Obama Becomes The Scarlet Pimpernel

“We seek him here, we seek him there, those Republicans seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven - Is he in Hell? That demmed elusive Pimpernel!”

He is here, he is there, he is everywhere! 

One moment the President is promoting free community college the next he is promoting another Federal government Alaskan land grab. And over here he'll be promoting some subsidy or another. And tomorrow he'll be flying to yet another state to tout universal such and such. It doesn't really matter what, just as long as it's Universal and Free!

In addition to his pen and his phone, Barack Obama now incorporates his plane, or rather, the people's plane, to lead the fight for the Liberal Aristocracy against the murderous Taxpayer Revolution that seeks to thwart his massive spending and taxing schemes.

Just when the Republican party has regained the majority in the both the House and Senate and they think they have a net over the President, Mr. Obama is back on Air Force One, back on the campaign trail and out there trying to give the store away to anyone who with a hand outstretched to take it.

My favorite stupid thing Mr. Obama said during his State of the Union address was that he wanted to "Make Community College free like High School." I hate to break it to anybody who thinks high school is free. Any person who is actually paying a mortgage for a home knows that high school is definitely NOT FREE. The cost comes out of their ever growing property taxes. These taxes used to just go up every year but these days home owners have even been seeing increases quarterly. Over half of every town budget is to cover school costs. Definitely not free. But it SOUNDS great to say and hear the word "FREE".

And this is what Mr. Obama is going to be doing for the remainder of his presidency. Just one declaration after another with the hopes that the Republican party will have to pay attention to and address and take the time to explain every one of them when his partners in the national media, call them the "League of the Scarlet Pimpernel", constantly ask what the Republicans intend to do about each and every one of them.

What to do?

They can’t simply keep saying “Dead on Arrival” even though that is just what these crazy proposals are.

They should simply say that “We are going to listen and study the proposal” and then get right back to being the majority party and sending laws to the president so he can either veto or sign them. And when he vetoes them, they should get busy and override them if they can. That’s the business of Congress. Or at least that’s what it was.

The way to ground Mr. Pimpernel is to send him something he has to make a decision on. Something he has to decide what to do and explain the decision in public. In fact they have to send him lots of things to either sign or not. The rest of his populist bullshit they can just ignore. Brush it aside if asked. “We are involved in the running of the country which the president should join in on and be involved with here in Washington.” And just move on regardless of what he says. "Veto a law? Go ahead and veto it, and while you're at it, here's another."

Scott Pelley, the Leftist pseudo journalist for 60 Minutes, a group that has lost all credibility in the Internet age yet continues on regardless without shame or guilt, just a few days ago asked Speaker of the House John Boehner if he thought sending laws to the President knowing he was going to veto them an “effective way of governing” as if, I suppose, that signing executive orders, flying around the country proposing bills and skirting the checks and balances of Congress was a better way.

This is the kind of Government Media Machine that working people with an idea of holding onto the money they earn for are up against. Rich media reporters who have made their fortunes already working for the government propaganda ministry going after and talking down people who express an interest in and who are in the position to undo the damage President Obama has been doing to the economy overall and to middle income taxpayers in particular.

Keep Talking About the Constitution!

The Republicans should also use the media focus to reiterate and explain the process of Constitutional Government and how it is really meant to work. Talk about the U.S. Constitution, what is in it and what is NOT in it. There is a big problem in government today that NEITHER party talks about the process and how government is supposed to work under our Constitutional framework. No wonder people think Obama has the right to make a law and pass a law. It has to be be put out there at every opportunity by the most prominent of people in government. 

Obama the Arsonist

President Obama is going to continue to fly all over the country, and he likes to pick majority Republican states, and light fires. Just like his presidency was all about redistribution of wealth and destruction of cherished norms, Obama’s energies in his waning days in the White House will be spent in obstruction, distraction, subterfuge, more campaigning and just outright lies.

Hell, it got him to the Presidency didn't it?

Return Hawaii To The Hawaiians

Hawaii was stolen from its citizens by and armed group of Americans that steamed over there and would have taken the place by force had the queen of the Islands, Queen Liliuokalani, not had the foresight to just hand the place over so her people wouldn't get slaughtered which is exactly what would have happened had they resisted. It's what happened to everybody else and perhaps she had hear the news in that day and age. 

That was in 1893.

Now the United States should give it back. Every bit of it. It was a sovereign nation, a Kingdom really and today we have no business running the place.

It is no secret how the place was taken over yet nothing has been done to straighten out the situation. Meanwhile the Hawaiian people are living in an Occupied Territory. Does THAT sound familiar?

There is apparently a deal in the works where the U.S. government is going to buy favor and “settle” the situation. Yes, there is money involved. Lots of money involved.

Will what is left of the Hawaiian culture accept the buyout? Will they submit to become legal wards of the U.S. state? Where will they as a people go from here?  What makes them think the money is even worth anything? Is it worth giving up a Nation?

The U.S. has no legal right to the Hawaiian territory.  What they took, they took by force. Yes, the rest of the country was taken in the same fashion and there is more to be done to straighten that out also. But in the case of Hawaii, the people and the culture are intact, they didn't fight a war and get annihilated they are just suppressed and supplanted by the occupying power that didn't barter or negotiate, they came packing heat and would've done to the Hawaiians what their predecessors did to the rest of the indigenous population of the continental United States with either the pestilence or lead poisoning.

With the protracted wars with the American Indians one may make the case that taking the land was spoils of war but what have the Hawaiians ever done to us? They were just sitting out there in the Pacific Ocean, 2,467 miles from the California coast just minding their own business, the guys chasing grass skirted chics, fishing and paddling their big old canoes all over the place when these strangers show up and tell them they’re taking over and they better do what they say. Hardly the stuff of epic conquest. I think it got 2 or 3 lines in my U.S. History book under one small picture.  It went something like this: “These guys take a steam ship over to the Hawaiian  Islands, met the Queen and Hawaii became our 50^th state.”  And we grouse about how other countries gloss over their history. Just who do we think we’re kidding?

A deal with the U.S. over sovereignty for Hawaii is a deal with the Devil. Over the last century or so since the takeover I’m sure there are plenty of Hawaiians who would be afraid they've loose the “security” of being a U.S. state just like Scotland just did when they voted to stay a part of England instead of the “scary” proposition of having their country back.  This is to be expected since the money tentacles are everywhere on the island buying influence and making dependents on U.S. government resources. 

Freedom is a chance. It is a risk. But the rewards are obvious. Run your country the way your people want to run it, it’s yours with all the head aches and advantages that come with it. Sign a trade deal with anyone you want. It will gain you respect, respect you don’t have now.

It’s not like much will change. I'm sure they could hold onto the dollar as currency if they wanted to and Hawaii will remain a tourist attraction and it probably be a better one with happier people and without the violent animosity that you hear about. It will, of course, remain a U.S. naval base except we’ll have to pay some kind of nominal rent. 

What the big difference would be is that we as a nation can make right a big wrong that is surprisingly available to us today. THEN we can gloat about it big time!   

But it should be done. We have done the Hawaiians no favors by holding onto their island.

Time to give it back. 

A Sneak Peak at Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Once again I have intercepted the written address that President Obama will be making this coming Tuesday evening and have reproduced select portions of it here so that nobody should be surprised at what the president is going to say.

“My fellow Americans, it is clear that Global Terror is a major concern to all of us and my administration has gone to great lengths to curb the spread of terror around the world if you don't count Libya. We have dealt a major blow to terrorists everywhere under my administration but there is one major concern. These terrorist organizations are using our inherent God-given freedoms against us. They are exploiting our open society, system of laws and freedoms of travel, expression and pursuit of happiness and using this against us. So in order to deal terror a final blow, going forward during the time that’s left in my administration we will close those misguided loopholes in the U.S. Constitution so nobody will have these rights. That’ll show those terrorists, when nobody has rights, we win! Just ask Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, he's on board with it.”

“And so now that the Republicans, by a wide majority vote of the American people, have taken control of both the House of Representatives and the Congress, I won’t be dealing with either of them anymore unless they should want to do things my way. It stands to reason, after all since I am the President and they are not the President.  Instead I will just make my proposals directly to the American people who still listen to me and just order my government minions, those who still depend on me for a paycheck, to do my bidding. I won’t actually have to make a law or sign anything, I can just tell the government agency in charge to look the other way, like with my Cuba policy. I just say “Ignore those laws that were passed by a free and open process all those years ago in ancient history and just let people go to Cuba.” And it happens. What a country! Who cares if they will be in violation of the law, I’ll only pardon them later.”

“On the home front, we here at the White House feel that people should have more time off. We propose mandating that companies big and small give those still working mandatory paid time off.  I know many people who aren’t working right now would like less time off but that really isn’t the point. I also propose raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $27.50 an hour just because everybody deserves a raise.”

“The nation doesn't need the Keystone Pipeline. Now that, despite my administrations every effort to keep oil production off of federal land, gasoline prices have come back to normal, the good times will never end and we no longer need that pipeline any more than we need that one in Alaska. The nation’s future energy needs are assured with wind, solar and now cheap oil; the good times will never end. With all this energy there is no need to think about the future. I know that’s what they said in 1970 but here we are today with cheap fuel, so what if the road got a little bumpy along the way?”

“The economy is almost fully recovered from the crash of 2007. We have created millions and millions of jobs in this country. It’s just jobs, jobs, jobs everywhere you look; it’s all over the news. The way the economy is steaming along, unemployment will soon be under 5.0% which will be lower than at any time in the last three decades. Eventually the unemployment rate will be so low that nobody will be working.”

“Also I haven’t given away any free stuff for a while so I propose not only universal full-day kindergarten in our government schools but I also feel that public colleges should be free too. That’s right, everybody should have a degree! And when you graduate college, you can step right into one of those great jobs that my administration keeps saying has been created. Good luck with that.”

“And furthermore, it is my understanding that someone somewhere in this great nation doesn't have the Internet! I have now decreed that we will be setting up our own Internet to give to people who feel that paying for the service is just too much of a burden. The NSA has graciously volunteered to host these new Internet services and will house the servers and domain services right at their headquarters here in Washington. Isn't that just great?!”

 “And don’t worry about how we’re going to pay for all this; the GOVERNMENT will pay for it, not taxpayers. It’s the government’s money, after all, that will build these institutions. Taxpayers won’t have to pay a dime, I promise.”

"May God bless the United States of America."

The Obama of Everything!

An excerpt of today's fact sheet released from the White House:

“Laws in 19 states—some specifically written by special interests trying to stifle new competitors—have held back broadband access and, with it, economic opportunity. Today, President Obama is announcing a new effort to support local choice in broadband, formally opposing measures that limit the range of options available to communities to spur expanded local broadband infrastructure, including ownership of networks."

Taking over your school lunch programs. Expanding your government run school system. Taking over your healthcare providers. Expanding your welfare programs. Taking over immigration. Running the country through cabinet ministries. Circumventing a spineless Congress. Spending money your kids haven't even earned yet...

And now taking over what Al Gore began, The Internet!

That’s right, the man who keeps on taking and taking and giving and giving is going to provide equality among the masses: Everybody’s Goose is Cooked!

The President was later heard to say: "Hey, you can't beat us, we have ALL THE MONEY!" as he left for his 1, 279th round of golf since he's been in the Whitehouse.

You will never speak or send another message that doesn’t pass through the government’s able hands. You will never email another picture of your kids birthday that some elite government hack doesn't have access to. You will never view naked pictures of pregnant women that someone in government doesn't know about. As the Whitey-hating rage filled Reverend Wright once said: This is your chickens come home to roost.

There is always someone left out. Always someone discriminated against and Mr. Obama can use that person to drive a wedge between the public at large and the U.S. Constitution. Good show Mr. President!

Somewhere there is a person without a government handout and the president is going to FIND that person and give him (or her) a check, a phone, a free lunch AND the Internet. After all, someone must have oppressed that person in the first place that they don’t have all that already.

What won’t he do next that rascally totalitarian presidential emperor!

By decree, his phone and his pen Barak Hussein Obama will right the wrongs meted out by society and the world. His word will carry and all will be well again.

Your Internet is HIS Internet to do with as he pleases. And he pleases that the government should be the guardian of Free Speech!

What can possibly go wrong!

No private enterprise is safe.  They are all bad for people, bad for equality and bad for the nation. Producing things for people to actually purchase, how absurd. Don’t they know like the President knows? Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they have done.

And what is next?

Your 401k perhaps. After all, the government is already going to take care of your retirement with Social Security, you won’t actually be NEEDING that extra cash where there are so many more deserving than you.

Your home. You don’t own it anyway, the bank does and the GOVERNMENT owns the banks. Even if you pay it off, the GOVERNMENT owns the land and you’ll never be able to afford the taxes if you even TRY to pass it along to your heirs.  Give it up now and we’ll go easy on you.

You fly? That’s the government’s airline you’re flying on. Take a train? Ditto!

The statues are being carved and the two story posters are being printed and will soon be in position.

Never say Never.

Obama for everyone!

Muslims Really Should Question Faith

Why is it that Islam is associated with violence?

Why is Islam so unshakable when so many people are killed in its name in the 21^st Century?

Why should Muslims be upset with people being worried when they are around? What they should be upset with is that fellow Muslims are killing people in droves. Does this not bother them?

Islamic militants are currently pressing armed conflicts and killing scores of people in the countries of India, France, Russia, China, The United States, The Philippines, Nigeria, Somalia, Algeria, Belgium, Uganda, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Chechnya and Israel. I'm sure I'm missing a few.

And people are somehow put off on Islam by this. 

With straight faces, Islamic defenders express that this paranoia is unreasonable. THEY are not the cause of the killing but a minority radical element. People shouldn't blame THEM. 

How CAN'T the producers of world-wide insurrection and the export of terror around the globe be surprised at people’s paranoia in regards to Muslims? How else are people supposed to react?

When they are actually out to get you, paranoia is really just GOOD THINKING.

Should we simply ignore the fact Muslims are sending 10 year old girls into the marketplace with bombs strapped to their bodies to kill innocent people? Should we simply rely on marches and candle-light vigils to combat the growing menace that is radical fundamentalism among…Muslims?

And how does it feel to belong to a religion mostly known for mass murder and forced subjugation to their faith? You don’t agree? Off with your head. And even if you do agree? Off with your head. This is a worthwhile pursuit? 

It's all about force with Islam. It's more important to gain converts than what to do once converted. The main object is to convert and since most people don't want to, force is a requirement. This force draws people who feel powerless and so Islam gives them an excuse to exert force upon others. Convert or die. Allah has spoken and in the blink of an eye we are back to 1095. 

What kind of people tie a man's hand behind their back and throw them from a two story building? I suppose anyone can do this stuff but not anyone is doing these things. There is only one group doing all of this. 

What do I see when I see a Muslim?

Either rightly or wrongfully, I see a religious fanatic. I see a person whose religion dominates not only the way they see God and the world but every action in their daily lives. I see a person who differentiates people as either fellows or outsiders, fellow Muslims or Infidels. I see an uncompromising autobot who blindly follows without questioning. And I see either a killer or a potential killer, an enemy of civilization walking down Main Street, U.S.A. 

Even the women, especially the women, are suspect. And while I'm at it, women in a free society do not live in bags!

Am I alone in this feeling? How did I come to think this way? I wasn't born with this attitude, my attitude was MADE.

The cold cruel nature of the way these Muslims kill casts a pall over every Mosque and Muslims should feel at least somewhat ashamed.

But they don’t feel ashamed.

They feel mistreated. They feel put upon. They feel that THEY are the victims.

And why in the world should they feel that way? See above.

If you want to wail against the insidiousness of Western Culture, our gaudy magazines, our lecherous people and our morally corrupt Hollywood movie machine (ok, point taken), THEN DON’T MOVE TO A WESTERN COUNTRY! Why did you leave your majority Muslim country of peace, love and mutual respect to come to a heathen enclave of blasphemers? Huh? Once Muslims gain a significant population in any country, they start insisting they call the shots for their own community and issue their own laws. 

It is a poor house guest indeed that shows up and tells you how to run things when the place they came from is a royal fucking mess of their own making. It displays an arrogance of a rare stripe.

They come saying they want freedom but then attempt to impose their restrictive religious orthodoxy upon their host country. France is the biggest example that springs to mind but there are others.

This is why Islam cannot lead. Oh, it may take over but it can’t hold. It rages and destroys but has no hope of accomplishment because turmoil and destruction accomplishes nothing. Islam, even what they call Moderate Islam, is a religion of rigidity that cannot bend or change so it will wallow in the pain of history that it has brought to the world and until it stops, there is no choice but that the world see Islam as the death of civilization.

In light of all that has been happening, can someone prove otherwise?

West Secedes Territory to Islamic Expansion

By allowing an unchecked flow of immutable peoples into their countries and by allowing them to separate themselves from long the long standing customs that have made this countries unique, the First World has invited the events that are unfolding almost everywhere these people have landed. 

France isn’t the only country that has become a battleground for Western Civilization, it’s only the biggest. The United States, United Kingdom and Spain are all just as vulnerable to these bold and escalating soft target attacks by Islamic Fundamentalists.

Back in the century leading up to the Iberians ultimate victory over the Moors in 1492, the Spaniards of that era over time became just as ruthless as their foes. They HAD to. History reveals this in its chronicles of the Spanish conquests afterwards on the North and South American continents. This hardness and convition was formed over centuries of hardship and conflict. Must we have to endure this now?

The civilized world finds itself in the same situation. Empathy is not going to do it. Empathy is going to get us all killed or forced onto prayer rugs facing Mecca.

What it will take to stop these killings is for people to rise up and quit coddling the killers or the communities that produce them.

“We should not have to prove our fealty to France.” It has been stated by the Mulism community. “Oh, but yes you do!” should be the reply.

“We are a moderate people who do not advocate such violence.” It has been said. “Well then prove it.” Should be the reply since there is only one group out there right now yelling “Alla Akbar” when they shoot a group of unarmed people, begging for their lives, in a public place in a major city. Tell me of another and I will correct myself.

If government cannot do this, then the people eventually will. People are not going to continue to stand idly by and watch their neighbors butchered without recourse and retaliation. This will happen at some point. Eventually there will be no protecting anybody and it will become a street to street war.

What is under attack by the new Islamic Fascism is not just Free Speech but Civilization itself. Republics must survive or these ignorant people from blighted and dysfunctional societies will send us all back to the dark ages. By allowing Islamic autonimous regions, host countries have invited dischord and chaos. What other group is allowed to operate in this fashion? In the U.S. our Native Americans are barely given such leeway and they were here first! 

Until we grasp the situation firmly in our minds and resolve to make not just the killers pay but the communities that produced them and even sanction the countries they are from, then our survival prospects are dim.

The families of Islamic killers should be expelled from the country and lose all assets which should then be allocated to the victims. Their names should be added to a registry and are to never return.

If a group does not want to conform to a nations educational and societal provisions then they should not be allowed to remain in the country. You want to wear a hijab to high school even though it is secular? Bye bye, wear it in your Islamic high school back in Yemen you want to wear is so bad. Only nuns wear a habit in the U.S. Are you an Islamic nun? Then lose the head gear or get out.

By compromising and giving in to the uncompromising only leads to more demands and the secession of the authority that keeps a Republic together. By granting more rights to a group of people only emboldens them to ask for more and to eventually impose their will upon other groups. We see this with the Rainbow Coalition and the NAACP who as “oppressed minorities” enjoy more rights in the workplace and in politics than the majority of people in the nation.

As events have unfolded, we can see that we have given away too much as it is. We have given too much support and too much autonomy to people who have only viewed this as a weakness.

Until the so called “Moderate” Muslim community starts mixing with the general public, starts denouncing and outing suspected radicals, why should we give them anything?

Many groups of people have come to this country in the past and conflicts have arisen but right now we don’t have Buddhists shooting up a shopping mall in the name of the Budda. We don’t have Jehovah Witnesses shooting up a coffee shop yelling “Jehovah is the only God!” We don’t have Jews shooting up a newspaper because somebody offended Israel and nobody cares about offending Catholics since the Middle Ages.

But we do seem to have a crop of Islamist Fundamentalists with murder on their minds for the slightest infraction. And as Aesop would say,  “Any excuse will serve a Tyrant”.

So why are they here? Are they here looking for a better life than the one they had where they were, to become Americans and accept the American way of life?

Or are they here to mold America to their cultish image of the world and to impose their religious ideals upon the rest of us at the end of a gun barrel?

The jury is out on that.

The U.S. a Prison and the Police Our Jailers

Even before 9/11/2001, being a police officer in one form or another has been a growth industry in the United States. Practically everyone who wants to be a cop gets to be one. Cops in this country come in all shapes and sizes and people you’d never even think were cops are, indeed, part of law enforcement either by chosen profession or government edict. Here are a few examples:

The Postman. People who work for the Postal Service are part of law enforcement. They work for a government agency and do pay attention to what’s going on at your house and who lives there.

The Fireman. Firemen are cops too. They report what they see in and around your house just like the Postman.

Your Banker. Bankers are cops but not because they want to be. We all know that they have to report transactions of $10,000.00 or more to the government under the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986. The War on Drugs has failed but the act remains making your banker a conscript in the government’s monitoring of average American citizens.

Your School Teacher. Yep, they’re cops too. They work for the government and are bound by law to monitor and report what they hear from you or your kid should it not sound on the level regardless if it’s on the level or not.

Your Neighbor. Especially if there's a Neighborhood Watch program going on in your town. Nothing like a little authority to go to someone's head. Just think George Zimmerman.

Then there are the uniformed police: State Police, Park Police, Environmental Police, Town Auxiliary Police, Mass Transit Police, Town Police and the Sheriff’s depart/Department of Corrections.

Then we have the Federal police forces: IRS, NSA, FBI, CIA, FCC, DHS, ICE, DEA, ATF, USPM, USDA, USCP and the USPIS to name just a few.

We Have Too Many Cops

There was a car accident in front of my tenement here in Obscurity, Massachusetts. You know how many cops showed up?  Four cruisers, an ambulance and a fire truck. This was a two car accident with no injuries. You would have thought that someone took a shot at the president over here.

This town, like a lot of Massachusetts towns, has an awful lot of police officers in it. The amount of cruisers that serve this town is quite noticeable. There are a lot. Obscurity, Massachusetts is not a high-crime town. Can’t remember if there ever was a shooting in the last couple of decades. Since Obscurity University is nearby there are the usual incidences of loud drunk students every now and then and fender benders, lots of fender benders. But real crime on a scale that someone would notice, nope.

But we have a large police force never the less and when there isn’t enough real crime for them to justify their existence they they’ll MAKE crime.

Uniformed Accountants

This is why the police are so aggressive. They will goad you into an adverse reaction so they can make an arrest and cost you a boat-load of money. They’ll bully you and make you feel small ask you a bunch of stupid questions and never wait for an answer because it’s not an answer they want, they want you to make a mistake so It’ll cost you. That’s they’re raison de entente. They could give a shit whether you’re a wiseguy or not. That’s not the point. The point is they got you by the balls and want to have some fun even though you don’t have a record and were minding your own business.

They scan every license plate in every parking lot in town. They scan every plate on every car parked on the side of the road. SOMEONE somewhere is BREAKING THE LAW and by Jesus they’re going to find them and write them a ticket.

I have a friend who suggested long ago that the Registry of Motor Vehicles should issue license plates with a barcode on them so all the cops have to do is swipe a reader over the plate and charge you for an infraction. It can't be long now. And what are you going to do about it, huh? Shut up and sit down!

The cops in the suburbs are mainly just shakedown artists with a badge. Every now and again they hit us with a “road tax” because of some infraction that 800 people before you just did but today YOU did it. That’s the way it works. We have too many police for too little actually crime so when business is bad, and crime has been down for ages, someone has to drum up some business. They treat the American taxpayer like shit.

To them EVERYONE is a criminal. All they have to do is prove it.

A Prison State

We are constantly under surveillance. The United States has become an open air prison and the police are our jailers. We are always monitored. Your license plate is always being scanned. Your phone conversations are monitored for “catch words” and there are cameras everywhere.

The United States today is a land of over-policing, over-regulation, over-the-top law and order and too many people in charge. With so many cops, why don’t I feel safe? With so many public police organizations supposedly looking out for us, why are we being told that we are in more danger now than 9/11?

It's all a justification to grow the Police State. Nothing like having more and more people tell you what to do and where to stand, OR ELSE. It is THEY who are in control and it will be THEY who run our prosperity into the ground. The last thing we need is to have cops run this country. They will turn it to shit. They already have.

What good is calling ourselves a free country when you can't HAVE any freedom?

Too Much Television

I grew up with nothing but cop shows on the television. There was Hill Street Blues, Police Story, The FBI, Hawaii Five O, McCloud, Colombo, Quincy right up to CSI, Bones and Law and Order. It's easy to write these stupid "Law Enforcement Dramas" and people never get tired of seeing some holier than thou cop character who "Keeps his search warrant in his shoe" and kicks down somebodies door because he KNOWS he's a "perp" etc. This is why nobody gets a fare shake in court. You have to be guilty, they arrested you didn't they?

Cops Are Above the Law

Recent events have only proven what we’ve known all along: Cops can do anything and get away with it. They can drive drunk, crash into you on the highway, site you for being in an accident and they don’t even get suspended. That's because they're better than you are. What are you to them other than a paycheck?

They can shoot at your new boyfriend, pull him over, pistol whip him and they don’t even lose their jobs.  It was just a misunderstanding is all.

They can pull their service revolver, wave it at their neighbor in a threatening manner and NOTHING HAPPENS to them. They can act with impunity regardless of whether it presents a danger to the public. The public they took an oath to protect I might add. Nothing happens to a cop if they should violate that oath.

They can flash their badge and get what they want. I've seen it done too many times.

As a young man I washed dishes at a local restaurant and two or three cops would come once or twice a week in the back door and eat for free. I was wondering why the fire department didn't come too since it takes more than one fireman to put out a fire.

The police can’t police themselves

It’s time for a civilian review panel.  It’s time somebody was able to fire a negligent cop. The police department has proven incapable of doing it and forget about a grand jury.

It’s time that a panel of either neighborhood, town or state peers sit in judgment of the police departments in their area and get the bad ones out of the department and clear of any of the protections that they enjoyed to run roughshod over the civilian working taxpayer. It’s time the harassment of law abiding citizens as well as the beatings and outright murders not only end but that punitive measures be enacted for when they do occur. Yes, criminal charges and loss of employment should be meted out.

We pay the police a princely sum and for the most part put them above the law and we should thereby hold them to higher standards of conduct.

But who will Bell the Cat?

North Korea Finally Shuts Up Hollywood

The Conservatives couldn’t do it. The Christian Fundamentalists couldn’t do it. The Muslims couldn’t do it and certainly the Movie-Going American public couldn’t do it but somehow some computer hacker in a bare-lightbulb lit concrete apartment block in the frozen hills of North Korea managed to do what all others could not: Shut Hollywood up and make them actually think about the drivel they try to pass off as entertainment to the world at large and the kind of values they display.

Now despite, actually BECAUSE of the absolute certainty of the Obama administration that North Korea was behind the hack attack at Sony Pictures, I don’t believe for one second that North Korea was the hands-on perpetrator of this deed.

Some proxy either working at the bequest of the North Korean regime or some outraged Anarchist either inside or outside the Sony organization was the real culprit. The quick and whole-hearted ease of the current administration had in putting the finger of blame on North Korea just makes my antenna go up. Something smells about this. Who’s word do I trust more, North Korea or the Obama administration? Hmmmm.

Not that it’s a nice place or anything but we hear a lot of crap about North Korea that turns out to be false. An uncle thrown to the dogs but is seen alive walking around. An old girlfriend executed but there she is in current photos waving. Did Kim Jong Un have them killed or not? And if that’s not true why was it printed as fact?

Don’t you wake up some days and feel like you are a pawn in a huge game of manipulation? First off, who the hell cares what some coked out movie exec says about Angela Jolie? And we already knew she wasn’t a good actor, we didn’t go see Tomb Raider to see her spout Shakespeare.   We went to see her running around in a tight t-shirt and shorts. Was there anyone else even IN the movie? And should we be shocked, shocked I say, to learn that all these yo-yos have tremendous egos? Stop the friggin’ presses.

The world’s obsession with Hollywood is frankly bewildering and the Sony Hack really just serves as tabloid fair but the real story is that Sony did not release the movie “The Interview” and nobody, not the Holy Rollers, Pat Robertson or anyone else could have ever dreamed of doing such a thing as making a movie production company self-censor.

Now whether you think it was a chicken-shit move or not, it’s quite an accomplishment. There were protests to those movies that some outfit in Hollywood put out depicting the assassination of president George W. Bush while he was still in office but what the hey, nobody cares about offending a Republican. But a movie depicting the assassination of Kim Jong Ill, heh, that’s another story.  So in that vein there certainly could be a good portion of us reading about the “damage” to Sony Pictures and thinking, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of cut-throats”.  And if this is any reflection on the United States ability to protect the nation from outside threats, I am not filled with confidence.  Just the fact that the Obama administration is asking China to help is absurd since if anybody had the ability to hack Sony, China is first in my mind. If the NSA knew it was China, would they tell us?

I don’t think we’re getting the truth as to the source of the hack and until we do, what’s the big deal? It’s all just wind and sails.  Just another distraction while we wait for the next thing to take your attention away from the economy. You buy anything with a credit or debit card at Staples lately?  

Perhaps Sony will pause and reflect upon what they put out for public consumption in the future, or not. It will most likely be business as usual once this blows over, if it blows over.

Everybody seems to be living in fear these days. Fear of losing their job, fear of being attacked on the street or at the shopping mall. Fear of their taxes going up and fear that the healthcare system in this country is ruined. Fear that things aren’t going to be getting any better any time soon.

For whatever the reason, this is not a feeling of optimism. The feeling that is gripping people is not one of happiness, hope or change. At least not change for the good. The more the government steps in to control the situation, the worse it gets. The less freedom we have the less secure we become. It is a paradox that people in government cannot comprehend and the American people are paying the price for it.

But let’s just say for the sake of argument that North Korea did do it, that they did reach in and subdue Sony Pictures that produced and sought to release through either arrogance,  avarice or greed  a movie the North Korean government didn’t like and put them in a bad light.

Good Job.

 

The Irony of Oil

Rather than go away, oil seems to be making a big comeback.

And heaven forbid that the oil prices have come down. All the hand-wringing over gasoline prices starting to approach the “Old Normal”. Gas prices have been so high for so long that nobody seems to remember when they started to skyrocket and think that they are SUPPOSED to be over $4.00 a gallon. NOPE!

There are far too many people in this country who hate to see the consumer win one. They can’t stand it. Somebody somewhere has made a big mistake!

It doesn't matter who you are, whether you’re in the country illegally or work a good job or a not so good job but especially a not so good job; high gas prices hurt everybody’s bottom line. Here in the formally industrialized North East, people drive crazy distances to go to work. Our highways are PACKED bumper to bumper from 6AM to 9:30AM and from 4PM to 7:30PM as a result of the regular commute of the working class. That’s an out-of-pocket expense that until recently had cost many people up to one hundred dollars a week or more.

The political class and their national media enablers are decrying the end of the world economy yet we will see the U.S. economy actually pick up if only from the mere matter of putting money into the beleaguered taxpayers’ pockets where it belonged in the first place. They’re going to spend it, of course.

And our long lost media are already setting up president Obama to take the credit for the upswing when he and his administration have been the biggest obstacle to American progress since the New Deal.

Although Obama is against the Keystone Pipeline for political reasons, I don’t think for a moment that he really believes in the environmentalist religion of Global Warming or the so called dangers of carbon dioxide and all that stupidity like his hardcore supporters do. I do believe that the president saw the movement overall and solar power in particular as an excellent way to pay back his political backers with taxpayer dollars. It seems that was the whole purpose of the government’s solar energy plan.

Russia Pays for its Isolationism

The added bonus in all this for the president is what the drop in oil is doing to Russia.  Without the West to trade with and since it’s in an active battle with what used to be their best trading partner, Ukraine, Russia has dug itself an economic hole. With interest rates quickly closing in on those of the Jimmy Carter administration, without trade and a product to sell, Russia is probably going to have to find itself somebody else to pick a fight with.

And if Russia is hurting, just think of what this is doing to Venezuela! Now there’s a one-product tin can dictatorship that is going from the rock to the hard place because of America’s re-emergence as the world’s number one oil producer. I envision even el "President" Maduro going to the refrigerator in the morning and finding no milk for his cornflakes. It's a Communist Plot! They'll be eating each other by the summer of 2015. 

And the doubling of the U.S. oil production comes despite all the efforts of the current administration and its hardcore environmentalist following to keep the country's oil production down and our dependence on foreign oil up, the Market and the innovations and efficiencies that it provides could not be stopped by the inefficiencies of government control.

These nuts must be apoplectic.

But all the solar and wind power in the world isn't going heat your house or keep your air conditioner going all day, all week.  Oil is still the biggest bang for the buck and the country is now awash in oil. And more will be coming on line world-wide with Iraq once again able to produce and sell oil on the global marketplace and from the position they’re in, they’ll take anything the market will bear for it.

This is why I love hearing these nitwits with more money than brains go on about how they are “saving the planet” by buying an electric automobile.  Like electricity comes out of a can.

With the more electricity they need, some guy in a power generating plant up the road is going to throw another shovel full of coal into the furnace that runs the turbines.

Petroleum products are in everything. They grease the gears in wind turbines, they are what electric cars ride on in the form of rubber tires and what the hoses coolant passes through from the engine to the radiator. Oil is what makes everything go one way or the other and to deny the fact is to merely fool yourself. While it's good to save money and to become more efficient to waste resources on less efficient means of energy production and passing the higher costs onto the consumer weakens the nation.

Now that oil is getting back to a normal price, it's time we examine how we can make better and more efficient use of this abundant resource.

Oil isn’t called the ball bearing of industry for nothing.

Obama Government Widens Racial Divide

Martin Luther King Jr. is spinning in his grave at 10,000 revolutions per minute.

The man who’s most sincere message was "Pride". Pride in one’s self and also "Character". The character of one’s convictions in the face of adversity. His campaign for equality was economic and effective. In America “What is good for the one is good for the many.” That’s what he said. He walked the talk too.

Nobody in this deal is quoting MLK. Not even his longtime friend Jesse Jackson who has profited greatly from his association. MLK wouldn't recognize him either. Peace is not the answer to an Anarchist, only destruction will serve their agenda.

Oh how MLK would feel if he saw everything he ever worked for and gave his life for brought to what we see today. The violence, the race-baiting instigators, the poor quality of education and lack of advancement that hangs like a miasma over this nation’s inner cities despite all the money and good intentions that is thrown at it.

The cause of civil rights has been hijacked into a bribery con with government attempting to placate instead of actually educate minority peoples in this country. They would rather they be yoked for political purpose than to actually be free to live their lives as best they can, succeeding or failing like the rest of us. Our major cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, New York and Los Angeles have been turned into killing fields as a result.

Someday in the future social scientists will finally manage to prove to society what we already know today but continue to lie to ourselves about: That providing a government “Safety Net” for people is no safety net at all. Welfare turns it's recipients into trust funded Kennedy-types drinking and drugging themselves to death, screwing the baby sitter when their wives aren't around and getting away with murder.

We are reaping the fruits of the mythical Great Society. Institutionalized entitlement has lead to radical mob anarchy. And look who they chose as their symbol of social justice, Michael Brown?

Michael Brown was the wrong poster boy for police overreach in the black community. There was no grand jury that would ever indict even a civilian under the circumstances of a documented violent criminal with a long rap sheet charging either a civilian or cop. Yet we still have media race-baiters quoting the fiction that Mr. Brown had his hands up and that the cop PULLED him, a 6 ft 4 in 292 lb behemoth of a man, into the cruiser in order to justify shooting him. Why? Why perpetuate the lies?

To foment just this sort of violence. This is what our radical government wishes to happen.  

"Hands up, don't Shoot!" is based upon a lie. And it is an obvious lie. Can we trust anyone using this lie to be a champion of truth? The truth does not matter to an Anarchist.

In this whole scheme the government’s national media is yet again complicit. It is hard to control the situation when you can't control the message. They have broadcast fiction as fact and always mention, despite being big enough and violent enough to cave in a man’s scull with a single blow of his hand, that Michael Brown was “unarmed”. Unarmed maybe but not helpless and in this case, his last charge so to speak, no longer unaccountable for his actions.

Obama has also opened his micromanaging bigoted mouth and made things worse. Having sent his disgraced and somehow un-resigned head of the Orwellian named "Justice Department", William "My People" Holder into the fray, you'd think Obama wants a race war. At least that would make Charles Manson happy that he finally lived long enough to see what he was trying to make happen in the 1960s.

I don't see how American blacks will never move forward as a group until slavery is allowed to pass into history. But it's not just the professional black race manipulators pushing this scenario. There are racial guilt trips everywhere in media. From “period” television series set in the 1960s to antebellum movies. Remember the television series “Roots” from the 1980s? Well, it was all a hoax! Alex Haley never had relatives on the wrong end of the slave trade never mind writing an account of them.

Well how ‘bout dat?

But it all serves the purpose of never letting anyone ever forget that black people were once slaves in this country. We forget about the black African slave traders who actually did the capturing or the other people who were slaves, the indian population, the Chinese coolies, indentured servants and the like. No, just black people were slaves and don’t you ever forget it!  

So it's open season on Whitey these days but not just by the racial equality types but our radical race-based government. I've heard it a half-dozen times about how the Occupy Movement now Racial Equaligist want to make Whitey "Uncomfortable". That's the goal. And the only way to do that is through FEAR. But that strategy is going to backfire, again.

Change is not going to come by making "Whitey" uncomfortable. It's only going to make EVERYBODY uncomfortable. Just like how President Obama makes EVERYBODY WITH A JOB or a small business uncomfortable.

People in this country of all races who work towards something for themselves and their families, people who wish to build something and invest in a community where their kids will be safe and can get a good education and advance themselves, yes THOSE people are also made uncomfortable when they see buildings in their community burned to the ground, especially when it's a minority owned business.

And if they haven't already, these people will start to put some distance (with their spending money firmly in their pockets and their businesses in tow) between themselves and the people responsible for their fear and the places this is happening in. 

So much for integration now.

Obama a Luddite on Keystone Pipeline

It’s only progress when Obama’s contributors can profit. If it’s profit for anybody else, well, we must all reflect and study the issue…for six years and going.

When the government was passing out, and losing in the process, Billions of U.S. Taxpayer dollars in “loans” to manufacturers of solar panels and other so called Green Technology, all with a dubious rate of return in the marketplace to begin with, well this was “moving forward” in America.

But when there is a project with an actual demand in the marketplace and a verifiable rate of return on the investment such as the Keystone pipeline, well that's a horse of a differerent color to our Leftist president.

President Obama’s arguments against the pipeline were always spurious but today appear downright laughable. That the pipeline would benefit Canada and overseas markets, but not the U.S.A.  As if we would only be doing Canada a favor by building this without any net gain to the builders. I believe their would be a slight charge for the use of the pipeline, Mr. President. 

Then there are jobs. Not just the jobs to build the pipeline but the jobs to maintain it. There will be added refinery jobs since the oil will need to be refined where it comes out of the pipe. That means Texas, U.S.A.  The estimated cost of the Keystone pipeline at $ 7 Billion, to put things into perspective, would be half the total cost of Boston’s Big Dig Central Artery project that squandered $ 14 Billion federal tax dollars by putting, basically, the highway cutting the city in half, underground. They didn’t even widen the road or put in a commuter rail and the land freed up for development has remained underdeveloped and has not returned dime one back to the Federal Government.

I heard a knee slapper of an stupid comment about the pipeline on that bastion of Democratic Socialism, Bloomberg Radio about how the country today is almost literally awash in oil so why do we need a pipeline now? Even to a feverish follower of all things Left, this has to sound very short sighted. Six years ago was the time to build this pipeline, not six years from now and need anybody need reminding that back in 1972 the nation had plenty of oil coming into the country…right up until the Saudis pulled the plug.

This leads me to an argument for the pipeline I haven’t heard yet. That the oil will be flowing in these United States. What a novel idea! You mean, we get to handle the oil in this country? Why didn’t anybody think of that before? Of course, in an age long since passed in this country, we did. We called the idea "Energy Independence". Now where have I heard that term lately?

Having control of the means of power production is something every nation would desire. It’s a matter of long-term security and national survival. Who wouldn’t want this?

Obama doesn’t.

There’s nothing for the president or his cronies in having a pipeline actually produce jobs and opportunity in any region of the country that Mr. Obama and the Central Planners hadn’t put forth themselves. It wasn't his idea and I'm sure it doesn't sit well with one group of Mr. Obama's staunchest allies, the Leftist Greens.

As we have seen yet again, the Central Planners do not pick what the market will bring the people but the people will demand and The Market will deliver.

Even as solar and wind have failed to provide the needed power for future development, and as the government marches against coal and condemns Fracking even as the later has put the United States on a more secure path to energy stability and the people in the U.S. are just now reaping it's rewards of lower gas prices which benefit the lowest income stata more than any other, something has to come into the picture to put the wind back into the sails of the U.S. economy and to shore up the still very much open-ended issue of powering the nation into the future.

What will it be Mr. President?

Boston Rock Clubs of the 1980s: The Rat

We were supposed to care more about Boston’s legendary rock club The Rathskeller aka “The Rat” than we actually did.  

It just wasn't important to us as a band since our business interests lay elsewhere. We, meaning our band Cool McCool, were a rock & roll band, not punk and not even approaching what would later become “alternative” or underground and nothing in the vein of the past bands that came out of The Rat that went on to Boston greatness like Mission of Burma, Human Sexual Response, Iggy Pop, The Neighborhoods or The Lemonheads.

Yeah yeah I know, U2 and the Police and other national and international acts played The Rat in the 1970s blah, blah, blah but I’m sure they played other hole-in-the-wall dungeons too. They didn't need The Rat, they just happened to have played The Rat and the odds are very good that all those big bad Boston bands that are breathlessly associated with the club DID NOT get their first gigs there either. By the mid 1980s they would have had to go to Chet’s or TT the Bears first.

All that legendary stuff about the place was primarily in the past by the time we walked in the door for the first time in 1985.

If The Rat was Underground, we didn't see it as such. At the time Boston was bursting with original music clubs. To us The Rat was just another place in Boston with a PA and a bar to play when we weren't hanging at The Channel, Chet’s Last Call or Green Street Station in JP, all rooms that fit our style and that of the people who came to hear us play. And when you look at the place from that perspective, without the word "legendary" attached to its name, The Rat wasn't all that great.

It wasn't like they treated bands any better than any other of the Boston rock clubs at the time. You drew a crowd, they liked you. Not much not to understand about the mechanics of the situation. 

Since there are only so many hours in a week, bands wishing to make “the scene” had to work the music rooms they wanted to play the most.  This does not change with the times.  Actually living in the city gives a band a huge advantage in the “schmoozing” department since they can bar hop more places while seeing the bands, talking up the waitstaff, the management and being seen. When management sees you there regularly and you keep asking, you’re going to get a booking.

Also daytime access was an especially important aspect of booking The Rat since the booking agent always seemed to roll in around 3pm, an impossible time for a 9 to 5er working in the 'burbs. It seemed to us that The Rat took a whole lot more hanging out to get noticed in the “Ok, I’ll give you a gig” department. There were a lot of bands that really wanted to get in at The Rat.

So Just what was The Rat all about anyway? 

For one thing, it had the best location of any rock club in the city, right smack in the middle of it all since Kenmore Square was the crossroads of the city’s nightlife throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Your night began and ended in Kenmore Square. You had Narcissus and Celebrations, the two biggest discotheques in town, right across the square and located just up Brookline Ave a little ways and around the corner was Landsdowne Street with its row of nightclubs operating in the shadow of Fenway Park's Green Monster that varied in entertainment value from the ritzy Metro, the dark and cool Spit discotheque and the not so great “five dollar dungeon” that was 9 Landsdowne St where you paid a $5.00 cover to basically listen to records and where they would occasionally lower a high school grade movie screen from the ceiling in the middle of the room without warning to show some music videos. 

If you kept going past Landsdowne there was Copperfield’s featuring quality cover bands, cheap beer and good sound. Then on the other side of the square just up Commonwealth Ave was the lounge at the old Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge which featured professional cover acts, mostly oldies. Continuing up Comm Ave there was, and still is, The Paradise rock club. Beyond that lay the many bars of Brighton and Cambridge. Kenmore Square at the time was just crowds of people hanging out, passing through, meeting friends before they headed off or just outside waiting for their band to go on. 

The sound system at The Rat was easily overwhelmed by the amplification that many of the bands who played there brought with them. As a person who likes to hear the words, I was often frustrated by this. Only the better bands paid enough attention to sound good there and there were plenty of those too but as a spectator I would never characterize the sound night in and night out at The Rat as good.  As a performer, forget it, you never heard yourself on the stage at any of the original music rooms in town except The Channel.  Any place else the monitors were merely just music-related stage decorations.

The Rat’s exalted status did not disguise for us or our mostly suburban, over college age following the fact that it was an ugly little fire hazard/death trap of a room with its narrow stairway, black painted walls, dirty floors, wobbly tables, black leather jacketed clientele, fickle sound and just as legendary and notorious as some of the bands that played there if not more so, its noxiously obnoxious toilets.  In fact, the most consistent recollections of past Rat patrons, and anyone who had been there will tell you, had to be the river of “water” that ran from the toilets out onto the floor in the back of the downstairs club. It was an experience we all shared.

This really shouldn't be a surprise since The Rat was arguably the oldest rock club in the country’s oldest city with the historically oldest sewer system on the North American continent dating back to the founding of the city in 1630. Every now and then the city STILL pulls up a few hollowed out logs jammed together that were functioning as water piping from sometime back in the 1700s.

We played The Rat, we guess, maybe about a dozen times here and there, never in any kind of a rotation, from 1985 to 1989 and drew really well just once. We only ever did get one good night, our last, late in 1989, a Friday opening for The Lemonheads who were out for less than a year at the time but had the number one record in town with "Hate Your Friends".  We would't have played The Rat again after our first date except for the extraordinary efforts of our drummer, Tony, who would stop in almost weekly to try to get another gig. If not for that we would have been out of the loop real quick. As for James and I, we didn't care either way and felt our gig efforts would have been put to better use elsewhere. 

Most of the bands I saw at The Rat I had seen somewhere else first and I was less impressed with their Rat shows. The Bent Men played The Rat but they put on a better show at Chet’s. Ditto Throwing Muses, The Prime Movers, Scruffy the Cat and The Dogmatics.

Of the bands I had only ever seen play The Rat, I liked Johnny Angel’s band City Thrills which sort of had a Missing Persons meets Robin Lane thing going on. Also enjoyed the Condo Pigmies who were cool then and remain cool since I saw them play at Bill’s Bar on Landsdowne St in 2008 where they were the best band on the bill. I also caught the Sex Execs one night for the only time ever and they played their local hit "Princess Cheyanne" a song about a local "Exotic Dancer" who used to work Boston's red light district The Combat Zone. They were a band that, for me, represented what a good Boston band was. Tight, professional, uptempo and with quirky but catchy tunes.

One of the more enjoyable shows I saw at The Rat was another of Johnny Angel’s bands, the Swinging Erudites  which did song parodies of popular hits at the time like changing the Go Go’s hit song “Walk Like an Egyptian” to “Walk With An Erection” and a takeoff of Bon Jovi  with “Living on my Hair”. I don’t know, it was funny at the time and the record got lots of airplay on local FM stations WBCN and WCOZ. I still sing “Oh, Oh, I’m a millionaire, Wah-ah, Living on my Hair” to myself when I see something about Bon Jovi in the news. The Erudites were the biggest hit of Johnny Angel’s Boston musical career which he must have found ironic after all those years of sawing away in Boston bands like The Turbines who were really good but just didn't quite get there, then to hit with a parody group must have been bemusing. 

I was also at The Rat for a total riot that took place one night and closed The Rat for three days when some punk band I never got the name of and their aggressive fans took the place apart in 2 minutes flat. The band came on, and they weren't just playing punk rock, they were living it and their large following, who were hanging in the back unseen came forward and from the first power chord the room burst into full motion as these guys just started throwing tables, chairs, full pitchers of beer and anything else not nailed down and some things that were all over the place without regard to where they were going and what would happen once they got there. There was furious slamming going on at the same time, and I’ve seen slam dancing before or I thought I had, with stage diving, whirling fists and bloody faces. People who had no idea what was going were being knocked to the floor and a few of the regulars just dove right in. I remember this one guy, very clean cut in a red polo shirt and jeans just laughing and pogoing away while this chaos whirled around him in the fashion of Robert Duval's character, Lt Col Bill Kilgore in Apocalyse Now. But then there were the bouncers off to the side  and they were hammering some of these guys as they formed a sort of bucket brigade where one bouncer would grab a punk, slug him but good and then throw him to another bouncer who slugged him again and so on until they threw them out the back stage door into the parking lot where they staggered in bloody and disheveled protest at their shoddy treatment. Then they threw all their shit out after them.  Now THAT was a legendary show!

After the melee ended, the lights brought up and the bums thrown out and in the silence that followed the thing that stood out to me was Mitch, the owner of The Rat and he was no kid, getting down and picking up broken pieces of the plastic pitchers with his expensive three piece suit, ringed fingers and real alligator shoes. He didn't tell others to do it, he just did it. I found that impressive. I never really met the guy but he was always there and it had to be tough running a place like The Rat like few could experience.

Later in the 1990s, The Rat opened the upstairs to bands that played cover material so there were actually then three floors with something going on. There was the basement for original bands, the first floor bar and the upstairs.  I knew a couple of the bands that played "Upstairs at The Rat" like The Gypsys and The Visigoths. The bands that played upstairs got $50.00 a night…FOR THE BAND! Still, with my new group working regular I figured I’d go in and get a gig. I left the usual promo with the new booking agent and when I talked to him later he told me that, by listening to my tape, “that The World Renowned Rythmmen! were not ready to play The Rat Upstairs.”  He got that right.

That was my last experience with the room while it remained open since I was too busy with everything else to go there or any of the other original rooms left in town for that matter since I was working a different club circuit. Many of the original rooms had closed by then and none had taken their place. Then The Rat closed in 1997 and three years later became a cornerstone for a luxury hotel, The Hotel Commonwealth. 

The lasting legacy of The Rat can still be found every year when Boston’s Rock & Roll Rumble takes place at various venues around town. The Rumble started at The Rat crowning The Neighborhoods as the best band in Boston for the first time in 1976.

Seems like yesterday.