The phone bill arrives on the 16th.  Due Jan. 2.   $5.00 (penalty) added for payments recieved after Jan 2.
Remember, also, that it's Christmas time and the volume of mail is enormous this time of year due to Christmas cards and packages.

Hey, those who run the phone company!  What were your last occupations before landing your present positions?  Loan shark?  Extortionist?  Mafia henchman?

What is it with these types of people that the only way they figure they can muster any kind of compliance is by use of force, threats, or intimidation?

Oh Opinionated Man, Where Art Thou?

For whatever reasons, the OPINIONATED MAN blog has recently become a private online country club with "members only" status.

Although I'm sure he had his reasons for "privatizing" his site, I'm definitely going to miss what he had to bring to the (cyber-)table. 

You have to understand:  When I mention a web site or blog site on any of my posts it isn't just any old site I happen to stumble upon in the course of browsing.   They're always the sites which either:  display a clever, witty or flippant style of humor, or:  have what I consider profound viewpoints that you normally don't encounter just anywhere or from just anyone.  In other words, that say things I feel need to be said.  In short, among the sites I'm proud to have visited and viewed---as opposed to those "guilty pleasure" types.

I've only discovered his site about a month ago and already it's gone behind closed doors.  And just as it was getting all-the-more interesting to me.  Plus I still haven't had time to read all of his previous posts either. 

Well, O.P..  There are some of us who'll miss you.






                   Update:  Opinionated Man's blog is back in the public domain I'm happy to say.
                      Although he appears to be "starting his site over from scratch", so to speak.

Truly a "must have" for the TRUE Beatles fan.  The latest ANTHOLOGY package featuring the ultimate "reject" takes.
Hear a very young Paul McCartney sneeze midway through P.S. I LOVE YOU.  Hear all manners of assorted farts, coughs, belches, loud expletives amidst the sounds of freak accidents involving instruments and microphones. 

CRASH!!!  "Oh Fuck!!!" midway through GET BACK, followed by anonymous recording engineer:  "Aww, shit!  We're going to have to do yet ANOTHER take.  We won't be able to edit that out of the vocal track."

Isn't this what the music is REALLY all about?
Or are you thinking:  How come the dumbass record company didn't simply dispose of these outtakes once the agreed-upon masters were finally laid down?  (That's what the heathens among you would probably say.)

But you, the TRUE Beatles fans, understand what milestones these takes represent.  Even the two surviving ex-Beatles put their stamp-of-approval on this project.  Otherwise who knows what bootlegging subversives might have gotten ahold of these and made a killing profit off of them.
And, no, the-heathens-among-you, it doesn't mean that McCartney and Starkey have "sold out" to the modern-day motto "Profits over pride, dignity and integrity".

...What the hell!  Why am I wasting my time trying to explain anything?  Only the TRUE Beatlles fans understand anyway.

 

                                 WARNING
Use caution when walking or riding your bicycle through parking lots as motorists often use them as shortcuts to avoid waiting for traffic lights to change and are not required to reduce speed while doing so.
         

You know the 1959 Johnny Cash song DON'T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN?  Someone should redo it under the title of DON'T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO SCHOOL.






Why do most houses and apartment units have windows in the bathroom?  Does that make sense?
I mean, whoever looks out the window while taking a shower, or taking a dump, or while shaving or brushing their teeth?  Are you going to exclaim "Oh, what a beautiful day this is!" with toothpaste foaming from your mouth dripping all over your shirt---or while rubbing tissue paper over your butt crack?






                           Another site to check out: www.themadbaglady.wordpress.com

Guess who recently has had the torch of space exploration technology passed on to them from the U.S. and Russia?

If you guessed China you are correct.
China?  Ancient land of "great walls", Confucius, Mao Tse-tung?  3,000-year-old-plus country seemingly eternally stuck in 3rd-world mode?

Yep, THAT China!
They've recently landed an unmanned spaceship on the surface of the moon.  And they're planning MORE spaceflights in the near future.  Possibly manned ones as well.

And if that isn't inflating the self-esteem level of the general populace...  ...sort of reminiscent of how the general populace of the U.S. was back in the 1960s.
The modern-day Chinese are thinking along the line of progress; innovation; scientific, technological and cultural advancement.  They're a proud lot these days.

And where is the United States in all this?  Shooting up meth and shooting up schools and shopping centers and workplaces.
Playing video games and playing with fancy microgadgets.  And playing race and gender cards and playing each other.  And playing sick social status games.

Chinese children are learning advanced math and physics, but what are American children doing?
Texting in class, massacring fellow students, prostituting themselves online.
And the teachers aren't much better.  A bunch of emotionally-stunted overage teenagers who view their pupils as potential temporary makeshift "lovers".  Permanently stuck in "atrophy" mode since childhood or adolescence.
American schools are no longer institutions of learning or instruction.  They've been reduced to real-life soap operas and crime dramas.

China has what the U.S. used to possess some 50 years ago:  national self-esteem, faith in oneself and faith in its future.
The U.S. has pretty much lost all of its pride and dignity and is plunging into an abyss of 3rd-world rot.  Even its own leaders and prominent citizens refuse to invest in it anymore.  They're deserting their own country, often overtly.

Viva China!!!!  They'll be the ones to eventually colonize Mars in the near future.

                 W  A  R  N  I  N  G
     Public sidewalks are for skateboarders, bicyclists and joggers
                      Pedestrians may use at their own risk





                                   (Another site to check out:  www.boomer-musings.blogspot.com)


 

For those of you not familiar with the term LIFELINE, it's a government-sponsored program that subsidizes landline telephone service for people on low to limited incomes.

I've been on LIFELINE OHIO since 1997---about 16 1/2 years, give-or-take.

I recently recieved a notice from LIFELINE OHIO for a renewal of my service in which it stated in part:  "Unfortunately we do not have a Lifeline Ohio application on file for you." (I guess 16 1/2 years is such a brief period of time I can understand not yet being "fully established" into their system.)

So I had to make a trip to the downtown library to make photocopies of my MEDICAID card, SSI award letter, and a notice from JOB & FAMILY SERVICES OF OHIO pertaining to my food assistance, no thanks to the amnesiatic computer system of LIFELINE.

If it's not bad enough having to reiterate something that should still be a long-established given, they give you only 30 days (from whatever date is posted on the top left of their notice) to send them back their form along with the proof-of-assistance forms, warning that your LIFELINE service will be "permanently terminated" if they don't recieve those by that due date.

Typical extortionist mindset common to most corporate, governmental and industrial factions.

                  B  E  A  T  L  E  M  A  N  I  A

We are fast approaching the 50th anniversary of what would be known as both "Beatlemania" and the start of the "British Invasion" period in the history of the U.S. pop charts.

To this day I'm still not sure whether or not I actually saw the Beatles' debut television appearance on The Ed Sullivan show and simply "remembering them on The Ed Sullivan show" doesn't really mean anything in terms of accurate recollectionism considering their many appearances on Sullivan's weekly variety show afterwards.

However, I was definitely part of this era.  Especially considering that prior to Christmas Day 1963 I never paid attention to radio or knew much about records outside of my parents' jazz and classical LPs. 
But, on Wednesday December 25 1963 the older sister of one of my classmates, who was babysitting me and my other two siblings that day, enlightened me to the world of "rock-and-roll radio", which in those days were the top-40 AM radio stations that "played the latest hits" (infused with the occasional "golden oldie").  From that point on I was a regular follower of top-40 radio and a lover of "rock-and-roll" (much to my parents' chagrin) ...and, even later, a buyer and collector of records (in the general consumer sense, of course).

Amazingly enough, among the latest hits getting regular airplay on that day was I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND (alongside messages like "The Beatles are coming!".  I'm assuming in reference to the anticipated U.S./North American tour that was to follow soon.)

Other songs also getting played on the radio on Christmas Day 1963:  LONG TALL TEXAN;  OUT OF LIMITS;  CALIFORNIA SUN;  SURFIN' BIRD; DAWN (GO AWAY).

By the way, The Beatles' first major North American hit was SHE LOVES YOU (/I'LL GET YOU) which went all the way to #1 in Canada in late 1963.

The first Beatles singles released in the U.S. were on VEE-JAY and TOLLIE in 1963, but they were not successful on the American charts at the time.  However, after the events of early-1964, they would be rereleased and enjoy top-10 status belatedly.

American singer Del Shannon recorded his version of FROM ME TO YOU in 1963, but it would end up becoming a less-than-minor hit for him.

Bobby Vee had a less-than-minor hit in 1964 with I'LL MAKE YOU MINE which was, essentially, a rewrite of FROM ME TO YOU and PLEASE PLEASE ME, but with different lyrics and arrangement.

The first song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard to ever get airplay on top-40 radio in the U.S. was a version of THAT GIRL BELONGS TO YESTERDAY by American singer Gene Pitney in late-1963/early-1964.

The Rolling Stones themselves wouldn't get airplay on U.S. radio until June 1964 with their version of a Buddy Holly song NOT FADE AWAY.