I Want Out of Social Security

Here, listen, this is what I propose: The Government can keep everything they've taken  out of my paycheck since I started working at 13 years old. Everything. Keep it all. Just let me out of the program so I can put MY MONEY towards MY RETIREMENT. Is that fair. No, it actually isn't since the Federal Government has taken SO MUCH from me over my working lifetime that I will never ever get that back but perhaps there is an opportunity for me to provide for my retirement with the time I have left if the LET ME OUT of the program.

For too long this has all been a Dog & Pony show for the rubes (ie: taxpayers). For the longest time we have known that there is no TRUST FUND set aside for every working American paying into the plan even though the Federal Government insists repeatedly that there is. The money is actually coming directly out of the paychecks of people working today. There is nothing set “aside”. Today's’ Social Security payments are a direct money transfer from money earned by taxpayers TODAY.

If the program is running a deficit that means that taxes will go up for the people working today to pay the people who are no longer working and are living off of Social Security. How well would this sit with Grandma and Grandpa if they know their kids and grand kids are on the hook for their payments?  But that’s what’s happening .

But it’s not only retirement benefits and it wouldn't be so bad if the payments were only limited to retirees. It’s the SSI, the Supplemental Security Income payments that are given to everyone who says they’re hearing voices when their unemployment benefits run out that is really killing the system. Those payments also come out of the Social Security "Trust". This allows people who have never paid a dime into the Social Security “Plan” to collect benefits from it since they are deemed "Disabled". Does the Federal Government actually check whether these people are disabled or not? Nope! What the hell does the Federal Government care, it’s OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY, right? It's their job to give out the money so that's what they do. It’s all fun and games in “Other People’s Money” land. Just give it away since that’s what their job is, giving money away to people that “need” it.

That is, until the well runs dry. They it’s back to the taxpayer to get more. But what if there isn't any more? What if there are more people drawing from the well than are contributing? Then the whole shit-show hits a snag.

Although most of the time I avoid thinking about it but I sometimes imagine all the money I've earned up until this point in my life that the government has taken. I compare that figure to the fact that the Federal Government has run a $18 Trillion dollar debt. Then I imagine what I could have done with that money that they've taken out of my pocket before it even went into my pocket. The things that could have purchased, the lives I could have enriched. My life would have been better off for it too. Much better. But instead it went elsewhere. Perhaps to fund the many wars we have fought since I was born. Or to fund free abortions. Or to line the pockets of some Congressman or even the President. But where ever it went, I know it wasn't put to as good a use as it would have if I had been able to hold onto it. That's a given. 

I didn't volunteer for this. I was born into this Socialist Boondoggle and I want OUT. It was doomed to fail and with the nameless faceless government not caring enough to look twice at the people they’re giving the benefits away, taxpayers like me are left holding the bag and we can’t get out because the government is holding a gun to our heads. We can’t opt out. But I want out. In fact, I never wanted in. Not from the first day I received a paycheck when I was a kid and wondered why there was so much taken out of my first paycheck. I was told it was taxes to help the less fortunate. But I was less fortunate, I was working since I was in the sixth grade. Who could be more deserving than ME of MY MONEY. I didn't understand and I STILL don’t understand.

But that’s what Social Security is all about. YOU are too STUPID to provide for your own retirement so the government will help you provide for it whether you like it or not. YOU are incapable of providing for yourself into the future. The government knows best how to provide for you. You just have to pay it out to THEM and someday, maybe, they will pay it back to YOU.

The day I got my first paycheck was the day I became a Libertarian. I have always been a libertarian.

It just took that first check to realize it.

Is this any way to run a free country?

No, it isn't. 

Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: Jack's

Jack’s was right on Mass Ave in Cambridge just before you hit Harvard Square and where it once stood has been occupied by a large office building ever since.

The place was basically a retail store-front that was turned into a music club with the thick high glass windows still in place but blacked out. It was a good sized club for the Boston area but it would be a stretch to say it was big. It was larger than downstairs at the Rat and about the size of TT the Bear's but with a high ceiling that gave you the impression that it was bigger than it was. Not a rough crowd like at the Rat or what would sometimes show up at the Channel. Cambridge was what we called the "Soda & Lime" crowd in reference to Cambridge's reputation for an unusually low level of beer consumption. I don't know how bars even survived in Cambridge but somebody was out drinking because there are a lot of bars in that town.

As a music venue Jack's was laid out pretty well. They had a stage that had room enough for a five-piece band but not much more. Nobody was going to Duck-Walk it at any rate and it was set rather high and located to the right as you walked in the door and the bar was against the opposite wall. A major plus was that Jack's had a decent sounding pa system. Can’t recall if the monitors worked and most likely they did not since although we played there twice and I don’t remember a fucking thing about the shows, I'm going to rely on the premise that if a monitor on a Boston stage outside of the Channel Nightclub had ever worked, it would be such a standout memory in my mind.

Cambridge sported a number of music venues in those days and Jack's had plenty of competition. Johnathan Swifts, TT the Bears, Bunratty’s and the Plough & Stars were all in that neck of the woods and showcasing similar entertainment. Of these clubs, Johnathan Swifts was the better place to see a band. I was only in there once to see Til Tuesday and there was no place to hide on that stage, it was right out into the audience and you could see and hear the performers from anywhere in the room. There was also the Western Front but that was a different animal since they stuck to touring Reggae acts. Neither I nor my friends ever actually went in there because the cover was $20.00 in 1980s money which was $15 to $17 more than any place else we went to in town and hell, I didn't pay half that much to see Jimmy Cliff at the Channel so I'm gonna shell out that kind of money to see who, nobody I ever heard of at the Western Front? Fuck that. I was paying rent on my apt in West Roxbury and rent on our rehearsal spot at the Pixy Theater, I wasn't made of money! I was only insuring my car half the year as it was and I would cringe every time I broke a string on my bass since it was going to cost me $5.00 for a replacement. Makes you wonder why you put yourself through such things. But what, and give up Show Business!

We got into playing Jack’s during its last year or so of existence but it had a reputation of being one of the “in” places to play in Boston since, much like the Rathskeller, had a famed “History” that had come and gone. We ended up playing two of the three shows, all Wednesdays, booked there and would have played the third except that the place suddenly had a fire the Saturday prior to our scheduled show later in that same week.

It is now part of Boston musical history that the band Treat Her Right had all their equipment burned up in that fire since it broke out just after they setup and then did a Telethon on WBCN to raise money to replace it. WBCN was the top radio station in Boston at the time and they played the bands music ALL DAY and had the band members live on the air, winning new fans and getting them signed to a major record label as a result. We were all saying what “Good Luck” they had! But the bottom line was that Treat Her Right WAS a good band and getting all their stuff burned up wouldn't have done them much good if they weren't.

Jack’s was the hardest time we ever had booking a Boston venue in our seven "odd" years stay on the city music scene. It was the twenty question routine we always got with a new place but more intense: "So why should we book YOU GUYS?" “How many people can you bring?” “Are you POSITIVE you can ABSOLUTELY bring that many?”  "Where else do you play?" “You’re not playing anywhere else this month are you?” And this is for a spot on a Wednesday lineup. It took a lot of time for them to decide to book us at all. One particular back and forth with management lead to what later became an oft quoted declarative out-of-the-blue statement that James made at the time: “No, we are NOT going to give you any Cocaine!” 

Not to play a Wednesday at 11:00PM in Cambridge at any rate. It’s not like we were actually expecting to get PAID for this gig in the middle of the week so far out from our regular and gainfully employed fan-base or any other absurd Pie-in-the-Sky notion. Just what on Earth were the other bands being shaken down for?

Jack’s was the home stage for a popular Boston band named New Man that put out a not-so-well engineered album of pop rock at the time. Although they were a bit slick for my liking in those days of my musical infancy and punk mentality, they certainly sounded better than that live and their shows had more energy than the record had captured. I’d seen the band a couple of times; once at Jack’s and another at Scotch & Sounds (where nobody sounded bad) and heard cuts on the radio where it did a slow fade. From what I saw of them they drew a good crowd and played a lively set. Then the bass player cut out to join the Jon Butcher Axis and I think that was it for them.  

Other acts that played Jack’s on a regular basis were the Greg Greenway Band and Asa Brebner. Greg Greenway has had a long professional music career since then and put out a number of records under just his own name as a “solo” act although I guess he always was a solo act and Asa of course was previously with Robin Lane and was always on the scene playing with different names of bands that came after his own name like Asa Brebner and "Idle Hands" and such. What these three groups had in common was more of a well rehearsed and polished guitar based pop sound as compared to a more, let's just use the term "less-refined", energetic and straight ahead rock & roll which was where our band, Cool McCool, fell into as a genre.

James reminded me that Jack's was the place that George Thorogood was a popular performer and also where he was playing when Rounder Records discovered him and he then put them on the American musical map.

But that was in the past and the New Man\Greenway\Brebner model was what Jack’s was looking for and if you didn't fit that genre and still wanted to play there, I guess you had to pay. Once again we found ourselves as a bit of a square peg in the Boston music scene but you can't be all things to all people, nobody else was either. Only the most popular acts could draw well anywhere in town. We all had our home markets, ours was Green Street Station, Chet's and The Channel but the tough part for any band was breaking out and getting a foothold in a new area. The drinking age had gone from 18 to 21 years earlier and the pressure that caused rolled downhill to the bands. So many bands, so few original venues. But ultimately Jack's just gave us the Wednesdays without tribute. 

Our “Sister” band, the group we shared our rehearsal space at the Pixie Theater in Hyde Park with, Those Damned Kids: Scott Harris, Dave Yanolis and John Brelia had gotten into Jack’s first and so we went to their show and knew ahead of time about what management was looking for and what you got in return.

We knew we were never going to move up the ladder at the place but had the chance to book one more show there and took it because word was already out that Jack’s was on its last legs and what the hell, a gig’s a gig, right? The owner of the building, as the story was told, had a new tenant with deep pockets just waiting to get in there and who was willing to pay much more to lease the property than Jack’s could possibly come up with and so, since the lease was going to be up later that summer, Jack’s was doomed, doomed, DOOMED. No, we weren't broken up by this prospect. 

Well it never got that far. The place had an “accidental fire” a month or so before the lease was to expire and the result became Treat Her Right’s well timed and well deserved destiny.

We all joked afterwards that if only Jack’s had burned up four days later that perhaps we would have had a Cool McCool Telethon on WBCN and have signed a recording contract.

I guess we’ll never know. 

New Black Panthers Dumber Than Old Black Panthers

I’m all for an independent Black Nation just as long as they don’t expect me to pay for that too.

This misplaced anger at “America” is unfounded since most working Americans are more concerned with their jobs, families, communities and making ends meet in a volatile economy than about “Keeping the Black Man Down.” It isn't like black people don’t live in our neighborhoods already. It isn't like they don’t own good looking homes, have nice cars and have their kids in public school because they do.

It is not these black folks that anyone in the media and national radical groups care to talk about. This isn't about THEM.

It’s about the urban dwelling black youth which have grown up without fathers and only have mothers who exist on welfare and that have little opportunity and little education. These are the people that matter and it’s true to a certain extent since it is these people who are having a problem adjusting to the prospect of no future. And why wouldn't they?

So they lash out and to help them voice their distress, they have people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and this new up and coming "leader" Hashim Nzinga. Mr. Nzinga is purportedly is the head of the NEW Black Panthers group and who can only dream of occupying a position of power like Al and Jesse where he can embezzle all the dough he cares to embezzle, screw around with all sorts of women and just get away with it like those two have always seemed to do.

Now that’s living the dream!

But until then Mr. Nzinga is an angry black man and is looking for a target. The problem is, all he has targeted as the enemy right now is AMERICA. Yes, to Mr. Nzinga “America” is the enemy. This at first glance seems rather broad. The American people are a bit preoccupied right now with their own problems. 

But, to look at the situation more closely, what group would currently be in the best position to help solve these systemic social issues in our large American Urban center?

Hmmm, could it be...Democrat Mayors and their administrations? 

I say that Mr. Hashim Nzinga should narrow down his “Hit List” so to speak and attempt to find the real enemy of the black youth.

Perhaps he should start with who is keeping the Welfare State the way it is. A Welfare State that favors single motherhood over two parent families. A Welfare State that does not question the whereabouts of the father or hold anyone responsible for their actions. That’s not what it’s all about, is it?

Or how about who is keeping inner city children stupid and who are the ones who won’t allow a School Voucher program that would get and WAS getting poor and minority children into better schools. That is, before the Teachers Union killed the measure like they did in Washington, DC of all places that could use it the most.  It's not "America" running that show, it's the political Left, the people who call themselves the Democratic Party who are in control of it. It's THEIR call. 

No, Mr. Angry Black Man, you should go after the real enemy of poor minorities everywhere. The real enemy that robs them of opportunity that stifles ambition and instead of providing an even playing field for business to thrive in minority neighborhoods instead gives them Welfare and subsidized housing under their control. The finger-pointing bureaucrats in charge should look in the mirror. But a press release is much easier to do. 

You know, the New Slavery is so different from the Old Slavery. There’s hardly any heavy lifting at all anymore. Now all that is required is that every now and then you get in a van that takes you to the polling station where you vote for the Democratic Mayor. Then you get to keep your housing and your EBT card and all the money you make any other way you can.

And it's not just Baltimore, MD. The same sorry scenario is playing out in New York City, Philadelphia, PA, Worchester, MA, Burlington, VT, Boston, MA, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, Camden, NJ, Hartford, CT, Providence, RI, Washington, DC, Chicago, IL...need I say more?Now what do these cities all have in common? A Democrat Mayor perhaps? Yes, these cities have been waging a War on Poverty for decades and decades yet no matter how much money they tax out of the working folks and spread among the "poor", the situation never seems to get any better does it? Now an intelligent person may draw a conclusion concerning this statistic.

So go ahead Mr. Nzinga, go to war with America if you can find it. I’m all for it. Like Huey P. Newton before you in a different age and time, you can go tilting at windmills and never get anywhere and "his people" will never progress. 

Why? 

Because he doesn't know who to fight. 

Baltimore, MD: A City With No Future

I met a couple once years ago that had traveled to Obscurity, MA where I live. They had previously lived in Baltimore. They had left because of the crime, the poverty and lack of jobs. And this was in the 1980s.

They didn't have two nickels to rub together and she was pregnant and the story they told of their treatment at the hands of Baltimore's Social Services Department and the squalid conditions they had to endure made me vow never to set foot in the place. They finally resorted to packing one suitcase each and heading for the highway. They literally stuck out their thumbs on Interstate RT 95 to get out of town and when the trucker who picked them up and drove them to the Massachusetts line dropped them off, he drove off with the rest of their suitcases, which was what was left of their worldly possessions. It's a story you never forget. 

Baltimore was NEVER a good place to live as far as I could tell. Never wanted to go there and I didn’t even like to drive by it on my way to somewhere else. 

Baltimore represents all that is wrong with the welfare state. Like any of the crappy big cities like Philadelphia, PA, Cleveland, OH, Camden, NJ or Washington, DC, they'll give you what you need to survive but that ain’t living. And in order to get the money to fund these respective welfare states, they tax and regulate away real opportunity. Then they wonder why nobody wants to open a business in Baltimore. The money has to come from somewhere. It’s a Socialist Paradox. They take your opportunity and give you welfare and food stamps because, well, you can't find a job but there are no jobs so you quit looking and just take the short money and lump it. 

There are plenty of stupid people in Baltimore. They have voted for the Social Democrats for decades and nothing ever seems to get better and they can’t figure it out. It must mean that they aren't throwing enough money at the problem. It must mean that GOVERNMENT is not doing enough!

Anyone who stays in Baltimore and thinks it’s going to get any better is a FOOL. It hasn't and it won’t. If you stay there the odds are very good you will never get anywhere in life. You have to get your ass out of Baltimore or you will only ever get what the government gives you. You’re a slave to the State. What’s the difference who your Massa is? You still have a Massa!

No opportunity, no future. The government can’t give you a future. They can’t manufacture a job without taking from others with jobs and putting the burden on THEM to support you. Without self-reliance, you can never be free. You own yourself so now what are you going to do with yourself? You going to go loot a chain drug store? That’s your future? You're just waiting for the bullet. 

And it looks like the local police force are all too happy to help you out with that final exit. Yes, it seems that one of the six policemen or perhaps ALL of the six policemen tried to twist poor Freddie Gray’s head off for being, for the most part, a wise guy. It is not up to the police to decide the Mr. Gray’s fate like that, it’s for the courts and all six of them should be arrested and tried. Only in this fashion will the truth come out.  Will it happen? Most likely no, since we still have an unapologetic unaccountable police force and this is starting to lead to some big problems nationally.

But that has nothing to do with why Baltimore is a DUMP.  A dump made worse by recent lawlessness permitted if not condoned by the Leftist Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who mistakenly believed that by letting these home-grown Hooligans run rampant in the city streets unchecked that it would somehow lessen the damage in the long run. Did you see all those cop cars burning? With all the technology in those cruisers, they must cost $70,000 apiece. Where is the money to replace them going to come from? Oh, they’ll just raise taxes on businesses and property owners so no worries there.

And people are calling the cops and none are coming. If the mayor let’s this sort of mayhem happen when unrest breaks out, who is going to invest in Baltimore? Like we will see in Ferguson, businesses and people will be on the move…out of town.

And it will be a good move. Life is too short to hang around waiting for change that never comes. Better to walk away and seek opportunities elsewhere. Or they can stay and take the short money and waste their lives on a Baltimore street corner, dealing drugs and “Fightin’ the Power”.

Good luck with that. 

EU Throws Cash Down A Greek Commode

When is Germany and the other major EU countries going to wake up to the fact that they’re never going to get their money back.

Didn't this sort of thing already happen during the post WWI era with U.S. Stock investment in Germany that lead to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and triggered the first Great Depression? Does this ring a bell with anybody?

As the story goes, the stock investments were supposed to build factories and office buildings in Germany to restore the nation and deliver a return on investment. Like in the old Broken Window theory of economics, Germany needed everything. But little did the investors know that the money instead went to paying France the formidable war reparations it was awarded in the Armistice. 

In this fashion, none of the money that was pouring into Greece is going to where it is supposed to go either.

The smokescreen being thrown up by the latest Greek government is not unlike the smokescreen that was thrown up by the last Greek government. It’s a Dog and Pony Show, just a put-on for the rubes meant to keep the status quo when everyone knows it can’t go on.

Nobody wants to throw in the towel on the EU when its intrinsic flaws were evident from the very beginning. The EU can’t strangle the shit out of another EU country by taxing them back to the Stone Age like our government in theses United States can do and has been doing.  Also if an EU country goes into debt and like Greece, MASSIVE debt, in a currency they can’t print, then there is no economic force, like inflating the currency, that can be pulled without effecting the rest of the EU nations.They’re just stuck with the debt and THAT effects the other EU nations. 

So Germany ends up doing what the U.S. did in the 1980s with its stupid loans to South America: They start lending MORE money to the debtor nations so that they can pay the interest on the U.S. loan debt. But instead of banks laying out case, Germany and France are going to the taxpayer well and that is a BAD HABIT.

At least the U.S. banks did this to buy time to eventually write down and charge off the losses but they still had to take the loss. Drawing out the write off only softened the blow to investors. What is the EU going to do? It doesn’t look like this is their plan.

Hello, EU, Greece has NO INTENTION of paying back the money! 

They are still in some weird War Mentality with Germany where they are trying to justify their non-compliance with their EU monetary responsibilities as an act of defiance for being flattened by Germany in WWII. As if the EU put a gun to the heads of Greek politicians when they signed their ridiculous retirement and pension agreements, giving their massive and massively wasteful Public Sector the right to a job and a right to retire from that job at, what, 55 to 58 years old? And come on, they only SAY they are going to start collecting property taxes, they aren't actually going to DO IT!

And in this case it’s the German taxpayer who really suffers and the working class of France and the people who bust their asses at real jobs who see their tax money being funneled to the unworthy, the unmutable and the unwilling to cooperate with the plan. Is this the result of a long simmering dislike based on the past or is this merely an excuse by a desperate nation that is living the Ant and the Cricket Aesop Fable? It looks like the later but the result will be the same.

So why should the EU throw any more money at Greece? Greece is going to just waste it and laugh. Of course they will only laugh long enough til they realize they aren’t going to get any more.

But that is Nationalism for you. People are very protective of their system. Even if it’s shit, it’s still THEIR shit system and they aren’t going to let France or Germany dictate the terms even if it was they themselves that Screwed the Pooch on their finances. What do they care? The sun and ocean is still warm and the olives are in season. The tourists will still come and at least they’ll make SOMETHING. Hell, they’re not paying any taxes so the overhead is low.

It used to be that the U.S. had a sense of Nationalism and pride like that. Right now there are too many American Citizens who think the U.S. is the problem nation of the world. As a percentage there seems to be fewer people who believe in the old American ideals of self-sufficiency, self-reliance and the advantages of hard work in a Meritocracy. They feel the people who have should give all to those that don’t  regardless of the circumstances and that if you have something, then you must have taken it from someone else and so corrections must be implemented. Any this is how a nation ends up when too many people feel that way. This sort of Wrong Thinking can destroy everything. And here we are.  

But that’s what you get when a nation lets in millions of undocumented and therefore illegal foreign nationals. They walked right in without going through the rigors of a legal naturalized citizen. They did not have to learn about what it means to be an American Citizen. They didn't have to do anything but climb a fence or crawl through a tunnel and they get what the people who struggled to follow the rules get so becoming an American Citizen no longer carries any weight. It’s really not that important to anybody, especially our government. What difference does it make at this point? And those not vested in the process will only choose to ignore it. They already have.

So the experiment that is the EU, much like the experiment that was the CCCP, will yield to the reality of Market Forces and come apart at the seams. Either that they’ll just limp on into the future and collapse later. Hopefully it won’t take 79 years of misery like the Soviet Union.

Perhaps these things just have to run their course. 

Happy Drunken Irish Day!

As a third generation American of Irish decent, am I the only one offended at the concept of St Patrick's Day being promoted and roundly observed as a big drinking day? And is naming a drink an "Irish Car Bomb" even remotely funny?

After a long history of invasions, repressions, starvation and servitude, getting our asses kicked by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans/British, the only thing a modern person of Irish decent can look forward to is skipping a day of work to get plastered on St Paddy's Day and publicly making fools of themselves?

It even has it's own parade.

This is what our ancestors, who often came with only the clothes on their backs and leaving everything they had back in the old country, risked their necks to come to America for?

And once here they endured 10 hour days 6 days a week as fodder for the vast and giant, smokey brickwork mills of the industrial revolution, living crowded together in substandard housing and inhabiting the low end of the social scale until they established themselves in a new world. Nobody handed them anything, it was all earned by the sweat of their brow, the strength of their backs and the desire and resolve in their hearts.

Many died in the famine, many died in the Atlantic crossing and many died in the factories and crowded slums.

All so that in modern times we can perpetuate the image that we're a bunch of drunks.

Good thing their dead, 'cause this would kill 'em!

Just like the Italian's lack of humor when it comes to references to "The Mafia" or the Great American South to those "Duke's of Hazard" style hillbillies, I shudder each year at the prospect of this "Special" day and all the morons that come out for it.

But people can and should do what they want just as long as they only do it to themselves. It's just all done in such poor taste. And what a low class affair to pay $25- $35 to go into a pub you normally walk in free the rest of the year. But that's the way it is with the Irish I suppose, falling into their stereotypes for all to see. From Brendan Behan to Shane McGowan. It's a shame we haven't smartened up.

So drinking til one vomits it is for St. Patrick's Day. On this side of the pond anyway. Don't know how it's done in Ireland but I suppose somebody over there at least knows why they're doing it. For me I just find it insulting that this Irish Amature Night is not much better than Cinco de Mayo in the annals of marketing and manufactured ignorance.

And while we're at it, if the Fighting Irish symbol of Notre Dame University depicted a person of any other color or of any other race, there would be a such a hue and cry that everybody associated with it would have to resign in disgrace. But it's an Irishman, isn't it?

And nobody cares if they offend an Irishman.

I was watching a PBS special on the Civil Rights Movement the other night when the commentator said they "took Martin Luther King Jr. away in a Paddy Wagon.". I thought that statement summed it all up nicely.

So go ahead, drink up Boyos, and stumble down a flight of stairs for "Old Saint Paddy" for all I care. Sing your sad love songs and happy fighting songs while you're all in your cups.

I'll be home on my couch with a blanket pulled up over my head waiting for it all to be over, again.

Let’s Do Away with the TSA

They are supposed to protect us from terrorists but who will protect us from the TSA?

The Transportation Security Administration, the biggest bunch of government backed bullies ever to grace the American continent since the Pinkerton Detective Service clubbed down the Molly McGuires in the late 1870s.  Anyone who questions their authority is harassed, threatened and branded as kooks and malcontents. They are the emblem of wrong thinking and the embodiment of big, evil and wasteful Big Government.

These useless dolts, who that phony conservative George W. Bush not only invented but also unionized, creating a boat-load of federally funded union hacks, live to display their self-important swagger and harass hard working people who’s only crime is to want to get from point A to point B without being humiliated and treated like criminals.

The TSA has not stopped one potential bombing on a plane or one terrorist from boarding one. The “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid was stopped by fellow passengers as was also Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “Underwear Bomber”.  In fact all of the latest incidents that we have heard of have been stopped by passengers while already on the plane. There seems to be no statistics on what the TSA has actually accomplished in comparison to the private security they replaced other than pissing off a majority of the flying public and pissing through tons of taxpayer money.

We don’t need the TSA and we certainly can live without the attitude, the threats, the thievery, the bravado and the scandals of this embarrassing knot of toads passing for safety officers telling us all what to do for no discernible reason other than “They can”. After all, you don't want to be bumped from your flight. It'll cost you. So you lump it but that's not because you feel safe. The TSA isn't there to make you feel safe. When you're in line, you're the last on the list of priorities. It's their show now and you're along for the ride.You only have the privilege of paying for it. Consider it a pay off for the military men and women who fought GW Bush's useless wars. They get priority in hiring and there are even signs touting TSA employees who were in the military. As if that makes it all better.

The TSA is a tick on the ass of the American traveling public and it's time for this taxpayer funded Dog and Pony show to end. 

We've heard the unbelievable stories, the protests and the weak justifications. The verdict is in. The TSA should go. We've been felt up enough as a nation and we want a return to dignity and freedom. Neither will return as long as this government gang of bullies are allowed to run our airports.

They cost too much money, they are highly inefficient and above all, they’re ineffectual. For all the money, the delays, the scanners that don’t work and may or may not give off too much radiation, the widespread groping humiliations and the apologies, they haven’t made one bit of difference in the protection of flights and passengers. Like most government services, it’s all just a dog and pony show and the economy is all the weaker for it since that big bloated taxpayer funded budget has gone to naught. This money would be better spent elsewhere.

The sooner the airports rid themselves of these trolls, the better for all.

Let’s hope the airports, aided by the new opt out laws passed by Congress, will declare enough is enough. The TSAs time has come and gone. They were a bad idea and remain a bad idea.

Good riddance. 

Boston Rock of the 1980s: Boston Band Names

How important is having a good band name? It is most important! Most bands agonize over the name and they should too. For a band it’s about something bigger than the sum of its parts, it’s the name you hang out front, it’s what people will remember…or not. A good band name is a sign of imagination, an indication of your collective creativity and…it’s a king-size pain in the ass!

It’s so tough to get band members to agree on a stupid band name. “Jeez, just call it anything.” Oh, but it can’t be just ANYTHING! It’s got to mean SOMETHING, right?

Our first band, Cool McCool, was a trio and yet it took us three months to agree on a name. Tony thought “Second Sight” was a really cool name which James and I thought rightly, of course, was just plain stupid. At one point in our machinations I cracked and blurted out; “We don’t want anything sullen and gloomy like “Nuclear Winter” or anything like that do we?!”  At this James and Tony looked at each other and said “Now THAT would be a good name.”

I don’t know who it was but someone said that, with his dark hair and mustache, James looked just like that cartoon character Cool McCool that was on Saturday morning TV right after George of the Jungle. Whether it was fatigue, the fact we didn’t dismiss it out of hand or that we may actually have liked it, we agreed on it at any rate and were able to move on with our lives, our imaginations and collective creativity exhausted.

Anyway, I didn’t get to see all of these bands but here are some of the Boston Bands whose names I thought were really cool back in the day:

 

Arms Akimbo: Never saw them but they played the Rat a lot as well as other places in town. I remember reading that Amie Mann said she liked them back when she was fronting Til Tuesday. If you don’t know already it’s the term for falling backwards with your arms outstretched. Pretty clever in mho.

 

Band 19: Not to be confused with Forever 19 that had a rehearsal room next to ours at the Pixie Theater in Hyde Park. The story goes that this was the bandleader’s 19^th band that he had put together. That’s enough personnel changes to last a lifetime.

 

Berlin Airlift: Rick Berlin’s band, get it? I guess he could have just called the band “Berlin”. Previously Rick had put together a much talked about act named; Orchestra Luna.

 

Del Fuegos: “Of the Fire” in Spanish. Wonder how they came up with that one? These guys endured some hardships along the way when they were touring the country all crammed into a ford van, had all their shit stolen and a local radio station held a radio-thon to raise some money for them and put their album on the air and the band on the map. We shared the stage with them twice ourselves and I still cover “Don’t Run Wild” solo. Frank Zane has recorded a few children’s music projects that can be found in stores. Liked the name, liked the band.

 

Extreme: Not remarkable in itself except the back story was that this band was first called “The Dream” and then the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was developing a series about a young band trying (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) to climb their way to the top and this TV band and the series was to be called The Dream. So the story goes that NBC paid The Dream handsomely for their name so they could produce their very very short lived series. The Dream became the “Ex-Dream” or “The Extreme”. Coincidence? Perhaps. A fairy tale? I don’t know.

 

Girl on Top: A trio fronted by a chic guitar player. Played a gig with them in the waning days of Green Street Station.  Good attention grabbing name I think. Got my attention at any rate.

Loners Shoot Presidents: This is a great name for a punk band which they were. Tim Catz, the drummer for this group went on to win the 1991 Rock & Roll Rumble with the band Seka, named for an “exotic dancer” in Boston’s red light district known as the Combat Zone. 

Pajama Slave Dancers: I really enjoyed these guys; they were hardcore and funny at the same time. Songs like “Defreeze Walt Disney”, “Farm Rap” and “Homo Truck Driving Man” are classics. I think they put out three albums in all of which I have two. I was told they were originally from Springfield, MA. The name is a wacky as the band's stage show. You see that name, you pretty much know what you're going to get. Cool.

Plate o’ Shrimp: A ska band most likely out of Brighton since it seems all the ska bands in town emanate from there. This came from a monologue by the character Miller in one of my favorite movies of all time, Repo Man. After Miller’s monologue an ad with the term can also be seen on a wall of a fast food place in the movie.

Rash of Stabbings: This name was fine for these guys for years and years and then all of a sudden somebody somewhere realized they found it offensive. Sort of like the character of Uncle Fester on the Adams Family. One day you hear it and say “Hey, do you know what that name really means?” They had to go as RoS afterwards since nobody would book them. I think it’s a cool name reflective of the kind of rock & roll they played. They didn’t invent the term.

Sleep Chamber: As far as I know, this band only ever played at Chet’s Last Call but they had very cool, very erotic hand drawn black & white posters with women in bondage themes. One band I really wish I could have seen live.

Stop Calling Me Frank: Our friends from Hyde Park. Never got a straight answer as to how they came up with the name. The explanation changed with each telling. Dave Forbes on guitar and Lenny was the frontman. Three chord full speed ahead rock & roll band. Their big hit was “Cyclone Ranger” “My baby treat me like a cyclone ranger, she spin me round and round, she pick me up, she put me down, she spin me round and round”. That’s gold!

Valdez the Sinner: Saw these guys at “Chetstock” and never saw their name on a marque ever again. The one set I ever saw them play was a great one, however. How they came up with this name is a mystery. Nobody was named Valdez. Maybe it was someone they knew? 

Perhaps this will be food for thought for fledgling groups banging their heads against a wall trying to come up with a band name.

Good Luck!

 

 

 

Sean Hannity Clueless on Drug Legalization

He is a man left behind by the times, unable or unwilling to see the world for what it is.

Sean Hannity is a man so in denial that his ability to see any situation clearly is suspect. How can anybody believe a word this guy says when he can only recite the same wrong-headed party line over and over again in disguise of a plausible argument? And it’s not really the party line anymore since other conservatives have shown the brains to acknowledge that the War on Drugs has been a monumental failure.

That’s right, in the 35 years of the current police buildup and passage of strict and punitive anti-drug laws; drugs are more prevalent than ever in American society.

How can that be?

It’s because a market force is greater than governments. It is stronger than any military might. It will corrupt the incorruptible, sway the unswayable and bend a people to its eventual recognition of the reality of its power.

All except Sean Hannity that is, he’s just an idiot!

I had the unfortunate experience of channel surfing through his FOX radio program while he and some other idiot born with the same condition were tag-teaming a young lady with more brains in her pinky finger than Hannity and the other yo-yo boy who was on his side.

Here’s an excerpt of his skillful questioning:

“You want to legalize drugs?”

“Yes”

“Even Heroin?”

Now this is the question, with the exception of Rand Paul, that most Libertarians always seem to choke on when on the air with one of these professional "outraged" radio wags and this woman did just that. She started to stumble which gave Simple Sean an opening to jump in and start naming every drug he had learned about in 6^th grade when a local police officer would come to school to talk to the class about drugs and bring a plastic marijuana leaf to show the class.

“How about Crack Cocaine?”

“How about OxyCodon?”

And he went on in rapid-fire like some 5 year old asking “Why” to everything.

People made the mistake of calling in to agree with this woman. I could picture Hannity sitting there with his fingers in his ears.

Thirty-five years and Billions of dollars on punishments, jails, corrections officers, wages, benefits, pensions and courts all a waste of time and money.

The reason why the government is reluctant and especially the Republocrats to go along with legalization is that if legalization were to occur, what would they do with all the cops and jail workers? They’d have to lay them off or create another boogie-man for them to chase after. But the end of this charade is inevitable. They can’t continue to throw money at it because it’s not making any money back. The States are loosing their shirts and the shirts of their taxpayers who are very close to becoming the stone you can’t get blood out of, they’re tapped out and the government has bled them dry at this point.

The massive corrections system is yet another giant house of cards that cannot be sustained. Better to tear it down now than to have it collapse.

Yes Mr. Hannity, drugs are bad. People should not take them. They are not good for anybody in the long run. BUT that's not the point.

The Prohibition on drugs wasn't about drugs being bad. It was about good jobs at good wages paid by the Federal Government. It was about buying the vote, paid for with tax dollars. It was about controlling the ethnic people's who enjoyed them like the Mexican migrant workers  who used marijuana and the Chinese railroad workers who enjoyed Opium. They had to be more productive. 

And the reason now that so many states are debating and legalizing marijuana right now is because they can’t stop the drugs from coming into the country and they can’t stop them from being produced locally. Period! So much product is pouring into the country that they can't even fathom the amount that they are NOT stopping. On top of that, domestic output has increased. Where there is a want, people will work to fulfill those wants. That is the invisible hand of the marketplace that people on the political Left refer derisively as Capitalism and it will win in the end.  

Speaking of Capitalists, the Taliban is making millions off of the sale of Heroin and with that money they are buying GUNS! Guns and bomb making materials so they can kill people. This is a direct result of driving drug production underground and into the hands of criminals instead of being above board and transacted in the light of day. 

In the mean time, the United States has become a Police State where every bank transaction over $5,000.00 is reported to the government so they can try to track, supposedly, illegal drug money going over seas. For tracking cash transactions for regular honest tax paying citizens, this has worked but for tracking drug money in particular, this too is a failure. They could reduce the amount to $100.00 and still they will fail. There is just too much of it. 

The corrections system that was set up to put drug users and dealers in jail is bankrupting the states. Since the Drug War has made everybody a criminal, our inner cities have become the equivalent of the OK Corral with local gangsters shooting it out with larger national gangsters and foreign drug cartels and people dying and police dying and innocent people being caught in the cross-fire.

And what is Sean Hannity’s answer to all this?

“America’s borders aren't secure enough, we must secure the boarders.”

Yes, that was Hannity's answer!

I don’t know what circles Hannity travels in but it has to be a small one. Where does this guy get his news? Does he even go out of the house? If he actually went and pumped his own gas, and I will bet money he DOESN’T, he might actually see the kid on the bike putting his hands into the driver’s side door of somebody who pulled into the Quick Mart and make a drug transaction like I did in my mostly lily-white neighborhood here in Massachusetts.

Mr. Hannity, I've got news, the boarders were NEVER secure. Never secure. They are NOT secure NOW and they WEREN'T secure in the fucking 1950s, 60s or 70s either! They were never secure and they WILL NOT GET secure enough to keep out drugs. Drugs come in on trucks, they come in on boats, they come in on planes and in the case of marijuana, grown RIGHT HERE in the good ‘ol USA.

I had to finally turn my radio to the Oldies station or I was gonna drive off the road.

Nobody is that STUPID! This is what you get when people are right wing for a living. They have to say stupid stuff because they are supposed to be a certain way or they can't sell advertising. If he wasn't on the radio talking like a man in a cave, what else can this guy do? 

The money currently going into Drug Prohibition would be better spent on rehab facilities than on jails. The jails have not stemmed the tide. All the laws passed in the last 35 years has not stemmed the tide. All the police put on the street have not stemmed the tide.

The only thing that is going to keep your kid from using drugs is education, not the threat of jail.
Of course it all begins at home but since drugs are everywhere in America, on every street corner, in every school and every college campus, your best protection is communication and staying connected to the reality of the situation and being plugged into the world we all live in and share for this short time we have here on Earth. Don't isolate yourself. 

Don’t be a Hannity!

United States Occupies Hawaii

On the heels of the Obama administrations rebuke of Israel’s purported occupation of “Palestinian” land one has to suspend belief that what the United States has done in its past is any more morally righteous than what any other country has done in its history.

Israel has more claim to the land that they sit on than we do in regards to the land the United States occupies.

Hawaii springs to mind. We've been sitting on those people for longer than Israel has been a State.

We still occupy military bases in Okinawa Japan since 1945 and they don’t like it at all. In fact, the people of Okinawa want the U.S. Military to vacate the premises immediately. It is only the money we’re throwing at Tokyo that is keeping the bases there. If that's not an occupying force, someone please explain. It's not like it's keeping Japan from attacking anybody. It's an offensive strike force that the U.S. is not going to give up regardless of what Japan wants us to do. 

We still hold Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Don't think the Cubans are renting that to us so we must be occupying that territory. And weren't we closing that down already?

In fact, the United States has military bases all over the world. Hundreds of them. A case could be made for our occupying forces in all these foreign countries although the government always states that we hold no land but if the U.S. has had a base in anyplace for more than 65 years, I’d say otherwise. We’re holding onto that real estate real hard.

Texas used to belong to Mexico until we “Liberated” it for the United States. I'd say we've been occupying that territory since, what, 1845? 

We also occupy most of the land the American Indians used to roam free upon and hunt and plant and live their lives as their creator had told them to. But we won it all in the Indian Wars and we let what’s left of the vanquished Indian nations have the mostly unproductive land we weren't going to use much anyway.

And while we are criticizing Israel for their historical occupation…

Not a word about China’s occupation of Tibet

I guess ya'll must have forgot. The U.N. certainly has.

So to say that only Israel must give up land that they at least have lived on for ages and ages so they can hand it over to a people, lets face it, this band of Arabs, who have vowed to drive Israel into the sea and have never acknowledged Jerusalem as a state while every other nation has AND has been constantly shooting rockets into their towns, sneaking armed men into their territory and killing its citizens, well it’s rather the heighth of hypocrisy.  

But what what else would a reasonable person expect? That’s just President Obama’s standard operating procedure.

It would be pretty funny if a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's administration came out and called for the United States to give back an inch of any of the land it took over the years. 

That would be hysterical. 

Obama Shills For Green Energy Companies

If he hadn't given so much taxpayer money to these alternative energy companies, maybe President Obama wouldn't have to attack Global Warming, I mean Climate Disruption, sorry, Climate Change deniers so vociferously and without tact or even a hint of diplomacy.  

No, Mr. Obama has to go on the offensive since so many of the Solar and Wind energy companies that his friends and election contributors have started haven’t done particularly well. In fact they've performed very poorly indeed!

There are currently 33 companies that have received taxpayer money from the Federal Department of Energy to develop clean energy that have filed for bankruptcy protection after having received Billions of dollars collectively. What happened to all that money? Well I guess they must have spent it all. I guess Green Energy isn't a product that will sell itself.

What they need is a better salesman!

For all his bluster, accusations, executive actions, taxpayer "loans" and behind the scenes sleight of hand, the President just isn't getting the job done for renewable energy. Even heavy government subsidies can't manage to keep these hand picked, state sanctioned companies above water. After all, the government can spend itself into prosperity and fund good jobs at good wages, right?

Mr. Obama’s latest offensive offensive will only serve to leave the public cold. Or luke warm. Or perhaps a better word is “chilled”.

It’s all about the ice caps melting. Or was it about the Walruses not having ice to rest upon. Or was it their food supply dying in the warming ocean? Or was that the Polar Bears? It’s just so hard to keep track. 

And despite the subsidies, the tariffs and the media amplified denunciations, solar panels are just plain cheaper coming from China. And no matter how much the U.S. government pushes them.Wind Mills and Electric Cars are just too expensive for a large majority of the American people.

But the name of the game right now is Sell, Sell, Sell, Sell and the world’s most powerful head of state is pulling out all the stops to make you buy what he’s selling. This is the big pre-election sales promotion meant to define the issue of weather you care about Global...whatever or if you want the seas to rise, the mountains to fall and children to drown horribly while they are hungry and suffering from lack of public education. 

President Obama can make NASA fudge the climate data. He can offer support to the universities that have professors publish “new” findings on the effects of Climate Change, he can also influence his news media to publish dire visions of the future.

But he can’t make you buy it. And it’s killing him.

People don’t believe in man-made Climate Change. Oh, there are plenty of people on the payroll who PRETEND to believe in it but they’re only in it for the money. Look at Al Gore. He’s made Millions upon Millions from his Global Warming media events. What a racket! This certainly puts all those old gangsters and mob bosses to shame. If Gore actually believed all that crap he spouts, don’t you think he’d live a little bit leaner instead of using so much power from the grid if the reports from the Nashville Electric Service can be believed about how much his electric bill is each month not to mention flying all over the place in a big ol jet plane. And I’ll bet he probably has those old pre-gore toilets installed in his mansion. You know, the ones that hold more than 1.9 gallons and can flush anything on the first try.

I think Obama sees his retirement profession clearly. If that pasty-faced dullard Al Gore can make a mint off of the fear and self-loathing of American followers, well clearly, as a hi-lee educated former head of the Free World, like him can too.

And he can’t get on with his next job soon enough for me.

Jeb Bush Exudes Status Quo

What makes anyone think anything is going to change in the United States if Jeb Bush is elected president?

And what will Mr. Bush's campaign be based upon? Jeb Bush the Reformer? Jeb Bush the Political Outsider? Maybe perhaps Jeb Bush for Change?

In a nation that is deeply divided between the takers and the taken, the private taxpayer and those at the public troth, how is this man in particular going to make anything different?

The answer is: He won’t.

They people who pay will continue to pay if not pay more and the people who take will relax, as comfortable as they can, in their knowledge that the support spigot will remain on.

The government propaganda machine is touting Jeb as The Moderate in the field. Propaganda outlets like Google News, Face the Nation, Reuters, PBS et al are saying that once Jeb Bush's record as governor come out and once The (little) People truly get to know him and become aware of all the good he has done for the state of Florida, they will take him as a serious and viable candidate.

A bell should go off in your head.

The last thing the country needs is a political dynasty. We're struggling with one right now and all American Democracy and freedom of the individual needs less of is more power-cult entities in the office of the President. Once the President transcends parties, and if the present Demi-God in the White House doesn't give you pause for thought in this regard, the system will be over and the will of the people to defend it will weaken to a much greater extent than it is now. 

The government will fight to perpetuate itself and Congress will pretend to fight the president on his proposals, most recently the Immigration Initiative and the Iran Nuclear Deal and when they “lose” they will hold their heads up high and say “We tried!”

Did they now?

How is King Jeb the Third going to do anything about this?

He isn't but he’ll look good not doing it.

His sycophantic supporters and the government press will regal all us impoverished peasants at how Presidential he looks when we know they wish they could say Imperial. But that will come in time. 

Jeb Bush will continue to draw his support, and he is the candidate with the biggest bank account, from big business which seeks political advantage over small businesses, craves low wage labor and covets the ability to shift the costs of this labor onto the communities they overrun rather than pay for it themselves. He will continue to choose the side of the public unions over the will of the people who pay their way. There is no reason, in a time where we should be looking for strength of conviction, that we will get any from this man.

The last thing this country needs right now is THE SAME.

So perhaps once again we who actually matter in this equation, since it's the money from the fruits of our labor in the greater proportion, that is funding this whole charade, will be left without much of a choice again this election.

Why vote for a Leftist in Republican cloth when you can have the real Leftist in a Democrat silk robe? It's either that or stay home.

That’s what happened last time with Mitt Romney. Had he been more conservative, had he been just a little less wishy-washy where he should have held a hard line, he may have actually won the election and would have been at this moment addressing the financial issues, the real issues that face the stability of the United States. But he wasn't and an estimated three million conservatives stayed home. 

George Bush Senior reneged on his promise of No New Taxes. His son George Walker Bush spent money like a Sailor on Shore Leave and started the program of National Surveillance of U.S. Citizens and so what are we to expect from a Jeb Bush presidency given the chance?

I shudder to think