ANOTHER Holiday?

Let's see now---we had Christmas and New Year's a month-and-a-half ago...
...then Dr. Martin Luther King day a month ago...
...and now: Presidents' Day.

What do we need all these "holidays" for anyway?
Most people these days are unemployed anyway.
And if one's not working, what would they need "a day off" for? 

Personally I think these bull-shit "holidays" are little more than excuses for licensing well-to-do urban hick yahoos an "extra day" of routine week-end drunken revelry.

All they mean to me is "having to wait until Tuesday-and-beyond to take care of whatever business I need to tend to".

And Washington's birthdate is February 22nd, by the way.

Whitney worship? ...plus birthday wishes to still-living performers

Whitney Houston:
A decent R&B/pop-style singer---a bit over-rated but still viable when given good material to work with (there-in lies the occasional problem with some of her songs).
Daughter of a "Sweet Inspiration" and either a cousin---or niece---of Dionne Warwick (they can't seem to make up their mind which---well, then, why don't you just ASK Dionne or Cissy?)

To me "one of those '80s' artists".
I have a couple of her early hits mixed in with a bunch of other songs from the 1950s/60s/70s and 80s.
...never a "fan", but for posterity an early hit or two of hers sound just find on their own merit mingled in-between everyone else's.

I'm just hoping the media doesn't do an "Elvis Presley" or a "Michael Jackson" with her.

Seriously, she was really just another mainstream R&B/pop-style singer.  Good at what she did---but nothing THAT exceptional.
I like a couple of her songs myself---and I also think a few others are a bit blase as well.
...but I've never considered her anything "exciting" to listen to or anything like that.

So...
...in the world of "top-40" yet "ANOTHER ONE bites the dust".




By the way....
...a Happy Birthday to:
Graham Nash---who turned 70-years-old on Feb 2nd (Groundhogs Day)
...and Vince ("Alice Cooper") Furnier---he turned 64 on Feb 4th
...and William ("Smokey") Robinson---who'll be 72 on Feb 19

High Tech Despoticism

What's up with laptop computers?
Why are they constantly "updating" every three weeks or so?
Do the makers of such not put them together right in the first place?

As far as I'm concerned, if I can get on the internet and view whatever I like then that's all I'm ever going to need from the contraption.
If it's already doing whatever it's supposed to do, why mess with it?

It's annoying when I'm in the middle of viewing a chosen site and the computer freezes up, followed by a panel stating:  "Installing (new program). Shutting off computer in 15 minutes."
"WHAT!!!! I didn't initiate this! I don't remember requesting anything like this! Asshole WINDOWS 7!"

The gadget has a mind of it's own. It's not a consumer-serving unit---it's a little "Frankenstein".
"You're getting an update and a bunch of new 'programs' whether you want it or not!" it seemingly says to me.

Like a lot of other things in American society I guess...no freedom-of-choice...everything's always forced on you.
The U.S. can really have a "rape mentality" sometimes.

Are my "blogging days" through?

I've always promised myself that if I ever ran across a site put together by someone with a mindset similar to my own who also expresses himself(/herself) eloquently and intelligibly to boot, that I would "resign" as a blogger.

Well---guess what?
I've found such a site:
One that's been up since 2006 by a certain Luke Bush...
...WRITOG
web address: http://www.writog.blogspot.com/

A "must-read" site...
...because:  "Whatever's wrong with Plattsburgh (N.Y.) is also the same thing that's wrong with the rest of this country."

Don't just read his latest posts or recent ones.
Jump around ...read ALL of them.
Almost 6 years worth (or maybe 5-and-a-half years worth).
He "gets it" right as far as I'm concerned.
...and he expresses himself much better than I could ever be able to express myself.
...plus he has his own photos to match as well.

Check him out.

...as for me?
I'll be around later...     
....maybe....

Presidential election 2012:

I'm not getting too all-excited about all the hoopla surrounding this upcoming Presidential election.

Nor am I much impressed with all the hype about the potential candidates nor with all the trash-talk about how the current President---Obama---has "lied" and "broken his promises".

First off, I think it's understood among more enlightened individuals that those who REALLY control this country---if not the world itself---already had their agendas well-in-place for ages now.
And that the President, Congress, and all the other "officials" are little more than their smokescreen marionettes merely going through the charades of "being-in-command".

Hence, whoever the latest demagog is, and whatever his/her grandiose rhetoric, or whether-or-not the appeal is toward the "most liberal", the "most conservative", or some kind of "middle-ground" agenda, it's a sure bet that whoever gets in office will most likely simply wind up "picking up where Obama left off"
---the same way Obama himself made all of his grandiose promises, then---after taking oath-of-office---he recieved a private "briefing" from several governmental factions.
...and, shortly after, guess who was following through on the "bailout" proposed by his predecessor?
...then who had to weasel and finagle his way out of following through on all those unrealistically idealistic promises of his?

So what makes one think the next person who gets-into-office is going to do things any differently?

Pardon my disinterest and detachmentalism, but I just can't get excited enough about this political stuff to get seriously involved in it.
To it, I'm pretty much like I am to most other things in this society of ours---in it, but not of it.

Elvis Presley

I remember, back in the late-60s, I was at the park with my grandparents (on my mother's side) and I happened to have my transister radio with me, and an Elvis Presley song came on.

At that point in time I didn't have much interest in Presley, being that I was about 12 or 13 (or so) and being "breed on British Invasion, psychedellic, Beach Boys, Motown, Stax soul, and the Four Seasons".

When my grandfather asked me what I thought of "Elvis Presley" I just shrugged my shoulders, upon which he remarked: "Well, he's of another generation."

And it's true: I first started listening-to-the-radio on a regular basis from December 25 1963 on (a "Christmas present" from the older sister of a class-mate of mine? She "indoctrinated" me on "rock n'roll" while baby-sitting me, my brother, and baby sister at the time).

Thinking back, it's true: There was already a rock n'roll generation even before I "came-of-age" during my own childhood.  At 57-years-old I am not among "the first rock n'roll era generation".

I know a lot of people take issue with Elvis Presley's title as "The King Of Rock n'Roll", being that:
a) He's not the first recording artist to ever record any of the styles associated with what was referred to as "rock n'roll"
b) Even when he was still recording for SUN records he was only one among a number of other fellow recording acts on the label, most doing essentially the same style of country/R&B-derivative pop.

I think we can all agree that, realistically, Elvis wasn't much different that most other recording/performing acts in that he was just as much a disciple as he was an-influence-on-others himself.

As they say: "There's nothing original under the sun".
...even nuclear physics: the universe beat humans to it by hundreds-of-millions of years.

More Musings...

One thing I don't like...
...those "liberal" types who think they're so "open-minded" and "cool" simply because they're "all for legalization of marijuana" and "all pro-abortion"...
...but then, when you deal with them face-to-face they can quite anal, narrow-minded and arrogant.



People are like cats.  They usually have a good sense of humor (as a rule)...
...unless the joke's on them...
...THEN they can get quite militant and belligerent.

Magic Hour

When it's midnight in the Alaskan Time Zone, it's 11:00 P.M. in Siberia.
However, it's not "an-hour-earlier" there---it is, in fact, "23-hours-later" due to being across the International Dateline.
Hence, for a period of one whole hour it's the same date the world over.
In the Eastern Time Zone, that hour's between 4:00A.M. and 5:00 A.M.
In the Central Time Zone it's between 3:00 A.M. and 4:00A.M.
In the Pacific Time Zone it's between 1:00 A.M. and 2:00 A.M.

This morning February came the world over as of 4:00 A.M. Eastern Time.
...and for one whole hour it was February 1st the whole world over...
...then, at 5:00 A.M. Eastern Time it was midnight in Siberia---and the start of a Thursday morning February 2nd 2012.