable touring acts I saw were Tommy James, who blew me away with a great set of new, old and Christian music. Jimmy Cliff was unbelievable, singing “Many Rivers to Cross” two and ½ hours into his show clear as a bell amid the plooms of marijuana smoke wafting up from the audience. Must’ve seen Greg Allman play The Channel at least 4 times. Not because I was much of a fan but because my roommate, Jeanie, was. Still he put on a good show each time.  One time Jeanie managed to walk right up to him and punched Greg in the shoulder saying “Great Show, Greg!” She actually didn't think she could get that close to him so when she did, she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Smooth. What is it that they say when you actually meet your hero? You can never think of a thing to say. But one thing you can say about Greg, he’s a good sport. He did tell her “Thanks”.

I was playing in my own band, Cool McCool, in Boston during most of the 80s and  so it seemed I was always working when my favorite bands played there. Missed The Cramps every single time and also Social Distortion but I caught a lot of local acts. Probably saw Til Tuesday 15 or 16 times between Jonathan Swifts, Scotch & Sounds and the Channel. I thought Gang Green was the greatest band on earth when I caught their last 3 songs at The Paradise and so I made sure I caught the whole set the next week at the Channel and then thought that they were close to, if not the worst. They were so full of shit!

Also remember a standout set by Casey Lindstrom's post New Models band "Shake the Faith" They dropped out of site afterwards but they really worked that big stage for a trio. It is a struggle when the band you achieve success with breaks up, and "Say What" was a big hit in 1983, and then you have to pick up the pieces and claw your way back up the ladder again.

The Fools and Ball & Pivot were other favorite local acts but my favorite Boston band was Berlin Airlift bar none and their lone eponymous album remains in my personal Top 10.

Playing The Channel was a unique experience since they were the biggest club in town and booked a lot of local acts. Every band in and out of Boston clambered to play there and it seems they gave almost everybody a shot. Mostly this came off as 3 to 4 bands in an evening but later on these “New Music” nights became, as our guitarist James put it, “Cattle Calls” pitting anywhere from 5 to 6 bands a night. James recalls nights where there were more but I can’t remember a night with more than 6 bands. These were nerve wracking affairs since once you were done with your set, and lord help you if you went over your time, you had to get your stuff off the stage and out of the building. Nothing set aside, get it out! You had plenty of help though since the next band would start massing at the side of the stage to help you get your stuff off as your set clock wound down.

New bands started on Tuesday. If you could draw enough people on a Tuesday you got a Wednesday. If not, you got another Tuesday. It took us about 3 years to get to a Saturday night opening slot. We could draw but being from the suburbs, it was hard to be consistent on a weeknight.

We played The Channel almost monthly between 1986 and 1990. Tony, our drummer, got us the shows and it was his idea to concentrate on the biggest venue in town, an idea that worked out well for us in the long run. Sound check was at six o’clock sharp and that first February I made a terrible discovery: They didn’t heat the place when nobody was there. They came in at 5:55 pm and just turned the lights and the heat on. Or maybe just the lights. Well, in February it was something like 10 degrees F in there if that. I don't remember anything about playing the show that evening but I'll never forget playing that sound check. Just brutal.

But what, and give up "SHOW BUSINESS?!!”

There was a memorable show where I thought James had my amp and he thought I had it so subsequently when we showed up, no bass amp. But the bass player from The Beach Masters, Boston’s premier Surf band, was gracious enough to let me use his. And yes, his amp was infinitely better than my low-end 130 watt Peavey Combo. It was a Trace Eliot with the little blue florescent light on it. Cool! It sounded great. No, I didn't upgrade after that.

The reason you played a Peavey Comp amp was that it can fall out of the van on the Express Way, get ping-ponged by a dozen taxi cabs and it will still work. At the end of the world there will be only cockroaches and Peavey amplifiers left to see the lights go out. But if you can somehow manage to blow it up, you could get another one for $80.00 tops. If one has to put up with a bit too much mid-range and questionable low end quality, well, it's a trade off. Plus, James was sporting a solid-state Crate Combo with a pawn-shop 1970s era Electra solid body guitar. Who's going to point fingers?

And speaking of cockroaches. I never actually ate any popcorn from that theater-style popcorn machine they had at the bar but from what I am told by some eye witnesses about what they saw crawling around the inside of that popcorn machine some evenings...well, I guess there were no known casualties. Just glad I never partook.

Our band would get $50.00 a show, a case of canned beer (Busch beer!) and a room to drink it in. Once we got to the weekend shows we got $100.00, a case of beer but no more “get in free” tickets. Those free tickets worked very well when we opened for Bachman Turner Overdrive on our first big Saturday show. The cover was $9.00 so with our ticket it was free.

Friend: “You mean I can see BTO for free?”

James:  “Well, we’ll be playing too.”

Friend: “Yeah, but BTO for free!”

James: “And our band…”

Friend: “BTO, for free?”

James:  “Great, enjoy.”

There were many good things about playing The Channel and we really enjoyed playing there. The sound was great and it could get super loud. We used to cover Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” at the end of which there are some “Oh, oh, ooooohs” and if you were off on the pitch, and we were, the monitor system would MAKE YOU PAY for your lack of precision! I thought my head was going to explode.

The staff was actually pretty nice for an original music club. Many venues around town like Jack’s (Cambridge), TT the Bears (Cambridge) and Bunratty’s (Allston) could be pretty surly to bands wanting to play “their exalted dive bar” but we didn’t get that at The Channel. It didn't seem to matter who you were or wasn't, they were a professional outfit.

The sound guys always made us a tape through the board when we asked and the tapes always sounded good. The stage crew, for having to shuffle a multitude of bands on and off the stage in a hurry and mic 'em up were as good as it got in Boston. We did what they told us to do and we got along well.

That BTO show was big for us. It was the most people we had ever played for which was about 2000 people since people were standing up against the wall in back, the signature sign of overcapacity for this place. We never met the band and I felt a bit sad for them because they were touring to support a new album and NOBODY WANTED TO HEAR IT.  The crowd would cheer at “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” but when they did a new song you could hear crickets chirping out there. They went on the “Oldies” circuit a year later.

One neat thing about playing to a big crowd for the first time and being really, really nervous and feeling the pressure to do a good job, put on a good show and essentially "not fuck up" was that when we played our regular house gig at Green Street Station in Jamaica Plain the very next afternoon, it was so relaxing. Like you could just lay back and play. Many of the people who followed the band marked THAT night as our best show ever.

I left the band in 1990 to pursue other musical interests but Cool McCool continued to play The Channel and open for other great acts like Treat Her Right and The Stompers right up until The Channel passed into Boston Rock History in 1991.

It is greatly missed.

Slavery as a Crutch

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves but they’ve never let us forget it since. Sure, President Lincoln freed them bodily but it’s become apparent that he couldn’t free them mentally and the self-proclaimed “representatives” of modern black culture have used that as a hammer to beat the current population of European descendants and their own people over the head forever after.

I can never get away from hearing that somebody else, everybody else really, is keeping them down. I’d list them all but that would be tiresome. It’s always about a want. Some want reparations, some want preferential treatment in the workplace and others just demand money up front. You know the cast of characters involved. We all do. To name them is also tiresome.

In fact I’m really just plain tired of the “woe is me” story I’ve been hearing since I was a child. I’m tired of hearing it’s my fault and I’m certainly tired of paying for something of which I never participated in the first place. I've never oppressed anybody and I’ve never owned a slave.

But my ancestors were slaves. Slaves to the Romans and since African slavery in this country started hundreds of years ago and the slavery of my people happened a thousand years ago, that is no less the same. A slave is a slave. I think I should petition Italy for reparations! I don’t think they’ve got the cash right now but perhaps I deserve some compensation for, you know, being a descendant of people who were treated poorly…way back when, sometime, you know?

In fact, my people had their butts kicked by just about everybody who was anybody at the time: The Vikings, oh those guys were bastards but not as big a group of bastards than the English! Those guys were the worst, shipping food grown in our country back to their country while we all starved and resorted to eating grass and dying by the side of the road with our mouths stained green. Well, not ME particularly but somebody I must have been related to no doubt somewhere along the line. That’s got to be worth something, right?

Damn-it! I think England should pay! We should have our representatives give “lectures” at English Universities and hold media rallies and carp loudly about how mistreated we all were back then. There are 25 million of my people on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean too.

Where’s my check?

Yes, it’s absurd and it’s not doing anybody any favors. It has become an excuse for why you're not doing well in American life. What these Race Pimps are really saying is: “You’re not good enough to compete on a level playing field.” and “You can’t make it without help”, that's all. Then you come to the point somewhere along the line that you deserve it and the next thing you know you're out in the street demanding it because you think someone is going to take it away from you but you won’t stop until someone gives it to you and for it you will stop at nothing. You will riot for it, you will burn for it and say any absurd thing under the pretense that if you still are failing then it has to be somebody else's fault. Why? Because you deserve to get it, because you were slaves...well, not you in particular but someone in your family may have been way back when, maybe. And so you have to have a "Boogie Man", a group that you must target for your continued failure. You need "Oppressors". And here we are, "Whitey is always keeping you down.".

It's like no other group of people had to ever overcome a minority situation before. Every new group of people who have come to this continent has had to deal with adversity at the hands of the majority. The Irish had to deal with the "Irish Need Not Apply" issues, the 6 days a week, 10 hours a day grindingly physical work at the mills as fodder for the nation's Industrial Revolution, the degrading aspect of being a licensed veterinarian in Ireland but only being able to get work as  a stable hand here. This is what it was like then, the history our schools no longer teach. And after all that we got to turn around and stick it to the Italians when they came!

But ultimately the, favoring, the concessions and the sense of inferiority it leads to opens the door to that other form of slavery: Dependency. But this time it’s dependence on the government who loves you and wants to keep you safe and well fed with a government roof over your head. And you can have it...just as long as you behave the way they want you to and do the things they need for you to do.

And what you have then isn’t freedom. It's quite the opposite.

Ann Romney for President!

Is there anyone more politically astute than lukewarm presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney?

When that nitwit Hilary Rosen was put up by the Obama administration to fire the first shot at her in a staged CNN “interview” about her "not working a day in her life" despite having raised 5 children, Ann Romney brilliantly countered by putting out more political talking points and character development in one response than husband Mitt has managed in four years of non-stop campaigning.

She talked about real women’s issues like jobs and that they worry most about how the looming national debt will impact their children’s futures. She reminded the public that Mitt has placed women in major roles in his administrations and organizations and that he relies upon women for their opinions.

She also brought up her battles with cancer and multiple sclerosis which I had never heard of before. Move over Sarah Palin, Ann Romney’s in town.

But most importantly, she has been able to humanize her husband in a way he hasn't managed to do for himself. Jeez, Mitt's a good guy. How do I know? Ann says so!

It was great and it was a powerful counter-punch to the president’s people who have no idea what the American people really care about and after which the entire Obama administration was trying to distance themselves from Rosen’s comments.

Yes the Romney’s are wealthy people but as far as I know, it wasn’t handed to them like the Kennedys or acquired through government work. But wealthy people still get sick, they can still raise delinquent kids, they have school committee, boosters, boy scouts, soccer and art exhibits to attend to. They can still get hooked on booze or prescription drugs and they also have bills to pay. They pretty much have the same problems with the exception, of course, that money isn’t one of them.

Prior to this incident I had read that the Obama administration and their Leftist minions were worried about Ann Romney because she had a reputation as a strong woman who was a hard worker and a rock behind the man and this incident seems to have been a test of her mettle, a shot across the bow so to speak to see how she would react. And by all indications they have every reason to be afraid because she is without a doubt a better person than anyone in the present administration and I hope they rue the day they, by their own tactics, brought Ann Romney out front and center for the American people to get to know. This blonde Jackie O could just be the mark of grace and resilience this nation could use in the coming times of trouble.  

So if it’s not over before the Republican Convention, I’d say somebody should throw Ann Romney’s hat into the ring. She’d be better than Obama in the Whitehouse.

Ann Romney 2012! 

Obama Threatens Supreme Court over Socialized Medicine Plan

President Obama has taken a second shot at the nation’s highest court over his orchestrated government takeover of U.S. health care providers.

Back in 2010 during his State of the Union speech, president Obama openly chastised the attending Supreme Court justices over their decision to strike down impingements on the right to free speech by overturning the horrendously unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. In what was politely criticized as a “breach of presidential decorum” was an overt attempt at intimidation. Obama openly castigated Justice Alito to thundering applause from the Socialist elite of the Democratic Party standing all around them.

This time Mr. Obama is trying to press a case of “Judicial Activism” for his health care plan named, in true Orwellian fashion, the “Affordable Care Act” which is currently on the Supreme Court chopping block.

This latest accusation is perhaps president Obama’s most absurd statement yet although at this stage of his presidency it's hard to tell. To brand the Supreme Court an “unelected group” when he himself, along with G.W. Bush, has perpetuated and expanded the so called government “Csar” overseers who now rule without legal precedent over all aspects of American Government. 

People like Health Czar Nancy Ann DeParle. Who elected HER? Or who elected Obama’s Medicaid Czar Dr. Donald Berwick or the director of national AIDS policy, AIDS Czar Jeffrey Crowley? And how do you suppose national border Czar Alan Bersin or Climate Czar Todd Stern managed to gain office? Add to this group: Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Science Czar John Holdren, Technology Czar Aneesh Chopra and Economic Czar Paul Volcker.  

Who are these people? All together there are 33 government Czars who draw handsome salaries of $158,000 a year and up. 

They aren’t part of the President’s Cabinet; they’re an extra set of invented lawmakers who can pass "mandates" and make policy decisions whenever they choose and Congress doesn’t get to vote on them either. What’s up with that?

They have no legal authority to do what they do and have no constitutional right to exist but there they are just the same. 

So when Mr. Obama sniffs that the Supreme Judicial Court, an actual branch of government outlined specifically in that pesky old U.S. Constitution, is an unelected group, he’s talking out his ass. I'm surprised his head didn't explode when he said it. Some nerve that guy has. 

It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will strike down ObamaCare but if it does it is neither unprecedented or a case of judicial overreach. It’s their job to do so as they have done before. It is a job that has been clearly defined in the highest law of the land from the very beginning of this nation.

And lest I forget, the president of the United States took an oath to defend the laws the Constitution have established “So help me God”.

I think the president must’ve forgotten that part.